By Heresies Distressed (63 page)

Now Coris kept his eyes on the Charisian and hoped that Harys and Tartarian had been right.

Zhoel Harys stood on
Wing
's aftercastle, watching the Charisian maneuver. The galleon's aftercastle was much lower than it would have been aboard a warship, and Harys concentrated on looking as calm as he could. It wouldn't have done to look
too
calm, of course; any merchant skipper facing a potential naval boarding party would feel plenty of natural apprehension, after all.

Which
I
bloody well do
, he told himself.
The trick is to look nervous
enough
without looking
so
nervous they decide I have to be hiding something
.

In fact, he was discovering that his belly had been less tightly knotted at Darcos Sound, when he'd realized what the Charisian guns could actually do, than it was now.

The princess and her younger brother had gone below without protest, settling into their cramped cabin.
Wing
had never been intended to transport passengers in luxury, and—in keeping with all the rest of their disguise—Princess Irys and Prince Daivyn had been assigned quarters which were relatively comfortable, but downright spartan. They and the Earl of Coris were all covered with false identities in
Wing
's log, but everyone would be much happier if the Charisians never paid any attention at all to the plainly dressed daughter and son of a merchant factor.

The Charisian was sliding easily downwind towards him, her guns run out, and he could see her captain standing on his own quarterdeck, gazing at
Wing
through a spyglass. He hoped the Charisian was taking note of the fact that not a single one of
Wing
's seamen was anywhere near the galleon's pathetic broadside of falcons. Nor had any of the ship's wolves been mounted on their swivels.

We're absolutely no threat at all
, he thought very hard in the other captain's direction.
Just another scruffy little merchant ship with a cargo for Shwei
.

The schooner came still closer, till it was less than fifty yards off
Wing'
s windward side as the galleon broad reached on the starboard tack. The Charisian cruiser loped along, easily matching
Wing
's best speed under these wind conditions with only her own foresail and headsails set, and Harys felt an abrupt stab of envy. Excited as he'd been to receive command of
Cutlass
, he knew the galleon could never have matched the speed and agility of that schooner, and the Charisian's broadside of thirty-pounder carronades was almost as heavy as
Cutlass'
new broadside.

And I bet they're not assigning the damned schooners to just anybody
, he thought grimly.
They'll want men who can
think,
as well as fight, in command
.

“Ahoy,
Wing
!” The Charisian captain's voice floated across the water between the two ships, amplified and directed by his leather speaking trumpet.

“And what can I do for you this fine morning?” Harys bawled back through his own speaking trumpet.

“Heave to, if you please!” the Charisian replied.

“On whose authority?” Harys tried hard to put the right note of bluster into the question.

“You know whose authority, Captain!” The Charisian's voice sounded more amused than anything else, Harys noticed, and he used his speaking trumpet to gesture in the direction of the kraken banner flying above his own ship.

“This is an imperial merchant ship!” Harys shot back.

“And we're not at war with the Empire,” the Charisian told him. “But we
are
at war with people who might
pretend
to be Harchongese. Now heave to, Captain, before I start to think you might be one of them.”

Harys waited a few moments longer, then allowed his shoulders to slump.

“All right,” he growled back in a frustrated tone, and turned to his first officer. “Heave to,” he said.

“Aye—yes, Sir.”

Harys frowned, but the other officer
had
caught himself before he gave the formal naval acknowledgment of an order, and he'd managed not to salute, either. Which, given the fact that men tended to respond the way they'd been trained to under pressure and that he had to be feeling just as anxious as Harys did, was probably about the best Harys could have expected.

Wing
hove to without the snap or efficiency one might have anticipated out of a warship. Her big courses were brailed up, her spritsail disappeared, and her fore topsail and main topsail were braced around, trying to drive her in opposite directions and holding her almost motionless under their opposed forces.

The schooner matched her maneuver much more smartly, and a launch was dropped over her side and manned. It rowed swiftly across the gap between the two vessels, and came alongside
Wing
.

“Permission to come aboard, Sir?” the youthful lieutenant in command of the boarding party asked, respectfully enough, as he climbed the galleon's side to the entry port.

Harys allowed himself to glower at the young man for a second or two, then grimaced.

“Since you've seen fit to invite yourself, I suppose you might as well,” he growled.

“Thank you, Sir,” the lieutenant said. He climbed the rest of the way through the entry port and waited while ten Charisian Marines followed him aboard.

“My Captain instructed me to apologize for the inconvenience, Captain,” he said then. “He realizes that no one ever likes to be stopped and boarded by a foreign navy. If you'll show me your papers, we'll try to get this over with as quickly as possible.”

“That'll suit me just fine,” Harys replied. “Come with me.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

The lieutenant nodded to the sergeant commanding the squad of Marines. One of them attached himself to the lieutenant; the others stayed where they were, just inside the entry port. They made no overtly threatening gestures, although neither Harys nor any of his men doubted that the muskets grounded unthreateningly on the deck were loaded.

The lieutenant and his single accompanying Marine followed Harys into his cabin under the aftercastle. They paused just inside the door and waited patiently while Harys rummaged about in a desk drawer for
Wing
's papers. He took a few minutes to find them, then hauled them out, along with the carefully prepared log, and passed them across to the lieutenant.

“Thank you, Sir,” the Charisian said again. He stepped a little farther into the cabin, holding the ship's papers under the light coming through the cabin skylight, and examined them closely. He clearly knew what he was looking for, and Harys was abruptly grateful that the men who'd forged those papers had known what they were about, too.

The lieutenant set the papers aside after a moment, then flipped quickly through the log. He didn't try to read the entire thing, but it was obvious he was looking for any discrepancies . . . or any sign that newer entries had been made among the older ones.

Thank Langhorne we made it up from scratch
, Harys thought from behind his calm expression.
Even if I did think I was going to die of writer's cramp before we finished the damned thing
.

Most of the entries were in his own hand, although he'd used several different pens and inks. Other entries, scattered throughout, were in the handwriting of his first and second officers, and Earl Coris' forgers had aged the pages nicely. A couple of entries had been so water-damaged as to be almost illegible, and most were the sort of curt, one- or two-line entries one might have expected from a merchant skipper, while a few had been expanded into larger descriptions of specific events.

“Could I ask what you're doing in these waters, Captain?” the lieutenant asked finally, looking up from the log and neatly gathering up
Wing
's registration, customs, and ownership papers once more.

“Sailing to Shwei Bay . . . just like the log says,” Harys replied a bit tartly.

“But why this way?” The lieutenant's tone was still polite, but his eyes had narrowed. “According to these, you sailed from Charis. Wouldn't it have been a considerably shorter voyage going west, not east?”

“I'm sure it would have,” Harys acknowledged. “On the other hand, the waters off the southern coasts of Haven and Howard are swarming with privateers these days—or hadn't you've heard, Lieutenant?”

“I believe I have heard something about that, yes, Sir.” The lieutenant's lips twitched, and Harys snorted.

“I'm sure you have. Any road, it seemed to me I'd be less likely to run into a privateer going east, since all of them seemed to be hunting westward from Charis. And it also seemed to me—no disrespect, Lieutenant—that every so often, a privateer's likely to get a mite . . . overenthusiastic, if you take my meaning. I'd just as soon avoid situations where something unfortunate might happen. The owners wouldn't like it if something did.”

“I see.” The lieutenant gazed at him for several seconds, eyes thoughtful. Then he shrugged. “I imagine that makes sense, as long as the length of your passage doesn't matter too much.”

Harys snorted again.

“It's not going to bother a cargo of farming gear a lot if it takes a few extra days, or even a few extra five-days, to arrive, Lieutenant! It's not like I was hauling a cargo of perishables.”

“Farming gear?”

“Reapers, cultivators, and harrows,” Harys said tersely. “We loaded it in Tellesberg.”

“May I examine it?”

“Why not?” Harys flipped both hands in a gesture which combined exasperation and acceptance. “Follow me.”

He led the lieutenant back out on deck and beckoned to the naval lieutenant who'd been assigned the role of
Wing
's purser.

“He wants to see the cargo,” he said. “Show him.”

“Yes, Sir,” the purser acknowledged, and looked sourly at the Charisian. “Try not to leave too big a mess for me to clean up,” he said.

“I'll try,” the Charisian agreed sardonically.

Four of
Wing
's seamen knocked out the wedges and lifted the battens from the main hatch cover, and four of the Charisian Marines clambered down into the hold. Where they found exactly what the manifest said they ought to have found.

The farm equipment had come from one of Ehdwyrd Howsmyn's manufactories, although it
hadn't
been bought in Tellesberg. In fact, it had been purchased in Chisholm and had been bound for the Duchy of West Wind when the first tide of Charisian privateers had swept across the waters around Zebediah and Corisande and
Wing
had taken refuge at Elvarth. It was still in its original crates, however, and those crates bore the customs marks of Tellesberg. They didn't bear
Chisholmian
customs marks, however, since they'd somehow evaded Chisholm's customs inspection. Queen Sharleyan had formally prohibited trade between Chisholm and Corisande even before she sailed to Tellesberg. Unfortunately, at least some of her subjects—especially those who'd already accepted orders from Corisandian customers—had decided she surely couldn't have meant her prohibition to apply to
them
. . . and had taken steps to see to it that it didn't.

That had been the final, decisive factor in Earl Tartarian's choice of
Wing
for her present mission. After all, few things could possibly have looked less threatening, or less suspicious, to a Charisian boarding party than goods manufactured in Charis, itself.

The Marines clambered around in the hold for several minutes, then climbed back on deck.

“Matches the manifest, Sir,” the senior Marine told his lieutenant, and the lieutenant turned back to Harys.

“Well,” he said, handing
Wing
's papers back over, “I suppose that's that, Captain. Thank you for your cooperation, and, once again, please accept my Captain's apologies for inconveniencing you.”

“No harm done, I suppose,” Harys allowed just a bit grudgingly. Then he shook his head and grimaced. “Truth to tell, Lieutenant, I don't blame you or your Captain. Mind you, I think all of you Charisians have lost your minds, but under the circumstances, I'd probably've done the same thing in your boots.”

“I'm glad you understand, Sir.” The lieutenant bowed slightly, then twitched his head at his Marines. The sergeant came briefly to attention and then started chivying his men back down into the launch.

“I hope you and your ship enjoy a safe voyage to Shwei Bay, Captain,” the lieutenant said, then followed his Marines.

Harys stood at the bulwark, watching as the launch's oars dipped, then pulled strongly back towards the schooner. A part of him felt almost sorry for the lieutenant, but the truth was that the young man had done his job well. He'd looked in exactly the right places, and he'd found exactly the right documents and cargo, and who in his right mind would have suspected such an elaborate ruse designed solely to get three passengers to Shwei Bay? The very idea was preposterous.