A Mighty Fortress (118 page)

The empress’ long black hair spilled over her shoulders, confined only by the light golden circlet of a simple presence crown. Her gown was equally simple, devoid of elaborate embroidery, without a single gem to sparkle and dance in the cathedral’s multi- hued sunlight, and Cayleb was just as plainly dressed as he walked beside her. He wore the emerald necklace that proclaimed an Old Charisian king, instead of a crown, but he was unadorned by any other jewelry except for the wedding bands they both wore. They could have been any Charisian couple come to have their newborn daughter blessed and baptized by their village priest, but no village church was ever as packed and vibrantly attentive as Tellesberg Cathedral was this day.

No,
Merlin thought.
She’s got enough on her mind already, and it’s too important that neither of them be distracted until we get through this
.

Today was more than a simple Naming Day, of course. Everyone in Tellesberg already knew exactly who Crown Princess Alahnah was, but this morning was the formal expression of her identity—the legal testament of her parents and of the lords temporal and secular of the Charisian Empire that she was not simply the most recent of its subjects but in her tiny person the heir to its throne—to the combined crowns of Old Charis, Chisholm, Emerald, Zebediah, Corisande, and (though no one else knew it yet) Tarot. It was a formality, true, but an
essential
formality, and one which admitted of no competing distractions.

She’s still going to be pissed off, though,
he admitted to himself.
She’s already mad enough over the fact that Seamount hasn’t been brought fully inside. When she finds out I told Owl to close her out of any take from the SNARCs about Gwylym and his squadron, she’s going to be ready to chew horse shoes and spit nails
.

The only good news was that, at Cayleb’s own suggestion, he’d done the same thing where the emperor was concerned. Unlike Sharleyan, Cayleb knew about the howling storm which had enveloped Gwylym Manthyr’s galleons, but his own access to the orbiting SNARCs had been temporarily shut down. He knew there
was
a storm, which was more than Sharleyan did, yet that was all he knew, and Merlin was freshly impressed by his acting ability.

No, not “acting ability,”
Merlin corrected himself.
That’s not the right term. It implies some sort of . . . falsity, and that’s not what’s happening here. He’s simply focused, concentrating on this event, and there’s nothing at all false or assumed about that focus. I guess what I’m really impressed by is the fact that he
can
focus on this ceremony while in the back of his brain he has to be worried sick over what could happen to Gwylym
.

Midmorning in Tellesberg was the middle of the night in the approaches to the Gulf of Dohlar, and in the back of his own brain, Merlin watched tiny beads of light creeping across a chart as Manthyr’s squadron was driven deeper and deeper into the Gulf.

I wish to
hell
he had a com,
Merlin thought bitterly behind his own composed expression. Yet even as he thought it, he knew it wouldn’t have made one bit of difference. Knowing a storm was coming was all very well, but that fore-knowledge became academic for a fleet of wooden sailing galleons too slow to get out of its path. Even Owl had been taken by surprise by the speed with which the massive storm system had burst into existence, and Manthyr had already been headed for Claw Island by the time the AI became aware of the threat. In the absence of any closer friendly port, he’d really had no option but to continue doing what he’d already begun.

All of that was true enough, but what had already happened wasn’t what had Merlin concerned. Owl’s models all concurred; when the center of the storm hit the Tiegelkamp coast, it was going to lose a lot of its force—which, in many ways, wasn’t a bad thing. But those models also all insisted that Gwylym Manthyr’s galleons were going to take the brunt—were already
taking
the brunt—of its full strength first . . . and the Earl of Thirsk’s squadron, well to the northeast, wasn’t. The Dohlarans were going to experience some heavy weather of their own, but nothing to compare with what Manthyr’s ships were enduring, because Tiegelkamp was going to break the worst of its power before it reached them. Worse, if Thirsk reacted as quickly and intelligently as Merlin feared he would, his galleons would be able to beat their way into the protection of Saram Bay, on the coast of Stene Province, before the full fury of wind and wave reached them.

And while they were doing that, Gwylym Manthyr was being blown steadily, and helplessly, closer and closer to their waiting arms.

Merlin Athrawes could no more do anything to change that than Empress Sharleyan might have, and he knew it. But at least if Manthyr had had a com, he could have been warned about Thirsk’s presence. He could have been alerted to the potential threat, and—

And
what,
Merlin?
he asked himself harshly.
He’s already fully aware that Thirsk is almost certainly at sea somewhere, looking for him. That’s why he was headed for Claw Island in the first place! And if there was one damned thing he could do to avoid being driven east, do you think for one minute he wouldn’t already be
doing
it?

It was true, and he knew it, and he wished he could bring himself to cut his
own
access to the SNARC—long enough, at least, to complete this ceremony. But he couldn’t. He simply
couldn’t,
and so he took refuge behind the stern “on- duty” façade of
Seijin
Merlin while the back of his mind continued to watch those tiny beads of light creeping steadily, steadily east.

East of the Harchong Narrows,

Gulf of Dohlar

Gwylym Manthyr wasn’t surprised by his fatigue. After the last three days, he would have been astounded if his knees
hadn’t
felt just a bit too limber and his eyes hadn’t ached.

He stretched and yawned as he looked around
Dancer
’s quarterdeck in the morning light. His flagship had come through the tempest more or less intact, but she hadn’t gotten off unscathed. Despite his having sent down the royals and topgallants, she’d lost her main and mizzen topmasts when a rogue wave rolled her almost onto her beam ends. She’d recovered—something he wouldn’t have been prepared to bet on at the moment—and the violent roll as she came back the other direction had whipped the topmasts out of her.

The good news was that the wind had continued backing. By now, it was out of the south- southeast, far enough abaft the bow for
Dancer
to hold a west-erly heading once again, close- hauled on the port tack under her main and mizzen courses and her fore topsail. It was an awkward, ill- balanced spread of canvas, but it was the best Captain Mahgail could manage until he could sway up replacement masts and spars. Unfortunately, the main and mizzen topgallant and royal masts had been lashed to the since- vanished topmasts when they were brought down and housed. They’d gone over the side with the lower masts, which meant they had to be replaced, as well. Not only would that require extra time, but
Dancer
didn’t have
that
many replacement spars onboard. What ever they could cobble up was going to be jury- rigged, at best, at least until Captain Mahgail could get her back to Claw Island and do a proper job.

Looks like some of those coasters full of naval stores you sent back to Claw Island will come in handy after all,
he thought with a certain relish. The notion of using the Royal Dohlaran Navy’s own spars to repair his damages appealed to him strongly.

And it was as well he had them, he reflected, his smile fading, because
Dancer
wasn’t the only galleon who’d suffered damage aloft. Not surprisingly, the storm had scattered his ships. Only six of them were in sight at the moment, including
Dancer,
and four had lost spars, sails, or masts of their own. In fact, HMS
Rock Point
had lost her entire foremast, and her decks were a swarm of activity as her captain prepared to step a replacement. From
Dancer
’s quarterdeck, it looked as if he was using a spare main yard, which would probably serve well enough until they could get a proper mast set up back at Hardship Bay.

The true miracle, as far as Manthyr was concerned, was that HMS
Messenger,
the smallest of the schooners attached to the squadron, had not only survived the storm intact, but had actually located the flagship afterward. Just how Lieutenant Commander Grahzaial had managed both those feats was more than the admiral was prepared to guess at this point, but it certainly confirmed his already high opinion of Grahzaial’s seamanship.

That young man’s in line for bigger and better things,
Manthyr thought. Then his lips twitched.
Of course, giving up something as lively as
Messenger
in return for a great, lumbering galleon may not strike
him
as a “better thing,” at least at first. I’m sure he’ll get over it, though
.

At the moment,
Messenger
was well to the east, keeping a wary eye on the horizon. Manthyr still wasn’t certain exactly how deep into the Gulf of Dohlar they’d been driven, but his best guess put him just east of the Harchong Narrows, the roughly four- hundred- and- fifty- mile stretch between Stene’s Cape Samuel to the north and the northern coast of Kyznetsov to the south. That would put him the better part of twelve hundred miles from Claw Island, which, combined with his ships’ damaged rigging, was going to make getting back to the island a slow, dragging, unmitigated pain in the arse. At the same time, he didn’t really expect the entire Dohlaran Navy to come sailing right at him. As severely as the storm had handled his own experienced, well- trained, well- found ships, he hated to think what it would have done to a less experienced fleet. If the Earl of Thirsk and his galleons had gotten in the way of
that
storm, they’d be lucky if they hadn’t lost entire ships, far less the occasional mast or spar.

He stepped back out of the way as Lieutenant Yairman Seasmoke,
Dancer
’s first lieutenant, and her boatswain prepared to send the replacement mizzen top-mast aloft. Mahgail was actually using a replacement
fore
topmast, which was a bit longer than the mizzen topmast it was replacing, but approximately the same diameter, which would allow it to fit through the hole in the lower mast cap once it was set up. The broken stub of the original topmast had been lowered to the deck, and the jeers, the top rope, and the top block attached to the underside of the cap were already in place. Now the men on the hauling end of the top rope took the strain and the replacement spar began inching upward, supported by the rope rove through the sheave in its heel. It was longer than the lower mast’s height above deck, so it had been necessary to take the heel of the new topmast forward, lowering it through the removed spar deck gratings to get sufficient clearance for it to be started up, but Seasmoke and the boatswain had things well in hand, and Manthyr watched the evolution with satisfaction.

“Excuse me, Sir.”

Manthyr turned toward the politely raised voice and smiled at Lieutenant Rahzmahn. The auburn- haired young Chisholmian looked as tired as Manthyr felt.

“Naiklos, ah...
requested
that I inform you your breakfast is ready. I believe he’s a bit provoked at not being able to offer you fresh eggs this morning.”

Rahzmahn’s expression was admirably grave, but the corners of his lips twitched, and Manthyr snorted. Both the chicken coop and the wyvern coop (wyverns and chickens couldn’t be confined together, because the former had a tendency to eat the latter) had been washed overboard during the storm. Manthyr was grateful it hadn’t been far worse, but Naiklos Vahlain clearly took it as a personal affront that the first hot meal he’d been able to offer his admiral in four days was going to be less than perfect.

“I’m sure he is—a bit provoked, I mean,” the admiral said. “Which probably means I shouldn’t keep him waiting. I assume you’ll join me, Dahnyld?”

“Thank you, Sir. I will.”

“Then let’s you and I go beard the dragon in his lair.”

Manthyr was just finishing his third cup of tea, feeling pleasantly fed (fresh eggs or no), when someone knocked on the cabin door.

Vahlain scurried over to open it, and the admiral looked up, then raised his eyebrows and lowered his cup as Captain Mahgail stepped into the cabin.

“I apologize for interrupting your breakfast, Sir Gwylym.” The flag captain could not have spoken more courteously, but something about his manner jangled an alarm bell in the back of Manthyr’s brain.