Indomitus Vivat (The Fovean Chronicles) (42 page)

    
That wasn’t going to make War happy, and it wasn’t going to make me feel any better. I didn’t just need Shela back, I needed to make it clear that doing this to me was a really
bad
idea.

    
I thought about this on the first day of the month of Adriam, sitting the throne, listening to another Baron begging for money from the state. His name was Jahon, and he ruled the peninsula of Britt, which extended from Eldador the Port out onto Tren Bay. He was a thin, angular man who dressed in light blue tunic and hose, with brown boots that wrinkled on his legs and his long, brown hair actually hanging in a pony tail over one shoulder. His brown eyes searched whatever he looked at, myself included. He’d been on a battlefield, I thought, and it hadn’t gone well for him.

    
I had information this man was in communication with the Dorkans. We’d been suspicious of him since the coronation, and Karel had informed me that, yes, he’d been talking to Dorkans through intermediaries.

    
“And so,” he informed me, “with the generosity of the Kingdom, I believe I can return two-fold your very short-term investment.”

    
“Of the Kingdom,” I parroted him. I stroked my chin, felt the stubble. “Tell me, Baron. Which Kingdom is that?”

    
He blinked. “My – my Lord, your Majesty?”

    
I leaned forward. “Which Kingdom?” I asked him again. “Would that be my Kingdom, Eldador, or would that be the Dorkan nation and whatever passes for leadership there?”

    
His eyes shifted to the left and right, as if he thought there were Wolf Soldier guards sneaking up on him, or some ally who would set this right. “The Dorkans, your Majesty?” he asked.

    
I leaned back, felt the stone throne behind me against my shoulders. “Well,” I said to him, “you do entertain a lot of Dorkan emissaries, after all.”

    
“Is this forbidden?” he asked me. I found myself frowning before I realized it. I definitely didn’t expect this tack from him.

    
“Speaking with enemies of the Eldadorian state, members of other nations seeking against Us before the Fovean High Council?” I asked him. “Well, perhaps more inadvisable than illegal.”

    
His back straightened. “King Glennen allowed us to speak with whom we would, your Majesty,” he informed me.

    
“I see,” I said. That came across as a slap to me, kind of like a kid saying to his mother’s new husband, “My real dad lets me do it.”

    
“Well,” I continued, “I can certainly send you to a place where you can answer to him.”

    
His eyes widened. I think right then he might have realized what he’d said to me.

    
“Your Majesty, I meant no offense,” he said.

    
“I wonder what you might have said, had you meant to offend me,” I said.

    
“My apologies, of course, your Majesty,” he said, lowering his head. His brown eyes found mine for a moment, then the floor.

    
If I went killing or demoting my barons, I’d alienate the ones I left standing. I’d already suffered unanticipated consequences with Yerel in Uman City. I didn’t want to double-down on that.

    
At the same time, I had to let it be known that this sort of behavior wasn’t tolerable.

    
“If you prefer their company, then you might as well be useful to the state,” I said to him, steepling my fingers before me. He raised his head and straightened again, searching my face. “Eldador needs an ambassador to Dorkan, I’m naming you.”

    
He smiled and bowed to me. “Your Majesty,” he said.

    
Got you, you son of a bitch, I thought.

    
“In your absence, I’ll appoint a baron of the court to manage your estates,” I informed him. “He will maintain no title, merely ensure your properties are maintained and your subjects cared for in your absence.”

    
He went back to searching my face. “Your Majesty is too kind,” he informed me.

    
“Tom Kalgan, a bounty hunter and friend of the court, shall be assigned to you for your protection,” I informed him, finally. “Your person is too valuable to jeopardize.”

    
He didn’t respond to that. I think he realized at this point that he’d stepped in something, and he didn’t realize what.

    
“You shall leave with the morning tide on one of our new Sea Wolves,” I informed him.

    
“Leave…in the morning, your Majesty?”

    
“There is no time to waste,” I informed him. I also wasn’t planning to give him time to get his affairs in order. I wanted him to have time to get off some emergency messages and that’s all.

    
In fact, I was counting on those messages.

     His ship set sail on the second day of Adriam, in the 83rd year of the Fovean High Council, with a minimum crew which included the Wolf Soldier guard whom I’d demoted from my personal squads in favor of D’leer.

    
I received news a week later it had been sunk trying to cross the Straights of Deception by the Dorkans. They’d gotten their confidence back now that I was in hot water with the Fovean High Council.

    
So at least that went according to plan.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Getting Back to Business

There’s a purpose to a fleet having a flagship. It’s a point of pride to the fleet. It establishes the idea that ‘this is the best,’ that there’s a standard among the sailors, that it can be aspired to, and it can be rewarded by performing one’s duties among others who excel.

     The flagship of the Eldadorian fleet had been just another ship. Now it was three-master 250 feet long and a width just under fifty feet. Other Sea Wolves had copper pressed into their sides to make them more limber in combat with clinker-built one-masters which were the standard on Tren Bay and the Forgotten Sea. These were ships in the fashion of ancient Greek triremes and Viking raiders; mine were patterned after the USS Constitution, a heavy frigate which sported as many as 50 guns, except mine had a thin sheet of steel coated with tar that crossed her waterline on either side.

    
She didn’t have 32 pounders like an early American frigate, but in fact she had other things going for her. In fact, ol’ Ironsides didn’t have iron sides–copper sheathing was used to prevent ‘shipworm,’ or water born creatures like barnacles boring into her wooden hull. Doing the same thing with iron was actually quite a trick, but ships rammed each other here and I wanted more than average protection from it.

    
They didn’t break a bottle of Champagne over the bow of new ships here. Volkhydrans would sometimes drag a Confluni from the stern of a new ship until he drowned, but I had enough troubles.

    
Two weeks into the month of Adriam she slid into the ice-cold waves of Tren Bay, under the name I’d picked out personally for her, “
The Bitch of Eldador
.”

    
“Is that in fact a wise name?” D’gattis asked me, standing next to me on the pier she slipped from.

    
Ancenon and Dilvesh stood next to him. On my other side Avek Noir and his new pal, Aniquen, were in attendance, along with a troop of Trenboni Uman who’d come to talk to me about my pregnant wife.

    
“I think it is,” I informed him. I had fifty Wolf Soldier guards, a couple Dorkan Wizards from the Wolf Soldiers, and Hectar with me.

They’d wanted to come see me in the royal court but I wasn’t having it. Not if they were sending frigging Aniquen again.

     The ship hit the water with a splash, only the mains’l and the jib unfurled. She flew the Eldadorian flag, white stripes on a green background, over my Wolf’s Head on her main mast.

    
“I’m surprised it floats,” Aniquen commented as it drifted into the open bay. Her captain could be heard shouting orders to the crew, to unfurl more sail and turn the rudder. She was already moving to port.

    
“I bet you are,” I said to the open air without looking at him.

    
The Uman-Chi were here to ask for whatever they wanted from me to give me back my woman alive. They were well aware of the loss of one of these ships already, as well as my Dorkan Ambassador. If I’d whacked Jahon it would have weighed against me, if the Dorkans did it, after the Baron I’d sent to his properties started gossiping about all of the gold coins minted in Dorkan that he’d found there, then it served as a statement that there was no reward there.

    
The Uman-Chi tended to be very sensitive about sea power or, more to the point, bay power. Their spies were also probably better or at least as good as mine. They knew what I was doing on the Black Lake, they knew about the shipyards cranking out these ships.

I hoped they didn’t know the ship that had been sunk was one of the prototypes from the Black Lake that had mast problems. I didn’t like sending men and women to their deaths, but warriors die some times.

     “I sense strong magic in this vessel,” Aniquen continued. “You must miss your woman sorely.”

    
I turned and looked into his silver-on-silver eyes.

    
“You must want another ass-whipping,” I informed him.

    
“Then you admit to a first?” he countered.

    
“A first what?” I countered. “I referred to the one handed to you by the Dorkans. Are you saying you lied about that?”

    
He smiled the kind of smile that cocky, young guys have when they think they have a handle on the world.

    
I laid my hand the pommel of the Sword of War at my hip.

    
Avek reached out and laid his own hand on my shoulder. “I think violence against an emissary and a favorite of the King who holds your wife is inadvisable, your Majesty,” he said.

    
“Bringing this clown here was an even bigger mistake,” I informed him. “I think he needs to go home in a box.”

    
“What silliness is this?” Aniquen demanded. “You would bolt me into some crate? To what end?”

    
“He means that he’d like to kill you, young Aniquen,” D’gattis informed him with a sigh. “By the way you’re baiting him; I’m surprised he’s not done so already. He’s not notoriously even-tempered, and we do hold the woman he loves.”

    
“To that end,” Avek said, “we can negotiate the conditions of her return.”

    
The
Bitch
dropped another sail, and the warship picked up some speed, moving past our wharves and toward the breakwater. From there she’d enter the open bay for her maiden voyage.

    
I’d have loved to have been on her, but there was simply too much to do.

    
“Which are?” I asked him, turning my body to face him.

    
“Your
Majesty
,” Hectaro exclaimed. The idea of negotiating with someone who’d taken custody of my woman spoke of weakness. Arguably, the idea they’d come to me when they held what should have been considered a very strong hand tended to say they were the ones with something to fear, but I didn’t need to dwell on that.

    
I wanted my wife back.

    
“First of all, the production of these ships must cease,” Avek said. “Trenbon is the sea power on Tren Bay. We will brook no challenge to that claim.”

    
“Not that this pittance of ships could accomplish that,” Aniquen added.

    
“And?” I asked Avek, ignoring the other. I caught Ancenon leaning forward to whisper into the younger Uman-Chi’s ear as Avek continued.

    
“Damages by the Eldadorian state must be acknowledged and, of course, paid for,” Avek said.

    
“I thought they were being paid for?” I said to him.

    
I’d set Avek up with the gold being used to fix the damage done to Outpost IX. In return, he was essentially my man by sacred oath. This had gotten him the title of Heir to the Trenboni throne, displacing Ancenon, my ally.

    
I’d be more than surprised if anyone important among the Uman-Chi wasn’t fully aware of that by now.

    
“Paid for by the Eldadorian state,” Avek corrected me.

    
“For the unprovoked attack on Outpost IX,” Aniquen added.

    
The back of my hand against the side of Aniquen’s head made a hollow sound. With close to a one hundred pound weight advantage on him, I actually knocked him off of his feet before he hit the ground.

    
The Uman-Chi remained stone-faced in their white robes. Dilvesh knelt at the Uman-Chi’s side. His pressed a hand to the side of the fallen man’s head, and then that head glowed white.

Aniquen moaned. Dilvesh stood.

     “You nearly killed him,” he informed me, looking into my eyes. A fine sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead in the cold air, under his mop of curly green hair.

    
“Maybe next time,” I said. I turned to Avek.

    
“What else?” I asked him.

    
“Perhaps we should convene when you are less distressed,” he offered.

    
“Not going to happen,” I told him. “What else?”

    
“Your Majesty…” he said.

    
“I’m not asking again, Avek,” I informed him.

    
I should have called him, “Highness.” Uman-Chi hang on protocols. Avek knew me well enough where he knew that I knew better.

    
“Very well,” he said, “we shall foster your first son.”

    
That
actually made me take a step back.

    
“It is an honor,” Ancenon informed me. “Fovean royals have in the past paid a warrior’s weight in gold for their children–”

    
He went on, but I wasn’t listening to him. I couldn’t. They wanted to get their hands on one of my kids. They wanted to do that so they could influence how he was raised. They figured that, if they couldn’t get to me, they’d settle for one of mine.

    
“You were wise to bring D’gattis and Ancenon,” I informed Avek, interrupting my Free Legion ally.

    
“And why is that, your Majesty,” Avek answered me.

    
“Because you will be leaving here alive,” I said, looking Avek right in the eyes.

      
I wouldn’t do anything to Avek, and he knew it. I also knew this wasn’t his idea. He acted as the Heir, reflecting the will of his King, whether he agreed with it or not. I’d actually had to do this, and Avek’s King wasn’t a drunk, he was a genius, and I had to imagine he kept a tighter rein on his Heir.

    
Still, Avek straightened.

    
“You have until the commencement of her trial,” he informed me, as stiff as I’d ever seen an Uman-Chi. “That trial will not last long. Once begun, I have to believe that, with the overwhelming evidence against her, your woman will be found guilty and punished for her actions against Trenbon and the crown. From there we shall brook no negotiation.”

    
I nodded. “You can find your way back to your ship?” I asked him.

    
He nodded.

    
I turned and left, my Duke, my warriors and Dilvesh with me.

     The next day I was at what I was calling ‘my lab’ in the tunnels beneath the Eldadorian palace. I’d developed my laughing gas here, as well as the centrifuge where I’d spun my first copper pipe. That was done at a factory now, and that factory used a steam engine to drive its spinning parts.

    
I kept a smaller one down here, powered by coal. A dwarf had cut the ventilation for the place so the fumes didn’t kill me. People who warmed themselves with wood stoves and who lived underground were experts in carbon monoxide.

    
Dilvesh was here with me, along with D’gattis and Ancenon, J’her and Hectar. I had several vats here with different stuff in them. One which was stinking up the place was crude oil, alongside a container of apatite, another of sulfur and vat of common pine resin.

    
“Are you going to make more people laugh?” D’gattis asked me.

    
“After his behavior for the Heir, that would be a feat of magic past his wife’s capabilities,” Ancenon commented.

    
“Don’t start him swinging his fists again,” Dilvesh warned. “That healing was draining.”

    
“In fact, I thought poor Aniquen dead,” Ancenon said.

    
“As did I,” said Hectar.

    
“Not that the boy didn’t deserve his treatment,” D’gattis said, “but in fact he is the King’s favorite among the gifted.”

    
“He acts like it,” I said, “and no, this isn’t going to make anyone laugh.”

    
“Perhaps gag,” Dilvesh said, indicating the pot of crude oil. “What is that vile stuff?”

    
“Naptha,” Hectar said. “It is commonly used in warfare.”

    
The ancients of my own world called petroleum ‘naptha.’ I actually hadn’t pieced that together until I got a look at it here at the black lake. Now we had something very close to an oil derrick pumping the stuff from around the black lake and shipping it here.

    
“And this other material?” D’gattis asked me, plucking a green and white lump of apatite from the black steel canister that held it.

    
“Common rock among your people,” I said. “I intend to smash some of them and use the white powder, but after I smash one of them, I need to heat it.”

    
“And for this you need us?” Ancenon asked me.