Hell's Foundations Quiver (113 page)

He never heard the single pistol shot from behind him.

“Fuck you, Father,” Rubyn Mychysyn said flatly as the pistol smoke eddied away on the stiff breeze. He gazed at the shattered ruin of Tymythy Maikyn's skull for a moment, then flipped the pistol over the rail and stepped closer to
Prodigal Lass
' stern lantern, standing with his hands where they could be clearly seen.

*   *   *

Horayshyo Vahrnay stared uselessly through the thick, stinking blackness of his prison. Even if he'd had both eyes, he would have been able to see nothing. Like every other prisoner chained to that filthy deck, all he could do was listen, try to discern what was happening by ear alone.

There were no more broadsides, no more explosions, and surely that had to be a good sign. But he and his men had endured too much at Tymythy Maikyn's hands to feel optimism. Whatever else he might be, the Schuelerite was as savage a fanatic as the Inquisition had ever produced, and he was already under sentence of death if he fell into Charisian hands. If he was in a position to—

Something exploded overhead. The solid deck muffled the noise, but it sounded like a pistol or a rifle, and Vahrnay felt his belly muscles tightening as he tried to understand what had happened. In that moment, he felt even more helpless than he had when he and his men were first chained here. They were so close, rescue was so near, but if their captors decided—

Something slammed into the ship, driving alongside in a grinding thunder of planking that shook
Prodigal Lass
to her keel. The entire ship staggered, and then there was the thunder of feet overhead, rushing across the deck. Dozens of feet—
scores
of them!

And then there was a single voice, a
Charisian
voice that shouted only four words:

“The Navy's here, lads!”

By rights, Horayshyo Vahrnay thought later, they should have heard the cheers from
Prodigal Lass
' hold all the way home in Tellesberg.

 

.II.

HMS
Chihiro
, 50, Gorath Bay, Kingdom of Dohlar, and The Temple, City of Zion, The Temple Lands

“—and I have the honor to remain His Majesty's most humble and obedient servant, et cetera, et cetera,” Lywys Gardynyr finished, tipped back in his chair while Mahrtyn Vahnwyk's pen skittered across the sheet of paper in front of him. It was late, and the two of them had been working since mid-afternoon. The lamps hanging from the deckhead cast a mellow light over his day cabin and a well-earned half-empty glass of whiskey sat at the earl's elbow. He waited until Vahnwyk had finished writing, then let his chair come upright and leaned forward over his desk with his forearms on the blotter.

“Read that back, please,” he said, closing his eyes to concentrate as he listened.

“Of course, My Lord.”

Vahnwyk found the first sheet of the lengthy report and cleared his throat.

“From Lywys Gardynyr, Earl of Thirsk, aboard His Majesty's Ship
Chihiro
, lying in Gorath Bay, this Ninth Day of September, Year of God Eight Hundred and Ninety-Seven, to His Grace the Duke of Fern. Greetings. Pursuant to your request, I write to inform you of the conclusions my officers and I have drawn from our examination of the captured ironclad now lying in Gorath Bay. I fear that even the most cursory analysis must suggest that—”

Someone knocked sharply on the cabin door's frame.

Thirsk's eyes popped open in an instant scowl of irritation, but the irritation changed almost as quickly into something much closer to concern as he saw Commander Ahlvyn Khapahr standing in the open doorway and Khapahr's expression registered.

“I beg pardon for interrupting, My Lord.”

“Somehow I doubt you would have interrupted unless it was important, Ahlvyn.” Thirsk smiled faintly. “This is your poker night aboard
Courageous
, I believe.”

His sally drew no answering smile from Khapahr, and the earl straightened in his chair.

“Very well, Ahlvyn. What brings you here?”

“The guard boat reports that a vessel has just entered harbor, My Lord,” Khapahr said, meeting his eyes very levelly across the desk. “It's
Prodigal Lass
.”

*   *   *

“What sort of repercussions is this likely to have for young Mychysyn and the others, My Lord?”

It was morning. The early sunlight sent bright lines dancing across the overhead as it bounced off the harbor water and reflected through the stern windows, and more sunlight poured down through the cabin skylight. Earl Thirsk stood, leaning one shoulder against the bulkhead with his arms crossed as he faced Bishop Staiphan Maik. He'd been up most of the night, and his eyes were bloodshot and his voice was harsh with more than simple fatigue.

“I can't answer that yet, Lywys.” Maik sat in one of the earl's armchairs, hair gleaming like true silver in the sunlight, but his normally lively brown eyes were grim and his expression was somber. “It's too early to say. The first semaphore messages will only have reached Zion an hour or so ago. I'm sure the Grand Inquisitor is … considering them even as we speak, but you know as much as I do about how the Inquisition is likely to react.”

Thirsk started to snap out a reply to that, his own expression angry. But he stopped himself. Partly from prudence, but mostly because Staiphan Maik wasn't the person who'd awakened that anger. So instead of venting his temper on the auxiliary bishop he straightened and made himself take a quick turn around the cabin. He stopped when he reached the stern windows, then stood staring out across the harbor's wind-ruffled water at the anchored
Prodigal Lass
.

The merchant galleon lay to her anchor like a plague ship, guarded by no less than three armed launches, all flying the golden scepter of the Church of God Awaiting and not the banner of the Royal Dohlaran Navy. Each of those launches had a swivel-mounted nine-pounder in its bows, and they rowed constantly, steadily, circling the anchored vessel like hungry krakens.

At least they let us send the wounded ashore
, he reminded himself.
Surely that has to be at least a hopeful sign!

He closed his eyes, resting his forehead lightly against the window glass, remembering the look on Rubyn Mychysyn's face as he'd presented his verbal report. Mychysyn was a year younger than Urwyn Guhstahvsyn, but he'd held his rank six months longer, which made him the senior unwounded officer from the entire convoy. Zhorj Kurnau would live, although he lost both legs at the knee. The healers were less confident about Sir Lywys Audhaimyr's survival, and Thirsk wondered if it might not be more merciful of them to grant him Pasquale's Grace rather than put him through the long, drawn-out suffering of recovery only to deliver him to the Inquisition.

Stop that! You don't
know
the Inquisition's going to hold them responsible for what happened. After all, they
aren't
the ones who're responsible. If anyone is, it's
you,
Lywys. You should have sent a bigger escort. No doubt that butcher Clyntahn's going to think so, anyway!

He made himself take a deep breath and accept that possibility. No reasonable person could fault him for his decision, but “reasonable person” and “Zhaspahr Clyntahn” were words that didn't belong in the same sentence with one another. It wasn't likely to matter to Clyntahn that there'd been not one single reported sighting of a Charisian galleon after the Battle of the Kaudzhu Narrows.
Not one
. Five galleons ought to have been a case of gross overkill for any of the handful of Charisian schooners which might still have been prowling about the Gulf of Dohlar! For that matter, the Inquisition had seen and approved his orders for the prison transport because
they'd
thought they were more than sufficient, as well. They'd been as wrong about that as he'd been, but how in Langhorne's name could even the
Charisian
Navy have found no less than fifteen galleons—that was Mychysyn's minimum estimate—and sent them
fifteen hundred
miles from Talisman Island so soon after the battle? And even if they'd had the ships, how could they have intercepted the prisoner convoy so perfectly, under cover of night when the escorts never even saw them coming? Lywys Gardynyr had been a seaman for his entire life, and he knew—
knew
—how impossible that was. Yet somehow the Charisians had done it, and there was going to be Shan-wei to pay for it.

He knew that, too.

At least Fraidareck Chalkyr was unlikely to be called before the Inquisition for his part in this fiasco. Thirsk would have felt much better if he'd been more confident of that. Unfortunately, he wouldn't put it past Clyntahn to decide Chalkyr's failure to anticipate the squall which had damaged his ship was somehow an act of disloyalty to Mother Church. As for the officers who'd actually lost their ships—or, far worse, surrendered Mother Church's prisoners to the “heretics”.…

And I'm certain Sarmouth figured on that. He didn't have to return our people. In fact, it's been Charisian—and now Siddarmarkian—policy
not
to return them, and he didn't even try to extract a parole from them. Is he really coldblooded enough to send them home because he knows
exactly
how Clyntahn's going to regard them … and how the Navy's likely to react when the Inquisition punishes them for something
no one
could have prevented? His message says he sent them home for “humanitarian reasons,” but sometimes mercy can be deadlier than any sword, can't it? Especially when
Charis'
“mercy” gives Clyntahn a chance to display his own … or not.

Behind his closed eyes, he saw once more the letter from the Charisian baron. The one he'd given Captain Kurnau to deliver directly to Thirsk. The one which had driven a searing wave of humiliation through Thirsk … because it had contained nothing but the truth.

Their Majesty's Ship
Destiny
,

Malansath Bight off Dial Island,

September 1, 897.

To Lywys Gardynyr, Earl of Thirsk, greetings.

My Lord, I return to you the men and officers honorably surrendered to the vessels under my command after a most gallant defense.

They were unfortunate enough to be taken unaware in a night attack with no warning by a greatly superior force. Despite that surprise, they sought only to bring their ships into action as rapidly and effectively as possible. I commend to you especially the officers and men of
Saint Kylmahn
, who continued a courageous resistance even though Captain Bryxtyn must have been fully aware the day was irretrievably lost. I commend also Captain Audhaimyr and the men and officers of
Riptide
, who most gallantly attempted to bring their ship into action while actually under fire at very close range and abandoned their effort and their vessel only when she had taken fire and was heavily aflame.

Such gallantry, it seems to me, deserves better than to spend the next several years in a Charisian prison camp. The mission upon which they had been dispatched was as foul a blot upon the honor of the Kingdom of Dohlar as anyone might ever conceive, but they obeyed their orders with a courage and a devotion which must inspire respect from any adversary.

Since you and I are both fully aware that the human-shaped corruption calling itself Zhaspahr Clyntahn would never permit any paroled prisoner to honor the terms of his parole—indeed, that he would condemn anyone who
offered
parole to the Punishment—I have made no such request of your personnel. Perhaps we will meet them in battle again, but simple decency requires me to return them to you aboard
Prodigal Lass
. You will understand, I am certain, why neither Father Tymythy nor Father Ahndyr or any members of their staff are available to be returned.

It seems likely you and I will also meet in battle in the fullness of time, for there can be no peace between those who have given their souls and their swords to the Dark and those who serve the Light. I look forward to a just resolution under God of the many crimes which have been committed against the officers and men of the Charisian Navy and against every other Godfearing citizen of Safehold in the Group of Four's service. I do not think those who have chosen to serve Zhaspahr Clyntahn's foulness will enjoy that resolution.

Until that day, I remain—

Sir Dunkyn Yairley,

Baron Sarmouth,

Commanding Officer,

Their Majesties' Squadron in Dohlaran waters.

No fair-minded man could fault a single line in that letter. And no more deadly letter could have been written. He wanted to rail at Sarmouth for putting the contrast between the Imperial Charisian Navy's behavior and that of the Royal
Dohlaran
Navy into such stark and pitiless contrast, but he couldn't. Even knowing how every word of it must strike Zhaspahr Clyntahn like salt in an open wound, he couldn't.

He deserved it … and so did his Kingdom.

“It wasn't their fault, Staiphan,” he said softly, never turning from the windows, his eyes fixed on the single ship the Charisian commander had released to return his prisoners to Gorath. “It wasn't their fault, not outnumbered by four-to-one and taken by surprise in the middle of the night. Chihiro Himself couldn't have done any better—or fought any
harder
—than they did!”

“You don't have to tell
me
that, Lywys,” Maik said, equally quietly. “I know it already, and I've said as much in my own dispatches to the Bishop Executor, the Archbishop, and the Grand Inquisitor. The problem's going to be convincing
them
of that.”