David Drake - Master of the Cauldron

"Milord," Sharina said, close enough to Waldron's left ear to make him jump. "If Master Bedrin allows you to be drowned, the conspiracy on Ornifal will go unchecked with the Gods know what result for the kingdom. Please, humor him for Prince Garric's sake."

"Ah!" said Waldron, turning to face Sharina and her companions. A series of emotions cascaded over his face. In a much milder tone he said, "Ah," again.

"And not to sound selfish…," Sharina continued, smiling broadly. "ButI'd rather not drown either."

She respected and even liked Lord Waldron, because he was the best man he knew how to be under all circumstances. Waldron was narrow, choleric, and not infrequently stubborn to the point of being pig-headed-but he was always true to what he saw as his duty.

"Ah," Waldron repeated. "But the thing is, your highness-time's short. Maybe too short already. If we get to Ornifal after this usurper's captured Valles, then there's no choice for anything but the whole army and full-scale war."

"Milord, I can't keep the sun from setting," Master Bedrin said peevishly. "It-"

Sharina pointed her left index finger at the naval officer's face. She'd dealt with angry, argumentative men on a regular basis at her father's inn, and at least neither of this pair was drunk.

"Master Bedrin, your men can hold a stroke and a half rate for four hours, can't they?" she said. She'd learned a great deal about ships and sailors since she'd left Barca's Hamlet, not least by listening to the stories Chalcus told in the evenings Garric and his friends spent together on islets while crossing and recrossing the Inner Sea. "They've rested since we landed on Volita, and the run north from Carcosa wasn't a hard one either. Not so?"

"Well, yes, four hours-but not tomorrow and the next day and the next besides!" Bedrin said with an expression somewhere between surprise and anger. He was unusually tall, red-haired, and from his accent a native of Cordin.

"Nor will they have to," Sharina said. "Andthey'll be paid a third silver wheatsheaf for the run instead of the usual two per day. Lord Waldron, that gives you two hours to get your men aboard. Will that be sufficient?"

"It will or I'll have broken some troop leaders down to the ranks!" Waldron growled, nodding approval. He noticed the Blood Eagles and scowled again. "Who're these?"

"Under-captain Ascor," the squad commander said, striking a brace. He couldn't salute properly because he was loaded in marching array. "Prince Garric ordered us to accompany her highness the princess."

Waldron grimaced. "Six more bodies to fit where there's not room for what we've got already," he grumbled. "All right, Ascor. Three of you go aboard theStar of Valles, the other three on theVictory of Ornifal. They're at the end of the row."

He nodded toward the readying vessels farthest up the beach.

"I'm sorry, milord," Ascor said, "but Prince Garric ordered we stay with her highness. I'm afraid that means we travel on the same ship as she does, whichever one that is."

"Do you think that black lobster suit means you can order me around?" Lord Waldron shouted, tapping the knuckles of his right fist on Ascor's breastplate of blackened bronze. "Well, you can-"

He stopped and guffawed. "No, you don't think that," he resumed in a wholly reasonable tone. "But Prince Garric thinks he can. And since there's one traitor in the bor-Warriman family already, there's no need for me to become one myself."

Waldron bowed to Sharina. "Come aboard theStar of Valles with me, your highness," he said. "And we'll try to find room that we can all stand without becoming better friends that propriety would allow!"

"This is my second visit to Erdin," Garric said to Liane in the stern ofThe Shepherd of the Isles as the big vessel stroked slowly across the strait. "The first time I was a peasant who'd never seen a gold coin."

Unlike merchant vessels, warships couldn't remain tied up to quays while in harbor: their light hulls would become waterlogged. Erdin had no open beaches nor a drydock large enough to haul a five-banked monster like theShepherd out of the water, so she'd return to Volita after delivering Garric with the pomp appropriate to a ruling prince.

Garric grinned. "The city looks different now."

TheShepherd 's fighting towers of canvas-covered wicker were raised in the bow and stern. The balistas mounted on them had bolts in their troughs, and the only reason the weapons weren't cocked was that Garric had absolutely refused to chance one of them letting loose by accident.

Attaper had thought the extra protection from having the artillery ready to shoot was worth the risk; Garric's other military officers simply weren't bothered at the possibility of a dozen or so Sandrakkan spectators being killed if a bronze-headed bolt ripped through the crowd. Garricdid care.

"You're right to worry about civilians, lad," King Carus noted with a broad grin. "But it's only because I saw where the other way of thinking led that I didn't argue with you myself."

The triremes transporting the Blaise regiment were in line abreast to theShepherd 's starboard. They bucked the current between Volita and the mainland with more difficulty than the larger ship because they had only one bank of oars manned. Even so they kept station well. It was a short voyage, and Admiral Zettin had made sure the transports had picked crews.

The admiral himself was aboard one of the ten fully-crewed triremes manuevering in the strait. Sections of five ships combed through one another, then reversed direction and did the same thing again. It was an impressive shiphandling demonstration, but it was also a warning to anybody who'd thought of putting out from the mainland with hostile intentions.

Garric hadn't ordered him to put on that show of force, but Zettin didn't need orders to get him to act. If anything he wastoo zealous.

"He's very able," Liane said, following the line of Garric's gaze and noting the slight frown. Her tone held the same doubt that he was feeling. "And intelligent, for that matter. But he doesn't always see that his duties are part of running the kingdom, instead of being the kingdom existing to support a fleet."

"He probably wouldn't be as good a fleet commander if he weren't focused on that alone," Garric said. "But I have to watch him a little more carefully than I sometimes have time to do."

"Right," said the image of Carus, nodding grim-faced agreement. "Just in case he decides to take a squadron into a fishing village by night and carry off all the able-bodied men to fill empty oar benches. And don't say it couldn't happen, because it did. And it was me who did it, I'm sorry to say."

Garric chuckled, causing Liane to smile at his pleasure. He could imagine the effect kidnapping crews had on the kingdom in the longer run, though. The same was true of extortionate taxation, of course, but both Lord Tadai and-back in Valles-Chancellor Royhas showed more awareness of long-term considerations than Zettin did.

Zettin's job was at its simplest level killing other people. It didn't encourage viewing things in the long term, and realities of the work led to the early death of soldiers who forgot the basics.

The trireme manned by Blood Eagles under Lord Attaper's personal command slid up to the quay where soldiers in bright armor, courtiers, and in the center Earl Wildulf himself waited. The guards disembarked swiftly, setting helmets in place and hooking shield straps to the staples on their backplates to transfer some of the weight off their left arms.

"How do they row wearing breastplates?" Liane asked wonderingly.

"It can't be easy, even for the distance from here to Volita," Garric agreed. "I think Attaper's being excessive in demanding that his men be trained to row at all. But I suppose he'd say that it was his job to be excessive, and since the men themselves don't complain-"