But no, the girl was married, and carrying the child of another man, and our end was foredoomed.
Our doom fell shortly after the new year, when the Marquess of Stayne returned from his punitive expedition to the Toppings, having failed to capture a single outlaw, let alone retrieve his ransom. I didn’t hear the news for a week, until the Duchess of Roundsilver informed me at one of her dinners. She looked at me with care as she told me, to see if I was badly affected; but I had been anticipating the news, and merely asked if he’d encountered any bandits, and for the next weeks concentrated on my business.
For, as Orlanda had remarked, I could not do nothing. I had decided to put my fortune, such as it was, out into the world, and earn my living as a speculator. My father had done well in business, and I hoped to emulate his success. But my father had also made most of his income from loans, and I decided against that course, for he had loaned to people from Ethlebight who he’d known all his life; and I knew no one in Selford, and most especially no one I knew to be trustworthy.
I consulted acquaintances at the Butchers’ Guild, at that of the cannoneers, where I was now welcome as an amusing friend, and with Blackwell and the Roundsilvers. The duke suggested I invest in property and become a landlord, and Blackwell that I buy an interest in his new play.
I laughed at Blackwell’s suggestion, and he, having made the offer facetiously, laughed with me. I decided against buying property because I knew not where I wanted to live, whether I would continue my bleak life in the capital, return to Ethlebight, or travel abroad. So, I returned to the business I knew best, and bought cattle and swine. There was war in Duisland, for all there had yet been no fighting, and I knew that soldiers and officers and sailors must eat. My animals were intended for the camps that would soon be forming around the capital, or to be salted and put up in casks for the navy. This put me in touch with people who contracted to supply the military, and one of them told me of a venture that had fallen short of money. A friend of his had bought a ship with the intent of leasing it to the state to convey soldiers and troops to the war in Bonille. But the ship proved to be in a poorer state than he was led to believe, and required repairs before it could leave port. He had put his entire fortune into the Sea-Holly, and was desperate; and so I rescued him, paid for the repairs, and now enjoyed a half-interest in his emprise.
I was a little disturbed to discover that the government paid my new partner not in silver but in bills drawn on the treasury, which would be honored only at the government’s convenience. I reflected that I was probably safe enough, as I knew the Chancellor personally, and could apply to him for payment if I so needed. Still, there was a large secondary market in these notes, and I purchased a few of them at a discount, some from my own partner. I could afford to wait to redeem them, as I still had enough to live on and, though running low on coin, had not yet begun to sell the jewelry I had got from Sir Basil’s treasury.
The Estates began meeting after the new year, and the new taxes were going into place under the direction of the Chancellor. I owned nothing that could be taxed besides a burned-out house in Ethlebight, and so far the government was not taxing land without whole structures on it.
Master Lipton, the cannoneer, invited me to the tests of the duke’s great cannon, and so I paraded out of Innismore along with the glittering guns, each drawn by forty horses, lumbering along with great caissons containing the necessary powder and the round stone cannonballs, the whole array under the command of members of the Guild of Carters and Haulers. Gun crews had been drawn from the Loyall and Worshipfull Companie of Cannoneers, who, once we had arrived at the gun range, took charge of the guns, and also began clearing nearby trenches and earthworks of debris.
The duke himself did not come, as he was involved with the Great Council and the House of Peers, and the duchess was acting as his hostess for a series of dinners and salons in which many of the issues plaguing the Estates would be settled.
The guns were set up on the north bank of the Saelle, and their fire was to be directed at an uninhabited island about three hundred yards away. It took half an hour to load the first gun, what with forty pounds of gunpowder being ladled down the long barrel, and the giant cannonball hoisted up on a special sling. I, along with the Carters and Haulers and most of the cannoneers, watched from an earthwork two hundred yards away as an apprentice put a portfire in the touch hole and lit it. He scampered for safety in a trench, and the huge gun went off with a roar that stunned into silence the gulls and bitterns that had been calling from the mud flats. I could actually see the huge ball fly through the air and plow its way through the reeds on the island bank.
Flame continued to lick from the gun’s muzzle even after the stone ball had crashed to a halt in a shower of mud. A vast cloud of white smoke rolled over the scene, and I could taste the sharp taste of brimstone on the air.
Lipton, standing next to me, gave a nod. “That flew well. Maybe there is something in that monkish nonsense chanting after all.”
The guns were each fired five times, which took up most of the day, after which Master Cannoneer Lipton agreed to sign the papers certifying that the guns would make a suitable addition to the royal armory. But by that point, I had lost interest in the proceedings, for I recognized a small galleon drifting up the river along with the tide.
Meteor, the privateer’s commission of which was shared by myself and Kevin Spellman. And which was coming up the river with flags flying, for behind it came a capture, a galleon even larger than the privateer, and flying the white flag of submission.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Delight rose in me like bubbles in a mineral spring. “I hardly think the courts will resist depriving Clayborne’s stepfather of such a fortune. Not when the Crown gets twenty percent. But,” I added cautiously, “perhaps my name should be kept out of the records insofar as that is possible.”
Kevin raised his eyebrows. “Your name? Your reputation has been damaged in some way?”
“A mere prejudice on the part of the monarch,” said I. “But I am trying to remain out of her sight for the present.”
Kevin’s look turned cautious. “And . . . the other lady?”
“It is a related story, but for another time.”
I hardly wanted to discuss Orlanda at this moment. We were in Meteor’s great cabin, or rather the half of it used by Kevin. We ate steak-and-kidney pies I’d bought on shore, and were well into our second bottle of ruby-red Loretto wine.
Kevin had told me all the news from Ethlebight. A well-spoken messenger had arrived bearing a list of the corsairs’ captives, along with the sums named for ransom. The Aekoi knew better than to send one of their own on such a mission, and tended to use men from Varcellos for this task, as Varcellos was a nautical nation between Duisland and the Empire, and so this gentleman was a Varcellan.
“I have seen the list of captives,” said Kevin. “And I should tell you, your Master Dacket is not on it.”
I looked at him in sudden sorrow, both for my master and for my hopes, for he it was who could certify me a lawyer without my having to apply to one of the Moots. That meant another one of my hopes had been pinned to the floor and trampled.