He moved to the rail of his quinquireme and studied the progress of the disembarkation. By now, not long before sunset, most of the triremes had already been beached and their crews were beginning to erect the first temporary fortifications and field camps. They were moving with the speed which long custom gave them in this work-something which always astonished the Confederacy's enemies. The soldiers would work as long into the night as necessary to get the work done.
Not all of the ships and soldiers were engaged in the work. Demansk's officers had skirmishers and sentries out, ready to give warning in the unlikely event that the Islanders managed to send a ship-burning expedition over the crest of the caldera. And there were plenty of triremes still at sea, even leaving aside the great quinquiremes, to keep the defeated Islander fleet bottled up within the harbor.
Forent Nappur verbalized his own thoughts. "It's done for the day, Triumvir. Why don't you get some sleep?"
He was tired. He'd been up since the middle of the night, making the final preparations for the battle. And Nappur was right-there was really nothing left for him to do, until the morrow.
More than anything, however, it was the quite-evident warmth in Forent's voice which allowed Demansk to follow his advice. However much the former sergeant from the hardscrabble east detested royalty and nobility in general, that hatred clearly did not extend to Demansk himself.
It was odd, really. But, as a young man, Demansk had seen the phenomenon at work once before. Marcomann, like Demansk himself, had come from the very uppermost strata of the Confederacy's nobility. That fact seemed to have made the soldiery's adoption of him all the more fierce. We may be scum beneath their feet, but OUR boy is as good as any of 'em. Better!
"It's a strange world," he murmured. He and Thicelt exchanged a little smile. Sharlz, thought Demansk, was really the only one of the men around him who probably understood him fully. Perhaps that was because, as an Islander, he was an outsider to begin with.
Or, perhaps, it was simply because he was Sharlz Thicelt.
Demansk decided that he preferred the second explanation. And, as he made his way back to his cabin on the flagship, wondered if the day would ever come when he would be able to indulge in simple friendship again.
He thought not. And, not for the first time, feared for his eventual sanity. But… so be it. He was prepared to sacrifice everything else, after all.
By midmorning the next day, the political work which Thicelt had done prior to the attack started coming to fruit. Working secretly through cutouts, he'd been in touch with his family for months, and, through them, with others on the island. Thicelt's own family was not particularly prominent in the social hierarchy of the archipelago, but they knew a lot of people who were.
A galley set out from the harbor at Chalice, bearing a statue of Opal, the Goddess of Tranquility, on its foredeck. That was the traditional Islander method for signaling a desire for a peaceful parlay. Demansk had been expecting something of the sort, so the triremes blockading the entrance to the harbor had been given orders to let any such ship pass through unmolested.
As the Islander galley approached Demansk's flagship, however, Nappur insisted on keeping it at a distance until a boarding party could search the vessel. He admitted it was unlikely that a band of assassins was hiding in the hold, much less a load of explosives, but…
Thicelt didn't even argue the point, beyond making a couple of wisecracks. Nor did Demansk. The simple truth was that Verice Demansk was so critical to everything that any chance of an assassination attempt had to be taken seriously.
The search didn't take long. It was a small galley, with no area belowdecks except small storage spaces. Outside of the rowers-who were unarmed-and the large delegation of Island notables-most of whom were at least middle-aged, if not older-the only thing the boarding party found was a very large sack. The contents of the sack, once it was opened, proved to be of great interest. But, all the Vanbert soldiers agreed, hardly posed a threat to the Triumvir.
The officer of the boarding party brought the sack aboard the quinquireme, when he made his report to Demansk. Three of his soldiers came behind, two of them hoisting the sack between them with some obvious effort. The officer was grinning coldly; his men seemed to be smirking a little. Oddly enough, the third soldier was carrying a tarpaulin. It looked like it was probably one of the smaller sails from the trireme.
"I'd say they're lying belly-up and waving their paws, Triumvir." The officer gestured toward a bare space on the quarterdeck, and the soldier spread the little sail. Then, upending the sack, the other two dumped its contents onto it.
That explained the reason for the tarpaulin. The quarterdeck of the Triumvir's flagship was kept well-scrubbed and polished. The contents of the sack would have… marred it.
Thicelt was down on one knee, casually rolling the severed heads about and making a quick count. Demansk could hear him exclaiming cheerfully: "… three, four-ah! Prince Frand! you're looking a bit out of sorts today-five, six, seven-Royal Uncle Gander! fancy meeting you here! — eight, nine-where's… ah, there he is, looking as sour as ever-ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen-pardon my fingers in your ear, Queen Yora-fourteen, fifteen, sixteen-" A little hiss. "By the Lady, they didn't have to include her. " The count continued: "-twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four… and, twenty- five."
"How many kids did he have, anyway?" asked Nappur.
Thicelt straightened up. "Seventeen in all, Forent, who survived their childhood diseases. He had several concubines, don't forget. Ten boys and six girls. The oldest boy"-his lips tightened with remembered distaste-"Prince Tenny that was, died at the siege of Preble." He pointed to the grisly pile on the tarpaulin. "All the rest of the boys are there. At least, the count's right. I didn't know all of them personally, so we'll have to double-check."
Demansk did some quick arithmetic. "And the other sixteen heads?" he asked, keeping any trace of disgust out of his voice. That would be hypocritical, leaving aside everything else. If the Islanders hadn't executed all of Casull's important relatives themselves, Demansk would have demanded it anyway. But he didn't have to like the business.
"The rest of Casull's family, those who matter. Male and female both-his wife, three uncles, a brother, two sisters, an aunt, and seven cousins. Casull relied on his family for his closest advisers and officials. I recognized all of them. And they included, for good measure, Princess Rafta. Not sure why, but probably because she was the only adult unmarried daughter. Four of his daughters are married to notables of one kind or another"-Thicelt pointed with his thumb toward the galley, his heavy lips in a half sneer-"who are probably among that pack of whipped curs, and are trying to keep their wives alive."
He scowled. "Stupid, that was. Rafta was unmarried because she was as near brainless as a person can get without having actual roots. She'd been kept secluded in the hareem her whole life."
"That leaves the youngest daughter unaccounted for," remarked Demansk. "Princess Jirri, if I remember right."
The officer who'd led the boarding party cleared his throat. "I think she's probably on the galley, Triumvir. If she's about fifteen years old, there's a girl that age-very finely dressed-in the lot. And looking about as scared as I've ever seen a girl look without breaking into actual tears."
Demansk sighed. "Well, we can put a stop to that, at least. Have the delegation brought on board, Sharlz, if you would." He gave the small crowd on the galley a quick examination. "There are too many of them to fit in my cabin, so we'll have to do the negotiations right here on deck."