Hell's Foundations Quiver (125 page)

Maik and Baiket might have argued that there'd been no reason to assume the explosion—if there'd actually been one in the first place—had to be
Saint Frydhelm
, but Thirsk had known. From the instant he'd heard the initial report, he'd known. If there truly had been an explosion as violent as the one the fisherman had described, it could only have been a warship's magazine. Nothing else carried enough gunpowder to explain something like that. And there'd been only one war galleon in the Fern Narrows that night.

And so the squadron had been sent out—ten galleons, a dozen schooners, and all eight of the new screw-galleys in Gorath. He'd been strong enough to stand at his window in the Pasqualates' Saint Sysaroh's Hospital and watch their sails depart. He'd known the men of his navy would do everything in their power; he'd also known there would be nothing they
could
do.

Baiket had crowded on all the sail his ships could carry, and they'd been favored with a fresh, favorable wind. And as Thirsk had known they would, they'd been too late. They'd found a few drifting bits of wreckage, and lucky to find even that, and half a dozen bodies had washed ashore near Azhinkor. That was all the sea had given up. But the bodies had worn the uniform of the Navy of God, and so whatever they hadn't had before the search fleet sailed, they'd had confirmation in plenty before it returned.

Saint Frydhelm
had been three days overdue before Baiket ever reached its search area. By the time
Chihiro
and her captain returned to Gorath, the official messages of condolence from Zion had already begun coming in by semaphore.

They'd been wormwood and gall, choking him with fury and despair. His family—his
family
—had been taken from him, put aboard that ship, and
died
because Zhaspahr Clyntahn had wanted to control him, and now that bastard was sending him
condolences
for his loss. The official Church version of what had happened only made it still worse. The Inquisition reported that
Saint Frydhelm
had been attacked by half a dozen heretic galleons and fought gallantly until she blew up in action, sinking one of the heretics who'd come alongside just before the explosion. His agents inquisitor behind the heretics' lines, spying upon God's enemies at deadly peril to their own lives, had secured that information from the heretics themselves, Clyntahn asserted.

No doubt at least some of Mother Church's children would actually believe that. For the Earl of Thirsk, it was only one more example of Zhaspahr Clyntahn's cynical deceit, his casual murder of the truth whenever it suited his purposes. It didn't matter to Clyntahn how preposterous a lie might be. Indeed, Thirsk had come to the conclusion that Clyntahn had decided Mother Church's faithful were more likely to believe a falsehood because it was so preposterous it
had
to be true. After all, everyone knew truth was stranger than fiction, and surely Mother Church, the keeper of men's souls, would never knowingly lie to her children!

The earl knew better. The fisherman had reported the explosion; if any other galleons had been involved, he could scarcely have missed the smoky thunder and blinding flashes of their broadsides, rain or no rain. Not if he'd been close enough to see the explosion itself. Even Clyntahn had to know that, although he supposed it was remotely possible the Grand Inquisitor might think for as much as twenty or thirty seconds that Thirsk could actually believe Charis had been responsible somehow for the galleon's spontaneous explosion.

He hadn't publicly denounced the story of Charisian warships. Not yet. Baiket and Ahbail Bahrdailahn—even Bishop Staiphan—knew what he truly thought, but he'd managed, somehow, not to say as much to another single soul. As long as he didn't challenge Clyntahn's fabrication, the Grand Inquisitor might take his silence as yet another acquiescence. Might interpret Thirsk's failure to contest the Inquisition's version of events as a flag of surrender … or perhaps simply the despair of a beaten and broken old man in whose heart grief and despair had crushed any dream of defiance.

It was unlikely the Grand Inquisitor would accept that for very long. If he hadn't already, he would quickly realize that the loss of his family had removed the only sword the Inquisition truly had to hold over Thirsk's head. And when he realized that, he would take action to remove the threat the earl might well have become.

If I really wanted to survive
, he thought now, harshly, staring into the fire while the whiskey burned his tongue,
I'd tell the bastard I didn't believe for a moment there'd been any “heretics” involved in the actual explosion … but that it didn't matter. That if the Charisians hadn't begun the Jihad by their defiance of Mother Church, if they hadn't sent all the world to war, and if their agents hadn't corrupted Ahlvyn—may God receive him as His own—then Mother Church wouldn't have felt compelled to take them to Zion to protect them from Dialydd Mab and his “terrorists.” Clyntahn would probably be smart enough to realize I was lying out my arse when I blamed Charis and not him, but as long as I
said
it, as long as I
acted
as if I believed it, he'd probably leave me in command of the Navy … and alive. Until I did the first thing he could conceivably interpret as “betrayal,” at least
.

He had another two or three five-days before the healers would certify him as fit to return to duty. If he wanted to be allowed to return, though, he should probably start publicly blaming the Charisians soon. But he didn't have the heart. He just … didn't. Deep down inside, the man he'd once been, the man who'd faced Cayleb Ahrmahk after the Battle of Crag Reach, who'd thrown himself into the rebuilding of the Royal Dohlaran Navy—
that
man—cried out that he had to. That it was time—
past
time—that he stood up to redeem the honor Zhaspahr Clyntahn's butchery had befouled forever with blood and betrayal. That now, when no one could ever harm his family again, he was free to decide what the ghost of his murdered honor and God Himself demanded of him and to do it. And for that to happen, he had to survive.

But he paid no attention to the man he'd once been, because that man was dead. That man was broken beyond repair. That man no longer cared, and the man who was left in his place was willing for all the world to go down in wrack and ruin because God had allowed Mother Church to take every person in the world he loved away from him. And so he sat in front of the fire, drinking whiskey instead, and cherished his anguish because it was the only thing he had left.

A hinge creaked behind him, and sudden fury washed through him. He slammed the whiskey glass down on the table so hard it shattered, and alcohol stung in the cut on his palm as he flung himself up out of his chair and wheeled towards the door and the valet who'd dared to defy him.

“I damned well
told
you to—!”

Shock cut him off like a garrote.

He knew that man. Anyone would have recognized that scarred cheek, those unearthly eyes and that dagger beard, from Mother Church's own newspapers and broadsheets, from her fiery denunciations and anathemas. But the Earl of Thirsk needed no one else's description. He'd seen him with his own eyes, in the admiral's cabin of a galleon named HMS
Dreadnought
on the morning after the Battle of Crag Reach, standing at Crown Prince Cayleb Ahrmahk's shoulder. Yet he couldn't be
here
, couldn't have walked through the very heart of Gorath in the blackened armor blazoned with the colors of the Empire of Charis. He … simply couldn't.

But the intruder seemed unaware that he couldn't be there. He only bowed deeply, then straightened and stroked one fiercely waxed mustachio. His sapphire eyes met the earl's incredulous stare as levelly as they had aboard that Charisian galleon six years and a dozen lifetimes before, and his deep, resonant voice was preposterously calm.

“Forgive me for intruding, My Lord,” Merlin Athrawes said, “but you and I need to talk.”

 

Characters

Book title abbreviations:

ABERNETHY, AUXILIARY BISHOP ERNYST
—Schuelerite upper-priest; Bishop Militant Bahrnabai Wyrshym's assigned intendant, MT&T.

ABERNETHY, CAPTAIN BRYXTYN,
Imperial Charisian Navy—CO, bombardment ship HMS
Earthquake
, 24, LAMA.

ABYKRAHMBI, GENERAL TYMAHN,
Imperial Charisian Army—CO, 10th Infantry Division, 2nd Corps, Army of the Daivyn, HFQ.

ABYKRAHMBI, KLYMYNT
—an assistant to Brygham Cartyr in the Charisian technical support mission to the Republic of Siddarmark, LAMA.

ABYKRAHMBI, PLATOON SERGEANT CHESTYR,
Royal Dohlaran Army—senior noncom, 2nd Platoon, 5th Company, Sheldyn's Regiment, Army of the Seridahn, HFQ.

ABYKRAHMBI, TAHLMA
—Klymynt Abykrahmbi's wife, LAMA.

ABYLYN, CHARLZ
—a senior leader of the Temple Loyalists in Charis, BSRA.

AHBAHT, CAPTAIN RUHSAIL,
Imperial Desnairian Navy—CO, HMS
Archangel Chihiro,
40; Commodore Wailahr's flag captain, HFAF.

AHBAHT, CAPTAIN SIR BRUHSTAIR,
Imperial Charisian Navy—CO, broadside ironclad HMS
Thunderer
, 30, LAMA.

AHBAHT, LYWYS
—Edmynd Walkyr's brother-in-law; XO, merchant galleon
Wind
, BSRA.

AHBAHT, ZHEFRY
—Earl Gray Harbor's personal secretary. He fulfills many of the functions of an undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, BSRA. Same post for Trahvys Ohlsyn, HFAF.

AHBRAIMS, MAJOR KREG,
Imperial Charisian Army—CO, 1st Battalion, 9th Mounted Regiment, 5th Mounted Brigade, Imperial Charisian Army, LAMA.

AHDYMS, COLONEL TAHLYVYR
—Temple Loyalist ex-militia officer; “General” Erayk Tympyltyn's executive officer, Fort Darymahn, South March Lands, Republic of Siddarmark, MT&T.

AHDYMS, ERAYK
—a junior partner and associate of Zhak Hahraimahn who serves on the Council of Manufactories, LAMA.

AHDYMSYN, BISHOP EXECUTOR ZHERALD
—Erayk Dynnys' bishop executor, OAR. Now one of Archbishop Maikel's senior auxiliary bishops, HFAF.

AHDYMSYN, CAPTAIN MOHRTYN,
Army of God—Major Zhefytha Chestyrtyn's second-in-command in the Camp Lairays guard force, HFQ.

AHDYMSYN, FATHER BRYNTYN
—a Schuelerite under-priest; pre-Sword of Schueler schoolmaster in Maiyam, later appointed as Colonel Lyndahr Tahlyvyr's intendant, LAMA.

AHLAIXSYN, RAIF
—well-to-do Siddarmarkian poet and dilettante; a Reformist, HFAF.

AHLBAIR, EDWYRD
—Earl of Dragon Hill, MT&T.

AHLBAIR, LIEUTENANT ZHEROHM,
Royal Charisian Navy—first lieutenant, HMS
Typhoon
, OAR.

AHLBYRTSYN, COLONEL RAIF,
Imperial Charisian Army—CO, 2nd Scout Sniper Regiment, Imperial Charisian Army, LAMA.

AHLDARM, MAHRYS OHLARN
—Mahrys IV, Emperor of Desnair, HFAF.

AHLGYRNAHN, COLONEL KYNT,
Republic of Siddarmark Army—CO, 63rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 2nd Rifle Division, 2nd Corps, Army of New Northland, HFQ.

AHLKOFAHRDOH, LIEUTENANT CAHNYR,
Royal Dohlaran Army—XO, HMS
Tide
, 52, HFQ.

AHLVAI, CAPTAIN MAHLYK,
Imperial Desnairian Navy—CO, HMS
Emperor Zhorj
, 48; Baron Jahras' flag captain, HFAF.

AHLVEREZ, ADMIRAL-GENERAL FAIDEL,
Royal Dohlaran Navy—Duke of Malikai; King Rahnyld IV of Dohlar's senior admiral, OAR.

AHLVEREZ, SIR RAINOS,
Royal Desnairian Army—senior Dohlaran field commander in the Republic of Siddarmark, MT&T; CO of the Dohlaran component of the Army of Shiloh. First cousin of Faidel Ahlverez, Duke of Malikai.

AHLWAIL, BRAIHD
—Father Paityr Wylsynn's valet, HFAF.

AHLYXZANDYR, MAJOR TRAI,
Royal Dohlaran Army—CO, 1st Company, Ahzbyrn's Regiment (cavalry), part of Sir Rainos Ahlverez' component of the Army of Shiloh. Age 30 and 896, LAMA.

AHLZHERNOHN, LIEUTENANT ZHURGYN,
Navy of God—XO, NGS
Saint Frydhelm
, 40, HFQ.

AHNDAIRS, TAILAHR
—a Charisian-born Temple Loyalist living in the Temple Lands recruited for Operation Rakurai, HFAF.

AHRBUKYL, TROOPER SVYNSYN,
Army of God—one of Corporal Howail Brahdlai's scouts, 191st Cavalry Regiment, MT&T.

AHRDYN
—Archbishop Maikel's cat-lizard, BSRA.

AHRMAHK, CAYLEB ZHAN HAARAHLD BRYAHN
—son of King Haarahld VII of Charis, Duke of Ahrmahk, Prince of Tellesberg, Crown Prince of Charis, OAR. Prince Protector of the Realm, King Cayleb II of Charis, Emperor Cayleb I of Charis and member of Charisian inner circle. Husband of Sharleyan Ahrmahk, BSRA.