Actually, Merlin had aimed for any spot in a four- day window. In fact, he’d been prepared to settle for missing the window completely, given the vagaries of wind, weather, and the unpredictable interference of Murphy. It had seemed worth shooting for, though, and Gahrvai—and Hauwyl Chermyn—had surprised him with how quickly they’d moved. They’d been fortunate with the wind on their passage from Manchyr, as well.
Which was how Sir Koryn Gahrvai found himself watching the galleons sway their boats—rather larger and more numerous than most merchant galleons might have carried, if anyone had noticed—over the side on a calm, windless night blacker than the inside of an old boot. He was confident they would have managed under other weather conditions, but he wasn’t about to look a gift dragon in the mouth when God decided to give him perfect weather conditions.
Even if he didn’t know how the seijins had arranged it.
Now he waited as the first wave of Imperial Charisian Marines and Corisandian guardsmen who’d hidden below decks all day swarmed quietly up out of the galleons’ hatches and then down into the waiting boats. In all, there were al-most a thousand men spread between the two merchantmen. Even with a larger than usual complement of boats, they couldn’t land that many troops at once. On the other hand, after carefully studying charts of the harbor (and the maps which had accompanied the mysterious letter), Gahrvai and Major Danyel Portyr, commanding the Imperial Charisian Marine’s First Battalion, Third Regiment, had picked likely spots to land the first wave.
Gahrvai waited until the last man—but one—of the first wave had climbed down, then dropped lightly over the galleon’s side, himself. He slid down the rope until Yairman Uhlstyn, waiting below, reached up and grabbed the heel of one boot. Uhlstyn guided his foot down to one of the boat’s thwarts, and Gahrvai released the rope and dropped the last inch or so.
“All right,” he said quietly. “Let’s go.”
Four boats rowed silently, oarlocks muffled, across Telith Bay.
The city’s lights offered a sufficient navigation beacon for experienced Imperial Navy coxswains. In fact, the hard part was less finding their way to their destination than making certain they gave other anchored vessels a sufficiently wide berth. It was no part of Gahrvai and Portyr’s plans for some civilian anchor watch to hail them and raise any sort of alarm ashore.
Nothing of the sort happened, and Gahrvai’s boat slid quietly under one of the city’s older, more rickety piers. It was almost low water, and he was pleased to see his mysterious correspondent’s notes were, indeed, accurate. The receding tide had exposed a wide expanse of rocky shingle, roomy enough for half again as many men as he’d brought with him, nestled in the ink-black shadow of the abandoned pier. The first two boats were already disem-barking their passengers—a full company of guardsmen equipped with their personal weapons and a dozen bull’s-eye lanterns with firmly closed slides—when Gahrvai stepped ashore. He looked around just long enough to reassure himself of the spot’s suitability for landing, then nodded to the senior of the quartet of coxswains.
“This’ll do,” he said quietly. “Head back for the next lot.”
“Aye, Sir.”
The petty officer had a Chisholmian accent, Gahrvai noticed. Now the coxswain looked thoughtfully at the gentle waves rolling up onto the shingle.
“Tide’s going to start making in another half hour or so, Gen’ral,” he said. “Be at least twice that long till I can get the next load ashore. Might be you and your lads’re going to find yourselves wading afore that happens.”
“If we do, we do.” Gahrvai shrugged. “The good news”— he twitched his head at one of the pier’s pilings and the necklace of high- water shellfish and weeds which encircled it—“is that it’s not going to get a lot more than knee-deep, even when the tide’s all the way back in. Not that we won’t appreciate your moving things right along.”
“Oh, o’ course, Sir!” the coxswain chuckled. “We’ll do that little thing.”
“Good.” Gahrvai’s teeth flashed in a smile so white it was dimly visible even in the pier’s shadow, then he smacked the coxswain on the shoulder. “In that case, though,” he said a bit pointedly, “I suppose you’d best get started.”
The coxswain’s estimate turned out to have been almost uncannily accurate, the sort of offhand precision twenty or thirty years’ experience at sea could provide.
The water was little more than ankle- deep by the time all four boats came sliding silently out of the night once more, although the guardsmen had been standing there long enough to demonstrate that none of their boots were truly watertight. Gahrvai could feel the cold water squishing around his own toes, seeming to swirl a bit, even inside his boots, as small wavelets slopped across the shingle. It wasn’t the most pleasant sensation he’d ever experienced. On the other hand, he could think of quite a few which had been worse, and few of them had come his way in such a good cause.
“Captain says Major Portyr’s first lot made it ashore all right and tight, too, Gen’ral,” the Chisholmian coxswain said softly as the second load of guardsmen climbed out of the boats. “Reckon his second lot’ll be going ashore in ’bout another fifteen, twenty minutes.”
“Good,” Gahrvai said again. He looked around as Major Naiklos (who’d been promoted to command his own battalion since the Manchyr raid) and Uhlstyn got things organized. He considered what the coxswain had said and the street map which had come with the letter. He compared overland distances from his current position to his objective, then considered how long it would take Portyr to reach his primary objective. Allow another fifteen minutes or so for slippage, and . . .
“All right, Frahnk,” he said quietly, his mouth a foot from Naiklos’ ear, “it’s time we got them started moving. Your scouts have their bearings?”
“Yes, Sir,” Naiklos replied equally quietly, and grinned tightly. “And they’re good men, too. As a matter of fact, Yairman picked them.”
“I figured he would.” Gahrvai snorted, giving his armsman a look of affectionate exasperation. “Give him an inch, and he’ll take a mile, Major. Never has known his place.”
“Now, you know that’s not true, Sir,” Uhlstyn said. “Know my place perfectly, I do. Right here.” He pointed at the water slopping over the shingle approximately two feet behind Sir Koryn Gahrvai. “As for the rest, well—”
The armsman shrugged with the confidence of a trusted family henchman, and Gahrvai shook his head.
“All right, Major,” he said resignedly. “If Yairman’s deigned to sign off on the suitability of your scouts, let’s move out.”
In point of fact, Major Naiklos’ scouts did their job perfectly. They’d had ample opportunity to study a copy of the map which had come with Gahrvai’s letter. Their copy omitted all of the detailed information whose origin would have been difficult to explain, but it was more than sufficient for them to pick up their landmarks as they circled around the harbor district. Gahrvai’s men moved through the shadows of ware houses, avoiding the glow of lanterns where still- open taverns served their customers. The lead scouts were far enough ahead to spot even the occasional prostitutes before they could notice that the better part of three hundred guardsmen were slipping through the darkened streets of Telitha.
Most of those prostitutes, and the handful of other pedestrians who fell into the scouts’ clutches, were more than a little uneasy to find themselves “requested” to accompany Gahrvai’s troopers. None were foolish enough to mistake the politeness of the invitation as an indication that they had any choice, however, and one look at the grim- faced guardsmen was enough to convince any of them to keep his—or her—mouth shut rather than risk raising the alarm. They might not know exactly what Gahrvai and his men were up to, but they knew enough to be certain it was none of their business . . . what ever it was.
Despite his own careful planning, and despite the experience of the scouts Naiklos and Uhlstyn had chosen, Gahrvai was actually surprised when they managed to get all the way to
their initial objective without raising a single alarm. Aside from a handful of dogs who’d taken exception to their presence—and the handful of involuntary fellow travelers they’d swept up along the way—no one in the entire city seemed to have taken the least note of their presence.
Doesn’t say much for the local guard’s alertness,Gahrvai mused. Not that I’m going to complain about it . . . to night, at least. But, Langhorne—! I know we were taking precautions, but I have to wonder if these clowns would’ve noticed us if I’d come in with a brass band and a torchlight parade!
On the other hand, he supposed Earl Storm Keep and his fellow conspirators might have been discouraging the city guard from noticing anything they weren’t supposed to notice.
In fact,he thought slowly, maybe we aren’t the first bunch of armed men to be creeping around in the middle of the night. If they’ve been working on this as long as our letter- writing friend says they have, they may have marched quite a few men through Telitha to collect arms from the ware houses here. That could explain why all the locals are being so careful to avoid noticing us.
That thought made him even more grateful for the ten additional transports—and the six escorting war galleons—which ought to be about five miles out at the moment. Of course, they’d hoped for a bit more wind when they were laying their plans, and it was entirely possible their reinforcements—an entire regiment each of Imperial Marines and Corisandian Guardsmen—were going to be delayed.
Well, if everything goes the way it’s supposed to, we won’tneed reinforcements, he encouraged himself, resolutely not thinking about how seldom “everything” actually did go the way it was supposed to.
He wished he had a better notion of exactly how Portyr was doing, but timing was actually less critical than it might have been. Portyr’s objective was, ultimately, as important as Gahrvai’s. But unlike Gahrvai, Portyr was supposed to be pouncing on a mostly empty—or at least currently unoccupied—building. Gahrvai’s objective, on the other hand, was most definitely occupied. Which, considering who the occupants were, was the real reason it had been assigned to a completely Corisandian force.
He peered down the boulevard at the luxurious, walled mansion. Like the city itself, Storm House was of fairly recent construction—no more than fifty years old—and it had little in common with old- fashioned, fortified seats like Baron Larchros’ manor in Serabor. Or, for that matter, even Earl Craggy Hill’s residence in Vahlainah. It had lots of doors and windows, and very little in the way of built- in defensive features. The wall around Storm House, no more than seven or eight feet tall, was more for privacy than protection, although it was probably enough to at least delay any intruders. Especially if anyone behind it knew the intruders were coming.
According to the letter which had been delivered to his study, Storm Keep had no more than a couple of dozen armed retainers here in his town house. Telitha might be his city, but there was a limit to just how openly he dared to operate, even here. On the other hand, Gahrvai had to assume any retainers he did keep here knew all about his plans and were fully committed to them. Which suggested they might well offer resistance . . . especially if they didn’t immediately realize just how outnumbered they actually were. And it wouldn’t take a great deal of delay for the really important fish to slither out of the net before he could scoop them up.
“Get your second company in position, Major,” he whispered to Naiklos, and heard the major’s own murmured order being relayed from man to man.
A few moments later, the designated company moved off, gratifyingly quietly, and he settled back down in the shadows, waiting. He gave the moving company long enough to get into its pre- chosen position, covering the back side of the town house from the spacious park attached to it, then waited that long again, as a cushion. Only then did he turn back to Naiklos and nod.
“Go,” he said simply.
The first inkling any occupant of Storm House had that something untoward was happening was the sudden, voiceless rush of booted feet on cobblestones. It was understandable that it should take at least a few seconds for anyone to recognize that sound, especially when it came out of absolutely nowhere in the middle of the darkest night of the month. The pair of armsmen assigned to the gate were reasonably alert, but they’d never actually expected to be assailed here in the middle of the earl’s own city. The idea was preposterous! And so, even after their instincts had begun to recognize what they were hearing, their brains insisted they had to be wrong. There must be some other explanation!
Unfortunately, there wasn’t. And, perhaps even more unfortunately, Sir Koryn Gahrvai’s instructions to his guardsmen had been very clear. No one was to be allowed to raise the alarm. As a consequence, the earl’s armsmen were ... neutralized with a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of gentleness while they were still trying to figure out what that “other explanation” was. Still, the guardsmen weren’t actually trying to kill them, and both of them recovered consciousness within two days.
As the gate guards went down under vigorously applied Guard musket butts, Gahrvai and the bulk of his men went flooding into Storm House’s courtyard. There was some jostling as they funneled through the constricting gate, but this was the same company Gahrvai had selected for the raid which had netted Aidryn Waimyn. By now, they’d become experts at raiding monasteries or town houses in the middle of the night, and they’d been even more carefully briefed to night than they’d been that night. As soon as they were clear of the gate, they spread out once more, individual squads heading for individual objectives under their sergeants.
Bishop Executor Thomys Shylair had been delighted to accept Earl Storm Keep’s invitation to visit Telitha. While he was confident of Earl Craggy Hill’s security in Vahlainah, Shylair was of the opinion that it was better to stay on the move. Allowing himself to loiter too long in any one location was too likely to give some potential in for mant the chance to recognize him, however secure his hiding place might appear, or even actually be.
Craggy Hill had disagreed, arguing that it was wiser for him to find a single, really safe hiding place—obviously, in Craggy Hill’s opinion, in Vahlainah—and then simply stay there. If he never went out, Craggy Hill had reasoned, the chance of someone recognizing him would be non ex is tent.
Shylair could appreciate the logic, but there were four telling points against it, in his opinion. First, wherever he set up his headquarters, there was going to be a steady flow of messengers and visitors in and out. It had to be that way, if he was going to stay in contact with the princedom’s Temple Loyalist clergy. All that traffic was likely to draw attention sooner or later, if he stayed in one place, whether or not anyone realized he himself was present. Second, he simply wasn’t prepared to stay cooped up in a single suite of rooms, no matter how luxurious, for literally months on end. He had to get out, breathe at least a little fresh air, and moving about—cautiously—between the residences of the senior members of the resistance was the best way to stay on top of the situation. Third, he was uneasy about trusting men with whom he had no personal contact. He wanted to see them, look them in the eye, listen to the firmness of their voices, and, in his opinion, it was safer for one man and his personal aide—him—to move around discreetly than it would have been for all of the others to come to him.
And fourth—though he was unprepared to discuss this one with any of his secular allies—he had less than absolute faith in the selflessness of Craggy Hill’s motives. For that matter, he nursed at least some suspicion about the altruism of all of those allies. Which meant he had no desire to find himself as the permanent guest of, and ( just coincidentally) under the physical control of, any of them.
His own logic was not universally accepted, yet there wasn’t a great deal anyone could do about it. Shylair suspected his fellow conspirators had recognized that and organized their own schedule of “invitations” as the best compromise available to them, but that was fine with him. He didn’t mind being “managed” a bit, as long a
s he did have the opportunity to avoid permanent incarceration.
Of all of the town houses and manors in which he’d been a guest since fleeing Manchyr, Storm House was his favorite. It was the newest and most modern, the rooms assigned to him had a magnificent beachside view, and he loved the climate here. The soothing sound of surf helped him to sleep, as well, and that was what he was doing, deeply and peacefully, at the moment Sir Koryn Gahrvai’s guardsmen put the Storm House gate guards into an even deeper slumber than his own.
Less than three minutes later, however, the bishop executor’s repose found itself rudely interrupted.
Sahlahmn Traigair, the Earl of Storm Keep, was sound asleep, snoring peacefully beside his wife, when something penetrated his slumber.
Unfortunately for the earl, while Storm House might not have been designed as a fortress, it was solidly built. In fact, it had intentionally been constructed with an eye towards holding down noise from the nearby city streets, especially in the earl’s personal apartments and bedchamber, and that same noise- baffling design meant the muffled sound wasn’t loud enough to actually wake him. His sleeping brain roused a bit, trying to identify it, but before the fish of consciousness reached the surface of his sleeping mind’s pool, the door to his bedchamber burst violently open.
Storm Keep bolted up into a sitting position even as his wife screamed and clutched at the blankets.
“What the h—?!”he began thunderously.
“Earl Storm Keep,” a flat, cold voice interrupted him, “I arrest you on the charge of treason and conspiracy against the Crown.”