Irona 700 (12 page)

The door between the guards opened and a flunky peered out. The three citizens had been waiting longer than the Chosen, but they would not be surprised to hear the Chosen called before them. Vainly trying to swallow the knot of fear in her throat, Irona went in to meet the council.

This room was the very heart of the Empire, and she had never seen it before. It was dominated by a huge eight-sided slate table, on which people had been scribbling with chalk. Above it hung golden lamps, and around it stood eight large chairs, seven purple and one red. One of the Seven was absent that evening, so Irona found herself facing a gap, and the First on the far side. There were no secretaries or other attendants.

The First gave her a faint smile. Knipry beamed reassuringly. Everyone else just stared, no doubt wondering how Nis Puol Dvure would be working out now had the seven-hundredth choosing gone according to plan.

The one to watch, Knipry had warned her, was Mallahle 669, who was senior on the Army Board. As soon as marines disembarked, they were under army orders. Mallahle was the one with the white eyebrows. He did not waste time on formalities.

“Welcome, 700,” he growled. He did not invite her to sit. “Your numbers don't make sense, and the admiral over there can't explain them to us. You assume that seven hundred soldiers will be adequate to overcome the Shark's pirates. I want to know where you found that number. Then you want to embark twice that many. I assume you are planning to drown the extras before you get them there? And then you allow almost twice as many boats as you seem to require.” He glanced briefly at notes he had chalked on the table. “You plan to load about a quarter of the food and water you will need. The total cost you estimate at two thousand four hundred dolphins, which again seems far too high. Can you explain for us simple landlubbers?”

Knipry certainly could have done so, had he pleased, but Irona had no time to worry about his motives.

“Your Reverence, Your Honors.” She kept her speech slow and deliberate and was astonished to hear her voice sound quite normal, not the nervous squeak she had feared. “Navy estimates that Shark commands between two and three hundred fighting men. If Army feels that odds of three to one are inadequate, even with the advantage of surprise, then we can scale up accordingly. The extra men embarked are to allow for losses, but I would expect few of them to be drowned. Many boats will be separated from the fleet and fail to arrive on time. If the goddess wills, those aboard will return home safely. All boats should be lightly loaded in case they take on water in a storm.” They might also have to pick survivors out of the sea when other vessels sank, but she did not mention that. “We estimate an eight- or ten-day journey there. Possibly longer coming back, but we can put in for fresh food and water at ports along the coast if we need.” As galleys always must, because of their enormous crews, but she didn't say that, either.

“The weather is as dangerous as it can be at this time of year. Why not wait until spring?”

“Because the pirates may move out as soon as the weather improves and then we will have lost them. Because Navy believes Shark keeps agents in Benign to report on profitable cargos. If we can send boats to Udice now, so can they. Again, the birds will fly.”

Mallahle grunted. “This was all your idea?”

“Not at all, sir. The whole Navy Board and its staff, and especially Fialovi 694, all contrib—”

“Cesspits! That wasn't what 640 told us.” Then he smiled and everyone else broke out laughing. “Irona 700, we are agreed that the idea is brilliant. The cost in gold and lives lost compares most favorably with a summer campaign against these vermin, which would require the entire navy and take months.” The foamy eyebrows turned toward the First. “Your Reverence, I move that this plan be implemented immediately.”

First Dostily smiled. “And it has already been approved unanimously. Congratulations, 700. We'll be dressing you in purple before you know it. Knipry 640 tells us you want to accompany the expedition?”

“Oh, yes!” Regrettably, that comment did come out as an excited squeak.

“We have agreed to appoint you vice admiral for this venture. Rasny 650 will be in charge. Go and sharpen your cutlass, Vice Admiral, and may the goddess bless your venture.”

Triumph! Scorning a properly sedate withdrawal, Irona almost skipped from the Council Chamber. Fatigue forgotten, she was going to rush Vly straight home to bed,
rip
off his tunic, and
ravish
him.

Benesh warriors were marines. A war fleet was always led by a Chosen, called an admiral, with a professional sailor as his deputy, holding the rank of commodore. Each galley was commanded by a captain and a subordinate called a bosun. As soon as these men stepped ashore, they became, respectively, marshal, general, captain, and sergeant. The same hands that released the oars took up swords or spears.

By morning the army's efficient bureaucracy had been kicked awake from its winter sleep and told to have fifteen hundred marines with five days' supplies ready to embark at the naval docks in two days. Irona was barely to see her bed for the next two weeks.

Ten of the younger officers, men judged open to new ideas, were teamed up with officials from Treasury and agents of the Geographical Section and dispatched to various outports scattered around the Island. Irona 700 and Rasny 650 accompanied the team that was rowed across the bay to Brackish.

It was a breezy but sunny morning. Navy galleys had closed off the mouth of the bay already, allowing ships in but not out, although there was little traffic in winter. Even if a spy guessed what was brewing, the wind was from the north, so it would be very difficult for any sailboat to reach Udice to warn Shark. If the wind stayed like that, Irona's mad expedition would never leave port.

She watched without guilt while her expert companions ground Beigas Broskev down to much less than she expected to be paid, but the Brackish boats were standing by for inspection.

The vice admiral had already decided to choose
Pelican
to be her flagship, if she were available. She
was the largest hunter boat in Brackish, commanded by Captain Aporchal, who had been a friend of her father's, insofar as that disagreeable old tyrant had ever had friends.
Pelican
also boasted a second mast, an innovation that the old-timers scorned, while conceding that she was faster than anything else in the Brackish fleet. Who cared about speed when you were going after seals or dugong or stuff? Even with whales it was skill and experience that mattered.

Pelican
was indeed in port, tied up at a jetty with her crew busily making her shipshape for the mysterious charter the Broskev woman promised. Captain Aporchal himself was sitting on the leeward side of the cabin, splicing a rope and keeping a weather eye on everyone else. He looked up in anger when a pretty-boy stranger with a sword came strutting up his gangplank. And behind him a woman? Girl?
That one?
Oh, Goddess!

Aporchal's knees hit the deck with a painful crack.

Irona laughed happily. “Permission to come aboard, Captain?”

“My lady!” He didn't dare look at her.

She told him to rise. He was a hulking bear of a man, much taller than she.

“You haven't changed a bit! How's your family?”

He mumbled that they were fine. Yes, grandchildren now. … Tragic about her father. … It took several questions and answers before he accepted that he was speaking to a person, and a person he had known all her life, not the goddess herself. Then he began to make more sense, but his hands never stopped fumbling with his hat, while the wind played with his white hair.

“We didn't believe it at first,” he said. “But three days later men arrived to start working on the breakwater. …”

Her smile came easily. “It's nice to have important friends. Is there anything else Brackish needs?”

He raved about the honor of serving the goddess, and she made a mental note to find out more about Brackish later. They would have many days together. Admiral Rasny had let her go on ahead but now had tired of waiting and was coming aboard with his cloak open to show his collar.

Aporchal dropped to his knees again. Irona suggested he take the two Chosen into the cabin so they could benefit from his advice. There they swore him to secrecy and explained that the real objective was not Vyada Kun but Captain Shark in Udice. Aporchal barked like a harbor seal at that news. “Anything to clean up those … beg pardon, ma'am … pirates!”

Rasny began asking questions. If the old sea dog said that what they were planning was suicide, the expedition would die stillborn. But Aporchal had already guessed whose idea this had been.

“Nothing to it!” he said. “S' long as Caprice sends us good winds, it'll be easy as clubbing seals.”

Irona had never appreciated before that excessive loyalty could kill you.

The ordeal of organizing had barely begun, though. In the next two days and nights, life was a blur of conferences and briefings. Irona's only relief came from the joy of seeing the expressions on the faces of bull-shouldered­ marine officers reporting to the vice admiral for the first time. That, and occasional encouraging pats on certain parts of her anatomy from the bodyguard behind her when no one was looking.

The only cloud in her sky was the thought that she would have to be parted from Vly. The men could not take wives or mistresses on a war mission, so how could she take her lover—or gigolo, as the sailors would see him? Surprising herself, she found a moment to seek out her old tutor, Trodelat 680, and put the question to her, woman to woman.

Easy, Trodelat said. A woman could not engage in martial arts and Chosen were not expected to. They were entitled to bodyguards. “Tie a sword on him and keep him close, even if you have to share a bunk with the sword.”

Problem solved. Vly was in fact a skilled swordsman by then and was sure to be accepted once that information got around.

On the day planned for departure, Irona had an honored place close to the First at a very brief service in the temple, when the leaders asked for Caprice's blessing on their venture. Outside, the north wind had given way to fitful breezes that could resolve into anything, but Irona had faith in the goddess's favor. By then the whole city knew that something strange was happening, and when the worshippers returned to the docks, the bay was speckled with sails and hulls, with more still arriving from the outer ports.

Contingents of horrified and outraged marines were being embarked in what they saw as stinking little death traps. Few of them would ever have been to sea in anything other than a galley. They were rowers, many having arms that would have outbulged even Sklom Uroveg's. The company assigned to Irona's flagship,
Pelican
, was led by a squint-nosed, one-eared gorilla, Bosun Uvillas, perhaps the ugliest man she had ever seen. He and Captain Aporchal were already close to daggers drawn.

The wind veered into the west, a very good sign. As the last boats were loading, it strengthened. Admiral Rasny raised his flag on
Orca
and led the fleet out of the bay. The vice admiral's
Pelican
was to bring up the rear, but of course that instruction could not be followed too literally, or Irona would never arrive anywhere. Some stragglers would have to be left behind, although captain and crew would not then receive their promised bonuses. The marines they carried would miss out on battle pay, so disagreements would be inevitable.

After an hour or so, the wind turned into a strong sou'wester, as the goddess urged them onward, but this soon led to trouble. The sea grew rough and the tiny vessels began to roll excessively, in many cases being top-heavy because the living cargo refused to stay belowdecks like fish or whale flesh, which was what these boats were designed to carry.

The men's reluctance was understandable. Galleys never ventured out in winter, and marines were unaccustomed to small boat motion anyway. The owners could foresee their uncontrollable cargo bringing on disaster, but whether the sailors or the marines were to blame would not matter, for fear was contagious. Soon Irona, bringing up the rear, saw craft turning back. First one, then two … four. The great fleet was in danger of falling apart, and it would take her vocation as a Chosen with it.

“Captain, make all the sail you dare.”

Aporchal looked at her as if she was out of her mind; perhaps she was, but a desperate situation required a desperate remedy.

“Take us forward to the van,” she insisted. Then she borrowed Vly's dolphin-handled dagger to shorten her smock to the absolute limit of decency. As the gallant
Pelican
leaned into the wind, Irona scrambled up the foremast, to the accompaniment of lewd cheers and whistles from all aboard.

Fortunately the vice admiral's flagship had been provided with a bugler. With him continuously sounding the charge and the vice admiral herself waving a sword in full view aloft, the boat went surging forward through the fleet. The cheering and laughter spread.

When Aporchal had brought Irona almost to the admiral's boat in the van, he hove to and let the fleet go by, providing a second view of the exhibitionist hussy. Her bravado worked. The sight of a pretty girl brandishing a sword atop a wildly swaying mast shamed the men into remembering their duty. There were no more desertions, and the expedition was saved.

As an exhausted Irona flopped into Vlyplatin's arms later, she knew that she had created a legend. If the assault on Udice succeeded, she would be a national hero. If it didn't, she had just committed political suicide, and the Seventy would never take her seriously again.

Whatever their size, ships either anchored or beached at night, and in midwinter the days were short. The masters had been provided with a list of approved anchorages, most of them chosen because they were both virtually uninhabited and easily recognized, for maps were unreliable and place names could vary. Each boat carried at least one man who could read.