Joshua says that the British victory off Cape Cod may not quite balance the Battle of Savannah. The British can't afford to lose that many ships while the Bonaparte dynasty still keeps a fair-sized navy. However, even if we take five of their ships for every one we lose, they will still have enough ships to fight the French, the day that we don't have a navy at all. By Joshua's reckoning, after losing Constitution, Plymouth, and Columbus, we have one ship of the line, three frigates, and five sloops and brigs ready for sea, with more ready by spring if the British don't burn them on the stocks.
So Joshua and I both advise you not to invest any more money in privateers. The British may capture them, the French will probably close their ports to them, and anyway we may have a peace soon. Pray that it be so. We can't win much more out of this war. Maybe the next one will be luckier.
Obediently,
Thomas
•
Joshua Parker to Sarah Madsen Parker, Savannah, February 12, 1815
Honored Mother,
You really did not need to call Thomas a hypocrite for subscribing his last letter «Obediently» when you disapprove of his "outrageous marriage." There is nothing outrageous about my sister in law, Caroline, and not that much that is outrageous about most of the other Cherokees I have met.
I cannot help noting, however, that you have taken to heart our advice about investments in privateers. This is as well, as we understand that peace negotiations have begun in New Orleans. I suspect that the British wish to hold them there, so as not to be under the eyes of spies from half of Europe.
The British seem willing to return that city and any portion of the Mississippi they hold, as well as making no claims in the Northwest. But rumors run, that they wish either part of northern Massachusetts given up to Canada, or the Louisiana Territory returned to Spain. They might also expect the Dons to make an independent Indian territory beyond the Mississippi, and of course they would keep Florida.
It is not every day of the week that we are put so neatly on the horns of a dilemma, by having the choice of either going on with the war or seeing New England set against the West. all over again, as one of them will have to face a hostile neighbor close at hand. I suppose we should not be surprised, seeing how this came to be a much larger war than anyone had expected when we declared it, but I hope we can show enough wisdom to make an end to it before the British become totally implacable…
Tom and Caroline left for Tennessee before your letter arrived, so I will post it after them. He will not be returning to Georgia, I suspect, as he has been promised the command of a Tennessee militia regiment and his war is not over. It will take some while to reduce the Muskogee Nation to order, even with the help of the Cherokees and the leadership of General Harrison.
If you wish to write to them directly, you can post the letter to Colonel Tom Parker, Presley's Crossing, Tennessee.
Your respectful son,
Joshua
Measureless to Man
Judith Tarr
In Xanadu did Solomon Khan
The Temple of the Lord decree…
The Temple of the Lord God was rising in Chengdu, on the long plain beneath the loom of mountains, under the endless sky. Its walls rose to the height of ten tall men. The breadth of it was as great as a city, and its nine courts advanced to the innermost shrine, the Holy of Holies, where the new Ark of the Covenant would come to rest when the Temple was complete.
The roof was on the fifth court, all but the last of it, a tracery of stone above the eastern edge. Abraham Han Li the architect stood beneath the soaring arches, frowning upward. "Perhaps after all," he said, "we should have built a dome. Nine domes in ascending order, sheathed in silver and gold, floating above the plain, would be a vision of divine sublimity."
"Surely, master," said Moishe his assistant, "that would be beautiful indeed, but these vaulted arches uplift the spirit in a way that even the most airy dome cannot quite manage."
The Great Khan's chief architect was in no way convinced, but whatever argument he might have begun was lost in sudden commotion. Moishe had felt the slight shift of the paving underfoot, as if the earth had shrugged in its sleep. An instant later, shouts and cries brought them all out of the court and running toward the western wall.
It was still standing, but long cracks ran through it. The earth had subsided visibly. Workmen milled about, babbling in a confusion of languages.
Abraham Han Li maintained a remarkable degree of calm. "You said," he said to the Great Khan's chief engineer, who stood gaping as foolishly as any of the rest of them, "that the caverns did not extend beneath that portion of the plain."
Moishe met the glance of the chief engineer's assistant. Buri was too circumspect to roll his eyes, but he could not quite control his expression. Whatever the chief engineer might have told the chief architect, the rest of the workmen and their overseers knew perfectly well how far the caverns extended. A river ran under the earth, cutting beneath the western corner of the Temple. The great ones refused to know it because their plans called for the Temple to be just such a shape and just such a size, oriented in just such a way, and that required the raising of a wall above the hidden river.
"Can it be salvaged?" the chief architect demanded. "Can the earth be shored up?"
"It can," said the chief engineer. "Certainly it can. It will be a great undertaking, but if we commandeer men, requisition supplies…"
"The Khan has said it," the chief architect said. "Whatever is needed, it shall be supplied. Give us walls that will stand. This is for the glory of the Lord God."
The chief engineer bowed to that Name. His assistant sighed just audibly.
So too did Moishe. Khans and princes demanded the impossible. Assistants then had to do it-and pay the price if they should fail.
Moishe stood in a cavern of immeasurable size. Even lit by lamps and torches beyond count, it stretched far away into gloom. Pillars and columns rose into vaults overhead, touched with rose and cream and gold. The river ran black and silent through them.
The Great Khan's engineers and miners stood in a hush of deep reverence, and not only because the river had been holy for time out of mind. Sound could break; sound could shatter. Sound could bring down the roof that groaned already under the weight of the Temple wall.
"We'll need timbers," Buri said in a barely audible whisper, "and stone. And years-but we'll be given months. Days, if I know our masters. This is no mine, to be shored up as we go. This is a temple as wide as the one above, and infinitely more fragile."
"It's a pity we can't worship here," murmured one of the lesser engineers. He was still a pagan, Moishe suspected, although those who had not accepted the Covenant were wise not to confess it too loudly. "Open a gate, raise up a few pillars, and here's a temple to make any god proud."
"The God of Hosts is a god of the open sky," said Buri. "But more to the point, the Khan has commanded that the Temple be built on the plain of Chengdu. Therefore it shall be built there. And we will make certain that the earth will hold it up."