How Firm a Foundation (74 page)

Forgive me,
he prayed humbly as he opened
the small, carefully concealed panel he’d built into the side of the wagon bed.
It’s not my place to set my wisdom above Yours. I’m sure it’s all part of Your plan. Thank You for the opportunity to be part of Your work
.

He reached into the hidden compartment and cocked the flintlock. Then his hand settled around the pistol grip and he stood, shoulders relaxed, watching with a calm tranquility
he was a little surprised to realize was completely genuine, as the carriage rolled steadily closer.

“We’re going to have to go back to the shop, Master Gahztahn,” the wheelwright was saying. “It looks like we’ll need to—”

He went on talking, but Ainsail tuned him out. He nodded, pretending he was listening, but his attention was on another voice. His mother’s voice, reciting the catechism with
a much younger Ainsail as he sat on her lap in her kitchen. And then there was Archbishop Wyllym’s voice, and other voices, all with him at this moment, bearing him up on their strength. He listened to them, embraced them, and as the carriage drew even with the wagon, Ainsail Dahnvahr smiled joyously and squeezed the trigger.

.III.

Tellesberg Palace, City of Tellesberg, Kingdom of Old Charis, and Cathedral Square, City of Eraystor, Princedom of Emerald

“I came as quickly as I could, Cayleb,” Maikel Staynair said as a stone-faced Edwyrd Seahamper escorted him into the royal couple’s private chambers. The archbishop crossed the room quickly and knelt beside Sharleyan, who sat hunched in a chair, clasping her daughter
in her arms while tears ran down her cheeks.

Cayleb only nodded curtly as Staynair put a comforting arm around Sharleyan’s shoulders. There were no tears in his eyes, only fury, and the archbishop hid a stab of concern as he recognized his emperor’s rage.

There’s only so much provocation any man can take before he starts forgetting he’s not the kind of animal his opponents ar
e
,
Staynair thought
quietly.
Please, Cayleb.
Please!
Step back from this. Draw a deep breath. Don’t lash out in some way you’ll regret in days to come
.

“We should’ve taken more precautions,” the emperor grated. “We were too predictable. They knew where to find you and Rayjhis, Maikel. That’s what this is all about—the only reason they managed to pull it off. They
knew
where to find you because we let you use the
same route every time you come to the palace.”

“Cayleb—” Staynair began, but Cayleb cut him off.

“No, it’s not
your
fault.” The emperor glared at him. “No, you didn’t tell your driver or your escort to take alternate routes, but neither did anyone else. Neither did Merlin and neither did I, and we damned well
should
have. Damn it to hell, Maikel! We know Clyntahn thinks assassination’s a perfectly
acceptable tool. And unlike you, Nahrmahn,” he said to the distant Prince of Emerald, “he doesn’t give a spider-rat’s
ass
how many innocent bystanders he kills along the way. Hell, there
aren’t
any innocent bystanders! Either they’re fucking heretics who deserve whatever the hell they get, or else they’re noble martyrs to God’s plan! Either way, he can kill however the hell many of them he wants
‘in God’s name’ and feel nothing but the satisfaction of a job well done!”

Staynair winced. Not because he disagreed with a single thing Cayleb had just said, but because of the magma-like fury that filled every syllable.

“Cayleb—” he began again, only to be stopped by a choppy wave of the emperor’s hand. Cayleb turned away, fists clenched at his sides as he glared out a window and fought for
self-control. His eyes didn’t see the peaceful garden outside his window; they were watching the imagery projected on his contact lenses as Merlin and a party of Imperial Guardsmen worked their way through the bloody wreckage of Gray Wyvern Avenue.

There must’ve been at least a ton of gunpowder in that wagon
, he thought bitterly.
Where the
fuck
did they get their hands on that? And how in hell
did they get it into Tellesberg? And how did
none
of us spot them at it?

He already knew Merlin was going to blame himself for it, just as he blamed
himself
, but his brain, unlike his emotions, knew both of them would be wrong. They weren’t the only ones with access to Owl’s SNARCs, and responsibility for surveillance here in Old Charis lay primarily with Bynzhamyn Raice, with Prince Nahrmahn
as his backup. Both of them were undoubtedly already savaging themselves over what had happened, but Cayleb knew exactly what their procedures were, the sort of information they had access to, and he couldn’t think of a single thing they could have done differently.

“What’s the latest death toll estimate?” he said out loud, his voice flat, never turning from the window.

“I don’t think anyone
knows,” Staynair replied quietly. “Bynzhamyn is at Saint Marzhory’s. It’s chaos there, of course. And I ought to be there, not here.”

Cayleb turned his head just long enough to stab a single glance at the archbishop, then returned to the window again. There was no way in the universe he was going to allow Maikel Staynair outside the confines of Tellesberg Palace until they had a far better handle
on what had just happened. Staynair looked at his rigid, unyielding spine for a long moment, then sighed.

“As I say, it’s chaos,” he continued. “So far, they’ve admitted over three dozen patients, and they’re sending the less badly hurt to some of the smaller hospitals. How many of the ones they’re keeping are going to live.…”

He shrugged helplessly. Saint Marzhory’s Hospital was the main hospital
of the Order of Pasquale in Tellesberg. Only six blocks from Tellesberg Palace, the savage attack had happened almost outside the enormous complex’s front door. That was the one mitigating aspect of this entire murderous day, because Saint Marzhory’s had the finest healers and the best surgeons in all of Old Charis. But despite all the medical knowledge and “healing liturgies” tucked away in
The Book of Pasquale
, Saint Marzhory’s was no trauma center. Those healers would do the best they could, but they were going to lose a heartbreaking percentage of the maimed and broken bodies which had inundated them.

“Merlin says they’ve already confirmed at least two hundred dead on-site,” Nahrmahn Baytz said from Eraystor. He and Princess Ohlyvya had been visiting his uncle Hanbyl, the Duke
of Salomon, when the attack occurred. Now their carriage was on its way back to their palace, and Ohlyvya was pressed tightly against his side, her face resting on his shoulder.

“I don’t want to distract him by pestering him with questions at the moment,” the chubby little Emeraldian continued flatly, “so I don’t have a better count than that. I’m sure there are more bodies—or parts of them,
anyway—waiting to be found, though. Midday on Gray Wyvern Avenue?” He barked a harsh, angry laugh that was more than half snarl. “We’re going to be lucky if the final count doesn’t top
three
hundred! And you’re right, Cayleb; they couldn’t have pulled this off if we hadn’t let ourselves get too predictable.”

“I don’t think that was the only reason they got away with it,” Sharleyan said, raising
her head as she cuddled a silent, big-eyed Alahnah against her shoulder. The little girl didn’t have a clue what was going on, but she was obviously sensitive to the emotions of the adults around her.

“What do you mean?” Cayleb asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

“I mean our own confidence turned around and bit us in the ass, as Merlin might put it,” she said. “We know what an advantage we have
with the SNARCs and with Owl to manage them for us. Oh, we also know things can leak through—like what happened in Manchyr, for example. But despite that, we know we still have better security than anyone else in the entire world. Right?”

“You’re saying we let ourselves be lulled into overconfidence.” Cayleb shrugged. “That’s the same reason we let ourselves get too predictable, Sharley.”

“No,
that’s not what I’m saying. Or it’s not
everything
I’m saying, anyway.” Sharleyan drew a deep breath. “I guess what I really meant is that
we
know what an advantage we have, but sometimes we forget the other side’s figuring it out, too. They’re finding ways to work around it, and we didn’t expect them to.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Nahrmahn nodded as his carriage began making its
way through the heavier traffic in Cherayth.

“Like they did with that misinformation about which way Harpahr was actually going to be sent with his fleet, you mean?” he asked.

“I think, yes,” she replied. “But this goes further than that.” She was obviously working her way through her own analysis as she spoke, and Cayleb folded his arms across his chest, watching her intently. “That was more
 … passive. Or defensive, perhaps. It was
misinformation
, as you said, Nahrmahn; this is something a lot more active. They managed to get whoever put that wagon in position into Tellesberg, and they managed to provide him with the gunpowder he needed, and we never saw a thing. Not a
thing!
How did they do that? How could they build an organization that could coordinate something like that without
us seeing a thing?”

“They couldn’t,” Cayleb said slowly, and she nodded.

“Which is why I don’t think they did anything of the sort,” she said flatly. “I don’t know how, but God knows the Inquisition’s been managing spies and informants and agents provocateurs forever, and Clyntahn already proved in Manchyr that he could engineer the assassination of a reigning
prince
without anyone catching
him at it! They managed to get
this
assassin and his weapon into position somehow, too, and the only way I can think of for them to’ve done that without our catching them at it is to organize it the same way they must have organized their misinformation gambit before the Markovian Sea.”

“They planned it and put it together inside the Temple, where we can’t get SNARCs in to snoop on them,” Nahrmahn
said. “That’s what you’re saying. And because they’ve figured out our spies are better than theirs, even if they don’t have a clue why that’s true, they sent their man in unsupported.”

“Unsupported by anyone he had to contact
here,
anyway,” Sharleyan corrected. “I don’t think there’s any way anyone could have set this all up on his own after he was here. There
had
to be some spadework before
they sent him in. But I’ll bet you any contact with anyone here in Tellesberg or Old Charis went through the Temple, not through anyone else here.”

“Limiting themselves to communications channels that go directly from one person back to the Temple and then from the Temple back to that one person?” Cayleb could have sounded dismissive, but he didn’t, and his expression was thoughtful. “How in
hell could they pull that off?”

“That depends on how willing they’d be to use things like the semaphore system and ciphers,” Nahrmahn responded. “We’re still using it to communicate with Siddarmark and Silkiah. In fact, we’re allowing greater access to it than the Church ever did, so if they feel confident of their cipher system, they could be sending their correspondence back and forth that
way easily enough. For that matter, we’re not the only people with messenger wyverns, Cayleb.” The Emeraldian shook his head. “That’d be slow and cumbersome and not very responsive, but they could have set up a system that would do the job without ever going near the sempahore.

“The key point isn’t how they get messages back and forth, though. It’s the point Sharley’s raised: the probability
that they’re sending out solo operatives. Our ability to detect them depends in large part on Owl’s ability to recognize key words in conversation and direct our attention to the people who used them, or on our ability to identify one agent and then work outward until we’ve found all the members of his network. A single assassin, especially one who’s prepared or even eager to die in the attempt, the
way this fellow certainly was, is going to be one hell of a lot harder to spot and stop.”

“That’s true,” Cayleb agreed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “On the other hand, a single assassin’s going to be able to do a lot less damage than a full-blown conspiracy
if
we can keep the bastard away from wagonloads of gunpowder. And nothing anyone’s brought up so far suggests how they got that big a
load of explosives through our customs inspections. If they’re avoiding building or working with a large organization, then surely they wouldn’t have tried to bribe the inspectors, and I doubt they’d use
smugglers
if they’re worried about the potential for being betrayed to the authorities! So how—?”

He broke off suddenly, eyes narrowing in thought. Then he grunted angrily and slammed his right
fist into his left palm.

“Hairatha,” he said flatly. “That’s what that damned explosion was about! They didn’t smuggle the gunpowder into Tellesberg from one of the mainland realms; they used
our
gunpowder!”

“Wait. Wait!” Nahrmahn objected. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, Cayleb, but how do we jump from what just happened in Tellesberg to Hairatha?”

“I don’t know,” Cayleb admitted. “I don’t
know
, all right? But I’m right, I
know
I am! Call it a hunch, call it instinct, but that’s what happened. Somebody at Hairatha with the authority—or the access, at least—to doctor shipping manifests diverted gunpowder from our own powder mill. And they blew the damned place up to keep anyone from realizing they’d done it! To get rid of any paper trail that might have led back to them or to who
they sent the powder to.” His expression was murderous. “My God, Hairatha shipped gunpowder in thousand-ton lots on a regular basis, Nahrmahn! We could have
dozens
of wagonloads of it sitting out there!”

“But how could they coordinate something like that without that organization you all seem to be agreeing they don’t have?” Staynair asked quietly.