“You mean you’d heard I was doing my best to drink myself to death.” Thirsk shook his head and waved the glass in his hand as Maik started to protest. “I’m sure that’s what you heard, My Lord, since it’s exactly what I was trying to do.”
The bishop closed his mouth, and the earl chuckled softly. There was very little humor in the sound.
“I’m afraid I’d come to the same conclusion you had, My Lord—that too much had been asked of me. I just didn’t think it was God or the Archangels who’d done the asking.”
The humming tension intensified suddenly, and Maik settled slowly back into his chair.
“That’s … a very interesting statement,” he said at last.
“I doubt somehow that it comes as a total surprise to you, My Lord. I remember the day you mentioned the sixth chapter of the Book of Bédard to me. I’d come to the conclusion that I’d waited too long to comply with the Holy Bédard’s commands in that chapter.”
“That was scarcely your fault, Lywys,” the bishop said quietly.
“Perhaps not.” Thirsk sipped more whiskey and gazed down into his glass. “No, definitely not—you’re right about that. But the fact that it wasn’t my fault doesn’t change the fact that seeing my family into a place of safety was my responsibility. And now that that’s … no longer a factor, I’ve been forced to reconsider all of my other responsibilities, both as the senior officer of His Majesty’s Navy and—” his eyes lifted suddenly, stabbing into his intendant’s “—as a son of Mother Church.”
“Have you, my son?” Staiphan Maik asked very softly.
“Yes, I have.” Thirsk’s eyes held the bishop’s gaze very, very levelly. “And the true reason I invited you here today, My Lord, is that one of those ‘other responsibilities’ includes explaining to you as my intendant, my spiritual councilor, and—I believe—my friend how that reconsideration has … shaped my thinking.”
“You used the term ‘spiritual councilor,’” Maik said. “Should I assume you’re telling me this in my priestly office and treat anything you say as covered by the confidentiality of the confession?”
“No.” Thirsk’s voice was very soft, but there was no hesitation in it. “I want you to feel free to treat what I’m about to say in the way that seems best to you. I trust your judgment—and your heart—as much as I’ve ever trusted any man’s. And, to be honest, you and your office are … rather central to my present thinking. Your response to it will probably determine exactly what I do—or can do—to better meet those responsibilities of mine.”
“I see.” Maik sipped more whiskey, rolling the golden glory over his tongue before he swallowed. “Are you very sure about this, Lywys?” he asked then, his voice even softer than the earl’s had been.
“Staiphan,” he said, using the bishop’s given name without title or honorific for the first time in all the months they’d known one another, “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
“Very well, then.” Maik set his glass back on the side table and settled himself squarely in his armchair, his elbows on the armrests and his fingers interlaced across his chest, thumbs resting lightly on his pectoral scepter.
“In that case, I suppose you’d best begin.”
.VI.
HMS Lightning, 30,
Claw Island,
Sea of Harchong.
Wyverns and seagulls rose black against the sunset in winged, raucous protest as the saluting guns thudded from the defensive batteries. The spurts of smoke were the gray white of conventional gunpowder, not the dark brown of the ICN’s current propellant, and they merged into a ragged line that rolled southeast on the fitful breeze out of the northwest, There were fewer guns in those batteries than there had been, since two-thirds of the smoothbores which had defended Hardship Bay under Dohlaran ownership had been replaced by less than half as many rifled Charisian guns with twice the effective range and far greater destructive power. There were still a lot of them, though, and the crews of every single one of them—aside from the saluting guns—stood atop the earthen ramparts, cheering as the weather-stained line of galleons made their way into the bay through North Channel, close-hauled on the starboard tack.
A return salute rippled down HMS Lightning’s side as she led that line, flying the streamer of Admiral Tymythy Darys. They were three months out of Tellesberg, those galleons, and more than one man aboard them had wondered if Claw Island would still be in Charisian hands when they arrived.
Silly of us, Darys thought, standing on Lightning’s quarterdeck and studying the bay through a raised angle-glass. Baron Rock Point was right. The bastards may’ve taken Dreadnought from Kahrltyn, but there’s no way in Shan-wei’s darkest hell they could have her back in commission yet. Not with any ammunition for her guns, anyway!
The admiral’s mouth tightened as he thought about Kahrltyn Haigyl, HMS Dreadnought’s captain. He would miss that giant of a man, but the Imperial Charisian Navy would never forget Dreadnought’s last fight. It did seem that perhaps Dreadnought wasn’t the most fortunate name in the world for Charisian warships, he acknowledged, but neither this Dreadnought nor her predecessor had gone without one hell of a fight … or failed to achieve the goal for which she’d fought.
Could have a lot worse tradition for the next one to live up to, he reflected. A lot worse. And her skipper’ll have some damned big boots to fill, too. Even if he was a lousy navigator!
His tight mouth relaxed into a smile at that thought, and he straightened from the angle-glass.
“Well, we appear to still be here,” he said dryly to his flag captain.
“Never doubted we would be for a moment, Sir,” Captain Sympsyn, who happened to share Darys’ first name, said stoutly.
“Oh?” Darys cocked an eyebrow. “I seem to recall a moment or two there, about the time those headwinds in the Sea of Harchong were so … uncooperative. Wasn’t there someone in Lightning’s company who was fretting that we might not get there in time? Let me see … I can’t quite seem to recall the name, but I think it was a captain somebody.”
“I’m sure you’re mistaken, Sir. Couldn’t’ve been anybody aboard my ship!”
“Of course I am.” Darys chuckled, then clapped Sympsyn on the shoulder. “Probably just somebody who was pissed off by the weather and had to vent. But for now, I’d best get below and change.” He indicated his comfortable, well-worn seagoing uniform, with its brand-new, golden collar kraken and single gold cuff band. “Wouldn’t want to turn up in front of the Earl poorly dressed, would I?”
“Frankly, Sir, I think you could turn up naked and he’d still be glad to see you. And all the rest of us, of course.”
The flag captain waved one hand to take in the twenty-five warships and sixteen supply galleons following Lightning.
“You may have a point,” Darys agreed. “Not that I intend to find out the hard way!”
* * *
“Somehow I doubt this will surprise you, Tymythy,” Sir Lewk Cohlmyn, the Earl of Sharpfield, said dryly as his flag lieutenant showed Admiral Darys into his office in the ICN’s steadily expanding Hardship Bay base, “but I’m extraordinarily happy to see you.”