On the Oceans of Eternity (11 page)

“Filthy war,” Macy said, as if echoing his thought, and everyone nodded.

Emma Carson cleared her throat. “Now, Chief, I’m on the board of Chapman, Charnes & Co.,” she said.

Jared nodded noncommittally. The Carsons
were
Chapman and Charnes nowadays; they’d bought in with profits made in the mainland trade and managed the firm shrewdly. Those initial profits hadn’t been too scrupulously made, and there had been trouble with the Indians over their habit of including free firewater as a bargaining tool; the mainlanders were fully capable of realizing they’d been diddled when they sobered up. The Carsons had loudly demanded that the Republic’s military enforce those debts; he’d refused and got the Meeting to back him. Neither of them had enjoyed the clashes over that.

Carson went on carefully: “We were the buyers for Sam’s ship—wanted to see how she’d do on a shakedown cruise across the pond to Alba, before we sent her really far foreign.”

Macy snorted. “Emma, you wanted to take possession in Westhaven because you could sign up a crew cheaper there than you could here in Nantucket Town or the outports,” he said. He looked back at Jared. “Chief, I still say we should have a law saying that the crews of Nantucket-flagged vessels have to be citizens. Registered immigrants, at least.”

“Sam Macy,” Carson said, exasperation showing in her tone—they had this argument every time they met in public—“I don’t think we should be copying ... what were they called? The Navigation Acts, the ones the British had before the Revolution.”

Jared and Martha caught each other’s eyes and nodded slightly. “Let’s save that for the Town Meeting,” Martha said dryly.

Carson’s reply was equally pawky-cynical: “Ms. Cofflin, you know as well as I do that if all four of us agree on something, we can get it through the Meeting. I presume that’s why we’re all here now.”

“Mebbe. Do we agree on a wartime compromise on the immigration laws and the income-tax rate?” Jared Cofflin said, leaning back; the delicate cup and saucer looked absurdly small in his big gnarled fisherman’s hands.
I suppose it was inevitable we’d get political parties.

The unity they’d had right after the Event was lifeboat politics. That didn’t keep him from being nostalgic about it. He’d been a small-town boy too long to imagine that Nantucket would ever be without its share of homegrown gullible idiots and nosy-parkers. Or smart bastards like the Carsons untroubled by excessive ethics and ready to manipulate both types of natural-born damned fools.

Carson shrugged. “We all want the war won,” she said. “That needs money, and trade’s how we get it. Now, we were buying the
Merrimac
for the China trade. There’s a big market there for furs and ginseng, as well as the usual tools and trinkets, and they’ve got jade and silk and tea. Plus it would be an alternate source for raw cotton, now we’ve given them the seeds. Hemp, too, maybe metals ... well, never mind.”

“All of which,” Martha said, “would be nice replacements for your prewar trade to Tartessos.”

“Well, yes,” Carson said. “But all that needs ships, ships need crews, and the shipyards need workers to make the ships. Not to mention the cost of improvements like the new piers and wharves, which take tax money, which means taxes would be lower if we had more hands.”

“I
thought
we’d get back to the immigration quotas,” Macy said, and his fist hit the table. “Yes, taxes might be lower ... but so would wages. That’s fine for you and me, Carson—we’re employers, and big ones. Good enough for people who own their own farms, or fishing boats, or stores or workshops or whatever. Bad news for people who live off their paychecks.”

“Any citizen can claim a land grant,” Carson said piously. “We’ve got the whole of Long Island to settle, and more besides.”

“Sure! But how about staying alive until enough’s cleared to live off? And not everyone wants to be a farmer;
I
sure as hell wouldn’t. Or knows how to go about it.”

“Well, I’m not so sure it would be a bad deal for our citizens if labor were cheaper,” Carson said. “Think about it, Macy. We’ve got far too many people with priceless pre-Event skills hauling nets, hunting seal, hoeing potatoes, and chopping down trees. With more labor, a lot more of them could move up, become employers themselves. Those who couldn’t are the sort who couldn’t find their own butt cheeks with both hands anyway.”

“And I can see damned well where
that
would end, too, Carson—with Walker’s setup. I don’t want my children growing up in a slave state.”

“Wait a minute, you son of a bitch, you can’t accuse me of—

“People!” Martha Cofflin’s voice cut through the rising anger. “Quietly, please.”

“The present quota’s not
enough,”
Carson said, more calmly. “A thousand a year is far too few for what we need.” An arm waved towards the windows. “There’s a whole
world
out there waiting for the Republic!”

“If you were thinking about the Republic, you’d have adopted some orphans,” Macy said. “No quota there. Tina and I have—three. You and Slippery Dick’re only interested in grown-up Albans you can put to work right away. Cheap.”

Carson closed her mouth with a snap. In the long run adoption was the perfect form of immigration, producing more people who might as well be native-born, and it had become something of a tradition.

“Dick and I have put in an application for some kids,” Emma Carson huffed. “It’s pending right now.”

Ayup,
Cofflin thought.
Now that you’re rich and want to get into politics to make it easier to get even richer, you want to look like a model of civic virtue. Get the Meeting to forget how many times you’ve been rapped over the knuckles.

The latest had been quite a scandal; turned out Chapman and Charnes had “accidentally” dropped shiploads of horses and cattle in south Texas and the Argentine Pampas several years back—that and pigs, all sorts of animals suited to taking care of themselves. The stock had gone feral and were breeding like crazy. The Conservation Board would never have gone for it, but now it was a
fait accompli,
and promised to be a little gold mine in the long run.

“Let’s not rehash that stuff,” he said aloud. He’d deal with the Carsons, because he had to, but one important reason he let himself be talked into staying with this lousy job was keeping people like them away from the levers of power. “We’ve chewed all the Chiclet off that gum a long time ago. Let’s concentrate on wartime needs.”

Martha took up the argument: “Now, Sam, you know that generally we—Jared and I—more or less agree with you on the immigration issue. Haven’t we worked together on the Council on that? And we persuaded Ron Leaton to go along with us.”

Carson ground her teeth behind a bland smile. She hadn’t enjoyed it when the Cofflins split Leaton off from her block. Executive Council seats weren’t elective, either; they were appointed by the Chief. Leaton was on the Council; she wasn’t, and wouldn’t be while Jared Cofflin was in office.

“Yeah,” Macy said. “And okay, I agreed that we should keep granting ex-Marines citizenship, and the ones who enlist in the Guard. Doesn’t that satsify you, Carson?”

“No,” Carson said bluntly. “We need the extra labor now, not after the end of the war or six years from now or whatever.”

“We’re on the horns of a dilemma,” Martha said. “Yes, we need more people; but we also need them to pick up our ways—not just the three R’s and English, but our habits of thought. That takes personal contact. Otherwise, in a democracy” —and the Republic was very emphatically that; major issues were settled by the Town Meeting—“the consequences could be ... drastic.”

“Oh, not necessarily drastically
bad,”
Carson said thoughtfully.

Ayup, Emma
would
see
that She wasn’t the nicest person in the Republic, but she was nobody’s fool. Albans didn’t understand representative government, much, but they
did
comprehend patron-and-client relationships, right down in their bones.
Which is perfect for someone who wants to build up a Tammany-Hall-style political machine.

“God-damn Walker.” Jared sighed. “If it weren’t for him, and this war he’s forced on us, we could take everything more slowly. But ... needs must when the devil drives.”

“All right, Jared, what do you want?”

“An equality of dissatisfaction, Sam. You let us raise the quota a bit more and recruit a bit more. Ms. Carson, you go along, even though it’s not nearly as much as you want. You both agree to our building up overseas capacity the way Ron Leaton wants, but not as much as he wants.”

Macy checked himself with a visible effort and knotted his brows in thought. Emma Carson glanced lynx-eyed at him, then at the Cofflins, then steepled her fingers and waited.

The bargaining went on for hours.
And the worst of it is,
Jared Cofflin thought, as darkness fell,
I’ll have to invite
Emma
to dinner along with Sam. I’d a hell of a lot rather it was Ian, say. Even if he did beat me like a drum at chess after the plates
were
washed.

With an effort of will he pushed worry for his friend away; Ian Arnstein was in Troy, and Troy was under siege from Walker’s men. Instead he murmured to Martha as they left for the dining room:

“What was that thing you told me—something Elizabeth I said about why she didn’t like to pick a fight?”

Martha closed her eyes in thought for a moment, then quoted in the same low tone:
“I do not like wars. Their outcomes are never certain.”

She’d once remarked that “Bright Beth” or “Smart Lizzie” would have been a much better nickname than Gloriana.

Jared sighed.
Marian, win this damned war, and win it quick. I don’t like the feeling I’m getting of things spinning out of control.

“L
ord King, the embassy of
Meizon Akhaia
requests audience,” the court messenger said.

Isketerol of Tartessos broke off the silent prayer, lowered his arms, and turned away from the edge of the palace rooftop, scowling at the messenger. Beyond him the Greek herald bowed in his sea-stained tunic and fringed kilt, a tall brown-haired young man with a warrior’s supple strength, looking around with bright-eyed interest despite the haste that had brought him up from the docks without pause, and his ships all the way across the Middle Sea from Great Achaea to Iberia. He went to one knee for a moment, then stood and met the Tartessian ruler’s eyes:

“Rejoice, my Lord King. I am Telemakhos son of Odikweos, who is
wannax
in Ithaka and
ekwetos
to the King of Men in Mycenae,” he said. “My father brings the word of your blood brother the High Wannax William Walker to you, and will take your word to the King of Men.”

“Rejoice, prince,” Isketerol of Tartessos said in fair if accented Greek. “My guest-friend King Odikweos is always welcome at my hearth, but the embassy of Great Achaea must wait on the Gods of the land. This is the day when the King weds the Lady of Tartessos.”

“My father honors the Gods of his guest-friend, and the High Wannax honors the Gods of his blood brother,” Telemakhos said, bowing again. “The embassy will await the King’s word.”

Isketerol nodded regally.
In truth, I doubt that William greatly honors any gods at all.
The thought was frightening even to a man as well traveled as the King, but William Walker hadn’t suffered any ill luck from his lack of piety. Quite the contrary, in fact. With an effort, he cleared his mind of such matters; even of the fear of the Nantucketer attack both spies and his own mind told him was building on the other side of the River Ocean, looming over his folk like an avalanche of anvils. Today was for the Gods.

“Come. My people await me.”

The procession formed in the main courtyard of the New Palace as the sun sank westward. Despite that location the rite was in the manner made sacred by long custom, lest the Lady be offended by breach of ancient ways. The King came first, in a simple kilt of soft-tanned goatskin, but glittering with the metal that was the tears of the Sun—a round crown of sheet gold embossed with studs about his brows and set with tall feather plumes, pectorals of gold shaped like miniature oxhides over his chest, a necklace of gold disks around his neck, a belt of worked gold plates making a broad band about his stomach.

“Behold the Sun Lord!” cried the Lady’s Lady—by tradition the senior wife of the King was high priestess of the City’s patron goddess. She stood in a long blue robe hung with silver and turquoise, her sleek raven hair braided and bound in two disks on either side of her head. “Behold the Sun Lord, come to do honor to the Lady of Tartessos!”

“Behold him!” cried the crowd around the colonnaded court; his other wives, his children, wisemen, war-captains, their families and retainers ...

Their finery was a shout of color, saffron and indigo and cochineal-crimson, sparkling with silver and turquoise, polished steel and bronze. The uniformed Royal Guards who kept a corridor open for him to the gates snapped to attention and brought their flintlock rifles to present arms.

Isketerol nodded slightly. The gates swung back, and the roar of the crowd beyond struck him like a blow to the face, along with the scent of sweat and flowers and wine, garlic and olive oil and hot stone. More soldiers lined the route ahead, facing away with rifles held level before them, pushing against the surging crowd; it was the greatest of good luck to touch the King on such a day. That had been possible before Isketerol seized the throne from his distant kinsman and began the changes, for Tartessos had been smaller then. What was left of Old Town lay southward, to his left, in a tangle of little thatched mud-brick houses across the bottom slopes of the hills. There he had managed to touch the King’s heel himself once, so long ago.