Hell's Foundations Quiver (114 page)

Thirsk wheeled back around to face him and saw the other truth Maik had left unsaid in the bishop's eyes.

Well, it's only fair that I should face Clyntahn's rage right along with them, I suppose
.
I
am
the one who sent them to deliver his prisoners to him. And I'm also the one who argued against surrendering our
first
Charisian prisoners to him. I'm sure all the rest of the Navy's heard about that, and I don't suppose it's very surprising the bastard thinks
I
was the one who convinced the Royal Council to suggest we turn
this
lot of them over. Hell, if I'd had the guts for it, I
should
have been the one who suggested it! But either way, I'm sure my initial resistance to handing over his proper prey affected the rest of the fleet. That's going to be
his
conclusion, anyway. No doubt it contributed to the moral rot that led my galleon captains to strike their colors when no more than three-quarters of their people had already been killed!

A shiver of cold terror went through him, not for himself—although the thought of facing Zhaspahr Clyntahn's enmity was enough to terrify any rational man—but for his daughters and his grandchildren. It shamed him to realize he felt more fear for them than for the survivors of the prisoner convoy, but he wasn't prepared to lie to himself about that. And the worst of it—the pure, unmitigated
hell
of it—was that despite everything, he was immensely relieved the Charisians had escaped. The fresh, savage defeat they'd handed his Navy was something else entirely, yet even there he felt a sense of something almost like … gratitude. That defeat had been so total—the toll in dead, wounded, and lost ships so high—that even Zhaspahr Clyntahn might recognize the odds against which his men had fought.

*   *   *

“And I want every one of those surviving ‘officers' here in Zion to be sifted, Wyllym!” Zhaspahr Clyntahn snapped. “
Every
one of them, you understand?”

“According to Bishop Staiphan's report—and the senior Pasqualate in Gorath concurs—moving some of them would probably kill them, Your Grace,” Wyllym Rayno replied.

The Archbishop of Chiang-wu stood in his familiar position, hands tucked into the sleeves of his cassock as he faced Clyntahn across the Grand Inquisitor's massive, gleaming desk. The mystic, ever-changing murals of Clyntahn's office showed a snowy winter mountainside today, and as the Grand Inquisitor's fiery glare enveloped him, Rayno found himself wishing he actually was on a mountainside somewhere far, far away from Zion.

“And what makes you think I give a flying fuck if the ‘gallant' bastards drop dead on the trip?” his superior snapped. “That son-of-a-bitch Sarmouth would've done us all a favor if he'd just cut their throats and dropped them overboard like he probably did to our Inquisitors!” Clyntahn's fury when he perused Sir Dunkyn Yairley's letter to Earl Thirsk had been truly monumental. “I don't give a good goddamn how many of them survive their little journey!”

“Your Grace, that decision is up to you. I merely offered it as a point of information. At the same time, perhaps I should also point out that, should they die en route to Zion, there will be no opportunity to question them and compare their accounts to one another in order to detect any discrepancies.”

Clyntahn's nostrils flared, but he made himself sit back in his chair and consider Rayno's argument—if that was what it was—for several fuming seconds. Then he nodded.

“Point taken.” The words might have been bitten out of a slab of granite, yet they were at least a little calmer and he inhaled sharply. “Consult with the healers. I want them here, but you're right; I want them here
alive
.”

“Of course, Your Grace. How would you wish to have them transported?”

“Not aboard a frigging
Dohlaran
galleon, that's for damned sure! The useless piece of crap would probably sink halfway here. And if
that
didn't happen to it, no doubt more of the Shan-wei-damned heretic galleons the Dohlarans are too fucking stupid to know are out there would swoop down and capture
it
, too!”

Rayno nodded and forbore to mention that the Inquisition had been as firmly convinced as anyone in Dohlar that the five galleons Thirsk had assigned to escort the prisoners would be fully adequate to the task. Clyntahn himself had approved the transport plans … and that, too, was something it would be … impolitic to bring up.

“If not aboard a Dohlaran vessel, then how, Your Grace? We could move them overland, but it would almost certainly be faster—and easier on the wounded—to move them by sea.”

“Allayn must have at least one or two galleons of his own left,” Clyntahn growled.

“I can certainly look into that possibility, Your Grace,” Rayno said.

In fact, virtually all of the Navy of God's surviving galleons had been transferred to the Royal Dohlaran Navy or Imperial Harchongese Navy once the Sword of Schueler had forced Maigwair to concentrate his full attention on raising, training, and equipping the
Army
of God. That was probably another of those small matters with which it would be wiser not to burden the Grand Inquisitor at the moment, however.

“And then there's that bastard Thirsk,” Clyntahn growled. One meaty fist smacked down on his desktop. “Don't think for a moment I don't know who to thank for the defeatism that led those
gallant heroes
to surrender Mother Church's prisoners back to the heretics! And turn over consecrated priests of God for murder, as well!” The Grand Inquisitor's face darkened again. “I'll bet every frigging officer in the entire Royal Dohlaran Navy knows Thirsk never wanted those heretical sons-of-bitches handed over to us in the first place! No wonder they gave up so easily!”

A casualty rate of over seventy percent didn't exactly strike Wyllym Rayno as giving up “so easily,” but that was yet another point it would be wiser to leave unmade. And in fairness to Clyntahn's ire, those casualties had been suffered by the escorting galleons, not the transport crews who'd actually handed the captured heretics back to their friends. Of course, exactly what else they'd been supposed to do when they found themselves outnumbered seven- or eight-to-one by heavy galleons was a bit of a puzzle. He knew what
Clyntahn
thought they should have done, but Rayno was realist enough to know it was far easier to exhort someone else to die in Mother Church's name from the comfort of a Temple office than it was to face that cold, grim reality one's self.

And whether or not they acted reasonably is really beside the point, isn't it, Wyllym? The
point
is that examples must be made, especially when so many of God's faithful are beginning to … question the inevitability of Mother Church's victory. Which brings up another rather delicate consideration
.

“Your Grace, while I agree with you entirely about the no doubt unfortunate consequences stemming from the example of Earl Thirsk's intransigence on this question, there is one other point which must, perhaps, be considered.”

Clyntahn glared at him. He recognized that calm, reasonable tone and knew he wasn't going to like whatever Rayno was about to say. He considered simply refusing to let the archbishop say it. Tempting as that was, however, he also knew Rayno was the only man in the entire Office of the Inquisition who was even remotely willing to risk his temper by telling him something Rayno believed he needed to hear whether he
wanted
to hear it or not.

“And that point would be what, precisely, Wyllym?” he asked acidly after a moment.

“The Kaudzhu Narrows, Your Grace.” Rayno bent his head in a slight bow, then straightened. “I'm afraid many of the Faithful still see that battle as Mother Church's one clear, unambiguous victory out of this entire year,” he reminded his superior in a careful tone. “To move precipitously against the admiral they believe produced that victory might cause questions and … uncertainty on their part. I fear that hasn't changed since the last time we discussed this matter.”

“I am
so
sick and tired of hearing about how ‘irreplaceable' that miserable, motherless Dohlaran bastard is.”

Clyntahn's almost conversational tone was far more frightening to Wyllym Rayno than his customary choleric ranting. But the Grand Inquisitor inhaled sharply and shook himself.

“On the other hand, that's a valid point,” he acknowledged. “And not just about Thirsk, for that matter, damn it. If we drag those other bastards in and give them to the Punishment for their failure, it's likely to raise some of those same questions, isn't it? After all, they're in the same frigging navy's
he's
in, so that makes all of them Shan-wei-damned
heroes
, too, doesn't it?”

“Possibly, Your Grace. Perhaps not as much as it would in Thirsk's case, but the possibility should probably be considered.”

Clyntahn's jaw clenched, yet once again he made himself sit silently for several seconds, thinking about it.

“All right,” he said then. “First, I want you to draft a message to Archbishop Trumahn, Bishop Executor Wylsynn, Father Ahbsahlahn, and Bishop Staiphan. Inform them that I've determined that it's more important Mother Church's justice be truly just in this case than that it be as swift as possible. Tell them I've further determined that, given the serious wounds suffered by so many of the convoy escort's officers and men, it would be wisest to wait until all of them are fit to travel before sending any of them to Zion. I'm authorizing Father Ahbsahlahn and Bishop Staiphan to take statements from all of the survivors and begin compiling a comprehensive report on this debacle immediately, and I have no intention of acting until I've received that report.”

Despite decades of experience, Rayno felt his eyebrows rising, and Clyntahn grunted a harsh, humorless laugh.

“I'm not giving them a pass, Wyllym, whatever they may think when they hear about my instructions. They
will
answer for this—fully, right here in the Plaza of Martyrs—but you're right. Given how important the Kaudzhu Narrows battle's proving in the struggle to sustain the hearts and minds of Mother Church's children, it would be wiser to … delay the day of accounting, shall we say? It's clear enough Allayn and Rainbow Waters are determined to dig in where they are for the winter, so we're unlikely to see any stirring victories before spring. The Kaudzhu Narrows may be the only thing we have to keep the Faithful's hearts warm over the winter. There'll be time enough to settle with these useless excuses for naval officers after we've taken the field next spring and kicked the heretics' arses on land for a change. In fact, I want you to spend some of that winter quietly putting the pieces in place for Thirsk to accompany his loyal subordinates to Zion next summer. I've got a ledger entry or two to settle with
him
, too.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” Rayno bowed again. “I'm sure the Office of Inquisition can develop the evidence to justify moving against him at a … more propitious time.”

“Yes, but I don't trust that slippery little prick,” Clyntahn growled. “He's too damned good at surviving, and he and
General
Ahlverez—” the Grand Inquisitor's tone made the rank title an obscenity “—seem to be getting a little too friendly for my taste. I'm not convinced the pair of them haven't been looking over their shoulders at Desnair and thinking about how the Desnairians are running for the exit. I think Thirsk would love to do the same thing with Dohlar, and given how badly Ahlverez fucked up by the numbers in the South March, Thirsk might well be able to convince him to go along with the idea!”

“Perhaps he might, Your Grace. But he
is
just an earl, and one with enemies of his own on the Royal Council.”

“We've just decided he's also such a successful admiral and so frigging important we can't simply order him to Zion,” the Grand Inquisitor pointed out icily. “If that's true for us here in Zion, don't you think it might also have a little bearing on how much … influence he might wield in Dohlar?”

Personally, Rayno strongly doubted Earl Thirsk was likely to succeed in convincing even his own strongest supporters, like the Duke of Fern, to form some sort of cabal opposed to Mother Church's commands. As for the Duke of Thorast or
his
political allies, Thirsk would have a hard time convincing
them
water was wet! Still, the archbishop wasn't prepared to completely rule out the possibility Clyntahn seemed to be suggesting.

“Is there some measure you'd like me to take to discourage any disaffection on Earl Thirsk's part, Your Grace?”

“Yes, there is.” Clyntahn smiled thinly. “I believe it's time we invited the Earl's daughters to make their pilgrimage to the Temple.”

 

.III.

Claw Island, Sea of Harchong

Guns thudded in salute, wreathing Claw Island's barren, sun-scorched hillsides in gunsmoke as the four galleons ghosted out of North Channel and into the waters of Hardship Bay. The protective berms of the onetime Dohlaran batteries, captured when Claw Island was retaken from the Royal Dohlaran Navy, were lined with wildly cheering Marines and Imperial Charisian Navy seamen, and seabirds and wyverns eddied about the heavens, crying out in protest of the hullabaloo rising from the island's human occupants.

Sir Lewk Cohlmyn, the Earl of Sharpfield, stood on the platform of one of the waterfront observation towers, gazing through his double-glass. He'd stood there for the past two hours as the tall, weather-stained pyramids of canvas resolved themselves into individual sails and the ships beneath them. Now they were close enough he could pick out individual men on their decks, see the rows of topmen spaced out along their yards. A slow, thundering salute to his own admiral's streamer rippled from the lead galleon, HMS
Vindicator
, and a fresh wave of cheers roared up from the crowds of men gathered along the harbor seawall to welcome her home.