How Firm a Foundation (12 page)

“Rhobair has a point, Zhaspahr,” Zahmsyn Trynair
put in quietly, and it was the inquisitor’s turn to glare at the Church’s Chancellor, the final member of the Group of Four. “I’m not saying things were handled perfectly,” Trynair continued. “But if the Charisians somehow managed to actually make our ships
explode
in action, it’s scarcely surprising we lost the battle. For that matter,” the Chancellor’s expression was that of a worried man, “I
don’t know how the people are going to react when they hear about exploding ships at sea! Langhorne only knows what Shan-wei-spawned deviltry was involved in
that!
”

“There wasn’t any ‘deviltry’ involved!” Clyntahn snapped. “It was probably—”

He broke off with an angry chop of his right hand, and Duchairn wondered what he’d been about to say. Virtually all of Mother Church’s spies reported to
the Grand Inquisitor. Was it possible Clyntahn had received some warning of the new weapon … and failed to pass it on to Maigwair?

“I don’t think it was deviltry, either, Zhasphar,” he said mildly. “Zahmsyn has a point about how
others
may see it, however, including quite a few vicars. So how do we convince
them
it wasn’t?”

“First, by pointing out that the
Writ
clearly establishes that Shan-wei’s
arts cannot prevail against godly and faithful men, far less a fleet sent out in God’s own name to fight His jihad!” Clyntahn shot back. “And, secondly, by pointing out that nothing else these goddamned heretics have trotted out has amounted to actual witchcraft or deviltry. Pressing and twisting the limits of the Proscriptions till they squeal, yes, but so far all of it’s been things our own
artisans can duplicate without placing ourselves in Shan-wei’s talons!”

That was an interesting change in perspective on Clyntahn’s part, Duchairn thought. It had probably been brewing ever since the inquisitor decided Mother Church had no choice but to adopt the Charisians’ innovations themselves if they hoped to defeat the heretics. Odd how the line between the acceptable and the anathematized
started blurring as soon as Clyntahn realized the kingdom he’d wanted to murder might actually have a chance to win.

“Very well, I’ll accept that,” Trynair responded, although from his tone he still cherished a few reservations. “Convincing the common folk of it may be a little more difficult, however. And ‘deviltry’ or not, the shock of it—not to mention its obvious destructiveness—undoubtedly
explains how Bishop Kornylys and his warriors were overcome.”

“I think that’s almost certainly what happened.” Maigwair’s voice was unwontedly quiet. The Group of Four’s least imaginative member clearly realized how thin the ice was underfoot, but his expression was stubborn. “There’s no way Harpahr could have seen this coming.
We
certainly didn’t! And, frankly, I’m willing to bet the Harchongese
got in the way more than they ever helped!”

Clyntahn’s glare grew still sharper. The Harchong Empire’s monolithic loyalty to Mother Church loomed large in the Grand Inquisitor’s thinking. Harchong, the most populous of all the Safeholdian realms, formed an almost bottomless reservoir of manpower upon which the Church might draw and, geographically, it protected the Temple Lands’ western flank.
Perhaps even more important from Clyntahn’s perspective, though, was Harchong’s automatic, bone-deep aversion to the sort of innovations and social change which had made Charis so threatening in the Inquisition’s eyes from the very beginning.

Despite which, not even he could pretend Harchong’s contribution to Bishop Kornylys Harpahr’s fleet had constituted anything but a handicap. Poorly manned,
worse officered, and in far too many cases completely unarmed thanks to the inefficiency of Harchong’s foundries, they must have been like an anchor tied to Harpahr’s ankle when the Charisians swooped down upon him.

“I get a little tired of hearing about Harchong’s shortcomings,” the Grand Inquisitor said sharply. “I’ll grant they aren’t the best seamen in the world, but at least we can
count
on them … unlike some people I could mention.” He made a harsh, angry sound deep in his throat. “Funny how Searose ended up in
Siddarmark
of all damned places, isn’t it?”

Duchairn managed not to roll his eyes, but he’d seen that one coming. Clyntahn’s aversion towards and suspicion of Siddarmark were just as deep and automatic as his preference for Harchong.

“I’m sure it was simply a case of
Bedard Bay’s being the closest safe port he could reach,” Trynair said.

“Maybe so, but I’d almost be happier to see them on the bottom of the sea,” the inquisitor growled. “The last thing we need is to have our Navy—our
surviving
Navy, I suppose I should say—getting contaminated by
those
bastards. The embargo’s leaking like a fucking sieve already; Langhorne only knows how bad it’d get if the
people responsible for enforcing it signed on with that pain in the ass Stohnar!”

“Zhaspahr, you know I agree we have to be cautious where Siddarmark is concerned,” the Chancellor said in a careful tone. “And I realize Stohnar is obviously conniving with his own merchants and banking houses to evade the embargo. But Rhobair’s right, too. At this moment, Siddarmark and Silkiah have the most prosperous
economies of any of the mainland realms precisely
because
the embargo is ‘leaking like a sieve’ in their cases. You know that’s true.”

“So we should just sit on our asses and let Stohnar and the others laugh up their sleeves at Mother Church?” Clyntahn challenged harshly. “Let them flout Mother Church’s legitimate authority in the middle of the first true jihad in history and get
rich
out of
it?!”

“Do you think I like that any better than you do?” Trynair demanded. “But we’ve already got one slash lizard by the tail. One war at a time, please, Zhaspahr! And if it’s all the same to you, I’d really like to take care of the one we’re already fighting before we start another one with Siddarmark.”

Clyntahn scowled, and Duchairn heaved a mental sigh. The Church had already lost the tithes
from the scattered lands which had joined or been conquered by the Empire of Charis. That was a not insignificant slice of revenue in its own right, but of all the mainland realms, only the Republic of Siddarmark, the Grand Duchy of Silkiah, and the Desnairian Empire were managing to pay anything like their prewar tithes, and it was questionable how much longer that would be true in Desnair’s
case.

The only reason the Empire was making ends meet was the depth and richness of its gold mines, and that gold was running like water as the rest of the Desnairian economy slowed drastically. The result was a drastic rise in prices which was crushing the poor and the limited Desnairian middle class, and in the end, far more of the total tithe came from those two classes than from the aristocracy.
If they could no longer make ends meet, if their incomes dropped, then so did their ability to pay their tithes, and Duchairn could already see the downward spiral starting to set in.

All of that made the fact that the Republic and the Grand Duchy
were
able to pay their full prewar tithes even more important. And the reason they were, as Trynair had just reminded Clyntahn, was precisely because
they were the only two mainland realms continuing to carry on a brisk trade with Charis. In fact, even though the total level of their trade had dropped significantly because of the need to evade Clyntahn’s prohibition of any commerce with Charis, Siddarmark in particular was actually
more
prosperous than it had been three years ago.

Everybody knows Siddarmark’s always been the main conduit between
Charis and the Temple Lands, whether Zhaspahr wants to admit it or not
, the Treasurer thought disgustedly.
Their farmers have been cleaning up out of the need to provision all our armed forces, of course, but now that Charisian goods can’t be imported
legally
into the Temple Lands—thanks to Zhaspahr’s stupid embargo—Siddarmark’s merchants and banking houses are making even more on the transaction.
And it’s
still
costing us less to buy Charisian than to buy anything manufactured here on the mainland. So if we break the Siddarmarkian economy, we break our own!

He knew how much the situation infuriated Clyntahn, but for once the Grand Inquisitor had faced the united opposition of all three of his colleagues. They simply couldn’t afford to kill the wyvern that fetched the golden rabbit—not
when Mother Church was pouring so much gold into building the weapons she needed to fight her jihad. That was the argument which had finally brought him—grudgingly, dragging his heels the whole way—into accepting that he had no choice but to close his eyes to the systematic violation of his embargo.

And the fact that it’s
his
embargo, one he insisted on decreeing without any precedent, only pisses
him off worse,
Duchairn thought.
Bad enough that they should defy God’s will, but Langhorne forbid they should dare to challenge
Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s
will!

“I think we need to turn our attention back to the matter at hand,” he said before Clyntahn could fire back at Trynair and back himself still further into an untenable corner. “And while I know none of us wanted to hear about any of this, I’d
like to point out that all we have so far is Father Greyghor’s preliminary
semaphore
report. Reports over the semaphore are never as detailed as couriered or wyvern-carried reports. I’m sure he dispatched a courier at the same time he handed his preliminary message to the semaphore clerks, but it’s not going to get here for a while, given the weather, so I think it’s probably a bit early for us
to be trying to decide exactly what happened, or how, or who’s to blame for it. There’ll be time enough for that once we know more.”

For a moment, he expected Clyntahn to launch a fresh verbal assault. But then the other man made himself inhale deeply. He nodded once, curtly, and thrust himself back in his chair.

“That much I’ll give you,” he said grudgingly. “If it does turn out, though, that
all this resulted from someone’s carelessness or stupidity, there
will
be consequences.”

He wasn’t looking at Maigwair as he spoke, but Duchairn saw the Captain General’s eyes flicker with an anger of their own. It was just like Clyntahn to conveniently misremember who’d originally come up with a plan that hadn’t worked out. The frightening thing, as far as Duchairn was concerned, was that he
was almost certain the Grand Inquisitor honestly did remember things the way he described them. Not at first, perhaps, but given even a little time he could genuinely convince himself the truth was what he
wanted
the truth to be.

Which is how we all got into this mess in the first place,
the Treasurer thought bitterly.
Well, that and the fact that not one of the rest of us had the guts, the gumption,
or the mother wit to recognize where all four of us were headed and drag the fool to a stop
.

“Something we are going to have to think about, and quickly, though,” he continued out loud, “are the
consequences
of what’s happened. The purely military consequences are beyond my purview, I’m afraid. The fiscal consequences, however, fall squarely into my lap, and they’re going to be ugly.”

Trynair
looked glum, Maigwair looked worried, and Clyntahn looked irritated, but none of them disagreed with him.

“We poured literally millions of marks into building those ships,” Duchairn continued unflinchingly. “Now that entire investment’s gone. Worse, I think we have to assume that at least a great many of the ships we’ve lost will be taken into Charisian service. Not only are we confronted with
the need to replace our own losses, but we’ve just given the Charisians the equivalent of all that money in the hulls they’re not going to have to build and the guns they’re not going to have to cast after all. We still have the Desnairian and Dohlaran navies, but if the Charisians can find the crews to man all the galleons they have now, they’ll have a crushing advantage over Desnair or Dohlar
in isolation. In fact, they’ll probably outnumber all our forces combined, even if we include our own unfinished construction and the ships Harchong hasn’t finished yet. Frankly, I’m not at all sure we can recover from that position anytime soon.”

“Then you’ll just have to find a way for us to do it anyway,” Clyntahn said flatly. “We can’t get at the bastards without a fleet, and I think it’s
just become obvious we’re going to need an even bigger fleet than we thought we did.”

“It’s easy to say ‘find a way to do it anyway,’ Zhaspahr,” Duchairn replied. “Actually accomplishing it is a bit more difficult. I’m Mother Church’s Treasurer. I
know
how deeply we’ve dipped into our reserves, and I know how our revenue stream’s suffered since we’ve lost all tithes from Charis, Emerald, Chisholm,
and now Corisande and Tarot.” He carefully refrained from mentioning the subsequent importance of any places with names like Siddarmark or Silkiah. “I won’t go so far as to say our coffers are empty, but I will say I can see their bottoms entirely too clearly. We don’t have the funds to replace even what we’ve just lost, far less build ‘an even bigger fleet.’”

“If we can’t build a big enough
fleet, Mother Church loses
everything,
” Clyntahn shot back. “Do
you
want to face God and explain that we were too busy pinching coins to find the marks to save His Church from heresy, blasphemy, and apostasy?”

“No, I don’t.”
And I don’t want to face the Inquisition because that’s what you
think
I’m doing, either, Zhaspahr
. “On the other hand, I can’t simply wave my hands and magically refill
the treasury.”

“Surely you’ve been thinking about this contingency for some time, though, Rhobair?” Trynair put in in a pacific tone. “I know you like to be beforehand in solving problems, and you must’ve seen this one coming for some time.”