A Mighty Fortress (91 page)

But now this.

His mind ran back over the letter. It had been sent in the special cipher he and his father had devised before his departure for Tellesberg, and he never doubted for a moment that it had come from the person who’d signed it.

. . . so your father wanted me and the children to stay home. I’m afraid for him, Paityr, but we won’t be remaining home, after all. I don’t know what you’ll hear out of the Temple and Zion in the next few months. I don’t expect it to be good. But if all goes according to plan, the children and I won’t be there. Someone I know—and trust—will arrange that, and also for Erais, Fraihman, and young Samyl to join us eventually. I don’t know exactly how, and if I did know, I would not commit it to writing, even to you. But know that I will do everything—anything—in my power to protect your brothers and your sisters and to bring them safe to you. And know also that your father loves you and is very, very proud of you.

Lysbet

He knew what that letter meant. He didn’t know if it had happened yet, but he knew what it meant for his father and his uncle and all the other men who had joined their struggle to redeem the Order of Schueler and Mother Church herself.

He’d wept when he opened that letter the evening before. Wept for his father and his friends, and for Mother Church... and for himself. Not for his father’s death—
all
men died—but for the manner of the death his father would die. For the fact that his father would die with the great task of his life unfinished.

And for the fact that with his father’s death, that great task fell to Paityr Wylsynn, who was exiled forever to a land far from the Temple. He was the only living man on Safehold—or would be, all too soon—who held the Key, and he would never be in a position to use it unless, somehow, the Church of Charis could actually defeat Mother Church and all the vast power she wielded in the world.

He’d spent the long sleepless night praying and meditating. Begging God to show him his path, lead him where he must go. And he’d spent just as many hours praying for the woman who had written that letter.

You never let me call you mother, Lysbet,
he thought.
You always insisted that I remember my “real” mother. And I do, and I thank you for that, but I was only four when she died giving birth to Erais, and what ever you’ve allowed me to
call
you, you
are
my mother, too
.

He hadn’t always felt that way. In fact, he remembered all too clearly (and with more than a little shame) how his fourteen- year- old adolescent ego had bristled with outraged propriety when his elderly father—he’d been all of forty-one at the time—had brought home a new “wife” barely seven years older than his own motherless son. For that matter, less than eleven years older than his own
daughter
! Disgraceful! What business did his father have sniffing around someone so much younger than he was? It was obvious he’d simply been smitten by her physical beauty and her youth, wasn’t it?

It had taken Lysbet the better part of a year to lay those outraged bristles. To this day, an older (and hopefully wiser) Paityr Wylsynn knew it was, indeed, her physical attractiveness which had first drawn Samyl Wylsynn to her. And the fact that her slender brunette beauty was so different from his first redhaired, blue- eyed wife had probably helped. Yet what ever the reason he might first have noticed her, simple beauty and youth weren’t the reasons he’d wedded her. And as Paityr had come to know her, as she coaxed those bristles down, he’d come to love her himself, as deeply as he loved the younger brothers and baby sister with whom she had gifted him.

And now she was in hiding somewhere . . . if she’d been lucky. She and those brothers and a sister he loved so much were fleeing for their lives, desperately hiding from members of the same order whose colors and badge Paityr Wylsynn wore even now. If they were found, if they were captured, she might see not simply her husband but her
children
put to the Question before her very eyes. And yet, facing all of that terror, all of that potential horror, she’d taken the time to remind him of his father’s love. To remind
him,
to comfort
him
.

Please, God,
Father Paityr Wylsynn prayed now.
Let them be safe. Protect them. Put Your Hand over them and bring them here, to safety
.

The Lock,

Lock Island,

The Throat,

Kingdom of Old Charis

So how bad is it this time?” High Admiral Bryahn Lock Island, the Earl of Lock Island, asked in less than cheerful tones.

At the moment, he stood on an iron balcony, bolted to the face of the tallest tower in the city- fortress known simply as The Lock. Despite the fact that it was a wealthy city, as well as the Kingdom of Old Charis’ most important single naval base, and that it stood on Lock Island, the critically important island which constituted his entire earldom, he’d always thought that was a particularly unimaginative name for a city. Oh, it was descriptive enough, since it sat squarely in the center of The Throat, the only avenue by which any invader could reach Howell Bay, the true heart and vital center of Old Charis. As long as Charis held The Lock, its control of Howell Bay was absolute;
lose
The Lock, or let someone force it open, and Old Charis lay open and vulnerable.

As he gazed out across the waters of The Throat, sparkling and flurried with white caps in the late- morning light, he was unusually well aware of both the value and the vulnerabilities of The Lock.

Over the centuries, Old Charis had poured a fortune into fortifying The Lock and the two fortresses, known as the Keys, on either shore of The Throat. Yet for all the care and expense lavished upon stone and catapults, and then cannon, the fortresses’ real purpose had been only to free up the kingdom’s
true
defenses. The fortifications had been the kingdom’s shield; the
Navy
had been its sword.

“The fortress of Charis is the wooden walls of her fleet.”

Old King Zhan II had said that, better than a hundred and fifty years ago. At the time, it had been more boast than fact, of course. The Royal Charisian Navy of Zhan II’s time had been just beginning its rise to prominence. But he’d known precisely what he had in mind, and he and his inheritors had worked steadily ever since to raise Safeholdian sea power to a pinnacle no one else could challenge. And as long as the fleet stood watch on her coasts, Old Charis was a fortress in her own right.

“This fortress made by God Himself, this Charis,” as Zhan II had also said, Lock Island thought. The earl had always been quietly amused by the number of fortresses the old king had apparently envisioned, but that didn’t mean the old codger hadn’t had a perfect grasp of the strategic realities of the kingdom his dynasty had still been in the process of building.

In Lock Island’s opinion, it was Zhan II who’d truly created the concept of Charisians as
Charisians,
their sense of identity with one another which extended throughout the entire huge island.

I wonder what he’d make of our current situation?
the high admiral thought mordantly, and turned his back on the sunlit seawater. He leaned back, propping his spine against the balcony’s waist- high railing and reaching back to grasp that railing with both hands as he braced himself and faced his three “guests.”

Rayjhis Yowance, the Earl of Gray Harbor, was a small, dapper man. He was considerably shorter than Lock Island, and built more for speed and wiry endurance than brute power. Always immaculately groomed and always at the height of fashion, some particularly unwary souls had written him off as a fop. People had a tendency not to make that mistake twice, however. Lock Island was willing to concede that there probably was at least a
trace
of foppishness in the earl’s makeup, but although Gray Harbor was getting on in years now, he’d been a king’s officer—and a good one—in his younger days. He was also probably one of the two or three best first councilors the Kingdom of Old Charis had ever boasted, as well as directly related to Emperor Cayleb—and, for that matter, to Bryahn Lock Island—by marriage.

Sir Domynyk Staynair, the Baron of Rock Point, on the other hand, would never be mistaken by anyone for anything except a naval officer. He strongly favored his older brother, the archbishop, but he was considerably younger and had quite a reputation with the ladies. The loss of his leg at the Battle of Darcos Sound didn’t seem to have slowed him up a bit in that department, either, Lock Island thought dryly.

And then there was Bynzhamyn Raice, Baron Wave Thunder, about as solidly, stolidly, archetypically
Charisian
as they came. Bald- headed, weathered- looking, plainly (if expensively) dressed, deliberately displaying all the breathless flamboyance of a lump of rock.

“Well, Bynzhamyn?” Lock Island invited now. “How bad
is
it?”

“Probably about as bad as you think,” Wave Thunder replied calmly. “But you know even better than I do that there are no magical shortcuts when it comes to building warships, Bryahn. They aren’t going to suddenly astound us with a completed, fully manned, fully armed, fully trained fleet off East Cape tomorrow.”

“I’m sure that’s very reassuring,” Lock Island said just a bit tartly. “I’m also sure you’ll understand, though, that as the man responsible for recommending what to do with the Navy while Cayleb and Sharleyan are away, I do appreciate the occasional update on their progress.”

The high admiral, Rock Point thought, was clearly more anxious than he wanted to appear. It was scarcely unreasonable of him, under the circumstances, but it was a sobering sign of just how serious those circumstances were.

There were those who mistook Lock Island’s habitually cheerful demeanor and fondness for (admittedly) bad practical jokes for buffoonery. Even those who ought to have known better occasionally made the mistake of assuming that someone as staggeringly wealthy as he was simply playing at his naval responsibilities for something to do while the marks rolled in. Lock Island was not a particularly large earldom, but every single ship which passed through The Throat paid the Earl of Lock Island a passage fee. It wasn’t very high, and no single ship ever really missed it, but an enormous number of ships passed through that waterway every single five- day, and every one of them put its small contribution into Lock Island’s purse. Given that one of the earls’ traditional responsibilities was to see to it that The Throat
stayed
open, and that they’d done the job so well for so long, very few people were inclined to object to the arrangement.

Which ought, perhaps, to have suggested to those souls who took the high admiral lightly that his own and his family’s history required a second look at that comfortable assumption. Because the truth was that Bryahn Lock Island was about as intellectually tough as they came, and a driving energy and powerful sense of responsibility resided behind that jovial exterior. When
he
started to get irritable, it was usually a sign the situation was serious . . . and getting worse.

“I’m inclined to agree with Bryahn, Bynzhamyn,” Gray Harbor said in a considerably milder tone. Wave Thunder glanced at him, and the first councilor shrugged. “It won’t change anything, I’m sure, but any naval commander wants the best information he can get, as early as he can get it. The sooner you’ve got it, the sooner you can begin planning how to respond to it.”

His eyes darkened briefly as all three of them recalled what King Haarahld had accomplished with the information
he’d
had prior to the Group of Four’s assault on Charis.

“I understand, and I agree,” Wave Thunder said. He returned his gaze to Lock Island. “Obviously, with Merlin out of the Kingdom, we’ve been thrown back onto other means of keeping track,” he said, and Lock Island nodded. All four of them were aware of
Seijin
Merlin’s visions, although only Rock Point and Wave Thunder knew the full truth about him. So far, at least.

“All right, with that proviso, and bearing in mind that all of my information is considerably older than it might have been,” that statement wasn’t precisely accurate, Rock Point reflected, given Wave Thunder’s personal access to Owl’s SNARCs, although neither of them had any intention of explaining that to Lock Island or Gray Harbor, “it would appear Earl Thirsk is moving the Dohlaran units ahead rapidly. I’m not positive yet, but I think he’s probably going to get them completed ahead of our original projections, and Dohlar’s foundries are doing a much better job than the others when it comes to producing the new guns, as well. Not as well as
we
are, but better than the rest of the Group of Four’s mercenaries. I wouldn’t be surprised”— he glanced briefly at Rock Point—“if he didn’t have the majority of his merchant conversions already fitted out for sea, although, like all of their shipyards, they’re still trying to get back on track with the new construction after shifting from galleys to galleons.

“Desnair is about where we expected them to be. Like Dohlar, they have the advantage that they can build year- round, but they’re still figuring out how to do it. Their supply of trained shipwrights is low, and, frankly, the ‘experts’ Maigwair’s shipped in from Harchong to ‘advise’ them have only made matters worse. Desnairians aren’t Charisians, but they aren’t Harchongese, either, and they don’t appreciate being treated like serfs.” Wave Thunder’s teeth flashed in a humorless smile. “My best estimates give them roughly all ninety of the galleys they built under Maigwair’s
first
plan, and probably fifty- five or sixty-five—call it two- thirds—of the galleons they’re responsible for building under the new dispensation. I doubt if even half those galleons have completed fitting out, yet, though. They’re bottlenecked for guns, of course, but also for crews. It’s going to be at least another couple of months before the ships they’ve already built are really ready for sea.”