David Weber - How firm a foundation

“It might, and it might not. My thought, though, is that since Anvil Rock apparently had no problem getting permission to send Prince Daivyn’s other birthday presents through the blockade with Charisian approval, if there’s anything ‘suspicious’ about this gift, it’s probably something he didn’t want the Charisians to know about. You haven’t found anything out of order about it?”

“Nothing.” Halahdrom shook his head. “I even had the wyverns moved into another cage while I checked the bottom of the one they came in for false partitions or compartments.”

They looked at one another for a moment while both of them considered the possibility of things like spoken messages which would leave no inconvenient written records behind.

“Well, given the thoroughness of your examination, I think we simply make sure we’ve got copies of all the correspondence, then report its arrival to Bishop Mytchail, send him the copies, and pass it on to Earl Coris for Prince Daivyn,” Lakeland decided. He leaned back in his chair again, meeting Halahdrom’s eyes. “And given the Lord Bishop’s views on smugglers and the embargo, I see no need to describe our conversation with Master Zhevons to him, do you?”

“A gift from Earl Anvil Rock, is it, My Lord?” Tobys Raimair cocked an eyebrow at Phylyp Ahzgood. “Would it happen the boy was expecting any additional gifts from him?”

“No, it wouldn’t,” the Earl of Coris replied. “Which is why it occurred to me that it might be as well for you and I to accept delivery before we let it-or the deliveryman-into his presence.”

“Oh, aye, I can understand that,” Raimair agreed. “Would you like me to ask one of the other lads to step in, as well?”

“I doubt that will be necessary,” Coris replied with a slight smile, considering the sword and dirk riding in well-worn sheaths at Raimair’s side. “Not for one man who’s not even getting into the same room with the boy.”

“As you say, My Lord.” Raimair bowed, then crossed the room to open the door.

A tall, brown-haired man stepped through it, followed by two of the palace’s servants and Brother Bahldwyn Gaimlyn, one of King Zhames’ junior secretaries. Between them, the wary footmen carried an ornately gilded traveling cage which contained six large wyverns. The wyverns gazed about with beady, unusually intelligent-looking eyes, and Coris frowned. It seemed an odd choice for a gift from Anvil Rock, who knew perfectly well that Daivyn had never showed the least interest in hunting wyverns. That had been his older brother’s passion.

“Master… Zhevons, is it?” Coris asked the brown-haired man.

“Aye, Sir. Ahbraim Zhevons, at your service,” the stranger replied in a pleasant tenor voice.

“And you’re an associate of Captain Harys?”

“Oh, I’d not go that far, My Lord.” Zhevons shook his head, but his eyes met Coris’ levelly. “It’s more that we’re in the same line of business, so to speak. These days, at least.”

“I see.” Coris glanced at the footmen and Brother Bahldwyn, who were waiting patiently, and wondered which of them was Baron Lakeland’s ears for this conversation. Probably all three of them, he decided. Or perhaps one was Lakeland’s and one was Mytchail Zhessop’s.

“Did Captain Harys pass on any messages to me?” he asked out loud.

“No, My Lord. Can’t say he did,” Zhevons replied. “Except that he did say as how you might be seeing me or one of my… ah, business associates with another odd delivery now and again.” He smiled easily, but his eyes held Coris’ gaze intently. “I think you might say the Captain’s of the opinion he might’ve become just a bit too well known to be serving you the way he has before.”

“Yes, I suppose I might,” Coris said thoughtfully, and nodded. “Well, in that case, Master Zhevons, thank you for your efficiency.”

He reached into his belt pouch, withdrew a five-mark piece, and flipped the golden disk to the smuggler, who caught it with an easy economy of movement and a grin. One of the footmen smiled as well, and Coris hoped the man had made note of the fact that there’d been absolutely no way for anything written to have been exchanged in the process.

“I’m sure these fellows can see you safely on your way, Master Zhevons,” he continued. “And I’m sure you can imagine there’s a certain young man anxiously awaiting my report on what his mysterious birthday gift might be.”

“Oh, that I can, My Lord! I’d no idea he was a prince, of course, but I’m sure every boy that age is much the same under the skin.”

The earl smiled again and nodded, and Zhevons sketched a bow and followed the footmen and Brother Bahldwyn out. Coris watched the door close behind him, then turned to Raimair.

“And what do you make of our Master Zhevons, Tobys?”

“Seems a capable sort, My Lord,” Raimair replied. “Never heard as how the boy-Prince Daivyn, I mean-was all that fond of wyvern hunting, howsome ever.”

“That’s because he wasn’t… and isn’t,” Coris murmured.

“You don’t say?” Raimair observed. “Now that makes a man feel just a mite suspicious, especially arriving all unannounced this way, doesn’t it just?”

“Perhaps, but Master Zhevons says Captain Harys got them as far as Tarot,” Coris said, lifting his eyes to Raimair’s face. “Of course, by this time it’s entirely possible someone’s figured out how we got here from Corisande, so the fact that Zhevons claims he knows Harys doesn’t necessarily prove anything. It does strike me as an indicator in its favor, though. And then there’s this.”

He pulled out the (already opened) envelope which had accompanied the traveling cage. It contained a sheaf of correspondence, and the earl extracted the letters and showed them to Raimair.

“I recognize the handwriting-both Earl Anvil Rock’s and his secretary’s,” he pointed out.

He looked down at them for a moment, then shrugged and walked across to his bookcase. He ran his finger down the spines of the shelved books until he found the one he wanted, then took it from the shelf, sat down at his desk, and unfolded Anvil Rock’s letter to Daivyn. The chapter and verse notations Anvil Rock had included in his letter were exactly the sort to which a considerably older kinsman and a regent might want to direct a youthful charge’s attention, especially if they had no opportunity for personal contact with the boy. A little somber and weighty for a lad Daivyn’s age, perhaps, but the boy was the legitimate ruler of an entire princedom. Something a bit more serious than the sorts of verses most children memorized for catechism might well be in order, given those circumstances.

Coris wasn’t particularly interested in looking up the passages indicated to check their content, however. Instead, he was turning pages in the cheap novel (printed in Manchyr) he’d taken from the shelf, selecting page numbers, then lines down the page, then words in the lines. Langhorne 6:21-9, for example, directed him to the sixth page, the twenty-first line, and the ninth word. He tracked down each passage’s indicated words, jotting each of them down quickly on a sheet of paper. Then he sat gazing at the sheet for a moment, frowning, before he dropped it into the fire on his sitting room’s hearth, stood, and crossed to the traveling cage. Its gilded bars were topped with ornamental finials, and he counted quickly around them from left to right until he got to the thirteenth. He gripped it, careful to keep his fingers out of reach of the wyverns’ saw-toothed beaks, and twisted, but it wouldn’t budge.

“You’ve got stronger wrists than I do, Tobys,” he said wryly. “See if you can get this thing to screw off. It turns clock-wise to loosen, not counter-clockwise.”