By Schism Rent Asunder (93 page)

“Of course I trust you!” He sounded surprised that there could be any question of that, and she tapped his chest with a slender index finger and a smile.

“
I
know that,” she told him half scoldingly. “Getting everybody else to believe it may not be quite that simple, though. And this, I think, is one of the best ways we could have come up with to accomplish that.”

“Even if it is a pain in the arse for us,” he agreed.

“And there's another side to it, as well,” she said.

“Such as?”

“One of the advantages of having co-rulers is that we
can
leave one of us here, managing things in Tellesberg, while the other one goes off to deal with other problems. I know we both have first councilors we trust implicitly, Cayleb, but that's not really the same thing, and you know it. If this works out the way I think it's going to, we'll have a degree of flexibility I don't think anyone else has ever had before. And, to be honest, we're going to need that kind of flexibility just to keep something the size of the Empire semi-organized and moving in the same direction.”

He nodded soberly, and in an odd sort of way which he doubted he'd ever be able to explain to anyone else, her serious, pragmatic analysis only increased the tenderness—and regret—he felt as the moment of departure swept down upon them. In some ways, he'd been almost guiltily grateful for the Ferayd Massacre. Putting together Rock Point's fleet, and finding the transports for
his
Marines, had disrupted Lock Island's carefully choreographed schedule for the invasion of Corisande. That had given them time to produce several thousand more desperately needed rifles … and delayed Cayleb's own departure for another blessed pair of five-days. Ten more days he'd had with Sharleyan.

Which only made this moment even harder.

“Be careful.” His hands slid around to rest upon her shoulders as he looked deep into her eyes. “Be very careful, Sharleyan. Rayjhis and Maikel and Bynzhamyn and all the rest will guard you, but never forget the Temple Loyalists are out there somewhere, and they've already shown they're not shy about resorting to bloodshed. Most of ‘my' Charisians are already prepared to love you as one of our own, but three of them tried to murdrer Maikel, and someone else burned down the Royal College, and we still don't know who it was or how much organization there may have been behind it. So don't forget there are still daggers out there. And that not all of them are going to be made out of steel.”

“I won't.” The corners of her expressive eyes crinkled with an odd sort of amusement, and she snorted. “Don't
you
forget that you're talking to someone who grew up in Queen Ysbell's shadow! I know all about political machinations and court intrigues. Yes, and about assassins, too. And if
I
were likely to forget, Edwyrd will see to it that I don't!”

“I know. I know!” He held her close again, shaking his head. “I just can't stand the thought of something … happening to you.”

“Nothing is going to happen to
me
,” she assured him. “You just see that nothing happens to
you
, either, Your Majesty!”

“With Bryahn, General Chermyn, and Merlin all looking out for me?” It was his turn to snort, and he did it rather magnificently, she thought. “I won't say that
nothing
could happen—after all, there's always lightning, forest fires, and earthquakes—but somehow I don't see anything less than one of those getting through to me.”

“See that it stays that way.” She reached up and caught the lobes of both ears, holding his head motionless. “I've already told Captain Athrawes that he'd better not come home to Charis without you.”

“I'll bet that put the fear of God into him,” Cayleb said, smiling appreciatively.

“I don't know about God,” she told him. “But I did my best to put the fear of someone a bit less powerful but more … immediate, shall we say, into him.”

Cayleb laughed out loud. Then he sobered once again.

“It really is time, love,” he said softly.

“I know. ‘Time and the tide wait for no man,'” she quoted.

“Not without every general, admiral, and ship's master in the entire invasion fleet seriously considering regicide, at any rate. Charisian seamen
hate
missing the tide.”

“Then I suppose we'd better get this over with.”

Despite her cheerful tone, she felt her lower lip trying to quiver. She suppressed the reflex sternly and tucked her hand into the elbow of his proffered arm as he escorted her out of the cabin where they'd actually managed to find genuine privacy even onboard a crowded warship.

The deck outside that cabin made the ship's crowding abundantly clear.

Cayleb's flagship was the newest and most powerful unit of what had just become the
Imperial
Charisian Navy. She was an improvement on the
Dreadnought
which had served as Cayleb's flagship for the Armageddon Reef campaign. That ship had gone down after the Battle of Darcos Sound, and originally, this ship had been intended to carry the same name. But Cayleb had decreed a change. Charisian tradition prohibited naming warships for people who were still alive, so instead of the name he really would have preferred, his new flagship had been christened “
Empress of Charis
.”

As Sharleyan stepped onto the main deck of the ship which wasn't quite officially her namesake, she was once more struck by how enormously the standards of naval design and naval combat had changed in the course of only three years. Charisian galleys had been the biggest and most seaworthy in the world. That had meant they were also the slowest in the world under oars alone, but even the largest of them had been no more than two-thirds the size of
Empress of Charis
. Cayleb's new flagship measured over a hundred and fifty feet between perpendiculars and, with her far deeper draft, displaced almost fourteen hundred tons. She mounted thirty long krakens on her gundeck and thirty-two carronades on her spar decks. Combined with the new, long fourteen-pounders mounted as chase guns, fore and aft, that brought her total armament up to sixty-eight guns, and no other warship in the world could hope to stand up to her. Except, of course, for the sisters anchored all about her.

She seemed downright huge to Sharleyan. And she was. The largest ship in the
Chisholmian
Navy had shown little more than half her displacement and had mounted only
eighteen
guns. Yet the empress knew from conversations with her husband, Lock Island, and Sir Dustyn Olyvyr that Sir Dustyn was already applying the lessons he'd learned designing
Empress of Charis
to the next even larger and still more powerful class.

She no longer even looked like a galleon.
Dreadnought
and her sisters had already dispensed with the towering fore and aftercastles, but
Empress of Charis
showed even less freeboard than they had, proportionately, and she was effectively flushdecked, with no raised forecastle or aftercastle at all. Or, rather, the narrow spardecks which had been incorporated into
Dreadnought
had been broadened so that they formed virtually a complete, upper gundeck, and her gently curved sheer ran unbroken all the way from prow to transom. Because of her greater size, she actually carried the sills of her gundeck gun ports higher than the older ship had, and just looking up at her soaring, powerful sail plan could make Sharleyan dizzy. But her cutwater was sharply raked, and despite their vast size, she and her sister ships looked low-slung, lean, and dangerous. Her every line carried a sleek, predatory gracefulness, and the new Imperial Navy was continuing another Charisian tradition. Other navies might paint their ships in gaudy colors; Charisian warships' hulls were black. The galleons carried white stripes along their sides, marking the line of their gun ports, and the port lids were painted red. Aside from their figureheads, that was virtually the only color their hulls showed, in stark contrast to the ornamental carving, gilding, and paint of other navies.

It was, Sharleyan had discovered, a deliberate statement. Charisian warships needed no decoration, no proud carving or glittering gold leaf, to overawe an opponent. Their reputation took care of that quite handily, and the very lack of those things gave them a severe sort of beauty, the grace of function unhampered by a single unnecessary element.

“You named a beautiful ship for me, Cayleb,” she said in his ear, speaking loudly as the seamen manning
Empress of Charis
' yards began cheering the instant they stepped onto the deck.

“Nonsense. I named her for the office, not for the person holding it!” he replied with a wicked grin, then twitched as she pinched his ribs fiercely. He looked down at her, and she smiled sweetly.

“There's worse than that waiting when you get home, Your Majesty,” she promised him.

“Good.”

His grin grew even broader, then faded as they reached the entry port and the bosun's chair waiting to lower her to the deck of the fifty-foot cutter moored alongside the flagship. The cutter flew the new imperial flag, and the golden kraken of the House of Ahrmahk swam sinuously across it, rippling in the brisk breeze. The same flag, except for one detail, flew from the mizzen peak of every warship in the anchorage, but Sharleyan's cutter showed the silver crown of the Empress above the kraken, while the flag flying above
Empress of Charis
showed the golden crown of the Emperor.

The two of them stood gazing down at the cutter for a moment, and then Cayleb inhaled deeply and turned to face Sharleyan.

“My Lady Empress,” he said, so softly she could scarcely hear him through the cheers rising now from the cutter's crew and spreading outward to every ship. She could see the sailors spread out along the spars, the Marines manning the sides, of all those ships, and she realized they weren't cheering for Cayleb. Or, not for Cayleb alone. They were cheering for
her
, as well.

The line-tenders started drawing the bosun's chair down to the deck for her, and she managed not to grimace. The thought of being lifted over the side and lowered to the cutter on a line like a parcel scarcely seemed dignified, but it was undoubtedly better than trying to manage her skirts while clambering down the battens nailed to the ship's side. It would be more modest, at any rate, and she was far less likely to find herself inadvertently and unexpectedly soaked. And, anyway, it wasn't like—

Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted as Cayleb's arms went around her. Her eyes widened in astonishment, but that was all she had time for before she found herself being kissed—ruthlessly, energetically, and delightfully competently—in front of the entire watching fleet.

For one heartbeat, sheer surprise held her stiff and unresponsive in his arms. But only for a heartbeat. It was, of course, a flagrant and scandalous breach of all proper rules of decorum, she thought as she melted into his embrace, not to mention the way it violated etiquette, protocol, and common decency, and she couldn't have cared less.

For a moment, everyone else seemed equally dumbfounded by the abrupt departure from the occasion's planned, dignified choreography, but then the cheers began again—different cheers, this time. Cheers that rippled with laughter and were punctuated by clapping hands and whistles of encouragement. Sharleyan would recall that later, treasure the pleasure—pleasure for Cayleb and for her—implicit in those cheers, those whistles, that clapping. At the moment, it scarcely registered. Her mind was on other things entirely.

It was a long, ardent, and
very
thorough kiss. Cayleb was a methodical man, and he took the time to do it right. Finally, however—due to a simple lack of air, no doubt—he straightened once more, smiling down at her through the whistles and stamping feet. Beyond him, she saw Earl Lock Island, Commodore Manthyr, and Captain Athrawes trying very hard not to grin like schoolboys, and the delighted laughter around her redoubled as she shook her finger under her husband's nose.

“Now you've gone and proven what a lewd, uncultured lout you are!” she scolded, her eyes sparkling. “I can't
believe
you did something that improper in front of everyone! Don't you realize how you've violated protocol?!”

“Damn protocol,” he told her unrepentantly and reached out to touch the side of her face with his right hand while his left steadied the descending bosun's chair for her. His fingers were feather-gentle on her cheek, moving caressingly, and his eyes glowed. “That was fun, and I intend to do it again … often. But for today, if we don't get you into this chair and off this ship, we're all going to miss the tide, and then we'll probably have an outright rebellion on our hands.”

“I know.”

She allowed him to help her into the chair, although she was scarcely so feeble that she required the assistance. He checked personally to make sure everything was secure, and then the bosun's pipes wailed and the Marines snapped to attention and presented arms as she was lifted from the deck. The ship's bell began to strike, its deep, musical voice ringing out even through the tumult of renewed cheering. It struck twenty-four times in the formal salute to a crowned head of state.

“Take care of him, Merlin!” she heard herself cry suddenly. “Bring him back to me!”

She hadn't meant to say anything that maudlin. Certainly not in front of all those other eyes and ears! Fortunately, the cheering all around her was so overwhelming no one possibly could have heard her.

Except for one man.

“I will, Your Majesty.”

Somehow, the
seijin
had heard her, and his deep voice cut through the roaring surf of all those other raised voices, projected for her to hear. She looked back at him, standing by Cayleb's shoulder, like a shield at her husband's back, and his unearthly sapphire eyes gleamed in the sunlight as he touched his left shoulder with his right fist in formal salute.