David Weber - How firm a foundation

“I’m no nobleman, My Lord,” the Charisian said bluntly. “I don’t understand all the ins and outs of a noble code of conduct. But I do understand duty, and I do know you’ve truly done all you could. I can’t absolve you of the guilt you obviously feel. I don’t know if I would if I could. But I do accept your apology in the spirit in which it’s offered and I hope that when the bill finally comes due for what your Kingdom and the Inquisition are about to do, your efforts to do the right and honorable thing will be considered in your favor.”

“You may not have been born a nobleman, Admiral, but at the moment I think that’s a mark in your favor.” Thirsk smiled humorlessly. “Perhaps if I weren’t quite so pigheaded, we-”

He broke off, waving one hand, then glanced at the clock on the cabin bulkhead, and his jaw tightened.

“I’m not supposed to know, Admiral, but you have approximately four hours before your ‘escort’ arrives.” He saw Manthyr’s face turn to stone but went on unflinchingly. “Lieutenant Bahrdailahn will return you to the prison ships. If any of you wish to send a last letter home, I give you my word I’ll personally see it delivered somehow to Charis. Please see to it that any letters are completed at least a half hour before the Navy is required to transfer you to your escort. Leave them aboard ship when you depart, and I’ll have them collected in a day or two.”

After the Inquisition’s taken you all away and I can do it without having my own men and me sent to join you, he didn’t say out loud, but Manthyr and his two captains heard it anyway.

“I thank you for that, My Lord.” For the first time emotion softened the flint of the Charisian’s voice. “I… hadn’t expected it.”

“I only wish I’d thought-” Thirsk began, then stopped. “I only wish I’d found the courage to make the offer sooner, Admiral,” he admitted. “Now go, and whatever the Inquisition may think, may God be with you.”

“So, you’re Admiral Manthyr,” the Schuelerite upper-priest sneered.

Sir Gwylym Manthyr only gazed at him wordlessly, eyes contemptuous.

It was an almost obscenely beautiful day, given what was happening. The air was cool, the breeze refreshing, and the solid quay underfoot seemed to undulate gently. After so long in the hulks, it was going to take him some time to get his land legs back.

Seabirds and sea wyverns swooped about in their unending sweeps of Gorath Bay. There was always some interesting bit of garbage, some piece of flotsam, some unwary fish or the eyes of some drifting Charisian corpse, to attract their attention, and he realized he was going to miss their antics once they’d left the harbor behind. Funny. He hadn’t thought there was anything he’d miss about Gorath Bay, but that was before the coin had finally dropped.

“Proud and silent, are you?” the Schuelerite observed, and spat on the ground just in front of Manthyr’s feet. “We’ll see how ‘silent’ you are when you reach Zion, heretic!”

The upper-priest was in his forties, Manthyr estimated, with dark hair and a close-cropped beard, and a coiled whip hung at his side. His brown eyes were hard, dark, and hating, which was scarcely a surprise. Zhaspahr Clyntahn would have handpicked the man responsible for delivering his latest victims.

“The Grand Inquisitor wants you in Zion in one piece,” the Schuelerite continued. “Personally, I’d just as soon shoot all of you and leave you in the ditch like the carrion you are, but that’s not my decision. What is my decision is how… discipline will be maintained on our journey. I’d advise you all to remember my patience is short and the men under my command understand how to deal with Shan-wei’s get. Take that as all the warning you’ll be given.”

Manthyr simply looked back at him, refusing to flinch or look away yet able to picture the thin, wasted, raggedly dressed officers and men standing behind him on the quay. He and the Schuelerite both knew they’d heard every word, but he felt their angry, hopeless defiance at his back.

The Schuelerite glared at him for another minute, then turned his head.

“Captain Zhu!” he barked.

“Yes, Father Vyktyr?” a shortish, blocky officer in the uniform of the Temple Guard replied.

Captain Zhu was obviously Harchongian, with the strongly pronounced epicanthic fold of his people. He looked to be in his late thirties, with black hair, and his Guard uniform bore the sword-and-flame of the Order of Schueler as a shoulder patch. That indicated that while he was a Guard officer, he’d been seconded to the Inquisition, which probably made sense. The Inquisition had its own small, highly trained military force, but it specialized in enforcement, not in field exercises. For an overland journey this long, they’d want someone with experience handling troops in the field.

“Put this garbage in its cages.” Father Vyktyr gestured contemptuously at the Charisians. “And I don’t see any need to be overly gentle with them.”

“As you say, Father,” Zhu agreed with an unpleasant smile, and turned to the weathered-looking, squatly muscular sergeant at his heels. “You heard the Father, Sergeant Zhadahng. Get them moving.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Well, I suppose this settles what I can-and can’t-do, after all, Merlin Athrawes thought grimly, lying back in his borrowed bed in Manchyr’s Royal Palace and watching through the SNARCs as the Charisian prisoners were driven aboard the wagons prepared to receive them.

The Temple Guardsmen were equipped with heavy, massive, old-style matchlocks, not the newer flintlocks which were beginning to trickle into the Temple’s service, and they plied their musket butts freely. He watched Charisian seamen stagger as those musket butts slammed home between their shoulder blades or drove into their rib cages. More than one man went to his knees, to be kicked and beaten until he managed to claw his way back to his feet, and if any of his comrades tried to help him, they received the same treatment.

Merlin’s sapphire eyes opened in the early morning darkness, hard with fury, as a young, one-legged midshipman fell. No one had struck him; he simply tripped as he tried to move fast enough to satisfy their captors on his single foot and obviously jury-rigged crutch. It didn’t matter. The guards closed in, battering and kicking while the boy curled in a desperate, protective knot, trying to protect his head with his arms, and Merlin’s jaw clenched as Sir Gwylym Manthyr deliberately stepped into that ring of sadistic blows. He watched the muscular admiral taking the musket butts on his own back and shoulders, never raising a hand against his assailants as he was battered to his hands and knees across the boy’s body, only using his own body to protect that fallen midshipman.

Then there was another man inside that circle, one in what was left of the uniform of a Charisian captain. And another man, slightly built, with a waxed mustache, who Merlin recognized as Naiklos Vahlain. The guards beat and kicked them harder than ever, but a handful of seamen joined them. More than one of them went down, only to rise again, faces bloodied, bodies bruised, taking those blows with silent defiance until Manthyr could climb back up from his own knees and take that semi-conscious young body in his arms. Another musket crashed into the admiral’s kidneys and he stumbled forward, face twisted with pain, but he refused to drop the midshipman.

One of the guards raised his musket high in both hands, obviously aiming a murderous butt stroke at Manthyr’s head, and the admiral glared at him, eyes of fire hard in a blood-streaked face, daring him to strike. The blow started forward, only to stop in midair-stop so abruptly the Guardsman staggered-as an auburn-haired Guard lieutenant shouted an order.