Off Armageddon Reef (46 page)

Despite the sitting room's warmth, Dynnys felt the marrow of his bones try to freeze. Zhaspahr Clyntahn was the Grand Inquisitor. Rhobair Duchairn was the Church's Treasurer General, Allayn Magwair was the Church's Captain General, and Trynair himself was the Council's Chancellor. Which meant Trynair's “informal little dinner” had actually been a working session of the Group of Four.
All
of the Group of Four.

“The problem, Erayk,” Trynair said in that same grave tone, “is that, whether Haarahld of Charis intends it that way or not, his kingdom has the potential to become a serious threat. Whatever Father Paityr may be reporting about their current innovations, the sheer pace of the changes they're introducing is dangerous. We have many reports—not all, admittedly, from impartial sources—that the danger we fear in this regard may well be closer at hand than we'd originally thought. The
Writ
itself teaches that change begets change, after all, and that it is in times of change that Mother Church must be most watchful.

“Yet, even leaving that issue aside for the moment, there are other issues, issues which affect the Church's power in the secular world, as well. I realize Mother Church and we who serve her are supposed to be above the concerns of this world, but you know as well as I do that it's necessary, sometimes, for God's Church to have the power to act decisively in
this
world in order to protect men's souls in the next.

“Charis has grown too wealthy. Its ships travel too broadly, and its ideas spread too widely. Other nations will be quick to adopt Charisian innovations, if they appear to offer significant advantages. If that happens, then our concerns about the possible destination to which Charis' taste for…new things may lead will perforce spread to all of those other nations, as well. And we must not forget Charis' social restiveness. That, too, is being exported aboard its ships. When other kingdoms see the wealth which Charis has attained, it would be strange, indeed, if they weren't tempted to follow in Charis' wake. And, as your own reports have made evident”—Trynair's gaze bored into Dynnys' eyes—“King Haarahld is a stubborn man, as witness his insistence on naming his own man Bishop of Tellesberg. A king whose stubbornness, I fear, makes him altogether too likely to rule himself and his kingdom by his own judgment…even if that judgment conflicts with that of Mother Church.”

Silence hovered for endless seconds, broken only by the whine of wind outside the window and the crackle of coal on the hearth.

“Your Grace,” Dynnys said finally, “I thank you for bringing the Council's concerns to my attention. I understand the reasons for them, I believe, but I beg you and the other Vicars not to rush to judgment. Whatever else Charis may be, it's only a single kingdom. Despite the size of its merchant fleet, and its navy, it's basically a small land, with only a small population. Surely any danger it may represent isn't so pressing that we can't dispel it by taking timely action against it.”

“I hope and believe you're right, Erayk,” Trynair said, after a moment. “But remember, the Archangel Pasquale teaches us corruption can spread from even a tiny wound, if it isn't properly cleansed and purified. It's not the individual size and strength of Charis that gives us concern. It's what may grow and spread from it in the fullness of time. And, to be frank, from my own perspective, the possibility that the fundamental…defiance of Charis' attitude may combine with that of Siddarmark.”

Dynnys had begun to open his mouth once more, but he closed it abruptly. So that was it—for Trynair, at least.

For the past five decades, the princes of the Church had been increasingly concerned over the republic of Siddarmark's growing power. The Republic dominated the eastern third of the continent of Haven, and while it was less populous than the Harchong Empire, its infantry were a terrifying force on the field of battle. And unlike the Harchongese or Desnairi, the Republic's highest offices were elective, not purely hereditary.

The Republic was separated from the Temple Lands by the so-called Border States which stretched almost twenty-five hundred miles from Hsing-wu's Passage in the north to the Gulf of Dohlar in the south. At their southern end, the Border States provided a buffer almost thirteen hundred miles across, but in the extreme north, northeast of the Mountains of Light, along the southern edge of Hsing-wu's Passage, the Republic's provinces of Tarikah and Iceland actually shared a common border with the Temple Lands.

And the Republic of Siddarmark, unlike the Kingdom of Charis, had the population—and the army—to pose a genuine threat to the Temple Lands' security.

The likelihood that the Republic would be mad enough to actually challenge Mother Church might not be very great, but it wasn't one the Church's great magnates were prepared to ignore, either. That was one reason Trynair and his predecessors as Chancellor had played the Kingdom of Dohlar and the Desnairian Empire off against the Republic for the past thirty years.

But if Charis' wealth and naval power were to suddenly find themselves allied with the matchless pikemen of Siddarmark, the counterpoised tensions the Church had arranged in Haven might find themselves abruptly destabilized. And if the Charisian “social restiveness” Trynair had just complained of melded with the Siddarmarkian version of the same thing, the Church might find herself facing the greatest threat to her primacy of her entire history.

“Your Grace,” he said “I understand. These are grave matters, not really suited to open transmission over the semaphore, even if weather permitted it. However, I'll immediately draft new instructions to Bishop Executor Zherald and dispatch them overland by courier. I'll make him aware of your concerns and charge him to be particularly vigilant. And as soon as Hsing-wu's Passage clears in the spring, I'll personally journey to Tellesberg.”

“Good, Erayk. That's good,” Trynair said, and smiled as he reached for his chocolate cup once again.

“Hold!”

Merlin stepped back instantly, lowering his wooden training sword, and cocked his head inquiringly.

“Yes, Your Highness? Was there a problem?”

Crown Prince Cayleb took his left hand from his own hilt, reached up, and dragged off his fencing mask. His face was streaked with sweat, and he was breathing more than a little hard as he glowered at “Lieutenant Athrawes.”

“You,” he puffed, “…don't sweat…enough.”

Merlin quirked an eyebrow politely. It was quite visible, since, unlike the prince, he wore neither a mask nor training armor.

“Sweat,” Cayleb told him severely, “is good for you. It opens the pores. Helps get rid of poisons.”

“I appreciate your concern, Your Highness.” Merlin inclined his head in a small bow. “But some of us take sufficient care with what we eat that we don't find it necessary to sweat out poisons.”

“Oh, yes,” Cayleb snorted. “I've noticed what a picky eater you are!” He shook his head. “You do your share at the table, Merlin.”

“One tries, Your Highness. One tries.”

Cayleb chuckled, and Merlin smiled, although the prince's observation wasn't entirely humorous as far as Merlin was concerned.

The fact that a PICA was designed to allow its user to savor the taste of food and drink did, in fact, let him hold his own at meals. Unfortunately, a PICA's…waste-disposal arrangements would have been more than enough to raise Safeholdian eyebrows, since he didn't have any digestive processes in the usual sense of the word. While the mechanics were essentially identical, what was left after his nannies had scavenged whatever they needed meant Merlin had to be careful to empty any chamber pots himself. It was, perhaps, fortunate that Safehold had developed indoor plumbing, at least in royal palaces.

Then there was another minor technical difficulty which Cayleb's humorous comment about sweating had put a finger squarely upon. PICAs
could
“sweat,” but it wasn't exactly an ability of which most of their users had ever availed themselves, for fairly obvious reasons. Which meant producing that sweat in appropriate quantity and locations had acquired some finicky adjustments to Merlin's internal programming. And, as Cayleb had noted, he still “sweated” extraordinarily lightly for a flesh-and-blood human being. Fortunately, the fact of his supposed
seijin
hood and the physical and mental disciplines which attached to it gave him a degree of cover, even at times like this.

“Actually, Your Highness,” he said, “I can't escape the feeling that you're criticizing
my
sweat level to distract attention from your own.”

“Oh, a low blow, Merlin!” Cayleb laughed and shook his head. “A low blow, indeed.”

“With all due respect, Your Highness,” Ahrnahld Falkhan observed from where he stood to one side of the training ground, “Merlin has a point. You do seem just a bit, ah,
damper
than he does.”

“Because
I'm
not a
seijin
, which he, obviously,
is
,” Cayleb pointed out. “I don't see you being willing to stand out here and let him humiliate
you
, Ahrnahld.”

“Because I'm quite satisfied with the sword techniques I already know, Your Highness,” Falkhan replied cheerfully, and this time all three of them chuckled.

“Well, it really is just a little humiliating,” Cayleb said, looking Merlin up and down. Unlike the prince's protective gear, Merlin had stripped to the waist while he instructed Cayleb in the art of kendo.

He felt just a little bit guilty about that. Cayleb needed every bit of protection against Merlin's occasionally punishing “touches” that he could get, whereas the prince had yet to get a single stroke through Merlin's guard unless Merlin chose to let him do so. Which wasn't really all that surprising, even though he strongly suspected that Cayleb's natural aptitude considerably outclassed that of the flesh-and-blood Nimue Alban. The Crown Prince, however, wasn't up against Nimue; he was up against Merlin Athrawes, whose nervous impulses moved a hundred times faster than his own. Merlin's reaction speed was, quite literally, inhuman, and he took full advantage of it while training Cayleb.

It wasn't simply to embarrass the prince, either, as Cayleb understood perfectly. Cayleb had expressed an interest in Merlin's fighting style almost the first day after Merlin had been officially assigned as his bodyguard, and Merlin wasn't at all averse to teaching the young man a technique no one else on the entire planet could possibly be familiar with.

Having agreed to teach him, though, and having produced a “spare” katana for the prince from his baggage (this one made out of regular steel), Merlin had deliberately used a PICA's reactions and strength to put Cayleb up against someone faster and stronger than any possible human opponent. The prince was a highly competitive youngster. He took his complete inability to pierce Merlin's guard as a challenge, not as a discouragement, and training against someone with Merlin's abilities ought to make taking on any mortal opponent seem like a casual stroll through the park.

Besides
, Merlin thought with a mental smile,
I'm a
seijin.
I'm
supposed
to be better than he is
. Just a trace of his inner smile touched his lips as he recalled Pei Kau-yung teaching Nimue Alban the same moves, the same techniques.
“When you can snatch the pebble out of my hand, Grasshopper,”
Kau-yung had said like some ritualistic phrase at the beginning of each bout, then proceeded to whack the holy living daylights out of her.

Merlin still didn't know where he'd gotten the quotation from. He'd promised to tell Nimue the first time she outpointed him in a formal competition, and that day had never come.

His smile faded, and he shook his head, looking at Cayleb, remembering Kau-yung and Nimue.

“If you'd been doing this as long as I have, Grasshopper,” he said, “you'd be just as good at it as I am.”

“‘Grasshopper'?” Cayleb repeated, raising both eyebrows. There was a Safeholdian insect analogue called a “grasshopper,” although this one was carnivorous and about nine inches long. “Where did
that
come from?”

“Ah,” Merlin told him. “When you score three unanswered touches in a row, I'll tell you, Your Highness.”

“Oh, you will, will you?” Cayleb glowered at him, and Falkhan laughed.

“You aren't helping here, Ahrnahld,” Cayleb told him, and Falkhan shrugged.

“I think it's a perfectly reasonable stipulation, Your Highness. Think of it as a…motivator.”

“Instead of an insurmountable challenge, you mean?”

“Oh, I'd never call it
that
, Your Highness.”

Merlin's smile returned as he watched them. In experiential terms, he wasn't actually all that much older than Falkhan. Nimue Alban had been only twenty-seven standard years old when the Federation mounted Operation Ark, after all. Yet, as he looked at them, he felt far, far older. Perhaps some of the centuries which had trickled past while Nimue's PICA slept had left some sort of subliminal impress upon his molycirc brain?

“You'd
better
not call it that,” Cayleb told Falkhan ominously, then scrubbed the back of one training gauntlet across his sweaty forehead.

“If you don't mind, Merlin,” he said, “I'm thinking I'd just as soon call it a day. In fact, I'm thinking that since Ahrnahld here is so full of himself this afternoon, we might just try a little game of rugby.”

“Are you sure you want to go there, Your Highness?” Falkhan asked, and Cayleb smiled nastily.

“Oh, I'm
quite
sure, Ahrnahld. Especially since I pick Merlin for the first member of my team.”

Falkhan looked suddenly much more thoughtful, and Cayleb chuckled.

“Does Merlin know the rules?” the Marine inquired.

“Rules? In
rugby?
”

“Well, there is that,” Falkhan acknowledged, then shrugged. “Very well, Your Highness. Challenge accepted.”

Charisian “rugby,” it turned out, wasn't
quite
the game Merlin had expected.

Nimue Alban had never actually played rugby, which had remained a “thug's game played by gentlemen,” in her father's estimation. She had, however, seen it played, and Merlin had felt reasonably confident of holding his own.

But
Charisian
rugby was a water sport.

Merlin had no idea who'd invented it, or retained the name of the Old Earth game for it, but he could see certain similarities to the only rugby matches Nimue had ever seen. The object was to get the ball—actually, the somewhat asymmetrical inflated bladder of a sea cow, a ten foot long, roughly walrus-like aquatic mammal—into the other team's net while playing shoulder-deep in the sea. Apparently, any tactic, short of actually drowning one of your opponents, was acceptable, as long as your intended victim had possession of the ball. Merlin was certain there had to be at least some rules, although it quickly became apparent there couldn't be very many. And strategy appeared to consist of swarming whoever had the ball and holding him under until he agreed to give it up.

Normally, that wouldn't have posed any difficulty for Merlin. After all, he had ten times the strength of any of his opponents, his reaction speed was faster, and he had no particular need to breathe. Unfortunately, there were still a few minor technical problems.

First, it seemed the Charisian custom when swimming, at least as long as only one sex was present, was to swim nude. Second, Charisian rugby was most definitely a “contact sport.” Third, PICAs were designed to be
fully
functional. Fourth, Nimue Alban had been a woman.

Merlin had already observed that simply switching genders hadn't made women magically sexually attractive to him. He hadn't quite followed through to the corollary of that discovery, however. But when he abruptly found himself in the middle of a wet, splashing,
slithery
swirl of seventeen other naked male bodies—all of them extraordinarily physically fit,
young
male bodies—he discovered that PICA or no, he was, indeed, “fully functional.”

Nimue had never really considered just how embarrassing her male friends and acquaintances must have found certain physiological responses to arousal, especially on social occasions. Merlin supposed the present occasion might be considered a social one, however, and he found that response
extremely
embarrassing. The fact that he'd never experienced it before only added to the…interesting nature of the phenomenon.

It also meant he spent the entire game very carefully staying in water which was at least chest-deep, and that he was the last person out of the water,
and
that he deployed his towel very carefully when he finally did emerge.

“They don't play rugby where you come from?” Cayleb asked him, vigorously toweling his hair, and Merlin—whose towel was knotted around his waist,
not
drying his hair—shook his head.

“The water's just a bit colder up in the Mountains of Light,” he pointed out. It was a non sequitur, although there was no way for Cayleb to know that, and he smiled. “We did play a game we
called
‘rugby' when I was a child. It wasn't like this one, though. It was played on land.”

“Ah,
that
explains it.” Cayleb chuckled. “I was afraid there for a few minutes that Ahrnahld's team might actually win. But you seemed to get the hang of it after all.”

“Oh, I certainly did, Your Highness,” Merlin said.

“Good. Because, next time, I want to really pin his ears back.”

“I'll certainly try,” Merlin promised.