“Which I’m sure will be a great comfort to the survivors if one of them does catch it!” Delthak said a bit tartly. But then he inhaled and shook his head.
“I don’t like it, but that may be because I’ve been extra skittish about potential accidents—and especially ones that involve things like flammable gasses—since our fire. It’s only been about four months, and a thing like that … tends to stick in a man’s mind.” He grimaced and swiveled his chair back around, looking away from the nearly completed replacement barrel finishing shop. “And I may have done just a little too much reading about Lakehurst, I suppose. Either way, I can’t argue with the ‘military logic,’ Merlin. And I have to admit I’m looking forward to the Temple Boys’ reaction when they see it for the first time!”
“I think you can safely assume all of us are,” Cayleb observed dryly. “When you come down to it, it’s probably our biggest hole card for this summer’s entire campaign. Timing or no, though, I’m not really looking forward to explaining to Hauwerd Breygart why he didn’t get any of them.”
“I’m sure he’ll forgive you … eventually,” Merlin said soothingly. “He understands the value of surprise better than most. Besides, Ehdwyrd’s gotten him all that splendid new artillery, and he’s doing just fine the way things are.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Cayleb said approvingly. “In fact, he’s doing well enough I think it’s time to start the process of elevating Hanth to a duchy.”
“Seems to be a lot of that going around lately,” Merlin observed with something suspiciously like a chuckle, and Delthak’s image made a rude gesture in his direction.
“That’s because as nasty as this campaign’s looking, we’re not worried about whether or not we’re going to survive it.” Cayleb’s tone was considerably more sober. “When you’re confident you’ll still be here at the end of the year, you’ve got a lot more leisure to think about handing out tokens of appreciation to the people who’ve made sure you will. People like you, Ehdwyrd.”
“It’s been a joint effort, Cayleb,” Duke Delthak replied with a hint of embarrassment. “I won’t pretend I haven’t worked my arse off, but so have a lot of other people. And at least no one’s been shooting at me.”
“True, but there’s not a single man in uniform who doesn’t realize this war will be won just as much on the manufactory floor as any battlefield,” Merlin said. “And the truth is that beating the Group of Four’s the easy part. You and your people are what may let us win the war against the Proscriptions in the end.”
“But winning the war against the Group of Four has to come first,” Nahrmahn put in from his computer in Nimue’s Cave. “And I think our little psychological warfare campaign is starting to wear on friend Zhaspahr’s nerves. His agents inquisitor are spending an awful lot of time tearing all those broadsheets off of walls all over the Temple Lands, and they seem to be getting just a bit frustrated by it.” The portly little prince smiled seraphically. “The word’s getting out, too. None of his city and borough bishops inquisitor can pretend they’re only a local phenomenon anymore.”
“No, they can’t,” Nynian Rychtyr agreed in tones of profound satisfaction, and Merlin smiled across the breakfast table at her.
It must be driving Clyntahn and Rayno to frothing madness, he thought. For the better part of two years, they’d managed to prevent the majority of the Temple’s supporters from realizing how broadly Owl’s remotes had been distributing their broadsheets. To be fair, Nahrmahn and Nynian had been careful about ramping up that distribution. Clyntahn was going to blame it on demons in the end, whatever they did, but they’d wanted awareness of the bulletins posted on walls and doors to seep into people’s awareness slowly. To become an accepted part of their world gradually, giving them time to get over the “demonic” novelty of them as familiarity wore away the taint. To help that along, they’d strictly limited the number of “bombshell” revelations in each issue, filling out at least half—and more often two-thirds—of the space with homey local news items. News items people could check. Whose accuracy they could verify for themselves and which tended to validate the items they couldn’t check by a process of association.
Once they’d pushed them into their readers’ awareness as an alternate source of information, they’d started broadening their attacks on Clyntahn’s version of events. In the last year or so they’d even started carrying statements from the Fist of God, including devastating lists of the crimes for which the Fist had struck down literally dozens of vicars and archbishops, almost all of whom had been Clyntahn allies or toadies. The damage that had done to the Grand Inquisitor’s credibility would be almost impossible to overestimate, and in the last five or six months, Owl’s remotes had begun distributing them even more widely. They were everywhere now, and little though anyone in the Inquisition’s reach would admit it, many of their readers had decided they were telling the truth … and that Clyntahn wasn’t.
Another consequence of that greater saturation, however, was that people had become aware the same sorts of broadsheets were appearing everywhere. Despite the communication limitations of a pre-electronic civilization, the Inquisition could no longer pretend even to the average man in the street, much less to their own agents inquisitor, that they were restricted only to a single locale, or perhaps to one or two of the Temple Lands’ greater cities. Nor could they hide the fact that they were appearing despite everything Clyntahn’s minions could do to prevent it, which ground relentlessly away at the Inquisition’s aura of invincibility. Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s cloak of authority and power was growing progressively more tattered, and when it came completely apart.…
“‘The moral is to the physical as three to one,’” he quoted. “Napoleon didn’t get everything right, but he nailed that one. The more we’ve got Clyntahn’s bastards—and everyone in the Army of God and the Mighty Host, for that matter—looking over their shoulders, the shakier they’ll be when the hammer comes down.”
“Yes, but I’ve been thinking we might want to look at a few ways to further improve our own people’s morale, as well as grinding away at the Temple Loyalists’ confidence,” Nahrmahn said.
“I know that tone,” Cayleb said warily. “What have you been up to this time?”
“Oh, I haven’t been up to anything … yet, Your Majesty. I do have a … call it a prototype morale booster for Ehdwyrd’s manufactories, though.”
“My manufactories are just a bit busy with other things at the moment, Nahrmahn,” Delthak observed. “Like, oh, balloons, bayonets, hand grenades, angle-guns, armor plate, shell production, rifle ammunition, steam engines—you know, little things like that.”