David Weber - How firm a foundation

When Sir Domynyk Staynair landed his prisoners (without even attempting to secure the paroles he knew they would never be allowed to honor), the Duke of Kholman and every member of his immediate family had joined Baron Jahras aboard HMS Destroyer. Along with the rest of Staynair’s fleet, the fugitives were perhaps a five-day and a half behind Destiny.

“You know they’re never going to admit Kholman and his family were driven into seeking asylum because of Clyntahn’s vindictiveness,” Sharleyan said. “And it won’t matter what Kholman and Jahras have to say, either.”

“Not as far as the Group of Four ’s propaganda is concerned, no,” Cayleb agreed. “On the other hand, that’s not the only propaganda circulating in Haven.”

“No, Your Majesty,” Nahrmahn agreed cheerfully. “And I’ll bet Clyntahn’s frothing at the mouth trying to figure out where those ‘heretical printing presses’ are! To be honest, one of the things I most regret about Merlin’s inability to put SNARCs inside the Temple is the fact that I can’t actually watch his blood pressure rise when Rayno makes his reports on that front.”

All three of them laughed, but he had a point, Cayleb thought. The Inquisition was searching with grim determination for the printers distributing the propaganda broadsheets which somehow mysteriously kept circulating throughout the various mainland realms. Unfortunately for the Inquisition, while there truly were a handful of mainland Reformists running very small presses, the stealthed remotes which actually distributed the overwhelming majority of the offending broadsheets were just a bit hard to spot. Every day, the Inquisition ripped those broadsheets down from one wall or another in virtually every mainland city; every night Owl’s remotes put them back up on different walls in completely different neighborhoods.

And no one ever saw a thing.

The one place they were careful about not distributing propaganda like that was the Republic of Siddarmark. Siddarmark had by far the largest community of Charisian expatriates, and the situation there was becoming increasingly tense. No one in Charis wanted to add any additional sparks to such a potentially incendiary mixture. Which, unfortunately, didn’t prevent a growing number of people inside Siddarmark from distributing their own propaganda. Worse, the Reformist movement was steadily gathering strength in the Siddarmarkian church, and no one this side of God had any idea where that was going to lead!

“I’m sure those mysterious, shameless propagandists and vile enemies of Mother Church will capitalize on these defections,” Cayleb continued with a pious expression. “And I suspect that’s going to have a greater effect than Clyntahn or the Inquisition want to think about. But I’m more interested in what it’s going to do from our perspective.” His expression turned much more serious. “I know it sounds mushy-headed and softhearted, but I’ve always wanted Charis to be a genuine refuge, a place that welcomes people fleeing from intolerance or oppression or persecution. That’s got to be the real basis for everything we’re trying to build-the foundation for human freedom and human dignity-and to stand against something like the Church and someone like Clyntahn, that foundation has to be firm. It has to have roots sunk into bedrock, deep enough to weather any storm.

“And for that to really work, Charisians have to see themselves that way. Our people have to define themselves as welcoming refugees from persecution if we don’t want those refugees to become-what was that word Merlin used? Ghettoized. That was it. Unless we want those refugees to settle in isolated, undigested chunks instead of being integrated into the society and the church around them, we need to embrace them. And we need that foundation set now, before we have to start dealing with telling the entire world the truth about Langhorne and the other ‘Archangels.’ People like Madame Dynnys, or Father Paityr’s family, are a visible proof to everyone, including our own people, that that’s the way it works, the way we really think, at least here in Charis, by God! And for that matter, you and Gorjah are proof we’re even willing to welcome old enemies and actually integrate them into our own society and government if they’re willing to stand up beside us against people like the Group of Four, Nahrmahn. Now we’ve got a chance to do the same thing with Jahras and Kholman, and I damned well want to see it handled the right way!”

Sharleyan nodded, leaning closer to rest her head on his shoulder while they watched Alahnah scurrying around the terrace on hands and knees.

“We’re working on it, love,” she told him. “We’re working on it.” . II.

Gray Wyvern Avenue, City of Tellesberg, Kingdom of Old Charis

It was a handsome freight wagon, if he did say so himself, Ainsail Dahnvahr thought. He’d spent a lot of effort on it, and the fact that he was a skilled carpenter and wagon-maker had played a prominent part in the planning for his part of Operation Rakurai. He was sure others among the Grand Inquisitor’s Rakurai had skills of their own which had been factored into Archbishop Wyllym’s planning and orders, although no one had ever told him that. He understood why that was, of course. What he didn’t know couldn’t be tortured out of him if he had the misfortune to be captured alive by the heretics.

To be fair-which he didn’t really want to do-he had to admit he’d seen no overt evidence the heretics hadn’t meant it when they promised not to torture their enemies, but what happened in the open wasn’t always the same as what happened in secret, and the heretics’ success in picking off every effort to build some kind of effective organization against them certainly suggested they were forcing people to talk somehow. But however they were managing it, it wouldn’t do them any good if he didn’t have the information they wanted in the first place.

And it wasn’t going to matter a great deal longer one way or the other, he reminded himself.

“It’d be a lot simpler if we could just go ahead and unload the wagon, Master Gahztahn,” the wheelwright said, surveying the broken wheel and cracked axle. “Get the weight off of it, and we could jack it up a lot easier.”

“I know it would,” the man who called himself Hiraim Gahztahn agreed with a nod. “And if you see some place to park another wagon this size while we shift the load to it, I’m all for it!”

He waved his hands with an exasperated expression, and the wheelwright grimaced in acknowledgment. Gray Wyvern Avenue was one of the busiest streets in Tellesberg, a city famous for the density of its traffic. “Gahztahn” had been doing well to get his eight-wheeled articulated wagon dragged to the side of the street after the right front wheel broke. To accomplish even that much, he’d had to crowd up onto the sidewalk, and the foot traffic’s need to flow around it wasn’t doing a thing to ease the congestion. Now the hill dragon between the shafts stood patiently, head down while it rummaged through the feed bag hung from its head, ignoring the even more constricted traffic oozing past the obstruction. The City Guard had already made it clear they wanted this particular wagon fixed-quickly!-and out of the way before the traffic jam got any worse.

“Well,” the Charisian said now, turning with his hands on his hips to watch as his apprentice managed to squeeze their work wagon in behind “Gahztahn’s” stalled vehicle, “I reckon we’ll just have to do the best we can.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure how well it’s going to work if that axle’s as bad as it looks, but I think we’ve got a spare wheel we can change out at least long enough to tow you out of the middle of all this damned traffic.”