Adrian nodded in unison with Esmond. No doubt a little gold from Chalice was spread around to get that Royalist party going, Raj said. But yes, on the whole, it looks like a good opportunity to test the Confeds.
probability of initial success is 77 %, ±10, Center interjected. high degree of uncertainty indicates several factors, principally—
We'll discuss that later, Adrian thought firmly. Aloud: "My lord King, perhaps we can take Preble," he said. "Can we hold it?"
Tenny's lower lip stuck out slightly. Adrian cursed himself silently; he should have framed that a little more tactfully. Casull nodded.
"That is the question," he said. "Normally, no. The island is too close to the mainland, to the Confed armies, and to their fleet. The fleet's laid up in ordinary" — meaning stripped and hauled up in boat-sheds—"but they can put it to sea fairly quickly."
"As sailors, they'd make good cowherds," Tenny observed. His father frowned.
"True, but don't underestimate their numbers, or their discipline, or the way their infantry fights once they get on your deck — previous Kings of the Isles have done that, to their cost." Casull III, for instance, had paid with his life for doing exactly that. "With 'zieur Adrian's new weapons, we may have a chance of holding it."
Adrian traced the narrow strait with a finger. "What's the depth, here, my lord King?"
"Ah, you see the problem. Shallow — full of shifting sandbars. Impossible to interdict with warships, but fine for shallow-draft barges carrying assault troops."
"They might try a causeway, then," Adrian said thoughtfully. "If they could round up enough peasants to dig."
Casull winced slightly. "That would be even worse. Damn them, they're always trying to turn sea into land."
"By the Lord of the Trident, they'll regret it this time," Esmond said confidently. "Most of Adrian's new weapons have the range to turn the straits into hell for them."
"So we'll put them into the hands of the Shades." Tenny chuckled, licking his lips. "And I will be King in Preble."
"Under me," Casull added dryly, and the Prince looked down. Patricide was an ancient tradition in the Isles. "By sending you, my son, I assure the men of Preble that they are to be free subjects, not a possession to be squeezed."
"What about the city militia?" Esmond said. "There ought to be. . what, eight, ten thousand of them? In a city that size."
Casull nodded. "They will not be involved initially," he said. "Not if our plan goes as expected. Then they will have no choice but to fall in with us, and fight for us."
"Certainly, if the Confed thinks they were disloyal," Esmond said. "I take it, my lord, that the Strikers are to be the spearhead of this enterprise?" He bowed to Tenny. "Under your valiant son's direction."
"Of course," Casull beamed. "And your brother will be with you, to see to the emplacement of the new weapons to defend our new city. We will follow with the fleet."
The two Emeralds smiled and bowed to the King of the Isles. Adrian needed no voices from beyond the world to know exactly what the King was thinking: if the throw of the dice failed, he was out only one replaceable son and some Emerald mercenaries; if it succeeded, he had one of the richest cities in the Western Sea.
That's how a King has to think, lad, Raj said. Adrian had an image of gray eyes, weary and amused. I never had to be that, for which I thank the Spirit of Man of the Stars.
"When do we strike?" Esmond asked.
"As soon as may be. With the fleet gathered, Confed spies will swarm here like flies to velipad shit, and this is a logical step. I will feed them a dozen contradictory stories — that way even if they learn the truth, it may drown in a storm of plausible lies — but better still to strike before they decide to reinforce all their coastal garrisons."
Esmond nodded. "Then if my lords will permit, my brother and I will withdraw, to make our preparations. The Strikers will be ready to sail within three days."
"My Lightning Band within a week," Adrian said. "I will need time to modify some equipment and gather others."
* * *
"You gave her what?" Esmond laughed, cracking a nut in his palm.
"Well, it was what she wanted," Adrian said defensively.
"Flowers, a hare, jewels — but you gave her a sword?"
"Well, the one she had wasn't really very good quality," Adrian explained.
He was tired; they both were, with the load of work they'd been doing. A light meal stood between their couches on a low table: cured fish, olives, oil, bread for dipping, watered wine. The room was plain whitewash with a pattern of leaves in blue around the upper edges, and a door gave out onto a garden full of lilacs. It might almost have been in Solinga, even the smell of the sea was familiar, if it weren't for a subtle wrongness in the noises, an undersmell of strange spices and rank lushness to the familiar reek of a port. Another table at the end of the room was littered with wax-covered board diptychs, scrolls, and scraps of reed-paper, models.
Esmond pulled a piece off a long loaf of bread. "Well," he said, with malice aforethought and a brother's cruelty, "it was a good enough sword to gut Lord Sawtre very effectively. If you finally had to take up with a woman regularly, and with a Confed woman, you at least picked one with some unusual talents." He laughed. "At least she's not Audsley's wife — or Justiciar Demansk's daughter."
His brother might not be a Scholar of the Grove, with an ageless machine and an ancient general's ghost at the back of his mind, but he was an Emerald and no fool — which was to say, a keen observer.
"Wait a minute!" Esmond said, half-rising. "Shit among the Shades, she is Demansk's daughter — the one captured by pirates."
"Shut up!" Adrian barked.
Shocked, Esmond fell silent for a moment. Adrian rarely spoke roughly; this time he fought for a visible instant to control his temper, something rare enough to make his brother's eyes go wide.
"You will not speak of that again," he said coldly.
"But why?" Esmond said.
"Because I don't want her to think I'm using her as some sort of angle against her father — which I'm not, by the way, and won't be."
Esmond's blue eyes blinked in bewilderment. "But why, brother if — oh, no. Don't tell me you've been scratched by one of Gellerix's cats and caught a fever!"
That was the slang term for being hit by love; any sensible Emerald regarded it as a form of infectious madness sent by the gods to plague mankind with suffering — the divinities could be remarkably petty and cruel, sometimes.
Adrian looked down and toyed with a dried fig. "That's one way to put it. You might also say that I like and respect her," he snapped.
"Adrian, my brother, please — think." Esmond stopped for a moment, and snorted. "Here I am, stealing your lines, like an actor. . but really, think, brother. At least there's no question of marr — oh, Gellerix!" he broke off at Adrian's expression.
"Esmond, have you any conception of how dull most women's conversation is?" he snapped. "How dull most women are? It's not their fault, the gods know, most of them shut up all the time and uneducated, but—"
He stopped at Esmond's expression of bafflement. Your Nanya was like a trembling dove, he thought with kindly exasperation. And the gods know, the Wodep in your soul would make that seem the sum of all womanhood to you. Me, I'm differently made, my brother.
"She's—"
A dangerous glance passed between them, and an unspoken message: You don't call her used goods and I won't say anything about Nanya, that's about it, Adrian thought.
"Adrian," Esmond said slowly. "Demansk's daughter is going to be a Confed — not just by origins, she'll have been brought up on their old stories, walked past the death masks of Demansks who were Justiciars and Speakers back to when Vanbert was a mud-and-wattle village. How do you think she's going to feel when she finds out you're fighting to bring the Confederacy of Vanbert to the ground?"
I should remind myself how smart Esmond is occasionally, Adrian thought, wincing. His brother didn't have the temperament for a Scholar, but he had at least as much raw brainpower as his younger sibling, and a tremendous ability to focus.
"That's. . for the time it has to be faced," he said slowly. "Look, Esmond. . can't I have a few days? Just a few?"