A Mighty Fortress (92 page)

“Could they cut that interval by pulling men off the galleys, Bynzhamyn?” Gray Harbor asked, his eyes intent, and Wave Thunder shrugged.

“At the moment, they seem unwilling to give up the galleys,” he replied. “I don’t know how many of them have really accepted the primacy of the galleon—deep inside, I mean. When Yairley captured Commodore Wailahr back in November, he threw a rock into the gears, I think.”

“Dunkyn is good at that sort of thing,” Lock Island observed with a grin, and Rock Point snorted.

“That’s been my own impression,” Wave Thunder agreed. “But my point was that Wailahr, at least, seems flexible enough to grasp the way the equation has shifted, even if he is basically an army officer. Even more importantly, perhaps, he was one of the few Desnairian flag officers who I’d call truly offensive-minded. From my agents’ reports and what Merlin had to say in his last message to me, most of the rest of the Desnairian commodores and admirals are . . . less than eager to cross swords with us on blue water. And what happened to Wailahr probably hasn’t made the rest of them any more eager to emulate his exploits.”

“Harchong and the Temple Lands?” Lock Island asked, and Wave Thunder chuckled sourly.

“Without access to Merlin, I can’t really tell a thing about what’s happening that far away, Bryahn,” he pointed out. “I will say that most of the reports I
have
received indicate it’s been a particularly hard winter up there. They were already behind schedule, and I don’t expect all that ice and snow helped things any. Harchong, at least, isn’t quite as badly strapped for foundries as Desnair is. Still, they’re having a lot more trouble coming up with the artillery they need than we are, now that Ehdwyrd Howsmyn’s really hit his stride in Delthak. So even assuming they’ve got all their shipwrights back to work, it’s still going to be a while before they’re able to arm two hundred galleons. I doubt they’ll have them ready to go until late next spring or early next summer, to be honest.”

“And Tarot?” Rock Point asked. “And Tarot—and our good friend King Gorjah—are still up the proverbial creek full of krakens without a paddle,” Wave Thunder said with a wolfish smile. “He’s actually doing quite well when it comes to
building
the ships, but he’s completely and utterly screwed when it comes to
arming
them. And even with all of the Church’s subsidies, he’s having an awful time finding the funding to help what foundries he actually has expand their capacity to produce artillery.”

“That’s good,” Lock Island said with undisguised satisfaction, and Gray Harbor laughed.

“As a matter of fact, Bryahn, it’s considerably better than ‘good,’ ” the first councilor told him. Lock Island quirked an eyebrow, and Gray Harbor shrugged. “I suppose I can share this little tidbit with you, if I can share it with anyone, but I’ve established communications with Gorjah. As Her Majesty suggested before she departed for Chisholm, he realizes he’s caught between the doomwhale and the deep blue sea, and he doesn’t like it a bit. He’s being coy at the moment, not committing himself to anything. In fact, all he’s done basically is send a message back asking me what we have in mind while professing his own eternal loyalty to Mother Church. I imagine most of that is to cover his arse in case this should fall into the Church’s hands . . . not that it would be likely to do him much good in the end. Still, the fact that he’s gone even that far says a lot to me about just how desperate—and frustrated, I’d guess—he’s feeling about now.”

“Do you really think you can trust him to turn his coat back the other way—and stay turned?” Lock Island sounded skeptical, and Gray Harbor shrugged.

“All the evidence, including Merlin’s visions, suggests that Gorjah was more guilty of opportunism—and, of course, obeying the Group of Four’s orders—than a fundamental enemy, like Hektor. Oh,” the first councilor shrugged again, waving one hand, “we’ve always known he resented that treaty his father signed, so I’m not suggesting he participated as reluctantly as Her Majesty did. For that matter, I’m not pretending he was
reluctant
at all, once he realized what the Group of Four was promising him. But I don’t think his malice ran anywhere near as deep as Hektor’s did. Or King Rahnyld’s, for that matter. And what ever he may have been thinking then, at this point he’s a sadder, wiser man.”

“Another Nahrmahn?” Lock Island sounded even more skeptical, if possible. “No.” Gray Harbor shook his head. “I think we’d all underestimated just how seriously Nahrmahn took his responsibilities to Emerald. I don’t think Gorjah is anywhere near that selfless—for example, I don’t see him sending Pine Hollow to negotiate with us, even realizing Cayleb might have demanded his own head as the price of any peace treaty. But he’s not as frivolous as, say, Rahnyld or Emperor Waisu, either. Or, God help us all, Zebediah!”

For a moment, the dapper first councilor looked like he was going to spit on the balcony’s floor. Instead, he settled for a sound that was half growl and half snarl, then gave himself a shake.

“My point is that I’m pretty sure he realizes his position is hopeless if we decide to move against him. By the time Cayleb and Sharleyan get home, I think our friend Gorjah will be just about ripe for a little pointed negotiating.”

“But in the meantime, I assume, you need Domynyk and me to keep the pressure on him?”

“Definitely!” Gray Harbor nodded vigorously. “We especially need to keep the Tarot Channel closed, not just blockade Thol Bay. I don’t want Emperor Mahrys being able to ship in troops to reinforce Gorjah’s own army.”

“You really think Gorjah would ask for that?” Rock Point asked dubiously, and Gray Harbor’s raised hand made a back and forth so- so motion.

“I doubt he’d make the request willingly, given how much effort previous Desnairian emperors have invested in attempts to add Tarot to their empire. On the other hand, he might feel he has no choice, especially if he’s scared enough of the Group of Four. For that matter, the Group of Four might ‘suggest’ the same thing any day now. More to the point, though, I want to crank up the pressure. I want him to realize that even if he
wanted
to call in Desnairian support, it couldn’t get there. The Channel’s less than four hundred miles wide. I want him thinking about the fact Desnair can’t get transports across even that piddling distance.”

“You want him feeling even more isolated,” Rock Point said, and Gray Harbor nodded again.

“Exactly. And I also don’t want some clever soul in Siddarmark deciding he can sneak small, fast coasters across the Channel to run our blockade with any of the goods Tarot needs. I want that blockade to
hurt,
not leak.”

“So what we’re really saying here,” Lock Island mused, “is that our current dispositions only need a little adjustment.”

He gazed back out across The Throat for a few moments, then looked at Rock Point.

“How comfortable would you be shifting your anchorage from Hanth Town to Holme Reach?”

Rock Point’s eyebrows rose at the question. He started to respond quickly, then stopped and examined the possibility more carefully.

“I hadn’t really considered it,” he said slowly. “But now that you’ve asked, I don’t see any reason we couldn’t. Yairley already has his squadron based there, after all, and so far there’s been damn- all Gorjah—or WhiteFord—can do about it. Be a bit . . . audacious, though. Or maybe the word I’m looking for is ‘insolent.’ ”

“Perfect!” Gray Harbor chortled. “Oh, that’s
perfect,
Bryahn! Gorjah will burst a blood vessel! And when
Clyntahn
hears about it—!”

Rock Point understood the first councilor’s glee. Having a single small squadron occasionally visit your home waters without invitation was one thing; moving in with an entire hostile fleet and daring you to do something about it was quite another. Gorjah would, indeed, as Gray Harbor had so inelegantly put it, “burst a blood vessel” at the news.

And, the admiral thought, there
wouldn’t
be anything he could do about it, either. Holme Reach measured a hundred and sixty miles, north to south, and a good hundred miles, east to west, and the water off the east coast of Hourglass Island was shallow enough, and the bottom was sandy enough, to offer a good anchorage. That far from the mainland of Tarot, nothing but another fleet could possibly threaten them, and Gorjah of Tarot didn’t
have
a fleet anymore.

It still wouldn’t be perfect, although Hourglass would offer shelter against the occasional westerly that could turn the reach into one of the most treacherous bodies of water on the face of Safehold. The one real drawback—aside from the fact that every bit of the reach’s coastline was controlled by the Kingdom of Tarot—was what a sufficiently powerful
south
westerly could do. Any ships in the reach could probably find shelter behind Hourglass or Sprout Island even with the wind dead out of the southwest, but working a galleon out of the reach against a southwesterly would be a slow and laborious process, at best. Still, it was unlikely he’d find himself actually trapped inside it.

Especially,
he thought,
since, unlike Dunkyn, I’ll have Owl for reconnaissance and weather forecasts
.

“I wouldn’t suggest it if Gorjah still had a navy,” Lock Island said, obviously following Rock Point’s own thoughts (or most of them, at any rate). “In those waters, even a galley fleet could make things tricky. But I’m confident you’d have the firepower to handle anything he could throw at you out of his present resources.”

“I agree.” Rock Point nodded crisply. “And it would put me in a lot better position to cover the Tarot Channel. For that matter, I’d be better placed to meet any Desnairian attempt to get a squadron or two from the Gulf of Jahras to Tarot. It wouldn’t be perfect, but I’d be three thousand miles closer than I am now. Which would also put me between any effort to combine the Desnairian and Temple Lands squadrons by sneaking along the Haven coast.”

“But you’d be a lot farther from Margaret Bay,” Wave Thunder pointed out.

“Unless the Temple Lands are much further along than your reports are suggesting, that won’t be a problem,” Lock Island replied. “What we’re talking about right now is what Desnair and Tarot have, and Domynyk could hold his own against both of them combined—at this point—if he had to. And we need a base closer to Tranjyr if we’re going to make Rayjhis’ point to Gorjah.”

“I agree,” the first councilor said firmly. “Very well, then, Domynyk. Once you’ve finished your little face- to- face conversation with Ahlfryd and Dr. Mahklyn, I want you to go ahead and arrange the movement. I’ll pry loose a couple of battalions of Marines and some artillery, too. If we’re going to base you in Holme Reach, let’s go ahead and put in a couple of defensive batteries and make Dunkyn’s little vegetable patches on Hourglass permanent.” He smiled nastily. “I imagine that will
really
piss Gorjah off.”

King’s Harbor Citadel,

Helen Island,

Howell Bay,

Kingdom of Old Charis

From Baron Seamount’s office window, looking down from the citadel across the anchorage, Admiral Rock Point’s flagship looked like a child’s toy. Or, better, like a perfectly detailed model. HMS
Destroyer
lay to her anchor, awnings spread above her decks against the sun’s heat, and he saw one of her boats pulling steadily about her in a circle. Rock Point recognized Captain Tymythy Darys’ barge, and his lips twitched on the edge of a smile. Darys loved his galleon, but he was never
quite
satisfied with her trim. He never missed the opportunity to study her when she lay still, considering whether he should shift ballast to bring her up an inch or two by the bow or, conversely, to increase her draft forward.

He shook his head, then turned back from the window to face Sir Ahlfryd Hyndryk. The commodore sat behind his desk, in front of the expanse of chalk-covered slate with which he’d had his office paneled. As always, the diagrams and calculations sprawling across that slate—and the notes he’d jotted there to remind himself of various things—were fascinating, but Rock Point kept his attention resolutely focused on the baron himself.

At the moment, another naval officer stood at one end of Seamount’s desk. Commander Urvyn Mahndrayn was about eight years younger than Rock Point himself and thin as a ferret. In fact, even though he had only four limbs, instead of six, and black hair, instead of a ferret’s scaled hide, a ferret was what Mahndrayn had always reminded him of. He had that same almost frightening abundance of energy, and he was an equally relentless hunter. True, his quarry tended to be ideas, not spider- rats, but once he got his teeth into his prey, there was no getting him to back off until he was victorious.

That made him the almost perfect assistant for Seamount. Unfortunately, he was just as eager to get Seamount’s concepts into ser vice as the commodore himself, which meant....
Bryahn, you coward,
Rock Point thought at the absent high admiral.
“Can’t spare the time away from the fleet,” my arse! The
real
reason you sent me to drop Rayjhis off in Tellesberg instead of doing it yourself was that you didn’t want to face Ahlfryd. So you dumped it on me
. He snorted.
Don’t think I’m going to forget it, either. Somehow, some way, you’ll pay. Trust me, you’ll pay!

“The High Admiral and I have read your reports with a great deal of interest, Ahlfryd,” he said now. “We’ve been impressed, as always. And”— he nodded in Mahndrayn’s direction—“with the Commander’s contributions, as well.”

“Good! I’m glad to hear it.” Seamount beamed, although Rock Point had the impression he was even more pleased at having Mahndrayn singled out for praise.