By Schism Rent Asunder (86 page)

Or maybe not
, he told himself.
We don't want to break any more eggs than we have to, so she may just want to pointedly suggest that it's time to heave to before she
does
bring the bastards into range
.

Frankly, that was just fine with Larys Shaikyr. He was as infuriated as anyone else over the Ferayd Massacre, but he was also a pragmatic businessman … and a fifteen-percent shareholder in
Raptor
. Vengeance for cold-blooded murder was a fine thing, and he wouldn't pretend, even to himself, that it wasn't exactly what he wanted. But vengeance was already on its way to Ferayd, in the form of Admiral Rock Island and his fleet. It would arrive soon enough, and in the meantime, there were bills to pay, as well.

War Hammer
's target was beginning to fall astern of her consorts as her oars floundered in greater and greater confusion. That was one of the problems with galleys, he reflected with grim satisfaction. Losing a sail or, even worse, a mast could have serious consequences for any galleon, but a galley under oars depended upon the synchronized, carefully controlled effort of literally hundreds of oarsmen. Aboard a ship like
War Hammer
's current prey, there might be four or five men on each oar, whereas one of the Charisian Navy's larger galleys would have had as many as ten men to each sweep, half of them facing aft and pushing while the other half faced forward and pulled. Keeping that many men working smoothly, as an integrated team, even under perfect conditions, could be a daunting task.

With five-inch round shot pitching in among the rowers, mangling them, sending knife-edged clouds of splinters swirling through them, splashing even unwounded men with the blood of someone who'd been pulling the same oar beside them only a heartbeat before, keeping the sweeps moving in any sort of organized fashion was simply out of the question.

More cannon thundered as
Sea Kiss
came down on the merchant ships in
Windcrest
's wake, and he bared his teeth as one of the galleons—which hadn't even been brought under
threat
of fire yet, as far as he could see—suddenly let her sheets fly, spilling the wind from her sails in token of surrender.

“I believe we're almost in range to give
War Hammer
a hand, Hahl,” he observed.

“I believe you're right, Sir.” Urbahn returned his thin smile and touched his left shoulder in salute. “I'll just go have a talk with the Gunner and bring that to his attention, shall I, Sir?”

“I think that would be an excellent idea,” Shaikyr agreed, and watched the first officer heading forward to where
Raptor
's gunner was fussing over the chase weapons on the galleon's foredeck.

Then he returned his attention to the convoy which was his prize. There were only six galleons in it, which meant he had enough privateers to chase each of them down and still have two left over to finish off the galleys. Normally, Shaikyr, like any prudent privateer, would have preferred to leave the galleys astern once they were too crippled to interfere with his operations. After all, galleys weren't worth very much these days. They didn't carry valuable cargoes, and no sane Charisian admiral would even contemplate adding a captured
galley
to his fleet. That meant the possibility of prize money would have been virtually nonexistent, and even Delferahkan artillery was likely to inflict at least some damage and—especially—casualties.

In this instance, however, he had every intention of finishing those galleys off—yes, and taking intense satisfaction in the doing. He would have been inclined to under any circumstances, after what had happened in Ferayd. The fact that Emperor Cayleb had pledged the resources of the Crown to support operations against Delferahk, and the fact that the Crown would be paying privateers “head money” for the crews of captured or destroyed warships, exactly the way it did to regular Navy crews, meant that inclination would actually show a profit. Of course, the privateers in question also had to accept the Crown's rules for awarding prize money. Under those rules, the ships which brought prizes in were entitled to only a fourth part of their actual value, with the remainder going to the Crown, but that wasn't entirely bad. More than one privateer had returned from a cruise with no prizes at all. Sometimes fortune simply deserted a hunter, after all, and game was beginning to become increasingly scarce for everyone. But as long as they were cruising in Delferahkan waters, the Crown would cover their operating expenses and at least a minimal lump sum payment to their ships' companies. Under those circumstances, the amount they did receive from the prize court's awards would be pure profit.

Which meant Shaikyr could do his patriotic duty punishing Delferahk rather than chasing after the normally richer prizes of Dohlaran or Tarotisian merchant shipping and still show
Raptor
's financial backers a profit. Not as great a one as they might have realized from the same number of Dohlaran prizes, but at least a reliable one.

Raptor
's chasers began to bellow. The powder smoke rolled steadily downwind on the light breeze, and round shot began to seed the water around her target with white feathers.

Not much longer, friend
, Shaikyr thought nastily.
And you'd better be grateful we
are
sailing under Crown orders. I am, anyway. Because if I weren't, if it were up to me, there wouldn't
be
any prisoners. But the Emperor's a better man than I am, thank God. Which means I won't be facing God's justice someday with the blood of a massacre on
my
hands
.

He took one more painter's look at sky, sun, water, and ships, then put that thought away and turned to his second officer.

“Stand to at the port battery,” he said coldly. “We'll have some work for them in a few minutes, I believe.”

*   *   *

“Captain?”

Shaikyr looked up as Dunkyn Hyndyrs,
Raptor
's purser, appeared in the chart room doorway. The captain had been studying the local charts, considering where to take his hunting pack next, and he blinked against the bright sunlight framing the purser as he stood in the open door.

“Yes?”

“Captain, I think maybe you'd better come on deck.”

“What?” Shaikyr straightened. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing's
wrong
, Sir,” Hyndyrs said in a very careful tone. “I'm just afraid things are about to get a little noisy, and I thought you'd prefer to be there when they do.”

“Noisy?” Shaikyr's eyes were beginning to adjust to the brightness haloing Hyndyrs', and he frowned as the purser's expression registered. He looked, the captain thought just a bit uncharitably, like someone who'd swallowed a spider and wasn't entirely certain it was going to stay swallowed.

“What's going on, Dunkyn?”

“A boat from
Windcrest
just came alongside,” Hyndyrs replied. “It brought a note from Captain Zherahk. Along with the bill of lading for one of the prizes.”

“And?” Shaikyr growled a bit impatiently.

“And there's a
reason
those galleys were so stubborn, Sir,” Hyndyrs told him. “The entire convoy was under charter to the Delferahkan crown. Four of the galleons were loaded mainly with naval stores for the Temple's shipbuilding project. Another one is carrying several hundred tons of copper and tin ingots, apparently for casting into artillery, also for their new fleet. I'm sure the Emperor and the Navy will be suitably glad to see all of those cargoes. But the sixth wasn't under charter to Delferahk, at all. Not really. It was under charter to the ‘Knights of the Temple Lands.'”

Shaikyr's impatience disappeared abruptly, and he settled back on his heels.

“Number six wasn't carrying naval stores or copper and tin, Sir.” Hyndyrs shook his head. “She's loaded with gold and silver bullion. I don't begin to know how much of it yet, but whatever I might estimate right now would almost certainly be low, I think. She was carrying over six months' worth of the Temple's payments to the shipyards building new galleys for the Church at Ferayd. And, on top of that, the Council of Vicars has apparently authorized the payment of subsidies to the ports which are losing the most money because they've been closed to our shipping. And, according to the galleon's skipper—who is
not
a happy man right this minute, Captain—there's also a goodly chunk of money which was destined to pay pensions to the survivors of the brave Delferahkans who were murdered by those nasty Charisians.”

“Langhorne!” Shaikyr murmured. A prize like the one Hyndyrs was describing came along possibly once in a privateer's lifetime, and he felt the sudden tingle of wealth running along his nerves. But then his expression altered abruptly.

“Langhorne!”
he repeated in a very different tone, and Hyndyrs chuckled harshly.

“Yes, Sir. That's one of the reasons I expect it to get noisy when I tell the men.”

“‘Noisy' may not begin to describe it,” Shaikyr said sourly as his own earlier thoughts came back to him.
Raptor
and the other ships operating with her were under Crown warrant. Which meant the Crown was going to pocket three-fourths of the treasure ship's value while the privateers who'd actually captured her got only a quarter to split among them.

You know, Larys
, he told himself,
it's amazing how much better that arrangement sounded to you an hour or so ago, isn't it?

“Well,” he said finally, laying his dividers on the opened chart, “I suppose I'd better come.” He detected a certain lack of enthusiasm in his own voice, and smiled crookedly at Hyndyrs. “The men aren't exactly likely to be singing loud hosannas when we remind them about the prize court, are they?”

“I'd say that was probably a fairly safe prediction, yes, Sir,” Hyndyrs agreed.

“I don't really blame them,” Shaikyr admitted. “On the other hand, from the way you've described things, even a quarter share of the total, distributed over every man and ship's boy, is still going to be at least four or five years' earnings for most of them.”

“I realize that, Sir,” Hyndyrs said, and smiled encouragingly. “You just go right on telling them that. I'm sure that by the time those ship's boys are, oh, fifty or sixty years old, they'll come to accept things without complaining.”

.III.

Tellesberg Palace,
City of Tellesberg,
Kingdom of Charis

In many ways, Safeholdian music wasn't all that different from the music Nimue Alban had known during her biological life. In other ways, it was … weird.

Yes,
definitely
weird
, Merlin thought, standing his post yet again to watch over the king—
no
,
dummy
, he reminded himself yet again,
the Emperor
—and his wife.

The familiar part included a whole host of stringed instruments from humanity's past: guitars, violins, cellos, violas, even balalaikas and (here in Charis, at least) banjos. Personally, Merlin could have done without the banjos just fine. Most of the traditional brasses and wind instruments were still around, as well, although a few new ones had been added. Or, Merlin suspected, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that some extremely old ones had been resurrected. After all, it was unlikely that the citizens of Safehold, in a mere eight and a half centuries, could have reproduced all of the musical variants humanity had managed on Terra in well over fifty thousand years. One of the instruments Merlin wasn't familiar with was a brass, its tube so long the marching variants required a second musician to help carry it, but which was played using the same tongue and breath control as the Old Earth bugle. There was another one which looked something like a French horn crossed with a tuba. Then there were woodwinds—the piccolos, flutes, and fifes—not to mention the piano, the pipe organs of the various churches and cathedrals, and even harpsichords. Percussion instruments were well represented, as well, with drums, cymbals, xylophones (especially in Chisholm), and everything in between.

And then there were the bagpipes. Several versions of them, actually, from the multi-pipe version with which Nimue had been familiar, all the way up to a decidedly peculiar confection which combined the bag of the traditional bagpipes with something very like a trombone.

But it wasn't so much the instruments themselves which struck Merlin as peculiar as it was the
combinations
of instruments Safeholdians favored. For example, Nimue Alban had never imagined a concerto written for guitar, banjo, fife, drums, and bagpipes. Merlin, unfortunately, no longer had to imagine it.

There were a few other mixes and matches which occasionally made him wonder if some sort of bizarre genetic drift had affected Safeholdians' hearing. It was the only answer he could come up with for the theoretically tuneful goulashes they'd come up with.

Fortunately, the music favored for formal dances like the present one tended to be somewhat more restrained, and usually based around combinations of instruments which didn't leave Merlin feeling as if his artificial hearing had been assaulted with a blunt musical instrument. In fact, the current music arising from the orchestra parked along one wall of Tellesberg Palace's grand ballroom was almost soothing. It reminded Merlin somewhat of waltz music, although it also incorporated what Nimue would have called a “swing beat.”

Merlin was just as glad he wasn't out there dancing with the others. Nimue had been an excellent dancer, and she'd always enjoyed the opportunity when it came her way. Merlin, on the other hand, had never been tutored in Safeholdian dance techniques … which appeared to incorporate both waltz-like measures and something like a square dance on steroids, interspersed with the tango and something which reminded him of what had once been called “the Charleston.” How flesh-and-blood dancers survived it in a climate like Tellesberg's was one of those mysteries which defied rational explanation.