How Firm a Foundation (9 page)

“Cut the cables!”

The axes flashed. It took more
than one blow to sever a cable six inches in diameter, but Kwayle and Symmyns were both powerfully muscled and only too well aware of the stakes this day. They managed it in no more than two or three blows each, and the freed hawsers went whipping out of the hawseholes like angry serpents at virtually the same moment.

Destiny
fell off the wind almost instantly, leaning over to starboard as her
stern came round to larboard. It was working, and—

Then the spring parted.

Yairley felt the twanging shock as the line snapped, simply overpowered by the force of the sea striking the ship. She hadn’t turned remotely far enough yet, and the sea took her, driving her towards the rocky beach waiting to devour her. For a moment, just an instant, Yairley’s brain froze. He felt his ship rolling madly,
starting to drive stern-first towards destruction, and knew there was nothing he could do about it.

Yet even as that realization hammered through him, he heard someone else snapping orders in a preposterously level voice which sounded remarkably like his own.

“Let fall fore topsail and course! Up fore topmast staysail!”

The crewmen who’d realized just as well as their captain that their ship
was about to die didn’t even hesitate as the bone-deep discipline of the Imperial Charisian Navy’s ruthless drills and training took them by the throat, instead. They simply obeyed, and the fore topsail and course fell, and the topmast staysail rose, flapping and thundering on the wind.

“Sheet home!
Weather
braces haul! Back topsail and course!”

That was the critical moment, Yairley realized
later. His entire ship’s company had been anticipating the order to haul taut the
lee
braces, trimming the yards around to take the wind as the ship turned. That was what they’d been focused on, but now he was
backing
the sails; trimming them to take the wind from directly ahead, instead. Any hesitation, any confusion in the wake of the unexpected change in orders, would have been fatal, but
Destiny
’s crew never faltered.

The yards shifted, the sails pressed back against the mast, and
Destiny
began moving through the water—not forward, but
astern
—while the sudden pressure drove her head still further round to starboard.

Destiny
backed around on her heel—slowly, clumsily canvas volleying and thundering, spray everywhere, the deck lurching underfoot. She wallowed drunkenly from side
to side, but she was moving astern even as she drifted rapidly towards the beach. Sir Dunkyn Yairley had imposed his will upon his ship, and he stared up at the masthead weathervane, waiting, praying his improvised anchor hadn’t been fouled, judging his moment.

And then—

“Let fall the mizzen topsail!” he shouted the moment the wind came abaft the starboard beam at last. “Starboard your helm!
Off forward braces! Off fore topmast staysail sheets!
Lee
braces haul! Brace up! Shift the fore topmast staysail! Let fall main topsail and main course! Sheet home! Main topsail and course braces haul!”

The orders came with metronome precision, as if he’d practiced this exact maneuver a hundred times before, drilled his crew in it daily. The mizzen topsail filled immediately, arresting the ship’s
sternward movement, and the forward square sails and fore topmast staysail were trimmed round. Then the main topsail and main course blossomed, as well, and suddenly
Destiny
was moving steadily, confidently, surging through the confused seas on the larboard tack with torrents of spray bursting above her bow. As she gathered way, the floating tubs of her improvised rudder settled back into their
designed positions, and she answered the helm with steadily increasing obedience.

“
Done
it, lads!” someone shouted. “Three cheers for the Captain!”

HMS
Destiny
was a warship of the Imperial Charisian Navy, and the ICN had standards of discipline and professionalism other navies could only envy. Discipline and professionalism which, for just an instant, vanished into wild, braying cheers and
whistles as their ship forged towards safety.

Sir Dunkyn Yairley rounded on his ship’s company, his expression thunderous, but he found himself face-to-face with a broadly grinning first lieutenant and an ensign who was capering on deck and snapping the fingers of both hands.

“And what sort of an example is
this,
Master Lathyk?! Master Aplyn-Ahrmahk?!” the captain barked.

“Not a very good one,
I’m afraid, Sir,” Lathyk replied. “And I beg your pardon for it. I’ll sort the men out shortly, too, Sir, I promise. But for now, let them cheer, Sir! They deserve it. By
God,
they deserve it!”

He met Yairley’s eyes steadily, and the captain felt his immediate ire ease just a bit as the realization of what they’d just accomplished began to sink into
him,
as well.

“I had the quartermaster of
the watch time it, Sir,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk said, and Yairley looked at him. The ensign had stopped capering about like a demented monkey-lizard, but he was still grinning like a lunatic.

“Three minutes!” the young man said. “Three
minutes—
that’s how long it took you, Sir!”

Aplyn-Ahrmahk’s eyes gleamed with admiration, and Yairley gazed back at him for a moment, then, almost against his will, he
laughed.

“Three minutes you say, Master Aplyn-Ahrmahk?” He shook his head. “I fear you’re wrong about that. I assure you from my own personal experience that it took at least three
hours
.”

MARCH,
YEAR OF GOD 895

.I.

Ehdwyrd Howsmyn’s foundry, Earldom of High Rock, Kingdom of Old Charis

The blast furnace screamed, belching incandescent fury against the night, and the sharpness of coal smoke blended with the smell of hot iron, sweat, and at least a thousand other smells Father Paityr Wylsynn couldn’t begin to identify. The mingled scent of purpose and industry hung heavy in the humid air, catching lightly
at the back of his throat even through the panes of glass.

He stood gazing out Ehdwyrd Howsmyn’s office window into the hot summer darkness and wondered how he’d come here. Not just the trip to this office, but to
why
he was here … and to what was happening inside his own mind and soul.

“A glass of wine, Father?” Howsmyn asked from behind him, and the priest turned from the window.

“Yes, thank
you,” he agreed with a smile.

For all his incredible (and steadily growing) wealth, Howsmyn preferred to dispense with servants whenever possible, and the young intendant watched him pour with his own hands. The ironmaster extended one of the glasses to his guest, then joined him beside the window, looking out over the huge sprawl of the largest ironworks in the entire world.

It was, Wylsynn
admitted, an awesome sight. The furnace closest to the window (and it wasn’t actually all
that
close, he acknowledged) was only one of dozens. They fumed and smoked like so many volcanoes, and when he looked to his right he could see a flood of molten iron, glowing with a white heart of fury, flowing from a furnace which had just been tapped. The glare of the fuming iron lit the faces of the workers
tending the furnace, turning them into demon helpers from the forge of Shan-wei herself as the incandescent river poured into the waiting molds.

Howsmyn’s Delthak foundries never slept. Even as Wylsynn watched, draft dragons hauled huge wagons piled with coke and iron ore and crushed limestone along the iron rails Howsmyn had laid down, and the rhythmic thud and clang of water-powered drop hammers
seemed to vibrate in his own blood and bone. When he looked to the east, he could see the glow of the lampposts lining the road all the way to Port Ithmyn, the harbor city the man who’d become known throughout Safehold as “The Ironmaster of Charis” had built on the west shore of Lake Ithmyn expressly to serve his complex. Port Ithmyn was over four miles away, invisible with distance, yet Wylsynn
could picture the lanterns and torches illuminating its never-silent waterfront without any difficulty at all.

If Clyntahn could see this he’d die of sheer apoplexy
, Wylsynn reflected, and despite his own internal doubts—or possibly even because of them—the thought gave him intense satisfaction. Still.…

“I can hardly believe all you’ve accomplished, Master Howsmyn,” he said, waving his wineglass
at everything beyond the window. “All this out of nothing but empty ground just five years ago.” He shook his head. “You Charisians have done a lot of amazing things, but I think this is possibly the most amazing of all.”

“It wasn’t quite ‘nothing but empty ground,’ Father,” Howsmyn disagreed. “Oh,” he grinned, “it wasn’t a lot
more
than empty ground, that’s true, but there was the village here.
And the fishing village at Port Ithmyn. Still, I’ll grant your point, and God knows I’ve plowed enough marks back into the soil, as it were.”

Wylsynn nodded, accepting the minor correction. Then he sighed and turned to face his host squarely.

“Of course, I suspect the Grand Inquisitor would have a few things to say if
he
could see it,” he said. “Which is rather the point of my visit.”

“Of course
it is, Father,” Howsmyn said calmly. “I haven’t added anything beyond those things you and I have discussed, but you’d be derelict in your duties if you didn’t reassure yourself of that. I think it’s probably too late to carry out any inspections tonight, but tomorrow morning we’ll look at anything you want to see. I would ask you to take a guide—there are some hazardous processes out there,
and I’d hate to accidentally incinerate the Archbishop’s Intendant—but you’re perfectly welcome to decide for yourself what you want to look at or examine, or which of my supervisors or shift workers you’d care to interview.” He inclined his head in a gesture which wasn’t quite a bow. “You’ve been nothing but courteous and conscientious under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, Father. I can’t
ask for more than that.”

“I’m glad you think so. On the other hand, I have to admit there are times I wonder—worry about—the slash lizard you’ve saddled here.” Wylsynn waved his glass at the fire-lit night beyond the window once more. “I know nothing you’ve done violates the Proscriptions, yet the sheer scale of your effort, and the … innovative way you’ve applied allowable knowledge is disturbing.
The
Writ
warns that change begets change, and while it says nothing about matters of scale, there are those—not all of them Temple Loyalists, by any stretch—who worry that innovation on such a scale will inevitably erode the Proscriptions.”

“Which must put you in a most difficult position, Father,” Howsmyn observed.

“Oh, indeed it does.” Wylsynn smiled thinly. “It helps that Archbishop Maikel
doesn’t share those concerns, and he’s supported all of my determinations where your new techniques are concerned. I don’t suppose that would make the
Grand Inquisitor
any more supportive, but it does quite a lot for my own peace of mind. And to be honest, the thought of how the Grand Inquisitor would react if he truly knew all you and the other ‘innovators’ here in Charis have been up to pleases
me immensely. In fact, that’s part of my problem, I’m afraid.”

Howsmyn gazed at him for a moment, then cocked his head to one side.

“I’m no Bédardist, Father,” he said almost gently, “but I’d be astonished if you didn’t feel that way after what happened to your father and your uncle. Obviously, I don’t know you as well as the Archbishop does, but I do know you better than many, I expect, after
how closely we’ve worked together for the past couple of years. You’re worried that your inevitable anger at Clyntahn and the Group of Four might cause you to overlook violations of the Proscriptions because of a desire to strike back at them, aren’t you?”

Wylsynn’s eyes widened with respect. It wasn’t really surprise; Ehdwyrd Howsmyn was one of the smartest men he knew, after all. Yet the ironmaster’s
willingness to address his own concerns so directly, and the edge of compassion in Howsmyn’s tone, were more than he’d expected.

“That’s part of the problem,” he acknowledged. “In fact, it’s a very
large
part. I’m afraid it’s not quite all of it, however. The truth is that I’m grappling with doubts of my own.”

“We all are, Father.” Howsmyn smiled crookedly. “I hope this won’t sound presumptuous
coming from a layman, but it seems to me that someone in your position, especially, would find that all but inevitable.”

“I know.” Wylsynn nodded. “And you’re right. However,” he inhaled more briskly, “at the moment I’m most interested in these ‘accumulators’ of yours. I may have seen the plans and approved them, yet there’s a part of me that wants to actually see
them
.” He smiled suddenly, the
boyish expression making him look even younger than his years. “It’s difficult, as you’ve observed, balancing my duty as Intendant against my duty as Director of the Office of Patents, but the Director in me is fascinated by the possibilities of your accumulators.”

“I feel the same way,” Howsmyn admitted with an answering gleam of humor. “And if you’ll look over there”—he pointed out the window—“you’ll
see Accumulator Number Three beside that blast furnace.”

Wylsynn’s eyes followed the pointing index finger and narrowed as the furnace’s seething glow illuminated a massive brickwork structure. As he’d just said, he’d seen the plans for Howsmyn’s accumulators, but mere drawings, however accurately scaled, couldn’t have prepared him for the reality.

The huge tower rose fifty feet into the air.
A trio of blast furnaces clustered around it, and on the far side, a long, broad structure—a workshop of some sort—stretched into the night. The workshop was two stories tall, its walls pierced by vast expanses of windows to take advantage of natural light during the day. Now those windows glowed with
internal
light, spilling from lanterns and interspersed with frequent, far brighter bursts of
glare from furnaces and forges within it.