Ison of the Isles (9 page)

The Innings were making no attempt to manoeuvre round and seize the advantage of the windward position. They just kept on course to the southwest, as if waiting to see if the rebels would be foolish enough to attack.

The wind had picked up, and the bow was crashing into the waves. “That’s right,” Harg looked up to where the Ashwin watched. “Send us some sea.”

“You want to fight in a storm?” Gill asked.

“They won’t be able to open their bottom gunports if the sea’s high,” he pointed out. “We’ll be more evenly matched.”

They were coming into firing range. “Ready your guns,” Harg told the gun master, and quickly there came the thunder of cannons rolling back on their wheels to be loaded.
Windemon
was swooping down on the Innings like a white-winged bird of prey. The ropes were singing, the spray leaping from their path. “Gods, what a beautiful way to die,” Harg said.

Soon,
Windemon
had matched pace with the
Conqueror
, the big warship that Harg had picked for a partner. As they glided in tandem over the waves,
Windemon
’s guns erupted; seconds later,
Conqueror
answered. The air shrieked with shot and the sound of wood cracking and splitting. This time there was no shocked pause; the crews were serving the guns in a demoniacal fury, laughing and yelling through the sulphurous murk.
Windemon
’s deck heaved as the next salvo went off. Then the answering grape was buzzing through the air like a cloud of hornets. Fountains of water leaped over the gunwales from cannonballs that landed short.

Harg knew it could not go on long like this. Gun for gun, the
Windemon
could not hold up. He glanced aft. The rebel attack had begun to break up the Inning line. It was time to try an old pirate trick on them. “Back the topsails,” he ordered. “Ready, starboard battery.”

The hands seized the braces and swung the yards round till the sails, instead of pulling forward, pressed back against the masts, checking the
Windemon
’s forward movement. She dropped astern of the
Conqueror
. Harg watched till the perfect moment, then shouted, “Now! Come about!” The quartermaster spun the helm to port. Again the yards swung, catching the wind.
Windemon
veered across
Conqueror
’s wake, and as they passed the big ship’s unprotected stern the starboard battery roared into it. The windows of the captain’s luxurious cabin shattered inward.

“He’ll be eating glass tonight!” someone shouted.

The
Conqueror
, reacting belatedly, was wearing round to match the
Windemon
’s new course and bring her port batteries to bear. Or what should have been her port batteries. As the big ship lumbered round, Harg could see the gunports popping up raggedly, the men scrambling to load. For the second time that day the Innings had assumed their foe would stay predictably on one side. “Get another round into them before they’re ready!” Harg implored his gunners. They were already sponging and ramming like madmen.

The
Windemon
was on the lee side now, which gave her an advantage; with both ships heeled over, the
Conqueror
’s guns were angled downward, and her lower battery useless, while the
Windemon
’s guns were perfectly angled. Soon the deck was a crowded maze of smoking, red-hot cannons recoiling back on their haunches. The firing was a constant roar. Harg saw one of the powder monkeys take a shot as she was measuring a cannon charge into its flannel bag; the explosion etched the sight of her flying limbs on his retina, bright with a grisly beauty. For a few moments, the whole scene was orange with the belching breath of the guns. Then a rending crash and a horrible chorus of screams rose from the deck below.

A messenger lad appeared out of the main hatch. “Sir,” he said shrilly, “Lieutenant Garret says to tell you half his starboard guns are gone and there’s a nasty fire below.”

Harg nodded, more stunned than calm, though it looked the same. “Tell Garret I’m sure he’s doing a good job.” The lad raced off, and Harg turned to Gill. “Go see if he needs help.”

The
Windemon
couldn’t take much more of this. If Harg didn’t think of something else soon, the rigging would be so shot away there would be no manoeuvring her. To buy some time and confusion, he gave the order to back the topsails, then to fill; but the Innings were catching on to him now, and soon matched
Windemon
’s erratic speed. “Rot them!” Harg muttered. All they wanted was to stand back and blast his ship into scantlings. He had to keep them reacting, he had to keep the initiative.

Again he ordered the quartermaster to come about across the bigger ship’s stern. At first it seemed the Innings wouldn’t react until too late. The
Windemon
was crossing only yards from the
Conqueror
’s stern when the big ship slowed, her tall aftercastle looming close. Harg saw they were going to collide. Ranks of uniformed marines lined
Conqueror
’s taffrail, bayonets set and muskets levelled.

“Prepare to fend off boarders!” he shouted.

All along
Windemon
’s deck the gunners and seamen seized up cutlasses, pikes, and pistols. They were only an exhausted rabble facing those drilled troopers. Harg knew what the first musket volley would do to them.

With a lurch and a squeal of rubbing timbers, the
Conqueror
’s stern hit
Windemon
’s larboard quarter. Grapnels flew out to hook the gunwales together. For an instant the soldiers held their fire as an Inning officer’s voice called out, “
Windemon
, do you surrender?”

Later, the stories said that Harg’s reply was stirring and heroic. What he actually yelled back was, “Up your ass!”

On the last word a volley of muskets exploded. Harg ducked, expecting a whir of bullets around his ears; but the soldiers on the
Conqueror
were falling back, breaking ranks in confusion. Only then did he realize the volley had come from above him. The men he had stationed on the yards, forgotten, had taken the troopers by surprise.

With a banshee howl, the
Windemon
’s crew surged forward. At last the Innings’ troopers got off a ragged volley. Then a rain of grenades landed on the
Conqueror
’s deck, and the soldiers’ line broke apart. The pirates were ready to surge forward over the bulwarks, but Harg shouted, “Not yet! Get back to your guns!”

The two ships were still caught at the stern like the blades of a giant scissors. If left, the wind would pivot them together, the blades closing in a death lock.

A boy was hacking at the grapnel ropes with an axe. “Leave those!” Harg ordered. “Run, get some of our grapnels. Now we’ve got them, we’re not going to let them go!” He turned to the quarterdeck gunners nearby. “Aim at the masts. Use chain shot. Bring them down.” Then he was shouting down to the main deck gun master, “Clear their deck. Use grape and canister. Don’t leave anyone alive to board us.” He waved his hat to the men in the yards. “Keep up your fire! Take their yards if you can!”

With infinite pleasure he felt the concussion as the lower deck guns began to fire. He blessed Garret, or Gill, or whoever was down there rallying the crew amid the carnage and fire. Then the
Conqueror
’s guns answered with a furious bellow, so close their tongues of flame licked
Windemon
’s sides.

Slowly, the scissor blades closed. The riggings meshed, the hulls jarred up against one another.

The messenger from the lower deck appeared at Harg’s side, his eyebrows singed. “They’re muzzle to muzzle down there,” he shouted. “Our guns are poking into their gunports.” Black smoke was billowing from the hatches.

“Keep firing,” Harg said. “Don’t let them board.”

On the weather deck, a gap had opened where
Conqueror
’s shots had disabled three of the main deck guns. Harg vaulted down into the confusion, spreading a flurry of orders around him. He set one gun crew to clearing away the debris, and led another group starboard to haul one of the unemployed cannons across the deck. “Clear a path, there!” he shouted, noticing only in a detached way that the obstructions in their way were bodies—some dead, some still living. The men leaned into their task, heaving at the heavy carriage while their feet slipped on blood. The deck timbers groaned and sagged under the weight. Bits of burning sail dropped on their shoulders.

At last they manoeuvred the cannon into the gap and hooked it to the ring-bolts of the old, shattered one. A sleet of grape showered around them, and they all ducked for the deck. One shot knocked Harg’s hat from his head. He picked it up; for an instant the situation seemed unaccountably funny. He fanned his face and said, “Hot weather we’re having.” His companions laughed with an edge of hysteria.

Just then a shout and a despairing wail went up; the whack and splinter of a new salvo sounded, this time from the unengaged side. Harg leaped up to see an Inning frigate on their starboard quarter, guns grinning blackly. Desperately he looked around for his other ships, trying to see who had let this one loose, who might come to
Windemon
’s rescue. The next instant he knew there was nothing he could do about it, not even return their fire. He didn’t have enough crew left to man both batteries. “Ignore them!” he shouted. “Fry our own fish!”

He reached the quarterdeck again. Gill appeared at his side, his face sooty and streaked. “We’ll have to abandon the lower guns, Harg,” he said. “They’re just about knocked to scrap iron anyway. The whole ship’s side is one huge hole, and the stanchions are blasted away. There’s almost nothing holding up the deck.” As he spoke there was a blast from the
Conqueror
’s lower deck guns, and the shell sailed unimpeded out
Windemon
’s opposite side. Harg had to stifle a laugh at sight of the Innings firing right through his ship.

There was another mangling blast from the frigate on their unprotected side. “Rot them!” Harg said. It was all he could say.

Garret was coming up the gangway through the smoke, his face white with panic.

“They’ve hit one of our pumps. We’re going to sink,” he said shrilly. “We’ve got to surrender.”

“He’s right, Harg,” Gill said. “We took on too much. It’s time to call it quits.”

For an instant Harg felt wrapped in heavy coils of failure. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t think. He couldn’t even say the words he needed to say. His gaze strayed upward. The snipers, unseen amid the rigging, had succeeded in clambering across the interlocked yards into the tops of the
Conqueror
, and were shooting down on the decks of the enemy. As he watched, one of them tossed a lit grenade right down the
Conqueror
’s main hatch. A huge, bright explosion rocketed out of the big ship’s depths. By some impossible luck, the bomb had hit some piled-up charges. Men and smoke poured from their companionway, only to be met by a shower of grape from
Windemon
’s last remaining guns.

“Ready to board!” Harg shouted. “We’ve got them now!”

The
Windemon
’s battered crew seized up their weapons. One of them caught a main yard brace and swung over onto the enemy’s deck. Others climbed the bulwarks.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!” a voice called from the
Conqueror
’s deck.

“Do you surrender?” Harg yelled. He climbed up on a gun carriage to see three Inning officers huddled in a knot of Torna subordinates, in desperate conference. Bright flames were licking out of their companionway.

“Yes, damn you! We surrender!” a voice cried at last.

For an instant Harg stood motionless, unable to believe it. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the frigate that had been firing on them had finally been engaged by one of his other ships, and was now turning tail to flee. Then he believed it.

“Come with me, Gill!” Harg said, and leaped across onto the
Conqueror
’s deck. In a moment he was facing the Inning commander and his haggard officers. “Your pistol, please,” Harg said peremptorily. The Inning handed it over in silence, and Harg stuck it in his sash. “Take these men prisoner, Gill,” Harg said, then turned to survey the scene from his new quarterdeck.

A lull of desperate exhaustion had descended over the two ships. The corpses could scarcely be told from the living, all sunk flaccid against bulkhead and mast. An eerie hush replaced the constant roar of guns, and for the first time in hours Harg breathed fresh air. He looked up at the tangle of rigging, outlined like tree branches against the sky, and it occurred to him that he had not died.

Everywhere the once-graceful ships were mangled and smoking. When the wind paused, the stench of blood and burned flesh rose. As his normal self began to return, Harg’s head throbbed, and he leaned over the ship’s rail, mouth filling with saliva, sure he was going to vomit in his moment of victory.

“Sir? You have orders for us?”

Three of his men were standing by. Throat aching with the effort to hold down his sickness, Harg turned to them. “Yes, take a party to disarm the prisoners, then set them to work fighting that fire. If you need help on the pumps, set the prisoners to work.”

He had to stop there; he had used up all his spare energy. The men were watching him with an awed, hesitant friendship, and for an instant he felt an intense, almost mystic bond with them. “We cheated the odds, didn’t we?” he said with a faint smile. He could have said anything; it didn’t matter. What mattered was the moment.

They left him. The setting sun had pierced a hole in the west, and lit the undersides of the storm clouds. A lone seagull circled the
Conqueror
’s mast, then headed west as if to lead them into that sunfire. Harg took out a pistol and aimed it, wanting to shoot the damned bird out of the sky.

He never pulled the trigger.

The waterfront of Lashnish had been transformed by the invasion of Tiarch’s fleet. No longer did the marble pier embrace the inner harbour in serene symmetry; it was crowded with boats and noisy drayage jostling between the warehouses, shipyards, barracks, and magazines of a busy garrison town. Recruits had been flocking in, and housing along the waterfront was bursting with transients and hopeful contractors wanting to supply everything from lumber to tar to dried peas.

High above the noise and confusion, the Old City still rose, crowned by the pillared face of the Pavilion. From the doorway of his headquarters on the corner of Promenade and Stonepath, Vice-Admiral Joffrey scowled up at the monument to ancient Lashnura power, so oblivious to the bustle at its feet. He was waiting for the conveyance he had ordered to take him up to Tiarch’s palace-in-exile. Ordinarily he would have walked, but today it was windy and raining, and the steep, stone-paved street was a rushing streambed.

When he looked downhill across the wharf, he could see his grand fleet crowding the inner harbour. He felt a fierce, possessive pride in his fourteen ships. Touching the letter in his pocket, he resolved that no force on earth was going to pry his fleet away from him, whatever the outcome of this rebellion. He had not studied in the Corbin Talley school of strategy for nothing. Sometimes, the student even surpassed the master.

The cab rolled up and Joffrey crossed to the curb, the disrespectful wind flinging rain into his face. The driver didn’t need to ask where he was bound; he shuttled between the Navy offices and the Governor’s residence two or three times a day. It was inconvenient, but Tiarch had her reasons for staying aloof. When she had come to Lashnish, she had chosen to establish herself in an old stone mansion as close as possible to the Pavilion, where the symbolism would hang heavy around her. The main entrance to her residence lay on the Isonsquare, the broad plaza in front of the Pavilion, barely forty paces from the Stone itself.

Tiarch’s doorman greeted Joffrey respectfully, and stood by to take his coat and hat. One of the Governor’s secretaries, coming down the narrow stairs, glanced at the tall clock in the hallway, for Joffrey was early. “I need to speak with her before our meeting,” he said.

“I’ll go see if she is free,” the secretary said.

Joffrey followed the woman upstairs and stood in the quiet, carpeted hallway till the door clicked open and the secretary gestured him in.

Tiarch was sitting by a roaring fire in the high-ceilinged room overlooking the Isonsquare. The rain blew against the tall windows, and the heavy drapes moved in the draft. Joffrey came over to stand by the fire.

“Coffee?” Tiarch offered; a pot and three cups stood on a table beside her chair.

“No, thank you,” Joffrey said.

“What’s on your mind, Joffrey?”

He stared at his boots for a moment, coming to a decision he had been debating all morning. “A boat came in from the South Chain this morning, with a reply from Harg.”

One of the Governor’s eyebrows went up. “I take it he was not on the boat.”

“No. He declines to come here as you requested, because he feels his presence is required in the South Chain. The main force of the Fourth Fleet has set out from Tornabay, and he wants to be there to receive them.”

In fact, Harg’s letter to Tiarch was in Joffrey’s pocket, but he had decided not to give it to her, even though he had resealed it so that only a practiced eye could tell it had been opened. The problem was that it was written in far too reasonable a tone, giving convincing strategic justifications for the man’s intransigence. Joffrey suspected that it had actually been written by Jearl, or one of the other Torna officers. Apart from being entirely too literate for Harg, it lacked that antagonizing Adaina bluntness. It might actually convince Tiarch that the man was right.

Now, the Governor’s fingers were drumming on the arm of her chair in irritation. Knowing what she was thinking, Joffrey followed up, “As a matter of fact, Harg requests that you will send the rest of the fleet to join him in Harbourdown, in order to put up a more effective resistance. He also has a variety of demands, mostly for gunpowder and money to pay contractors.”

He knew that the last thing Tiarch wanted was for Harg to take on Admiral Talley. The wholly unauthorized aggression against the Innings at Pont, which was being celebrated all over as a great victory for the islanders, had effectively closed off most avenues for diplomacy. The nationalists in Fluminos would be howling for vengeance now. If only Harg could have managed to lose, a magnanimous compromise might still have been possible. As it was, he had thrown all of their futures in jeopardy.

“What am I going to do with this man?” Tiarch mused.

“Well, if you send him any more ships, his fleet will outnumber yours.”

She gave him a sharp glance, from which he knew that she also had foreseen this danger. She had created a monster by giving him the little support she had.

“Is it true that Talley’s fleet has finally set out?” she asked.

“Apparently, yes.” Joffrey paused.

“Well?” Tiarch demanded, noting his hesitation.

“There is some rather odd news about that. He has taken the Heir of Gilgen along, as a prisoner in his flagship.”

Tiarch was silent as she worked out what this might mean. “Damn him,” she said at last. “He has figured out how the Heir of Gilgen can profit him.”

“Just like his brother,” Joffrey added.

They both glanced automatically to the window, where the Pavilion stood, bastion of Lashnura power and learning, already infiltrated by an Inning agent. And, as long as Namenda Agave refused to heed all warnings, there was nothing the mighty Tiarch and all her fleet could do about it.

“Damn these Talleys,” Tiarch said. “They are cleverer than they have any right to be. They know that the way to control the Isles is to control the Lashnura.”

Joffrey actually felt a grudging respect. He had not spotted Nathaway as an operative, despite being trained at counterespionage. He rarely made mistakes like that. It showed that the master still had something to teach the student.

There was a soft knock on the door, and the secretary looked in. “Your guest has arrived, Governor,” she said.

“Show him up,” Tiarch said.

Joffrey went to the window to look down on the vehicle that had brought the eminent visitor to Tiarch’s door. He noted with satisfaction that his advice had been followed; it was a plain black carriage devoid of ostentation, suited to the confidential nature of the transaction.

Only four or five people in Lashnish were supposed to know the identity of Tiarch’s guest. The fact that the news was not running wild all over town was a credit to the discretion of Tiarch’s staff. The man even now mounting the steps was a legate from the Monarch of Rothur.

The man who entered the room was lean, dark, and immaculately dressed. His close-trimmed black beard, shaved away in a ram’s-horn spiral down his cheeks, was a mask hiding any expression he might have had. Tiarch rose to greet him; he bowed low in Rothur style, showing his small skullcap.

“Welcome to my humble residence, Legate Svitchak,” Tiarch said. “I regret that we cannot receive you with the same hospitality I could have shown in Tornabay.”

“No matter, respected lady,” the Rothur answered smoothly in accented Inning. “We fully understand your circumstances.”

“Allow me to introduce Vice-Admiral Joffrey, head of my Navy.”

“Ah, sir,” the Rothur said warmly. “I convey the congratulations of my Monarch for your admirable victories.”

“Thank you, Legate,” Joffrey said.

“You may not realize, but we in Rothur are great lovers of irony,” Svitchak said, smiling. “It has given us the keenest pleasure to watch the Inning Navy bitten by the very dog they trained.”

The metaphor gave Joffrey some secret pleasure himself.

“We have some experience with this man of yours, Harg Ismol,” the Rothur continued. “There was a time when we would have gladly hanged him, if we could have caught him. Now we will have to reconsider.”

“Please do,” Joffrey said, “at least until we’re done with him.”

Svitchak laughed. “I see you are an ironist yourself. We shall get along, I can tell.”

Two servants entered the room with fresh coffee and pastries, and Tiarch ushered Legate Svitchak to a warm seat before the fire, casting a glance over her shoulder at Joffrey. He gave her a bland smile.

They spent some time getting acquainted—speaking of the Rothur’s journey, his impressions of Lashnish, anecdotes of their families at home. Svitchak took the opportunity to present Tiarch with a gift from the Monarch, a bottle of rare and valuable liqueur.

“The Monarch particularly wished me to tell you, Governor, how sympathetic the whole Rothur nation is to your cause. We have known for many years that the Innings wish to rule the continent, and we regret deeply that you have become the victims of their imperialist ambitions.”

“It gives me consolation to know that the Monarch sees our misfortune in that light,” Tiarch said.

“We believe that Inning actions here reveal a larger geopolitical goal. Since we stopped their aggressions to the south—” (Joffrey felt a touch of the aforementioned irony at this interpretation of the recent war) “—they have shifted their attentions to the north. We believe their strategic goal is to build up a navy that will enable them to dominate shipping and threaten cities all up and down the coast. Naturally, such a thing is of concern to us.”

Tiarch said, “Yet if we should lose, Inning would have not only the pine forest resources of the Forsakens, but also our shipbuilding and nautical expertise.”

“The risk is very evident to us,” the Rothur said. “Unfortunately, as you can imagine, our country is weary of war. I fear the Monarch would find little support for a course of action that would embroil us again.”

“We can do our own fighting,” Joffrey said.

“Yes, you have demonstrated that, if I may say so.” Svitchak’s teeth gleamed white in his beard. “But the Forsakens are a small country with few people and fewer resources. Moreover, you have—pardon me for saying it—a reputation for fractious divisions. Do the people of the Isles share your ambition? What do the villagers of the South Chain, or the tribes of the Outer Chain, say? Are they all prepared to pay the price of war? You have taken on a fearful enemy. It will be a heavy price.”

There was a short silence. Then Tiarch said, “The gracious support of your Monarch would help to unify us, by convincing even the doubters that we could prevail.”

Svitchak smiled. “It is kind of you to say so, but I suspect the party our support would have an effect on is the Innings.”

“That is still useful to us,” Tiarch said.

“I do not doubt that. But my Monarch needs to look ahead, to who will rule the Isles once this is over. If it is to be Tiarch, then we are satisfied with the outcome. But we fear the Adaina will not follow Governor Tiarch through the sufferings of a long war. There is no name they will follow, except the name of Ison. Who, we ask ourselves, is to be Ison? Will it be Tiarch, or someone less acceptable to us?”

This time the silence was long, as Tiarch picked up her coffee cup and took a deliberate sip from it. When she put it down, she said, “That’s a question I cannot answer now.”

“But it is a crucial question, you see.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Tiarch said.

The conversation shifted to less troubling matters. At length the legate rose. “I know you have an engagement for dinner, so I will leave you now. You know our feelings and concerns.”

When the Rothur was gone, Tiarch walked pensively over to the window, and stood looking out on the Isonsquare, where for six hundred years the leaders of the Isles had passed through dhota-nur. Joffrey came to her side.

“Why don’t you do it?” he asked.

“You flatter my vanity,” Tiarch smiled. “I thought of it once, actually.”

He studied her. “Then why . . .?”

“Do you know what an Ison is, Joffrey?”

“Of course I do.”

“No, I don’t think you do. An Ison is a tool of the Lashnura. A person who has been tamed and moulded by the Grey Folk, a mind manipulated by dhota-nur, a heart bent into a Lashnura shape.”

“I cannot imagine you becoming a tool of anyone,” Joffrey said.

“Neither can I. That’s why I’m not going to do it.”

She turned back toward the fire, taking up the poker to stir it to life again. When she had it blazing, she faced Joffrey as if she had come to a decision. “Joffrey, I want to send you on a sensitive errand, one only you can perform.”

“Yes?” he said cautiously.

“First, I want you to take ten of those ships down in the harbour and deliver them to Harg.”

He said nothing, but his whole being was tense with rebellion.

“Then I want you to continue on to Fluminos, to open some direct communication with the High Court.”

He weighed this plan. It had certain attractions to him—access to a world of imperial power politics beyond the ken of most islanders, if he played it right. A diplomatic errand would give him contacts no military appointment could equal. But the trade-off, apparently, was ceding control of his navy to Harg Ismol. The thought had a bitter taste.

“Why me?” he said.

“You have friends in Fluminos, you lived there once. There are not many islanders who have the connections you do. Or know as much about dealing with the Innings.”

“They might not be interested in talking,” he said. “They might just throw me in jail. Or hang me, in lieu of Harg Ismol.”

“I didn’t say it was without danger. But you will know how to sound them out. You will know the channels through which we can approach them. I can give you some names and introductions, but it will be up to you to make the best of them.”

“What about the Rothur alliance?” Joffrey asked.

Sardonically, she said, “For now, it might be best if the Innings and Rothurs don’t know we are talking to them both.”

Another reason she needed him. Weaving a web of diplomatic duplicity took a certain complexity of mind. He gave her a half-smile to match his half-agreement.