hereabouts, most of whom aren't finding that it's all that easy to work a farm. If you let me and my kinfolk pick them, we can get ones to be trusted.'
Demansk was doing his own calculations. He needed to get Helga off as soon as possible, before the sailing season ended. That meant, at the latest, two months from now.
'You'll have to be ready to leave in six weeks,' he said firmly.
The First Spear sloped his shoulders. It was not a gesture of despair; simply one of a man prepared to do whatever work was needed.
'I'm to be First Spear again, then?'
Demansk shook his head. 'No. You'll stay out of combat. I need you to oversee the business-and give my daughter the advice and counsel she'll need.
'As far as possible,' he added, remembering her headstrong attitude. The First Spear smiled. Clearly enough, he'd heard stories of Helga Demansk's temperament.
'You pick the First Spear,' said Demansk. 'I've got a different title for you. A new one.' He'd given this some thought. 'You're a 'Special Attendant' for Verice Demansk. The first of several, I suspect. The pay is a lot better, I might add.'
The former First Spear pursed his lips. 'And what exactly is the authority of such a… 'Special Attendant'?'
'Whatever it becomes,' replied Demansk flatly. 'I'll have a new title myself pretty soon. 'Triumvir.' '
The new Special Attendant nodded his head. 'Good move that, sir, if you'll permit me saying so. Always defeat 'em in detail, when you can.'
A smile came to Demansk's face. He suspected it was not a cheery expression, though. Several species of carnivores smiled also, at times. But his new subordinate's perspicacity pleased him, and besides-carnivores who smiled hunted in packs.
'I'll need to be off now, Special Attendant. I'll send money to you, as soon as you figure out how much you'll need for everything.'
They had been standing in front of the house the whole time. The Special Attendant had the reins of Demansk's velipad in his fist, since he'd politely helped him dismount when he arrived. He held them out and Demansk took them back.
As he turned away, preparing to mount, a sudden thought came to him. His face flushed a bit.
'Special Attendant, what is your name? '
The man's actual grin, when it finally came, was surprisingly light-hearted. 'It's to be the old times again, damn me if it won't!' he exclaimed cheerily. 'Jessep, sir. Jessep Yunkers.'
Demansk's escort was waiting for him in the tavern of a village nearby. He'd left them there so no one would know exactly where he had gone. The village, Demansk realized as he returned to it, was not the one Jessep had mentioned. Which was just as well, he decided. If spies started retracing his steps, they wouldn't find much here.
The officer in charge of the escort was a responsible man, so he had kept his men from drinking too much. The party was back on the road within minutes.
'One more stop before we're home,' Demansk told him. Since there would be no way to keep this stop secret-and no need to, for that matter-he added: 'Trae's villa. The new one, on the other side of the river.'
The new 'villa' of Demansk's youngest son Trae was a peculiar sort of thing. The mansion which served as the actual dwelling was standard enough, if a bit on the small side for a scion of such a wealthy family. But the adjoining buildings along the riverside-all of them newly constructed-were not something you'd find on most Confederate noblemen's estates.
Not on any, qualified Demansk to himself, as he dismounted in front of the largest new building. Trae called it a 'workshop.' The fact that he'd even call it that was enough to demonstrate the young man's eccentricity. Modern Vanbert noblemen did not engage in such disreputable activity as 'work.'
Before he entered the workshop, Demansk walked over to the riverbank and studied the river. Trae's estates were on the northern bank of the estuary of the Wantrell. Demansk could see his own great villa in the distance, perched on a small hill across the river.
Here, very close to the sea, the river was almost a mile wide. And…
Deep enough, Demansk decided. We'll need to build a dock. But Helga's ship, even as big a one as I'll get her, can make moorage here.
He turned away and studied the workshop. There was nothing to see, really, other than a small door on the side and two great swinging waterdoors in the middle which opened directly on an inlet to the riverside. There were plenty of windows, but all of them began ten feet off the ground-above eye level, except for someone with a ladder.
And there wouldn't be anything to see, anyway, even if someone did use a ladder. Demansk noted, with approval, the frosty glass which filled all the windows. His son Trae was absent-minded, in some ways, but there was nothing at all wrong with his brains. The interior of the workshop would be better lit than most buildings, during daytime at least, but would be impossible to spy on easily.
He went over to the small door and gave it a tug. Locked, as he'd expected-and hoped. He gave the door a vigorous pounding with his fist.
The man who opened the door was the one Demansk had come to see. The other one, rather, in addition to his son.
The foreign face was blank with astonishment. 'Justiciar!' the man exclaimed. 'We hadn't expected-'
'Good,' grunted Demansk, passing through the door. When he entered the workshop, his eyes fell on the object at its center. Impossible to look anywhere else, really. Even floating in its berth, the thing filled most of the building's interior.
It was the steam ram which Adrian Gellert had designed for the King of the Isles. The device had caused much grief to the Confederates in the first period of the siege of Preble, before Demansk had managed to capture the bizarre thing.
Capture it from His eyes moved away from the ship and fell on the man who had opened the door. Sharlz Thicelt, he noted, had given up his turban and was now wearing the garb of a Confederate freeman instead of an Islesman. But the tall former captain of the steam ram still had his head shaved, and still had heavy gold hoops dangling from his ears.
Demansk decided he approved of that small display of stubbornness. In an odd way, it spoke to a certain integrity in the former Islander naval captain.
That integrity would be needed. 'Islander naval captain' was a term whose distinction from 'pirate chieftain' could only be parsed by an Emerald philosopher. Demansk was now facing the old quandary: How do you know that the bandit you're hiring is an honest man?
Something of his thoughts must have shown. Thicelt's thick lips twisted, and he held up his wrists. 'Your son will speak well of me, I think. At least, he removed the manacles weeks ago.'
Trae had come up by then, a tool of some kind in his hand. A tool! Demansk noted. Good thing no one knows, or the whole family would be disgraced in Vanbert's upper crust.
'He's not a bad pirate, as these things go,' said Demansk's youngest offspring cheerfully.
Demansk saw no reason to dilly-dally around the business. 'But will he stay bought?' he demanded.
Sharlz Thicelt's expressive lips shifted into a different kind of smile. Still wry; but also, somehow, philosophical.
'Depends on the price,' he said, just as bluntly. 'If it's a fair one, yes; try and chisel me, you'll live to regret it.' He shrugged. 'Not a polite way of putting it, of course. But… there it is.'
Demansk bestowed upon him the carnivore smile. 'I dare say you'll have no complaint about the price. Though you might find the risk involved a bit on the steep side.'
Thicelt's whole face was expressive. The smile vanished, the brows lowered, the cheeks thinned. The man was on the verge of taking insult. Whatever else anyone said about the pirates of the Isles, no one accused them of cowardice.
