Which, unless I miss my guess, is going to happen very soon now.
* * * *
"All right, Mr. Nethaul—put a shot across his bow!"
The forward gun thudded almost before Raynair had finished speaking, and he watched the plume of white water rise far beyond the galleon.
Blade and her sisters had come from the Shumair Yard in Charis. They were basically duplicates of Sir Dustyn Olyvyr's design for the Royal Navy, but with a few minor changes to suit them for their private enterprise role, their naval counterparts carried fourteen thirty-pounder carronades apiece, but Blade carried only ten carronades plus the long fourteen-pounder forward on one of the new "pivot mounts." Raynair didn't know who'd thought up the "pivot mount," and he didn't really much care.
It consisted of an almost standard gun carriage that was mounted on a platform made of two heavy timbers, or skids, which were joined by four massive, evenly spaced blocks. The carriage had no wheels, however; instead, it slid along grooves cut into the skids when it recoiled. The skids themselves were secured to the deck by a pivot pin through the rearmost connecting block. The pin passed through the deck, and its lower end was secured to a two-foot-square timber. The point at which it passed through the deck was strengthened by a massive cast-iron socket that extended halfway through the belowdecks timber, and its upper end was heavily bushed where it joined to the skids, since it took the majority of the recoil forces when the gun fired. Castor wheels under the skids' front end rode a circular iron rail set into the deck, and by moving the front end along the rail and pivoting on the rear end, the entire mount could be trained around through a theoretical arc of three hundred and sixty degrees, although the ship's bowsprit and rigging blocked certain angles of fire. Rumor gave Baron Seamount credit for it, but all that Raynair really cared about was that the centerline mount permitted Blade's single long gun to be brought to bear anywhere in either broadside.
There were limits to the size of gun the mount could take, and the long fourteen fired a much lighter shot than the carronades, but its range was longer, and it didn't really take the heaviest gun afloat to convince any reasonably sane merchant skipper that it was time to surrender his ship.
* * * *
"How the hell did they do that?" Synklyr demanded.
"D'you think I know?" Maigee snarled back.
In fairness, he knew it had been a rhetorical question. In fact, he wasn't certain Synklyr even realized he'd spoken aloud. None of which made him feel any happier at the fresh evidence of yet another of the apparently unending, devilish Charisian innovations.
In fact, this was the closest Maigee had yet come to the new Charisian artillery, which he more than half suspected was the real reason for most of his irritable tension. Virtually everyone in the Dohlaran Navy, from the Duke of Thorast down, was busy trying to downplay the effectiveness of the Charisian guns. Maigee supposed that was inevitable—Obviously, he thought sardonically, pretending the Charisian guns don't work is much simpler than figuring out what to do about them if it turns out they do work, after all—but it did damn-all for the poor bastard who found himself face-to-face with them.
He longed to pull out his spyglass and take a good, long look at the schooner's armament, but spyglasses were rare aboard merchant ships at the best of times, and especially for one as deliberately down-at-the-heels as Guardian.
"Stand ready, Mr. Synklyr," he said instead, then looked at his second officer. "It's time, Mr. Jynks," he said.
* * * *
"That's odd," Ekohls Raynair murmured to himself as the galleon finally accepted the inevitable and hove-to. He frowned, trying to decide what it was that was jabbing at the corner of his mind as Blade followed suit and Nethaul and a dozen heavily armed seamen took the first cutter across to take possession of their prize. There was something—
Then he found out what the "something" was.
* * * *
"Now!" Captain Maigee barked, and several things happened at once.
The waiting soldiers rose to their feet, matchlocks ready, showing themselves over the high bulwark even as other, specially arranged sections of that bulwark dropped suddenly, exposing the cannon mounted behind them. The guns were only falcons, throwing shot that weighed just under eight pounds. Guardian was only a converted merchant galleon, after all. She hadn't been built with artillery in mind, and each of those guns still weighed just over a ton apiece. It simply hadn't been practical to put any larger, heavier weapons aboard her, and if even a tenth of the tales about the new Charisian guns was true, her broadside was going to be far slower-firing. But the privateer had only five guns in each broadside, and Guardian had eighteen.
* * * *
Raynair's heart seemed to stop beating as the Dohlaran "merchant ship" suddenly bared its fangs. His mouth opened, but before he could get out the first order, the afternoon seemed to explode around him.
There were at least a hundred musketeers aboard that ship. Now they rose from their places of concealment and opened fire on Blade's cutter. At that range, not even matchlocks were likely to miss, and the concentrated fire turned the cutter into a shattered, slowly sinking wreck filled with dead men and blood.
The fact of Nethaul's death, along with the massacre of all of the rest of his boarding party, barely had time to begin to register before the Dohlaran's broadside thundered. They were only Dohlaran guns, but there were a lot of them, and obviously these gunners had a damned good idea about which end of the gun the round shot came out of. Several of them managed to miss, anyway despite the ridiculously low range. Most of them did better than that, however, and screams erupted across Blade's deck as the Dohlaran fire ripped through Raynair's crew.
That was terrible enough, but that same broadside brought down Blade's foremast in an avalanche of shattered spars and canvas. The foremast was actually the primary mast for a twin-masted schooner, and the tangled wreckage crippled Blade.
"Fire!" Raynair heard someone else shouting with his voice, and four of the five carronades in the schooner's port broadside belched flame.
* * * *
"Yes!" Maigee cried as the Charisian ship's mast came thundering down. That was far better than he'd hoped for, and he could see at least a dozen men already down on the schooner's shot-ripped deck.
But then the privateer disappeared behind a cloud of smoke of its own and Maigee staggered as the fat, far heavier shot from the schooner's carronades slammed back into his own command.
Guardian had been designed and built as a merchant vessel. Her timbers were lighter, her planking was thinner, than any naval architect would have demanded. In at least one way, that worked in her favor. Because her planking was so much thinner, the shattering impact of Blade's fire produced fewer and smaller splinters than would have been the case with a "proper warship's" heavier construction. On the other hand, her hull was packed with soldiers and seamen, and her lighter construction meant she was much more fragile than a warship would have been.
Maigee's ears rang with the shrieks and screams of his own wounded. One of his guns took a direct hit, and the bulky timber of its clumsy, wheelless carriage disintegrated even as still more of the Charisian's heavy shot clawed great bleeding furrows through the ship's company. Guardian's guns outnumbered Blade's by better than three to one, and the Dohlaran had the advantage of surprise. But Blade's guns threw far heavier shot, and they fired much more rapidly
"Reload! Reload, damn your eyes!" He heard Synklyr shouting out of the smoke from somewhere forward. The first lieutenant's voice sounded harsh and distorted against the backdrop of screams. The musketeers were blazing away at the Charisian ship as quickly as they could reload, but the range to the schooner was much too great for any sort of accuracy.
* * * *
"Hit them—hit the bastards!" Raynair shouted even as the bosun led a rush of seamen with axes and hatchets forward to cut away the wreckage.
Like most privateers, Blade carried a far larger crew than was a
ctually required to work or fight the ship. The prize crews to take custody of their captures had to come from somewhere, after all. But the Dohlaran's deadly surprise must have killed or wounded at least thirty of Raynair's men. Counting
Nethaul and his cutter's crew, the number was closer to sixty than to fifty, a voice somewhere deep inside informed him savagely. That was at least a third of his total ship's company.
Yet there'd been a reason he'd demanded such relentless, unceasing gun drill and training during the long voyage from Charis. His port gun crews had taken heavy casualties, but replacements from the starboard guns came charging across to replace the dead and wounded. If Blade had been free to maneuver, things would have been very different. Unfortunately, the wreckage forward meant even the clumsy galleon could match her maneuverability.
No, there was only one thing Ekohls Raynair could do now, and he bared his teeth as Blade's second broadside thundered.
.II.
Tellesberg Palace,
City of Tellesberg,
Kingdom of Charis
Is this going to meet your needs, Doctor?"
Rahzhyr Mahklyn turned from the window to face Father Clyfyrd Laimhyn, King Cayleb's personal secretary and confessor. Over the years, Mahklyn had found himself facing many a priest who seemed less than . . . fully enthusiastic over the Royal College's work. Father Clyfyrd, however, seemed gratifyingly free of any reservations. Not surprisingly, probably, in someone who had been personally recommended to the king for sensitive posts by Archbishop Maikel. Now, Laimhyn stood waiting attentively for Mahklyn to consider his question.
Not that there really ought to have been that much "considering" to do, Mahklyn reflected, glancing back out the tower window. King Cayleb's Tower—built by the present monarch's great-grandfather—stood on the side of the palace farthest from the harbor. The window offered a view across the southern third or so of Tellesberg and the vista of woodland, farms, and distant mountains beyond. It was certainly far better than the view from his old office, down by the waterfront, and the tower itself offered at least half again as much floor space. True, he was going to have to climb even more stairs to reach his present vantage point, but if he cared to ascend one more flight, he would reach the tower's flat roof, open to sunlight and wind. There was already a comfortable group of wicker chairs with padded seat cushions waiting up there under a sun canopy, and Mahklyn's imagination was fully up to the task of envisioning the sinful pleasure of sitting back in one of those chairs, notepad in lap, feet propped on a convenient stool, with a cold drink at his elbow—chilled by ice harvested from those same distant mountains and stored in the icehouse buried deep under the palace—and servants available to refresh it at need.
I think that's part of the problem, he thought sardonically. Somehow, "pure scholarship" isn't supposed to be quite that much fun!
Actually, as he knew perfectly well, his lingering reservations owed themselves to nothing of the sort. They represented his stubborn allegiance to the principle that the College was supposed to be officially (and as visibly as possible) independent of the Crown. Which was silly of him, since the present King Cayleb had made it abundantly clear he was going to change that relationship For that matter, in the five-days since the fiery destruction of the College's original building, Mahklyn had come to realize that the king's decision was the right one. Unfortunately, he continued to have something he could only describe as conscience pangs whenever he thought about it.
Stop being such a twit and answer the man, Rahzhyr, he told himself firmly.
"I think the tower will do just fine, Father," he said, returning his attention to Cayleb's secretary. "I could wish we had a little more record storage space, but that, unfortunately, isn't something we're going to have to worry about for a while, at least."
He smiled, but it was an exceedingly sour smile as he once again reflected upon all of the priceless records and documents which had been destroyed. And he'd come to the conclusion that Captain Athrawes had been right from the outset about how and why that fire had been started . . . and by whom.
"If you're certain, Doctor," Laimhyn said, "I'm supposed to tell you that His Majesty would like to move you, your daughter and son-in-law, and your grandchildren into the old family section of the Palace."
Mahklyn opened his mouth in automatic refusal of the offer, but Laimhyn continued speaking before he could object to the size, luxury, and comfort of the proposed housing.
"That section of the Palace has stood virtually unused for the better part of twenty years, Doctor. In fact, we're going to have to do a little roof repair before it will be anything His Majesty would consider truly habitable. And, while I realize you and your family may feel you're rattling around like seeds in a gourd, I assure you that you won't for long. His Majesty intends to have one of the royal bedchambers converted into a working office for you, and it's highly probable that at least two or three of your senior colleagues will also be moving in. If King Cayleb's Tower will be a suitable home for the official College, the fact that it's directly across Prince Edvarhd's Court from the old family section would undoubtedly be convenient for all of you."
Mahklyn closed his mouth again. Laimhyn had placed a slight but unmistakable emphasis on his final three words, which strongly suggested to Mahklyn that they'd come from either the king himself, or from Captain Athrawes. It had the hallmarks of their despicable cunning, at any rate. He didn't know who those "senior colleagues" might be, but he had his suspicions, and at least two of them were as creaky in the joints as he'd become. Which made the convenience argument considerably harder for him to reject than it would have been if it had been only his own knees he had to worry about.
Besides, Tairys will kill me if I turn down an offer like this!
"Very well, Father Clyfyrd," he said finally. "Please inform His Majesty that he's being far too generous, but that I gratefully and gladly accept his generosity."
"I'm certain His Majesty will be delighted to hear it," Laimhyn murmured, with scarcely a flicker of triumph.
"Now," he continued more briskly, "about that clerical assistance. His Majesty was thinking—"
* * * *
"Oh, stop grousing, Father!" Tairys Kahnklyn said with an affectionate smile as she set the salad bowl down in the center of the dinner table. "You'd think the King had offered you a cell down in the dungeons!"
"It's just the principle of the thing," Mahklyn objected gamely. "We're supposed to be independent and critical-minded, not bribed and subverted by promises of sinful luxury!"
"Personally, I'm completely in favor of sinful luxury, myself," Aizak Kahnklyn put in as he picked up the wooden tongs and began serving the salad.
Mahklyn's son-in-law was a sturdy, stocky man of average height. He had a heavy, fast-growing beard, bushy eyebrows, and powerful shoulders and upper arms, and his dark eyes looked out of cavernous sockets. People often thought that he looked as if he would have been right at home as a longshoreman down on the docks, or behind a plow on a farm somewhere. In fact, there was a sparkle of lively curiosity in those deep-set eyes, and he was one of the more intelligent and well-read men of Mahklyn's acquaintance. He and Tairys were also the College's official librarians, and if anyone had been more devastated than Mahklyn himself by the destruction of the College's records, it had to have been his daughter and his son-in-law.
"Me, too. Me, too! I love sinful luxury!" Eydyth Kahnklyn, Tairys and Aizak's younger daughter, announced, almost bouncing in her chair. Her twin brother, Zhoel, rolled his eyes. He did a lot of that when Eydyth's thirteen-Year-old enthusiasm got the better of her. Still, Mahklyn didn't hear him raising any protest, either, and he looked at Aidryn, his oldest grandchild.
"Should I assume you support your parents and your somewhat vociferous sibling in this case?" he asked her.
"Grandpapa," the twenty-year-old replied with a smile, "if you really want to live and work in a drafty creaky old tenement, with four flights of stairs to c
limb just to reach your office, and windows any nasty-minded per son can chuck lit lanterns through, then you go right ahead. The rest of us will just have to make do here in the Palace."
"Hedonists, the lot of you," Mahklyn growled.
"If you really think that, then call us that without smiling, Father," Tairys said. Mahklyn ignored her challenge with the dignity appropriate to a patriarch of his advanced years. Especially since he knew perfectly well he couldn't meet it, anyway.
"Has anyone discussed it with Uncle Tohmys?" Erayk asked. At seventeen, he was the second eldest of Mahklyn's grandchildren. He favored his mother more than his father, with a tall, slender build, and he was definitely the family's worrier.
"My little brother can take care of himself, thank you very much, Erayk," his mother said now, with a smile. "He's been doing it for years, after all. And I'm quite sure that when he gets home, he'll be in favor of 'dropping the hook' here instead of our old spare bedroom."
Most of the people around the table chuckled. Tohmys Mahklyn had never married—yet, at least; he was only thirty-six, Mahklyn reminded himself— mostly because he claimed a wife and a captain's berth didn't go together. As the master of one of Ehdwyrd Howsmyn's galleons, Tohmys was away from Tellesberg much more often than he was at home, however, and Mahklyn suspected that he had quite a few lady-loves scattered about the oceans of Safehold. Unlike his sister, Tohmys had never been attracted to the scholar's life. He was much too busy pursuing more . . . lively goals, and he had no objection at all to enjoying the finer things in life.
"I'm afraid your mother's right about that much, at least," Mahklyn told his grandson.
"Of course she is," Aizak said cheerfully. "Aside from that peculiar taste of his for salt water, he's one of the sanest men I know. Do you really think your uncle would turn up his nose at quarters here in the Palace, Erayk?"