He shrugged, his eyes cold.
“Langhorne,” Maigwair said again, clasping his arms across his chest while he stared out the frosty window. “But what could have happened?” he murmured, as much to himself as to Duchairn. “I never met Hahpyr—I’d heard about him, of course—and I’m just as happy I haven’t. But I know Vekko. Always makes me feel like there’s fresh dog shit on the sole of my shoe when I’m in the same room with him, but he’s a tough old bastard, and unlike certain inquisitors you and I could name, he’s always seemed more concerned with the Inquisition’s mission than its powerbase. God knows I won’t miss either of them if something has happened to them, but what could cause both of them to suddenly disappear?”
“Now that, Allayn, is an excellent question. And while you’re pondering it, you might want to consider another minor point, too.”
“And what would that be?” Maigwair asked, regarding the other Vicar warily.
“The St. Thyrmyn’s crematorium’s been awfully busy the last few days,” Duchairn said very, very quietly. Maigwair’s nostrils flared, and it was Duchairn’s turn to turn away, gazing out the window. “You and I both know the Inquisition’s used that crematorium to dispose of a lot of … inconvenient mistakes over the years. One heap of ashes is very like another, after all. But it’s been operating steadily for almost a full five-day now, and my people at Treasury just got a supplemental invoice for an awful lot of fuel. One hell of a lot more than they’d need to get rid of two or three women who’d been arrested by mistake.”
“You’re suggesting everyone on the prison staff is dead?” Duchairn suspected Maigwair would have preferred to sound rather more incredulous than he did.
“I don’t know what happened any more than you do, Allayn. But something sure as hell did, and Zhaspahr’s not frothing at the mouth and demanding something be done about whatever it was, either. Instead, he and his pet viper are pulling out all the stops to sweep it under the rug. And whatever’s happened, it’s put the fear of Shan-wei into our good friend the Grand Inquisitor. I doubt it’ll keep him knocked off stride for very long—he’s a resilient, arrogant son-of-a-bitch who’s absolutely convinced things will work out the way he wants them to in the end, and I suspect a good Bédardist would find him a very interesting subject—but for right now, he’s had the shit scared out of him.”
“The question, of course,” the treasurer added with an almost whimsical smile, “is whether what’s scared the hell out of him should be scaring the hell out of you and me, too.”
.II.
Battery St. Thermyn,
Basset Island,
HMS Eraystor, 22;
HMS Destiny, 54;
and
HMS Hurricane, 60,
Saram Bay,
Province of Stene,
Harchong Empire.
“What’s that, Sir?”
Captain of Spears Thaidin Chinzhou looked up from the cup of tea cradled in his gloved hands at the question. Sergeant Yinkow Gaihin stood on the rampart, pointing out across Basset Channel. The early morning sun gilded Battery St. Thermyn in chill golden light, spilling down from a sky that was crystal-clear to the south and east but layered with steadily spreading, dramatic cloud coming down from the northwest. Chinzhou was a native of Stene Province, and he could almost smell the late-winter snow hiding in those clouds. It wouldn’t be that many more five-days before spring actually put in an appearance, but winter obviously wasn’t giving in without a fight.
He shook that thought aside, handed the teacup regretfully back to the private with the straw-wrapped demijohn of hot tea, and climbed the steps to Gaihin’s side.
“What’s what, Sergeant?”
He really tried not to sound testy, and Gaihin had been with him for the better part of a year now. He was also more than ten years older than his section commander, and he only twitched a shoulder apologetically and pointed again.
“That, Sir,” he said, and for the first time, the concern in his voice registered with the youthful captain of spears.
Chinzhou’s sun-dazzled eyes saw nothing for a moment and he stepped behind the sergeant, peering along the outstretched arm and pointing finger, shading his eyes with one hand. Still he saw nothing … but then he did, and his spine stiffened.
“That’s smoke, Sergeant,” he said very, very softly. “And it’s moving.”
* * *
A hand knocked sharply on the cabin door, and Admiral Caitahno Raisahndo looked up from his plate with a frown. He hated interruptions during breakfast. Especially during working breakfasts, which this one most assuredly was. The rumors about heretic shipping movements were enough to make anyone nervous … and especially the “anyone” who happened to have inherited command of the Western Squadron, the Kingdom of Dohlar’s sole remaining forward-deployed naval force in the Gulf of Dohlar. That squadron had been heavily reinforced since the Battle of the Kaudzhu Narrows, which was a good thing. But those rumors suggested the heretics had been reinforced even more heavily, and that could be a very bad thing.
Unfortunately, while the heretics’ spies and intelligence sources were clearly fiendishly—he tried very hard not to use the word “demonically” even in the privacy of his own thoughts—good, his own were … less good. All he had to go on were those rumors.
So far at least.
“Yes?” he called in response to the knock.
“Flag Lieutenant, Sir!” the sentry outside his day cabin announced, and Caitahno glanced at Commander Gahryth Kahmelka. Kahmelka was his chief of staff—and Raisahndo didn’t give much of a damn whether or not anyone approved of his adoption of the “heretical” Charisian term; it was too frigging useful a description and a function which had become self-evidently necessary—and the commander normally had a finger on the pulse of anything to do with the entire squadron. In this case, however, he only shrugged his own ignorance.
Fat lot of help that is, Raisandho thought, and raised his voice again.
“Enter!” he said, and a short, slender officer stepped into the cabin.
“Message from Captain Kharmahdy, Sir,” Lieutenant Ahrnahld Mahkmyn said, and extended an envelope.
“A written message?”
“Yes, Sir. It just came out from dockside in a boat.”
“I see.” Raisahndo accepted the envelope and looked at Kahmelka again, one eyebrow raised.
“No idea, Sir,” Kahmelka replied to the silent question. “Must be some reason he didn’t use signals, but damned if I can think of one.”
“Not one we’ll like, you mean,” Raisahndo said sourly, and Kahmelka’s answering snort was harsh. There’d been a lot of messages neither of them had liked in the months since the Kaudzhu Narrows action, and with Sir Dahrand Rohsail invalided home minus an arm and a leg, responsibility for dealing with those messages had devolved on one Caitahno Raisahndo.
The admiral looked down at the canvas envelope, addressed in Captain Styvyn Kharmahdy’s clerk’s handwriting, stitched shut, and secured with a wax seal.