Servant of the Dragon (24 page)

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Master Koprathu, the Chief Clerk of the Fleet Office, stood at the left end of the dignitaries who watched with Garric as the warships maneuvered in the river. "Your highness," he said, "this is a bad course, a
dangerous
course for the kingdom!"

On the other end of the line Lord Waldron snarled, "Sister take this nonsense of soldiers pulling oars, boy! You need real soldiers to keep the kingdom, not rowers with spears—and not a mob of artisans and city layabouts, either!"

"That's probably the first time those two agreed on anything in their lives,"
King Carus murmured with a smile even broader than his usual.
"Not that they'd have had much call to stand in the same place before you took over."

"In truth, I thought they were shaping rather well," Garric said mildly. He tried to keep his own amusement out of his voice. "It seems to me that they keep stroke as well as anyone could ask, Koprathu; and stamina will of course come with practice."

The demonstration was taking place in the basin formed when the River Beltis' burden of silt formed a natural impoundment below Valles. From here water drained to the Inner Sea through three mouths. The first squadron of the Royal Fleet, ten triremes, was crewed with pikemen from the new phalanx.

The basin was deep enough for a fully laden warship. Its breadth was enough to allow a squadron to practice evolutions without danger—much danger—to commercial shipping. Finally, the enclosing shores were vastly safer than the open sea for new-minted sailors who'd never before been in a body of water larger than the puddles that formed in the streets below their tenements after a rain.

"Why, most of those fellows never set foot aboard a ship before you hired them on as oarsmen, your highness!" Koprathu said, as though he were reading Garric's mind. Of course Koprathu put a different emphasis on the undoubted fact.

At the time of Admiral Nitker's rebellion, Koprathu had been quartermaster and in real charge of the naval arsenal in Valles, though a nobleman had the title of Lord of the Arsenal. Most of the Fleet's bureaucracy had perished when the queen's forces overran the naval base on the small island of Eshkol off the mouth of the Beltis. Garric had promoted Koprathu to the responsibility of outfitting the fleet. For the most part, the warships themselves had survived the rebellion, but Garric was having to rebuild the personnel from the waterline up.

"I'm more concerned about what they do now, Master Koprathu," Garric said. "And it appears to me that they're doing quite well for two months' training."

Lord Zettin, a former Blood Eagle promoted to Admiral of the Fleet over Waldron's protests, must have spotted Garric watching this afternoon. The squadron paused in facing divisions of five ships each. The flagship blew a three-note call, two long trumpet blasts followed by a clash of cymbals.

"May the Lady save me!" Koprathu gasped. "That titled idiot is going to sink himself and all the ships' furniture that I had in store!"

"Master Koprathu, watch your tongue!" Garric said loudly. He wasn't terribly concerned about the clerk's language. He knew that if he didn't react instantly, however, Lord Waldron would very likely reprove the commoner with the back of his hand—if he didn't use his sword. Waldron didn't have any use for Lord Zettin, but he was very punctilious about the deference owed a nobleman.

Garric was reforming the kingdom's military on the model of King Carus' phalanx of oarsmen: former urban and rural laborers who could row the fleet to the shores of a rebelling island, then disembark carrying light shields and twenty-foot pikes. A phalanx of pikemen could stop heavy cavalry like a stone wall and drive through opposing infantry the way a cobbler's awl pricks holes in shoe leather.

Unless the phalanx was very well trained, it was dangerously unwieldy: slow to turn and unable to react to a flank attack except by collapsing into rout. That wasn't a reason not to use the formation, but it made close training absolutely necessary.

The same was true of what Admiral Zettin was attempting right now. Garric frowned. Zettin
wasn't
an idiot, but Garric was willing to agree that he was acting like one. The admiral had ordered his ships to execute a sweep-through.

The sections began to stroke toward one another. The ships were operating in pairs, each against the vessel facing it in line.

If warships struck another straight on, ram to ram, they were likely both to sink. In a sweep-through, the helmsman guided his vessel to graze its opponent instead. At the last instant the rowers on the side to the enemy drew in their oars so that their vessel's bow swept through the other's extended oars. The oarshafts broke and the looms flailed within the enemy's hull: wrenching limbs, crushing chests, and completely disabling the stricken vessel.

That was if your own crew got its oars in in time. If not, you'd disabled your own ship as well.

The ten triremes were up to ramming speed, a fast walk. Top speed was used only for maneuvering since too fast an impact would smash the attacker's hull as well as that of the victim. Doubled by the fact the lines were approaching, even the ships' moderate speed closed the gap with shocking abruptness.

Cymbals clashed again. For a moment Garric heard only the hiss of water past the lithe hulls. Then—

Wood crackled, then the screams started. Two of the vessels drifted sideways in a tangle; the screaming continued.

Lord Waldron was cursing; Master Koprathu moaned the damage to his stores, half a dozen oars at least on one of the triremes. The other councillors gasped or gaped depending on whether they were more horrified or entertained by the spectacle.

Garric was glad Liane was in the palace, arbitrating in the handover of accounts between Lord Tadai's aides and those of Pterlion, the new treasurer. She knew better than most of the men what the carnage would be like within the vessel whose crew had been too slow.

Carus watched through Garric's eyes, grimly approving.
"Not bad, considering,"
he murmured silently.
"They're coming along."

"There's men
dead
there," Garric said, barely aloud.

The king in Garric's mind shrugged and said, "
Lose a few in training, or lose an army the first time they do it for real.
You've got a good commander in young Zettin."

"I doubt you'll ever make scum like that into sailors," Waldron growled. "And I know on my oath as a bor-Warriman that they'll never be soldiers!"

"I disagree, milord," Attaper said, politely but without deference. His family was as good as Waldron's, though the older man could buy Attaper a hundred times over. They were careful to keep emotion out of their exchanges, but neither was willing to pass a point where it looked like the other was grasping for power or status. "I can't say what they'd be like fighting as individual duellists, but that isn't what they're trained to do. Shoulder to shoulder in a block sixteen ranks deep, they'll stand as firm as the Customs Tower."

"If the Kingdom of the Isles is to be more than Ornifal," Garric said, "the rulers of other islands have to believe we're able to force them to our will if needs must."

"We beat the Earl of Sandrakkan at the Stone Wall and put King Valence on the throne!" Waldron snapped. "Using proper soldiers, landholders and not lower class dirt who can't even afford to buy their own pikes and shields!"

"Aye!" said Garric. Carus spoke through him, and it took all of Garric's control to prevent his hand from straying to the hilt of his sword. "And the king's soldiers lay becalmed for three days on the sailing ships that carried them, baking in the heat and puking their guts up as they rocked on the swells. How near was it that Valence left his head on a Sandrakkan spear, Waldron, and the Earl of Sandrakkan became King of the Isles as a result? How near?"

"Fagh!" Waldron shouted. His right hand clenched. Blood Eagles standing discretely in the background suddenly shifted their attention from spectators eyeing the group of dignitaries to the dignitaries themselves. Lord Attaper reached up with his left hand and loosed the clasp of cloak; he was preparing to wrap the garment around his left arm for a shield.

Waldron turned his back, then kicked angrily at the servant standing nearby with a tray of gauze-covered marzipan for the councillors to nibble as they watched. The fellow yelped and leaped back, but he didn't drop the tray.

"Lord Waldron," Garric said. He was shuddering; furious at his ancestor's temper and furious at himself for not checking it sooner. "I apologize for my tone. I will not be swayed from my plan of using a phalanx of oarsmen as the core of the kingdom's battle line, but I meant no disrespect to you.
Your
troops held at the Stone Wall."

"Sorry, lad,
" whispered Carus.
"I won't let you down again."

Waldron nodded, but he didn't trust himself yet to turn. "You weren't born when we fought at the Stone Wall, boy," he said in a voice like stones sliding. "Prince Garric. I commanded our left wing, and I say to you—"

At last he faced Garric, forcing his lips into a jagged smile.

"Never again! I think you'd do better to use yeomen rather than gutter sweepings, but I gave my oath to serve you. The kingdom can't survive another battle like the Stone Wall; and as you say, it barely survived the first one."

Garric took two strides and clasped right arms with Lord Waldron. Royhas and Attaper hopped out of the way, blank-faced.

"I've a notion for using more heavy infantry on the ships to protect the flanks of the phalanx," Garric said. His voice still trembled. "Trireme hulls with one set of oars and a double crew of pikemen to row in shifts, with the third set of benches for your Northern District yeomen. But for now the pikemen are better value for the money, at a silver Lady a day instead of the two a heavy infantryman earns."

Waldron nodded understanding, though a frown he couldn't control furrowed his brow. They stepped apart, both of them glad nothing worse than words had eventuated.

"He's smart enough,"
Carus said, assaying Waldron through Garric's eyes, "
and he's a better than fair general.
But though he can see the advantage of being able to get troops where they're needed without waiting on winds, he's frightened by how fast things are changing.
Just don't use the word 'frightened' to his face."

"We've been able to manage thus far on the wealth the queen had sequestered," Royhas said, surveying traffic on the river to avoid looking at Garric and Waldron. "That can't continue forever, though."

Garric had returned property when the owners or their heirs could be identified, but a great deal of the queen's treasure came from no certain victim or from families which had perished utterly in the queen's ruthlessness. Those monies had paid the expenses of government since Garric took charge.

"It won't have to, Royhas," said Pterlion in a peevish tone. The chancellor's comment had trespassed on the treasurer's domain, and Pterlion was as much at pains as any householder to prevent encroachment by his neighbors. "The taxes are coming in quite nicely, and I'll see to it that they continue to do so."

"Which should be easy enough, now that the Royal Army isn't a joke any more," Attaper said with a grim smile.

Garric looked at the commander of the Blood Eagles. He liked and respected Attaper, but....

"Lord Attaper," he said, "my ancestor Carus used to think that a strong swordarm was the best way to ensure his orders were obeyed. If he stood before you now—"

Garric's smile and that of the king in his mind were identical.

"—he'd be the first to tell you that he was wrong in that belief. Our soldiers aren't tax gatherers."

Garric paused, letting his grin grow broader. "Though there might be a case when marching a few well-disciplined regiments through a district would convince the folk there that their taxes were being well spent."

The ships in the basin had reformed. The triple call sounded. The triremes started toward one another again, all ten of them, though the vessel with a dozen dead or injured crewmen on its narrow deck lagged behind the others in its division.

"Oh, may the Sister drag me down!" Koprathu moaned. "He's going to do it again!"

Lord Waldron unexpectedly laughed. "I don't know that I'd care to serve under your friend Zettin, Attaper," he said. "But I wouldn't mind having a bold man like him at my side if it came to strokes."

Attaper gave a nod and a slight smile to acknowledge his rival's apology. It was as close as Waldron could come to an apology, at any rate. "The kingdom can use bold men, Waldron," he said aloud, "though I hope Zettin doesn't prove overbold."

The warships coasted past one another. The rowers had all shipped their oars in time. The vessels passed noticeably farther apart than they had in the first sweep-through.

"It's better to lose a few men in training," Garric said with a wry smile that only the man he was quoting would understand, "than to lose a fleet the first time they do it for real."

Attaper and Waldron looked at Garric oddly. They were both hard men when the need was; it surprised them, though, to hear a youth like Garric sounding just as pragmatic as they were.

Zettin's trumpets blew a long attention call, followed by a quick tattoo of cymbals. The triremes formed in line ahead and followed their leader upriver to the sheds at a stately pace. Water slipped in silver showers from the oarblades as they feathered and dipped for another stroke.