He did not, Mahrtynsyn noted, say, “If you can convince that infuriatingly overcautious priest to let her correspond with me.” The thought had come through pretty clearly, though, and the duke proceeded to make it even clearer.
“What I need from you, I think, is your support in urging her—and Father Zhordyn—to give me confirmation of what she’s prepared to do or not do, and when, and how her ‘negotiations’ with Holy Tree—and Mandigora, assuming she really is talking to him—are proceeding. I need that sort of information as an absolute bare minimum, and I also need to know what she knows about what’s happening in Maikelberg. Despite what happened to Barkah, she still has better contacts there than I do, to be honest.” The duke shrugged. “But in addition to all that, we’ve got to concert our plans on when and how we’ll strike.”
Mahrtynsyn contemplated what the duke had just said glumly, wishing he could disagree with any of it. Unfortunately.…
“Very well, Your Grace,” he sighed. “I can’t pretend I’m happy about the necessity, but I can’t deny that it is a necessity. Choose your courier. I’ll draft a message to Father Zhordyn and, once you’ve approved it, I’ll put it into cipher.”
* * *
Well, how very good of you, Father, Nimue Chwaeriau thought.
At the moment, she was standing post outside the Manchyr Palace nursery while the ruling Prince of Corisande, his First Councilor, and the head of his Regency Council spent an hour or so admiring their niece and nephew and godchildren, respectively.
Prince Daivyn still seemed a little in two minds about the twins’ durability. The very thought of holding one of them was enough to induce something very like a panic attack, although he’d summoned all his will and courageously allowed his sister to place his nephew in his lap once he was safely seated in an outsized chair where he’d find it difficult to drop a baby on its head with no doubt fatal consequences. Then he’d sat absolutely motionless, obviously afraid that if he breathed, young Hektor would somehow spontaneously explode.
Nimue found that rather touching. Possibly that was because she’d had a somewhat similar initial reaction. The citizens of the Terran Federation had stopped producing children by the time Nimue Alban was a teenager, so she’d had very little experience with infants.
Earl Coris and Earl Anvil Rock, on the other hand, were old hands at dealing with babies and the sometimes interesting contents of their diapers. As she stood outside the nursery door, the head of the Regency Council was busily singing a lullaby—badly—to Prince Hektor Merlin Haarahld Aplyn-Ahrmahk while the aforesaid prince complained loudly about the universe’s state of affairs and the princedom’s first councilor helped his mother change Princess Raichynda Sharleyan Nimue Aplyn-Ahrmahk’s diaper.
It was, perhaps, as well that none of Prince Daivyn’s more dignified great nobles were present to observe the disgraceful spectacle.
Nimue fully intended to do her own singing—and burping, and even diaper changing—later that evening. For now, her attention was split between her bodyguard responsibilities and the SNARC imagery which had just been automatically downloaded to her. Owl and Nahrmahn were undoubtedly studying the same data at the same moment, but Nimue liked to be hands-on, and she’d programmed the SNARC remotes watching over Rock Coast Keep to alert her when their filters picked up certain keywords or phrases.
Looks like it’s time for the “seijin network” in Chisholm to report in to White Crag and Sir Ahlber, she reflected. If Mahrtynsyn’s really ready to start writing things down, it would be churlish of us not to allow him to share his literary efforts with us. Besides, I want to check in with Lady Karyl and see how she and her new armsmen are getting along.
Now how do we account for Captain Chwaeriau’s absence this time…?
.X.
HMS Gwylym Manthyr,
City of Tellesberg,
Kingdom of Old Charis,
Empire of Charis.
“Well, Zhames?” Halcom Bahrns raised his eyebrows at Lieutenant Commander Zhames Skaht, his chief engineer.
“As well as it’s going to get, Sir,” Skaht replied cheerfully.
At fifty-one, he was seventeen years older than his CO, and he’d been a naval officer for barely a year. Normally, that would be far, far too little “time in grade” for his rank, far less his position in Gwylym Manthyr’s command structure. Yet the very brevity of his naval service was precisely what accounted for that position … and for his captain’s confidence in him. What he’d been instead of an officer in the Crown’s service was a master artificer in Ehdwyrd Howsmyn’s employ. He understood the machinery aboard Gwylym Manthyr better than any naval officer who’d grown up with galleys or galleons possibly could. He’d helped design it, and the engineering “officers” assigned to the other King Haarahlds had very similar pedigrees.
Knowing that was an immense comfort to Halcom Bahrns as he contemplated the task before them. But what truly mattered to him at this moment was that if Zhames Skaht thought his ship was ready for service, then—mechanically, at least—she damned well was.
And we’re going to be making the rest of it up as we go along, he thought, then snorted. Nothing new there! We did exactly the same thing with Delthak … although, she was just a tiny bit smaller—by no more than, oh, twelve, thirteen thousand tons or so.
He sat back in his chair in his enormous day cabin—everything aboard his new ship seemed built on a stupendous scale to someone who’d first gone to sea in the cramped confines of an old-fashioned galley—smoking his pipe and gazing out the open scuttle at the gaslit Tellesberg docks, while he considered the task he and his officers and men still faced.
There were seven hundred of those officers and men, and all of them were still in the process of learning their jobs. Fortunately, his gunners had been thoroughly trained on the complexities of their new mounts in the shore establishment Duke Delthak and Baron Rock Point had established. The Urvyn Mahndrayn School of Gunnery was the very first formal school ever established to teach the art of gunnery ashore. That wasn’t the same thing as training at sea, with the ship moving under them, but the “art of gunnery” had changed far too fundamentally to be taught “on the job” any longer … and Manthyr was going to be a hell of a lot steadier gun platform than any other ship in the world.
In fact, he was completely satisfied with his people’s training, even though the notion of acquiring that training in special schools was as revolutionary as anything else the Imperial Charisian Navy had embraced in the last decade. It was just that there was a difference between individually trained seamen, stokers, gunners, and oilers—however well-trained they might be—and a crew which had been thoroughly worked up as a unit.
Don’t borrow trouble, he told himself. Sea officers have been combining gaggles of experienced seamen, inexperienced seamen—and landsmen—into actual crews for as long as there’ve been sea officers. Not a lot of difference there. Well, aside from the fact that you’re about to deploy the next damned best thing to fourteen thousand miles and still get only five five-days of training time out of the entire voyage! Hardly seems fair, somehow.