“You,” Sir Ahlfryd Hyndryk, Baron Seamount, said severely, swivel chair squeaking as he leaned back, the better to contemplate the commander, “are an insubordinate young whelp, aren’t you?”
“Never, Sir!” Mahndrayn shook his head, expression more innocent than ever. “How could you possibly think such a thing?”
“After working with you for the last couple of years?” Seamount snorted. “Trust me, it’s easy.”
“I’m shocked to hear you say that, Sir,” Mahndrayn said mournfully.
“Disappointed if I didn’t, more likely!”
Mahndrayn only grinned, and Seamount chuckled.
Sunlight poured into the baron’s office. He had a marvelous view out over King’s Harbor from his windows, although some people might have felt just a little uncomfortable knowing that the fortress’ main powder magazine was directly underneath them. The slate wall panels were covered with their usual smudgy chalked notations, at least a quarter of which were in Mahndrayn’s handwriting, not Seamount’s. Stacks of memos and folders of correspondence littered the baron’s desk in seeming confusion, although Mahndrayn knew they were actually carefully organized.
“Are you sure my absence isn’t going to knock anything off schedule, Sir?” the commander asked more seriously, and Seamount shrugged.
“I realize this may come as another shock to you, Commander, but I’d been looking after myself on my own for quite some time before you happened along. I imagine I’ll be able to fumble through somehow until you get back,” he said dryly.
Mahndrayn nodded, although he and Seamount both knew he’d been gradually assuming more and more responsibilities as Seamount’s assistant and executive officer-what High Admiral Lock Island had called a “chief of staff.” And a trip to Ehdwyrd Howsmyn’s massive foundry complex wasn’t exactly a jaunt to Tellesberg, either; it was well over eight hundred miles, which would take a full five-day each way. That was going to take a serious bite out of Mahndrayn’s usual schedule, and a lot of additional work was going to end up dumped back on Seamount’s desk while he was away.
“I think we’ve got everything covered,” the baron went on, more serious now. “I won’t pretend it’s not going to be a pain, and I don’t want you away any longer than you have to be, but we’ve been letting stuff that needs to be handed off to Master Howsmyn pile up too long because both of us were too busy to make the trip. If we’re going to meet High Admiral Rock Point’s schedule, we can’t afford to let that go on. Which means one of us has to go, since no one else is cleared for all of this material, and I just plain can’t. Which is why-”
He gestured at the briefcase under Mahndrayn’s arm, and the commander nodded again.
“Yes, Sir. I think Master Howsmyn and I can probably cover everything in one day. And I promise I’ll get back here as quickly as I can.”
“Quickly is good, but the whole point of this trip is to give Master Howsmyn the chance to ask any questions he needs to face-to-face. Don’t rush your meeting with him. Better to take an extra day, or even two or three, than for one of us to have to make the same trip again.”
“I understand, Sir.”
“I’m sure you do. And give your cousin my regards.”
“I will, Sir.”
“Good. Now go.” Seamount pointed at the office door, and Mahndrayn smiled, saluted, and obeyed the command.
“Urvyn! This is a surprise,” Trai Sahlavahn said as the yeoman ushered his cousin into his office. “I didn’t know you were coming!”
“I’m on my way to see Master Howsmyn,” Mahndrayn explained, crossing the office to clasp Sahlavahn’s offered forearm. “Big Tirian’s not very far out of the way, so I thought I’d drop by.”
“I see.”
Sahlavahn tilted his head to one side, regarding his cousin speculatively. Mahndrayn’s intensity and energy frequently fooled people into thinking he was impetuous, or at least impulsive, but Sahlavahn knew better. While he might be prone to rushing off in two or three directions at once, the commander had a remarkable ability to keep everything he was doing organized, balanced, and far more tightly scheduled than anyone else realized. The term “multi-tasking” was one of many which had been lost on Safehold, but if there’d been anyone on the planet it applied to, it would have been Urvyn Mahndrayn. That was something he had in common with Baron Seamount, which was one of the many reasons the two of them complemented one another so well.
But it was also the reason Sahlavahn rather doubted his cousin had “just decided” to drop in on him. True, Big Tirian Island did lie about midway between Helen Island and Port Ithmyn, but Mahndrayn wasn’t the sort to take time off for personal visits when he was on official business. Besides, he and Sahlavahn exchanged letters on a regular basis, so it wasn’t as if they had a lot of private family matters to catch up on.
“Are you going to be here overnight?” he asked, leading the way to the windows overlooking Eydyth Sound, the channel between Big Tirian and the mainland portion of the Duchy of Tirian.
Although Sahlavahn’s command-officially, Navy Powder Mill #3, but more generally known as the Hairatha Mill-was officially part of the port city of Hairatha, it was actually located over a mile north of the main port. For fairly obvious reasons, really, given the nature of what it produced and the quantities in which it produced it. At any given moment, there was a minimum of several hundred tons of gunpowder in the Hairatha Mill’s storage magazines, and no one wanted those magazines too close to a major city. Then there was the minor fact that Hairatha was one of the Navy’s main bases and dockyards. Losing that would have been just a trifle inconvenient, as well, he supposed.
“Probably not overnight,” Mahndrayn said, following him to the window and gazing across the twenty-six-mile-wide sound at the green blur of the mainland. “I’ve got a lot to discuss with Master Howsmyn, and Baron Seamount needs me back at King’s Harbor as quickly as I can get there.”
“I see,” Sahlavahn said again, and turned to face him. “So why do I have the feeling you didn’t come four or five hours out of your way just for a family visit with one of your favorite cousins?”
“Because I didn’t,” Mahndrayn half sighed.
“Then why did you come? Really?” Sahlavahn raised an eyebrow, and Mahndrayn shrugged.
“Because I came across a discrepancy I hope is just a clerical error,” he said.
“You hope it’s a clerical error?”
“Well, if it’s not, then I think we may have a fairly significant problem.”
“You’re beginning to make me nervous, Urvyn,” Sahlavahn said frankly, and Mahndrayn shrugged again. Then he set his briefcase on the window ledge in front of him, opened it, extracted a sheet of paper, and handed it across.
Sahlavahn accepted the sheet, tipped it slightly to catch the better light from the window, and squinted nearsightedly as he looked at it. Then he raised his eyes to his cousin’s face with a perplexed expression.
“This is what you came to see me about?” He waved it gently. “Last month’s production return and shipping summary?”
“Yes,” Mahndrayn said flatly, and Sahlavahn frowned.
“I don’t understand, Urvyn. What about it?”
“It’s wrong.”
“Wrong?” Sahlavahn’s frown deepened. “What are you talking about? What’s wrong with it?”
“There’s a discrepancy, Trai,” Mahndrayn said. “A forty-five- ton discrepancy.”
“ What? ” Sahlavahn’s frown disappeared and his eyes widened abruptly.
“The amount you shipped doesn’t match the amount you delivered. Look at the numbers for the June fifteenth shipment.” Mahndrayn tapped the top of the sheet. “You loaded one thousand and seventy-five tons of powder in a total of six shipments, but when the individual quantities of each shipment are totaled, they only come to one thousand and thirty tons.” He tapped the foot of the sheet. “There’s forty-five tons missing, Trai.”