“Langhorne,” Thirsk said softly, looking at the drawing, trying to think of some reason why it wouldn’t work.
“I’ve built a model, My Lord,” Zhwaigair continued. “It’s only a fifteen-footer, and I can only get four men on the crank at once, but it does work. On that scale, at any rate.”
“I’ll want to see it, Lieutenant,” Thirsk told him, and Zhwaigair nodded.
“Of course, My Lord. I’ll be honored to show it to you.”
“And you said something about reducing target size, as well, I believe?” the earl continued, looking at him very intently indeed now.
“Yes, My Lord. It seemed to me that if the … crank galley, for want of a better term, was practical at all, it might be possible to build ships half the size, or even a third the size, of our present galleons—something a lot closer in size to our prewar galleys, or even a bit smaller—that could still be effective warships. They wouldn’t be remotely as useful as galleons off soundings, but in coastal waters they could be very useful indeed. They’d be fast, small, much more maneuverable, and shallower draft. And, especially now, with exploding shot, smaller size might actually be an advantage in combat. If we mounted three or four guns in the bow, to fire straight ahead, and protected them with the thickest possible wooden bulwarks—possibly faced with some kind of iron plate or something like that to break up incoming shot, or at least keep them from penetrating—a handful of the heaviest possible guns would be capable of sinking the biggest galleon the heretics have with only a handful of hits. The idea would be to outmaneuver the heretics’ galleons, staying out of their broadside firing arcs as much as possible, and present only the protected bow and the crank galley’s own artillery to them.” He shrugged, looking up from the drawing to meet Thirsk’s eyes. “We wouldn’t have as much total firepower on any given crank galley as they’d have on one of their galleons, My Lord, but a squadron of crank galleys—or even an entire fleet of them—could be quite a different story. And with no oars to get in the way, they could probably mount a moderately heavy broadside of carronades for close action if somebody managed to get around them and maneuver out of their own firing arcs.”
“Assuming it’s possible, I think you might very well have a point, Lieutenant,” Thirsk said slowly. He stood looking down at the crankshaft drawing for several seconds, then inhaled deeply and nodded.
“Ahlvyn,” he looked at the commander, “I’ll want to see the Lieutenant’s boat as soon as possible. Arrange that—for this afternoon, if we can manage it. And please ask Ahbail and Mahrtyn to make themselves available afterward. If the Lieutenant’s demonstration is as successful as he seems to think it will be, I imagine I’ll have quite a few letters to write. Oh, and send a messenger immediately to Bishop Staiphan. Ask him to repair aboard Chihiro at his earliest convenience. I’d like him to see the Lieutenant’s boat at the same time I do.”
“Of course, My Lord.” Khapahr smiled, stroking his mustache with a pleased—one might almost have said complacent—expression, and Thirsk shook his head at him.
“All right, Ahlvyn, I’ll go ahead and say it. You were right to bring the lieutenant to see me directly … even if you did use it mainly as an excuse to abandon the anchor chain hunt. Now go and do something else virtuous. And, Lieutenant,” he turned back to Zhwaigair, “do me the favor of keeping yourself available aboard Chihiro for the rest of the day, if you please.”
“My Lord, I’m expected back aboard Wave Lord. I have the afternoon watch.”
“Commander Khapahr will see to that, Lieutenant.”
“In that case, My Lord, I’m at your service.”
Zhwaigair bowed slightly, and Thirsk nodded back. Then he watched Khapahr and the lieutenant withdraw from his day cabin, taking Zhwaigair’s envelope with them.
“Shan-wei, My Lord,” Baiket said quietly as the door closed behind them. “I thought he was out of his mind, but if he really can make all this work, or even just half of it.…”
“I know, Stywyrt.” Thirsk nodded again, then crossed to brace his hands on the quarter window, leaning his weight on its sill as he looked out across the anchorage. “I know. Of course,” he smiled mirthlessly, “if young Zhwaigair really is onto something, it’s going to cost Shan-wei’s own pile of marks to do anything with it. I’m sure you can imagine how well that’s going to please certain of our superiors, especially with the situation in the Republic. And none of this is going to be available in the next five-day, whatever we do. But the possibilities … the possibilities, Stywyrt.” He shook his head, his eyes bright with wonder. “For the first time—”
He broke off and straightened with a shrug, and Baiket frowned as he looked at his admiral’s back, wondering what Thirsk had just stopped himself from saying.
Thirsk couldn’t see the flag captain’s expression, but it wouldn’t have surprised him. Not that he had any intention of completing his thought where Baiket or anyone else was likely to overhear it.
But it’s true, he thought. For the first time—the very first time since this rolling disaster began—we may actually have the opportunity to introduce something the Charisians won’t see coming!
He was vaguely amazed by the fierceness of his satisfaction at the thought. It didn’t magically change any of his other concerns or worries, didn’t suddenly fill him with confidence Clyntahn and the Group of Four were truly on God and the archangels’ side, after all. Nor did it make him feel any cleaner about what had happened to Gwylym Manthyr’s men. But Lywys Gardynyr was a fighting man, one who’d had his fill and more than his fill of leading his seamen into battle against someone whose weapons and ships were always superior to anything he could give them.
That could be about to change, he told himself. But before I start sending letters to anyone like Thorast or Fern, I’d better have a word or two—or possibly three—with Bishop Staiphan. We need someone like Zhwaigair—in fact, we need as many of him as we can get!—but that doesn’t mean some fool of an Inquisitor won’t decide he’s dabbling in the forbidden, especially if they realize just how many new ideas he has. I’m not going to offer him up to the Inquisition until I’m sure someone with enough seniority—and enough deeper into the Inquisition’s favor than I am—is in a position to protect him.
He looked out over the harbor, and his expression tightened at the thought. How had the world become this insane? What kind of madness required an admiral to worry about protecting a man who wanted only to serve Mother Church—to find better ways to defend Mother Church—from Mother Church’s own inquisitors? What could the archangels be thinking to let it happen?
Lywys Gardynyr had no answer for any of those questions, but he did know Dynnys Zhwaigair was far too valuable to lose … no matter what he had to do to protect him from that murderous idiot in Zion.
.XIV.
Imperial Palace, City of Tellesberg Kingdom of Old Charis, Charisian Empire
“I think our priorities just got simplified.” Cayleb Ahrmahk laid his palm on the thick, many-paged dispatch lying on the council table in front of him. “Sharleyan and I are both delighted by Duke Eastshare’s initiative, but there’s no use pretending it won’t require us to rethink a lot of our earlier planning.”
“That’s true, Your Majesty,” Domynyk Staynair replied gravely. “Fortunately, though, we’ve got all those Navy of God galleons whose guns we’ve already landed and turned over to Ehdwyrd for scrap. I think our best solution for transporting the Duke’s troops the rest of the way to Siddarmark will be to use them. They’re already fitted out to transport and mess large crews, so they’ll be the most effective way to move people. Horses and other draft animals are going to be more problematic, but I think we’ve got enough shipping either already here in Tellesberg or on its way back from Siddarmark to handle that. That’s assuming his projected numbers for his advance guard are accurate, at any rate. We’ll have to scare up some additional horse and dragon transports for his main body, but we ought to have time to do that before it gets to R
amsgate Bay.”
“Assuming the weather cooperates,” Cayleb pointed out.
“Assuming that, of course.” Baron Rock Point smiled a crooked smile. “That proviso always attaches to anything an admiral says, you know, Your Majesty.”
“I most assuredly do,” Cayleb said with a brief, answering smile. It fled quickly, however, and he turned his attention to Ahlvyno Pawalsyn.
“Even given that Domynyk can free up the transport, it’s going to play hob with our original logistic schedule, Ahlvyno. Can we come up with enough rations to supply his troops as well as the Marines we’ve already deployed or put into the pipeline?”
“It’s a case of needs must when Shan-wei drives, isn’t it, Your Majesty?” Baron Ironhill looked undeniably harried, but he returned his emperor’s level gaze with the smallest of shrugs. “I’ll find the money somewhere, but it’s going to be months yet before food prices stabilize after the relief effort. It’s going to cost a pretty mark to do it.”
“As you say, we don’t have much of a choice,” Sharleyan agreed. “On the other hand, given the reports out of Trokhanos, Malitar, and Windmoor, I think food prices might start stabilizing sooner than we’d feared. It sounds like they’ve at least doubled the amount of land under plow in those provinces. We’re probably still going to lose more people to starvation—enough to give any of us nightmares for years to come—but by summer, we ought to be seeing much greater food production in the eastern Republic.”
“That would take a lot of the strain off here in the Empire, Your Grace,” Ironhill acknowledged. “On the other hand, when it happens, farmers who’ve invested in increased production here are suddenly going to find their markets glutted, which may drive the price of food down as catastrophically as it’s been driven up at this point.” His expression was unhappy. “The last thing we need is even more internal market instability at the very time our external markets’ve been cut off at the knees, but that’s exactly what we’re going to have to deal with, I’m afraid.”
“Then we’ll just have to deal with it.” Sharleyan gave him a tight smile. “By which, of course, I mean you’ll have to deal with it, with Cayleb and me pressing our entirely unreasonable demands that you do it even faster all the while.”
A chorus of chuckles flowed around the conference table, and Ironhill smiled back at her much more naturally.
“At least you and His Majesty aren’t in the habit of beheading those of us who fall short of your unreasonable standards, Your Grace. That’s something, I suppose.”
“I always said you had a level head on your shoulders … for now, at least,” Cayleb observed, and the chuckles turned into laughter as Ironhill reached up and checked the back of his neck.
Cayleb was pleased to hear that laughter, but it couldn’t change the reality they faced.
“Food aside,” he said, returning their attention to the matters at hand, “there’s also the question of what we do with Eastshare’s rifles. Are we going to have enough Mahndrayns to swap them all out by the time he reaches Ramsgate?”
“Probably not immediately, Your Majesty,” Ehdwyrd Howsmyn replied. “We’re talking about almost eighty thousand men, better than three-quarters of them infantry. That’s sixty thousand Mahndrayns, and we’re not going to have that many ready to ship by the time the Domynyk’s talking about sending off the first wave of transport ships.”
“What about sending them straight to Siddarmark, instead?” Earl Pine Hollow asked. “It’s going to take time for the transports to reach Raven’s Land, then the Republic. Could we steal enough time to produce the number he’d need if we had them meet him in Siddarmark instead of sending them to him immediately?”
“I think we could definitely manage that,” Howsmyn said after a moment.
“Then I suppose the next question is whether or not we ship his regular rifles home for conversion,” Sharleyan said.
“I’d argue against that, at least for right now, Your Grace,” Rock Point said. “Those rifles will be a lot more useful, muzzle-loaders or not, in Siddarmark, than sailing back and forth to Delthak.”
“I think you’re right about that,” Cayleb said. He cocked an eyebrow at Sharleyan, who nodded, then turned back to Howsmyn and Ironhill. “We’ll do it Domynyk’s way.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” Ironhill dipped his head in a small, seated bow and jotted a note on the pad at his elbow.
“The next question is where in Siddarmark we land them,” Cayleb said.
“Given the Lord Protector’s latest messages, I’d suggest landing them in Siddar City,” Rock Point said. Cayleb gazed at him for a moment, then turned to look over his shoulder at the sapphire-eyed Imperial Guardsman just inside the council chamber’s door.
“Merlin, I think you’d better come over here and find a seat,” he said. Most of the people already sitting around the table were either members of the inner circle or at least cleared for the “the seijin has visions” version of the truth, and no one seemed surprised by the emperor’s invitation.
“You spent enough time conferring with Duke Eastshare and Baron Green Valley for us in Chisholm that you’re probably the closest thing to an informed expert on the Army we have at the moment,” Cayleb continued as the seijin obeyed his command. “I want to hear anything you might have to say about where and how we could use his troops—and our Marines, for that matter—to best advantage.”
“Of course, Your Majesty,” Merlin murmured respectfully, slipping into a fortuitously empty chair between Rock Point and Seamount.
In many realms, the notion of sharing the imperial council table with a commoner would have been outrageous, but Charisian nobles were more inclined than most Safeholdian aristocrats to value capability over birthright to begin with, and all of these Charisian nobles knew how close their monarchs were to Merlin Athrawes. For that matter, they respected Merlin’s judgment almost as much as Cayleb and Sharleyan did, if not for exactly the same reasons.
“So, do you agree with Domynyk?”
“I think I do, for the most part, Your Majesty.” Merlin shrugged ever so slightly. “I know our reports indicate the Lord Protector already has the largest single portion of his remaining regulars concentrated in Old Province, but that’s because of the threat coming out of Mountaincross and New Northland. Not to mention the need to relieve loyal forces in Midhold, as soon as he can spare the strength. If he can do that, hold the Sylmahn Gap, and secure control of the Northland Gap, he can seal off everything north of Shiloh against the Temple Loyalists and stop any immediate threat to the capital. I’m sure that’s why he’s concentrated his troops the way he has. I wish we had better information on exactly how much of the Army has remained loyal and intact, but given what we know so far, his deployments make a lot of sense.”
In fact, of course, Merlin and the inner circle knew almost exactly—better than Stohnar himself, actually—what the lord protector’s troop strength consisted of, and the knowledge was not enheartening
Owl’s SNARCs had finally managed to come up with reasonably reliable population numbers for Safehold as a whole. Or, he reminded himself grimly, for what the population numbers of Safehold had been before Clyntahn had launched the Sword of Schueler.
At just over one billion, the overall human population of Safehold was roughly equivalent to that of Old Earth in the year 1800, and Safeholdian realms tended to be far, far larger than their Old Terran equivalents, thanks to the manner in which they’d formed and the Church’s influence. Siddarmark’s area, for example, was over nine million square miles, roughly the size of the entire Old Terran continent of North America, and Safeholdian agriculture and medical arts were better than anything on Old Terra in 1800. There were still huge areas for improvement, even within the constraints of animal traction and muscle power, but Safeholdians had draft dragons, practiced four-crop rotation, understood fertilizers, and had the advantage of genetically engineered, high-yield food crops, courtesy of Pei Shan-wei’s terraforming crews. In addi
tion, realms like Siddarmark had the better part of nine hundred years worth of Writ-enjoined canal and road building behind them. Where the old nation of Great Britain, with perhaps the best agricultural practices in the world in 1800, had been able to support about eight and a half human beings per square mile, Siddarmark’s farmers could support over thirteen, which had given the Republic a pre–Sword of Schueler population of more than 129,500,000 citizens.
In theory, that permitted armies far larger than anything Old Earth had seen before its twentieth century, but there were countervailing factors. A huge one had been the way in which industrialization had been hobbled by the Proscriptions of Jwo-jeng. Farming might be more efficient than it had been in the early-nineteenth, but manufacturing was not, since everything still had to be done using only wind, water, or muscle power and production had been concentrated in the hands of skilled artisans who turned out high-quality goods but only in strictly limited quantities.
Charis had begun changing that even before Merlin’s arrival, but that was the point; the change had only been beginning. It still had a long way to go, and even with Safeholdian roads and canals, Safeholdian armies were forced to rely on animal traction to move large quantities of supplies. Then there was the fact that traditional Safeholdian armies were far less well articulated—not simply tactically, but strategically—than post-Napoleonic Old Earth’s. Tactically, pikemen required the support of missile troops, whether musketeers or bowmen, and infantry required cavalry support. There was no such thing as an infantryman who could march, deploy, and fight independent of his supports, which inevitably made for a cumbersome and clumsy army organization. And no one had ever heard of the notion of dividing an army strategically into divisions and corps. It marched as one huge force, usually down a single line of advance.
The Imperial Charisian Army was in the process of changing that, because a rifle-armed infantryman with a bayonet could march, deploy, and fight independent of his supports. The rest of Safehold remained a long, long way from realizing that, however, and none of them—yet—could match the Empire’s ability to provide all of its infantry and dragoons with rifles. Until they could, they were stuck with all the traditional problems not simply of supplying but of maneuvering large field armies.