David Weber - How firm a foundation

“The main point,” Rock Point continued, striding aft towards Sword of God ’s poop deck as he spoke, “is to provide each of the ships with the most effective armament we can in the shortest time frame. At the moment, I’m thinking in terms of a work in progress in which we’ll go immediately to an effective ‘conventional’ armament without worrying about explosive shells. That’s what I meant about a short-term solution, Captain Pruait.

“The next stage of the work in progress will be to provide all of you with appropriate carronades. At this point, probably the thirty-pounders, since that won’t require us to relocate gunports. And we can provide them with the same explosive shells the long thirties fire, which will give you a shell-firing capability at shorter ranges. Eventually, though, we’re going to have to decide whether to melt down the captured guns and recast them as standard thirty-pounders so your entire armament can use the standardized shells, or to produce molds to cast shells to fit their existing bores.”

He reached the taffrail and leaned on it, bracing his arms against it while he gazed out across the harbor. He stood for a moment, breathing the salt air deep, then turned back to Pruait, Sahlavahn, Mahndrayn, and Erayksyn.

“Suppose we do this Navy fashion,” he said and turned a broad smile on Mahndrayn. “Since Styvyn doesn’t know any more about the technical aspects of this than I do, we’ll let him sit this one out. But that makes you the junior officer present with something to contribute, Commander Mahndrayn. Which means you get the opportunity to express your views first, before any of us crotchety seniors get out there and express something that might cause you to change your mind or not suggest something you think might piss one of us off. Of course, I’ve observed how… inhibited your imagination gets under these circumstances, but I believe you’ll manage to bear up under the strain.”

Pruait chuckled. Sahlavahn, on the other hand, laughed out loud, and Mahndrayn smiled back at the high admiral.

“I’ll do my best, Sir,” he said.

“I know you will, Commander.” Rock Point turned to brace the small of his back against the taffrail, folded his arms across his chest, and cocked his head. “And on that note, why don’t you begin?”

Archbishop’s Palace, City of Tellesberg, Kingdom of Old Charis

Winter in Tellesberg was very different from winter in the Temple Lands, Paityr Wylsynn reflected as he stepped gratefully into the shaded portico of Archbishop Maikel’s palace. Freezing to death wasn’t much of an issue here. Indeed, the hardest thing for him to get used to when he’d first arrived had been the fierce, unremitting sunlight, although the climate did get at least marginally cooler this time of year than it was in summer. The locals took the heat in stride, however, and he loved the exotic sights and sounds, the tropical fruits, the brilliant flowers, and the almost equally brilliantly colored wyverns and birds. For that matter, he’d acclimated well enough even to the heat that the thought of returning to Temple Lands’ snow and sleet held little allure.

Especially these days, he thought grimly. Especially these days.

“Good morning, Father,” the senior of the guardsmen in the white-and-orange of the archbishop’s service said.

“Good morning, Sergeant,” Paityr replied, and the other members of the guard detachment nodded to him without further challenge. Not because they weren’t fully alert-the attempt to assassinate Maikel Staynair in his own cathedral had put a conclusive end to any complacency they might once have felt-but because they’d seen him here so often.

And I’m not precisely the easiest person to mistake for someone else, either, I suppose, he reflected wryly, looking down at the purple sleeve of his cassock with its sword and flame badge. I doubt there are half a dozen Schuelerites left in the entire Old Kingdom by now, and most of them are Temple Loyalists hiding in the deepest holes they can find. Besides, I’d stand out even if I were a Bedardist or a Pasqualate.

“Welcome, Father Paityr. Welcome!”

The solemn, senior, and oh-so-superior servants who’d cluttered up the Archbishop’s Palace under its previous owners had become a thing of the past. The palace was vast enough to require a fairly substantial staff, but Archbishop Maikel preferred a less supercilious environment. Alys Vraidahn had been his housekeeper for over thirty years, and he’d taken her with him to his new residence, where she’d proceeded to overhaul the staff from top to bottom in remarkably short order. A brisk, no-nonsense sort of person, Mistress Vraidahn, but as warmhearted as she was shrewd, and she’d adopted Paityr Wylsynn as yet another of the archbishop’s unofficial sons and daughters. Now she swept him a curtsy, then laughed as he leaned forward and planted a kiss on her cheek.

“Now then!” she scolded, smacking him on the shoulder. “Don’t you be giving an old woman the kind of notions she shouldn’t be having over a young, unattached fellow such as yourself!”

“Ah, if only I could!” he sighed. He shook his head mournfully. “I’m not very good at darning my own socks,” he confided.

“And are you saying that idle layabout Master Ahlwail can’t do that just fine?” she challenged skeptically.

“Well, yes, I suppose he can. Poorly,” Paityr said, shamelessly maligning his valet’s sewing skills as he hung his head and looked as pitiable as possible. “But he’s not a very good cook, you know,” he added, actually getting his lower lip to quiver.

“Comes of being a foreigner,” she told him, eyes twinkling. “Not but what you don’t look like he’s managed to keep a little meat on your bones.” Paityr sniffed, looking as much like his starving seminarian days as he could manage, and she shook her head. “Oh, all right. All right! You come around to my kitchen before you leave. I’ll have a little something for you to take back to your pantry.”

“Bless you, Mistress Ahlys,” Paityr said fervently, and she laughed again. Then she turned her head and spotted one of the footmen.

“Hi, Zhaksyn! Run and tell Father Bryahn Father Paityr’s here to see His Eminence!”

Anything less like the protocol in a typical archbishop’s residence would have been all but impossible to imagine, Paityr thought. Of course, so would the footman in question. The lad couldn’t be much older than sixteen or seventeen years old, his fuzzy beard (which needed shaving) just into the wispy silk stage, and his head came up like a startled prong buck’s as the housekeeper called his name.

“Yes, Mistress Vraidahn!” he blurted and disappeared at a half run.

Not, Paityr noticed, without darting an even more startled look at him. And not just because of his Schuelerite cassock, he felt sure.

Paityr had always been more than a little amused by the typical mainlanders’ perspective on the provincialism of the “out islands” as they dismissively labeled Charis, Chisholm, and Corisande. Tarot (which was the least cosmopolitan of the lot, in Paityr’s opinion) got a pass from mainland prejudices because it was so close to the mainland. Still, the Tarot Channel was over three hundred miles wide, and more than one mainland wit had been heard to observe that good cooking and culture had both drowned trying to make the swim.

And what made that so amusing to him was that Charisians were actually far more cosmopolitan than the vast majority of Safeholdians… including just about every mainlander Paityr had ever met. The ubiquitous Charisian merchant marine guaranteed that there were very few sights Charisians hadn’t seen, and not just their sailors, either. Every nationality and physical type in the entire world-including the Harchongese, despite the Harchong Empire’s insularity-passed through Tellesberg eventually. Despite which, Paityr Wylsynn still got more than his share of double takes from those he met.