Hell's Foundations Quiver (99 page)

“I … appreciate that, My Lord.” Ahbaht stopped and cleared his throat. “I appreciate it,” he continued, his voice just a bit husky, “but I'm not sure I agree with you. If I'd passed my information on to Earl Sharpfield, or not taken it upon myself to—”

“If you'd done either of those things, you
would
have been culpable, Captain!” Sarmouth interrupted with an edge of sharpness. “Their Majesties' Navy doesn't select captains or flag officers who shirk their responsibilities or take counsel of their fears.

“I said it's not given to us to command the wind, and that's true. It's also not given to us to simply command victories, either. We do what we must in the service of the Crown and the defense of Their Majesties' subjects. That is our greatest honor, and you're as aware as I am of what it demands of us. Emperor Cayleb described a captain's responsibilities to me once. He said, ‘A captain has to sail to meet the enemy; he doesn't have to come home again.' That's what you did. You sailed to meet the enemy, exactly the way
I
would have—exactly the way
His Majesty
would have, and
did
in the Armageddon Reef campaign—and this time some of your ships and too many of your men than either of us will find easy to live with didn't come back. Neither did King Haarahld, at Darcos Sound.”

He held the captain's eye for a moment.

“Sometimes we live, sometimes we die; the one thing we
always
do is keep faith with our honor, our duty, our monarchs, and our God, and that's
precisely
what you and all the men under your command did this time. Whether you agree with that or not, I know exactly what His Majesty would say to you at this moment. Since he's not here, I'll say it for him. You reacted wisely, resolutely, and quickly, based upon the best information available to you, in the best traditions of the Imperial Charisian Navy, and so did every one of your officers and men. The operation didn't end in a victory, but you—and they—have
nothing
for which to be ashamed or to blame yourselves. I retain full confidence in you, just as I'm certain Their Majesties will when news of this reaches them, and I'm not prepared to entertain reproaches against you—or the men under your command—from
anyone
. And to be perfectly clear about this, Captain Ahbaht, that ‘anyone' includes
you
. Is that understood?”

“I—” Ahbaht began. Then he stopped, and his nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply. “Yes, My Lord. It's … understood.”

“Good!” Sarmouth said more briskly as Lathyk and Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmahk entered the cabin. Sylvyst Raigly followed them in, carrying a large silver tray laden with glassware. He set the tray on the end of Sarmouth's desk and began pouring amber whiskey into the waiting glasses.

“Good,” the baron repeated. He picked up his own glass and raised it, holding it there until Ahbaht and the other two officers had raised their glasses to meet it.

“I'm glad it's understood,” Sarmouth said then, holding Ahbaht's gaze with his own, “because I have no intention of allowing the Dohlarans to savor this victory one second longer than I have to. That means you and I have a great deal of work before us, Captain. All of us do. So let's be about it, shall we?” He smiled thinly and glanced at his flag lieutenant with a nod.

“I give you Their Majesties,” Hektor said, lifting his own glass just a bit higher. “The toast is loyalty, honor, victory … and damnation to the enemy!”

 

AUGUST

YEAR OF GOD 897

 

.I.

Royal Palace, City of Gorath, Kingdom of Dohlar, and Tellesberg Palace, City of Tellesberg, Old Charis

Soft cooing and the rustle of pigeons' wings floated in through the open window. It was an incongruously gentle combination of sounds, given the place and the occasion, but not one the Earl of Thirsk found soothing. In fairness, that had more to do with the reason for this meeting than with the sounds themselves, yet he couldn't avoid the thought that there was a certain irony in it. Or perhaps what he meant was that there was a connection
between
those sounds and the reason he was sitting in this room at this moment.

King Rahnyld IV of Dohlar was not the most competent monarch in the history of Safehold. Thirsk didn't especially like admitting that even to himself, since he was Rahnyld's sworn vassal and a man who took his oaths seriously. That didn't make it untrue, however, although to be honest it probably wouldn't have mattered, given the madness which had gripped the entire world, if Rahnyld had been a political genius rather than a ruler of … erratic notions and enthusiasms. The fact that he'd come to the throne thirty-six years ago as a boy of only fourteen had probably contributed to his uneven record, and Thirsk knew the King resented the demands his crown placed upon him and his family. Clearly, Rahnyld would have been much happier in a less stressful role, and that had become only more evident since the beginning of the Jihad. In fact, rumor said he'd discussed abdication with Duke Fern on more than one occasion.

Those rumors might well be true, Thirsk thought. Yet however ill-suited to his role he might be, he couldn't simply step down. Crown Prince Rahnyld wouldn't be sixteen until next month, and the last thing Dohlar needed at a time like this was a four- or five-year regency for a minor king. If abdication was out of the question, though, the King seemed determined to avoid as many of the Crown's day-to-day responsibilities as he could.

That was why the sounds drifting in through the window irritated Lywys Gardynyr rather profoundly. They came from the elaborate pigeon coop mounted outside the window, and it was mounted there because King Rahnyld raised racing pigeons. In fact, he concentrated on that hobby with a focused intensity Thirsk couldn't help wishing he'd spend just a little of on the affairs of his kingdom. It was … disconcerting, to say the least, when a crowned king spent his time leaning out the council chamber window to putter with his pigeons during meetings of his Royal Council rather than actively engaging with the advisors and councilors inside the chamber.

Although, the earl thought now, the King's absence actually might not be a bad thing today, given the agenda.

“—so I'm afraid Father Ahbsahlahn's hints are becoming rather more pointed,” Sir Zhorj Laikhyrst, Baron of Yellowstone, said now as he wrapped up his initial report. “He hasn't presented any formal communiqués about it yet, but I don't think it will be much longer before he does. And I'm certain he's going to make Mother Church's view abundantly clear and explicit the moment the prisoners arrive in Gorath.”

Yellowstone was almost seventy years old with thinning silver hair, faded blue eyes, and a weedy neck. He'd sat on the Royal Council longer than any of its other members, and he functioned effectively as the kingdom's foreign secretary. He was also quite a bit more intelligent than his unprepossessing physical appearance might lead the unwary to conclude, and his anxiety was obvious.

“Then we ought to go ahead and give him an answer now, before we do receive any ‘formal communiqués,'” Aibram Zaivyair, the Duke of Thorast, replied sharply. Technically, Thorast was Thirsk's political master, although fortunately for Thirsk, Samyl Cahkrayn, the Duke of Fern and King Rahnyld's first councilor, had effectively stripped him of day-to-day oversight of the Navy. Now Thorast glared at Thirsk. “There's no question whose authority is paramount in this case. Why are we even discussing it?”

“Aibram has a point,” Shain Hauwyl, the Duke of Salthar and commander of the Royal Dohlaran Army, put in with a scowl. Salthar was considerably more intelligent than Thorast, but he was also a fervent son of the Church and, despite the serious defeat the Army had suffered, one of the Jihad's strongest supporters. “Even if Mother Church's authority didn't override anyone else's, what conceivable reason could we have for even considering refusing her demands at a time like this?”

“Actually,” Fern said, leaning back in his chair at the head of the table beside the empty throne where King Rahnyld should have been sitting, “as Sir Zhorj's just finished telling us, we haven't had any demands from Mother Church on this matter. Not yet. That's rather the reason for this meeting, Shain.”

“Does that really matter if Kharmych's dropping all those
hints
?” Salthar retorted. “Since he happens to be the Kingdom's Intendant, I imagine we can consider them a fairly clear indicator of the direction of Mother Church's thinking, don't you?”

“Of course we can.” The First Councilor's tone was astrigent. “The question before us is how
we
want to approach the problem. After all,” his eyes swept the other faces around the table, and there was something guarded in their depths, “there are certain other … pragmatic considerations involved.”

The sounds from the pigeon coop seemed much louder suddenly in the profound silence his words produced, and Thirsk inhaled deeply. He hadn't expected Fern to allude even indirectly to those “pragmatic considerations,” and he suddenly found himself wondering if he might not have been wrong when he'd assumed he'd been summoned to this meeting simply to hear the Council's decision.

He let his gaze drift to his left for a moment. The man seated beside him had far better family connections than Thirsk, despite the fact that he held no title beyond a simple knighthood, but the earl had wondered about
his
presence, as well. Sir Rainos Ahlverez had faced the very real possibility of being handed over to the Inquisition after the previous winter's disastrous Shiloh Campaign. Personally, Thirsk had assumed that Ahlverez' close relationship with Thorast explained his survival, but the earl had seen very few smiles directed at him by the duke since this meeting began.

“What sort of ‘pragmatic concerns' would that be?” Salthar asked now, eyes narrowing at Fern across the table.

“The pragmatic concern that the heretics currently hold far more of our men prisoner than we hold of theirs, for one,” the first councilor replied flatly, with a candor which astonished Thirsk. It obviously took Salthar aback, as well, and the Army's commander sat back in his chair with arched eyebrows.

“I would never advise against meeting Mother Church's legitimate demands,” Fern continued. “However, we owe it to the Crown, as well as to Mother Church, to look realistically and honestly at our own position and what may be best for the prosecution of the Jihad. For us to stand at Mother Church's side in this fight, we first have to
survive
, Shain. We need to fight as effectively as we can, we need the best strategies and tactics, and the best weapons we can give our soldiers and sailors, but we also need to survive. And at the moment General Rychtyr is at Fyrnach, barely a hundred and twenty miles from our frontier.”

He looked away from Salthar long enough to give the naval minister a very level look indeed, since the hundred and twenty miles in question was actually the distance to the eastern border of the Duchy of Thorast. Then he turned his gaze back to Salthar.

“I shouldn't have to point that out to you, Shain, given that just day before yesterday you and I discussed that very point. I've been very impressed with General Rychtyr's determination, but it's clear the canals and highways out of Cliff Peak and into Westmarch have been thoroughly demolished after the Army of Glacierheart's … defeat. That means the heretics have somewhere in the neighborhood of half a million men within nine hundred miles of our frontier, with no means of moving them rapidly
north
, and winter's coming on in the next few months. You may have observed the previous winter that campaigning is far easier closer to the equator, and the heretics have secure communications which would allow them to pull as many of those half-million men as they want back from Westmarch and ship them by water to Thesmar. And from there, it would be absurdly simple for them to add their weight to the heretic Hanth's Army of Thesmar.”

He paused, and the stillness in the chamber was intense.

“In addition to that consideration,” he continued after a moment, “there are the thousands of our soldiers already in heretic hands. At the moment, those prisoners appear to be receiving relatively humane treatment. How long that will continue may well depend upon some of those other ‘pragmatic concerns.' Of course, the heretics hold even more of the Desnairians' men than they do of ours, but that's probably becoming rather less of a ‘pragmatic concern' to Emperor Mahrys at the moment, isn't it?”

He showed his teeth in a thin, humorless smile. There was no need for him to be any more explicit, Thirsk thought. After the devastating bombardments of Geyra, Malyktyn, and Desnair the City, the Desnairian Empire was in a state of virtual military collapse. The Desnairians' total—and understandable—focus on self-defense had taken them completely out of the field and seemed likely to keep them there indefinitely. In fact, Thirsk strongly suspected that Emperor Mahrys and his advisors intended to stay out of the field for as long as they possibly could. It would probably be an exaggeration to say Mahrys was
grateful
for the damage his capital—both of his capitals—had suffered, but he definitely
was
grateful for the excuse it gave him to avoid any fresh adventures in Siddarmark.

I wonder if Fern's suggesting Dohlar might go the same way?
the earl thought suddenly.
Surely not! For one thing, we're in a lot better shape than Desnair was even before the Charisians blew the piss out of their capitals. And for another, we're a hell of a lot closer to Zion than Geyra is
.…

“My point,” Fern continued, “is that our paramount responsibility to Mother Church is to adopt policies which permit us to continue as her champion in the Jihad. That means, among other things, advising the Council of Vicars of those considerations which will have a direct effect upon our ability to do that. Admiral Rohsail's victory in the Kaudzhu Narrows has enormously enheartened the entire Kingdom.” He nodded across the table to Thirsk. “The prisoners taken in that battle are presently on their way to Gorath and will be arriving within the next five-day. While no loyal son of Mother Church could question her legitimate right and responsibility to deal with those taken in impious and heretical rebellion against her, it would not be inappropriate for us to advise the vicarate about how best—and most effectively—the treatment of those prisoners might enhance rather than weaken our own Kingdom's ability to support and sustain the Jihad.”