David Weber - How firm a foundation

Neither of them chose to mention the fact that Clyntahn had somehow failed to keep Allayn Maigwair informed of those agents’ reports.

“What are the chances of having him dig more deeply into the matter?”

“I would advise against that, Your Grace. The agent we’re talking about is Harysyn.”

Clyntahn’s grunt was an acceptance of Rayno’s advice.

“Harysyn” was the codename they’d assigned to one of their tiny handful of sources within the Kingdom of Old Charis. As Rayno had pointed out, every effort to establish a formal network in Old Charis-indeed, almost anywhere in the accursed Empire of Charis-had run into one stone wall after another. Sometimes it was almost enough to make Clyntahn truly believe in demonic interference on the other side. As a result of that unending sequence of failures, however, the sources which were available to them were more precious than jewels. That was why they’d been assigned codenames which Clyntahn insisted on using even in his conversations with Rayno. In fact, he’d made a point of never learning what the sources’ actual names might be, on the theory that what he didn’t know, he couldn’t disclose even by accident.

While he hated to admit it, Maigwair and that gutless fool Duchairn did have a point about the apparent effectiveness of Charisian spies. He didn’t believe any of them were managing to operate within the Temple itself, but they had to be operating-and operating effectively-throughout the Temple Lands. It was the only explanation for how so many clerics-or their families, at least-could have escaped the Inquisition when he broke the Wylsynns’ group. Or how the Charisians could have discovered that Kornylys Harpahr’s fleet was actually going east, instead of west, for that matter. And that being the case, he wasn’t going to take a chance on anyone’s learning the identities of those precious sources of information.

All their surviving sources had been strictly ordered to recruit no other agents. That reduced their “reach,” since it meant each and every one of those agents could report only what he or she actually saw or heard. It also meant each of them required his or her individual conduit back to the Temple, which made the transmission of anything they learned even slower and more cumbersome than it would already have been across such vast distances. Unfortunately, as Rayno had just said, every agent who had attempted to recruit others, to build any sort of true network, had been pounced on within weeks. It had taken a while for the Inquisition to realize that was happening, but once it had become evident, the decision to change their operational patterns had virtually made itself. And onerous as the restrictions might be, anything which made the spies they had managed to put-or keep-in place less likely to attract Wave Thunder’s attention was thoroughly worthwhile.

Harysyn was a special case even among that tiny handful of assets, however. He hadn’t been placed in Charis at all; he’d been born there. A Temple Loyalist horrified by his kingdom’s heresy, he’d found his own way to communicate with the Inquisition, and virtually all those communications flowed only in one direction-from him to the Temple. He’d established his own channels, including one which would let them communicate back to him in an excruciatingly slow and roundabout fashion, although he’d also cautioned them that it could be used only sparingly, if there was no other choice. He was prepared to provide all the information he could, he’d told them from the outset, but if they expected him to avoid the detection which had befallen so many other agents and Loyalists, they would have to settle for what he could tell them and for his maintaining control of their communications.

That had been more than enough to make Clyntahn and Rayno suspicious initially, since both of them were well aware of how much damage a double agent could do by feeding them false information. But Harysyn had been reporting for almost three years now without their detecting a single falsehood, and he’d been promoted by his superiors twice during that time, giving him better and better access. Besides that, he was crucial to one of Clyntahn’s central strategies.

That was the main reason he’d been given the codename “Harysyn,” after one of the greatest mortal heroes of the war against Shan-wei’s disciples at the dawn of Creation.

“Did he have anything else for us in the same report?” the Grand Inquisitor asked. “Anything specific to what happened to Harpahr?”

“Not specific to that, no, Your Grace.” Rayno shook his head. “There’s no mention at all of that battle in his message. I judge it was probably composed before the battle was even fought-or before any report of it had reached Harysyn, at any rate. He does say Mahndrayn’s been in discussions about ship design with Olyvyr, though. And he’s heard rumors Seamount and Mahndrayn are working with Howsmyn on further improving these new projectiles-‘shells,’ they’re calling them-as well as continuing to experiment with new cannon founding techniques. Whatever they’re up to, though, they’re keeping the information very confidential, and Harysyn’s promotion means he’s no longer in a position to see any of their internal correspondence.”

Clyntahn grunted again, less happily this time. Harysyn’s sketches of things like the new Charisian hollow-based bullets, flintlock mechanisms, and artillery cartridges had been of immense value. He’d managed to provide the formula for the Charisians’ gunpowder (which not only caused less fouling but was rather more powerful than Mother Church’s had been) and the new techniques for producing granular powder, as well. Of course, the Inquisition had been forced to take great care in how it made that information available to the Temple Guard and the secular lords, lest it betray the fact that it had an agent placed to obtain it in the first place. It had, however, given Clyntahn invaluable advance notice on the innovations he had to justify under the Proscriptions of Jwo-jeng.

“And that insufferable bastard Wylsynn?” he growled now as the thought of the Proscriptions drew his mind into a familiar groove.

“Harysyn has seen very little of him personally.”

Rayno kept his tone as clinical as possible; Clyntahn’s hatred for the Wylsynn family had become even more obsessive over the last year. Bad enough that Samyl and Hauwerd Wylsynn, the two men he’d hated most in all the world, had escaped the Question and the Punishment by dying before they could be taken into custody. Worse that Samyl’s wife and children had escaped the Inquisition completely. Yet worse than any of that, except in a purely personal sense, of course, was Paityr Wylsynn’s desertion to the heresy. He’d actually agreed to continue serving as Maikel Staynair’s Intendant, and not content with that, he’d even assumed direction of the Charisians’ Shan-wei-spawned “Patent Office.” A member of Clyntahn’s own order was actively abetting the flood of innovations that had allowed the renegade kingdom to escape the justly deserved destruction the Grand Inquisitor had decreed for it in the first place!

“He has managed to confirm, however, that Madam Wylsynn and her children have reached Tellesberg, Your Grace,” Rayno added delicately, and Clyntahn’s face turned dangerously dark.

For a moment, it looked as if the Grand Inquisitor might launch into one of his more furious tirades. But he stopped and controlled himself, instead.

“I suppose we’ll just have to hope he’s in his office at the wrong time,” he said. Then he shook his head. “Actually, I hope he isn’t. I don’t want that son of Shan-wei slipping through our hands the way his father and his uncle did. He has far too much to atone for by simply dying on us.”