can’t man for ammunition for the ships we can man-like yours, Captain Pruait.”
“I see, Sir.”
It would have been unfair to call Pruait’s tone unhappy, but he obviously wasn’t delirious with joy, either, Rock Point observed.
“I said that’s what we’re going to do in the short term, Captain,” he said, and smiled at Pruait’s expression. “Exactly what we decide to do in the long term is going to have to wait until Master Howsmyn, Baron Seamount, and Commander Mahndrayn have had the opportunity to kick the question around for a while. To be honest, we’ve captured enough guns that it might very well make sense to begin casting shot to fit them. On the other hand, Master Howsmyn’s production lines are all set up around our standard shot sizes. And then there’s the question of what we do about shells for non-standard bore sizes. Do we manufacture shells for the captured guns, too?”
“How much of a problem would that present, High Admiral?” Pruait asked. Rock Point raised an eyebrow, and the captain shrugged. “I don’t really know very much about these new ‘shells,’ Sir,” he admitted. “I’ve talked about them with as many of the officers who were with you and High Admiral Lock Island in the Markovian Sea as I could, but that’s not the same thing as really understanding them or how they differ from solid shot in terms of manufacture.”
“I’m afraid you’re hardly alone in that,” Rock Point said wryly. “It was all very closely held before we were forced to commit the new weapons to action. Even Captain Sahlavahn and the Ordnance Board were left in the dark, as a matter of fact. Baron Seamount, the Experimental Board, and Master Howsmyn and a handful of his artisans did all the real work on them.
“And in answer to your question, Captain Pruait, I don’t have the foggiest notion how much of a problem it would be to manufacture shells to fit the captured guns. Commander Mahndrayn and I will be leaving shortly to go discuss that very point with Master Howsmyn. We’ll drop Captain Sahlavahn off at Big Tirian on our way, but I wanted to have his expertise available for our discussion here before we left.”
“I’m afraid it’s going to be mostly background expertise, Tym,” Sahlavahn said dryly. “As the High Admiral says, I actually know relatively little about the exploding shells even now. I understand”-his tone got even dryer-“that I’m going to be learning more shortly, though. Baron Seamount tells me we’re going to be filling quite a few shells, and the Hairatha Mill’s going to be called upon to provide the powder for most of them.”
“Oh, we’ll be filling a lot of them, all right, Captain,” Rock Point assured him with a hungry smile. “We’re going to have a use for them sometime soon now. And we’re counting on that efficiency of yours to help smooth out some of the bottlenecks to make sure we’ve got them when we need them.”
Sahlavahn nodded. Although he’d commanded a galley under King Haarahld at the Battle of Darcos Sound, he’d served strictly in shoreside appointments since. He was nowhere near the gifted technocrat his younger cousin, Mahndrayn, had proven to be, however. In fact, he was inclined in the opposite direction, with a conservative bent that was occasionally frustrating to his superiors. But if it was occasionally frustrating, it was far more often valuable, the sort of conservatism that had an irritating, maddening ability to point out the flaws in the latest and greatest brilliant inspiration of his more innovative fellows. Even more to the point, he was at least as gifted as an administrator as Mahndrayn was as an innovator. The commander would have been hopelessly ill suited for the task of commanding the Hairatha powder mill on Big Tirian Island. His mind worked in leaps and jumps, thriving on intuition and incessantly questioning the known and accepted in pursuit of the unknown and the unconventional. Sahlavahn, on the other hand, had already expedited three production bottlenecks in the Imperial Charisian Navy’s third-largest gunpowder production center by approaching them from his usual pragmatic, unflappable, conservative perspective.
“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,”
