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  Demansk spread his hands wide and took a half step back — then leaned forward. A more surprising development still. Even the legendary orator Hyrthel, who was said to have perfected the stance, could not have done it better.

  "Tomsien will then be given the army. Command over all forces except those assigned to naval duty — as well, of course, as household troops permitted to Councillors by law."

  He thought that was a nice touch, the last. Very few Councillors, Demansk himself being one of the exceptions, maintained a body of household troops as large as the law permitted. Doing so was extremely expensive, if nothing else. But by reminding them of their rights—whether they chose to exercise them or not — he was subtly reassuring the Councillors.

  All eyes were now fixed on him. He turned about, took three strides, and resumed the standard pose: left hand on hip, right hand extended and raised slightly above his head. "And I, you wonder? I ask one thing alone — that I be given command of the naval forces. All of them. ." He paused for a moment, then added a bit slyly: "except, of course, those which Justiciar Albrecht might need for his continued campaign against Preble."

  He let it sink in, for a moment. That latest would further confuse and demoralize Albrecht's now half-routed supporters. Obviously speaking on behalf of all three of the proposed new Triumvirs, Demansk was making it clear that there would be no reprisals against Albrecht — or, by implications, his supporters.

  Not immediately, at least. In the longer term, who was to say? But all the men in the Council Hall were experienced maneuverers. "The long run". . was later. Today they were looking at a major political defeat, and Demansk had just shown the rats the hole in the corner. He could see the benches stirring as men began whispering new offers and deals to each other.

  It was time to drive home the spike. "I repeat: all naval forces — as well as whatever auxiliary support is needed for them. Never before in Vanbert's history has this been done. And do it we must — if I am to lead the expedition which will finally rid us of the pirates of the Isles. For I propose to conquer the Western Isles, and make them a new province of our Confederation."

  That statement brought instant silence to the chamber. He could practically see the thoughts racing through the heads of the Councillors.

  On the one hand:

  Giving Demansk authority over all naval forces would give him considerable military might. The more so when all the possible implications of "whatever auxiliary support is needed" was added onto the balance.

  On the other hand:

  The Councillors, like all Confederates, thought in terms of armies, nor navies. Navies were simply not capable of conquering half a continent. Not even though a Vanbert navy was really more of an army on ships than a "navy" in the way that islanders thought of it.

  It simply didn't matter. Every Councillor knew the basic arithmetic, if not the exact figures. Give Demansk every ship in the Confederate fleet, including the ones besieging Preble — even build as many new ones to add to it — and there still wasn't room on those wooden seagoing forts for more than. .

  At most, one fourth of the Confederation's forces. In practice, given the need to maintain the siege at Preble — and still under Albrecht's command — Demansk simply wouldn't have the forces available to impose himself as a dictator.

  All that was needed was the final indirection. Demansk took a sudden step forward — almost a lunge — and extended both arms directly before him, hands clenched into fists. A mighty resolve made. "I will give you the Islands, fellows of the Council. And I will have my family's vengeance."

  The last sentence was practically snarled. Which, in truth, took no histrionic effort at all. Vengeance was indeed something Demansk would obtain. In passing, to be sure. But given his reputation for simplicity. .

  What might come after never crossed the Councillors' minds. It was plain to see, as each face grew slightly slack with easing tension. Some so slack as to almost indicate derision. Every man in the Council knew that Demansk's daughter was being held in seclusion on his estates. Shamed, once, by her violation; twice over, by bearing a pirate's bastard.

  They had it all now. The assurance of divided power; the most dangerous to be given the smallest spear — and now, even his personal motive, as far as possible from the grandiose dreams of a would-be dictator.

  Quaryn himself led the hail which rose from the floor, calling for an immediate vote. Hands stretched wide; left hand in a fist, right extended wide — all in classic style. A pity that he stumbled slightly rising to his feet, true; but the Council was as inclined to be charitable toward small lapses in that moment as was the new Triumvirate itself.

  * * *

  Afterward, of course, the new dispensation took not long to manifest itself. As he strode down the steps of the hall, being almost assaulted by the roar of the crowd in the Forum — the professional rumor-spreaders were already at work — thirty men trotted forward to join his sons at his side.

  There would be no pretense of indifference here. The men were all veterans of Demansk's First Regiment, and they took up positions all around him and his heirs. Shields up; assegais ready. No potential assassin was allowed to get within twenty feet of the new Triumvir as he passed across the Forum.

  Somewhere along the way, Demansk reminded himself that small errors needed to be corrected along with great ones. He commanded his new First Spear to his side.

  When the man trotted up, Demansk considered him a moment. Cut from the same cloth as Jessep Yunkers, obviously. Perhaps not as intelligent, but thoroughly capable at his trade.

  "First Spear," he said, "what is your name?"

  Chapter 10

  "I'd feel better about this if you were part of a convoy," said Demansk. He stared out from the headland at the western ocean. It might just have been his overactive imagination, but the waters seemed to be already turning gray with the change of seasons. The last convoy of the summer had left a week earlier.

  "The skies are clear," said Helga. "We'll reach Marange well before the first big storm hits. We're only in the early part of autumn."

  "Still—"

  "Come on, Father." She shifted the baby into the crook of her left arm and pointed to the ship moored at the pier below. "Sharlz Thicelt may be a pirate, but — like all pirates — he knows his ships. That thing must have cost you a small fortune."

  Demansk scowled down at the vessel. As a matter of fact, it had cost him a small fortune. Thicelt had selected the finest "one and a half" he could find in the ports of the western Confederacy. The "one and a half" — technically called a demibireme—was a bastard design. In essence, it was a fast, two-banked galley, adapted for both sailing and fighting. The adaptations, which allowed for the quick removal of the second bank of oars as battle approached, required a great deal of expensive detail work. Demibiremes were therefore a rarity. They were only used for precious cargo — and were highly treasured prizes for pirates, for whose depredations the design was perfectly adapted.

  It was the latter factor, not the expense, which was really causing Demansk to scowl. Granted, the demibireme was the ideal ship to get his daughter to Marange quickly and give her the best chance of escaping pirates. It was also sure to draw the attention of every pirate ship which spotted her.

  Helga was having no difficulty following his train of thought. "Relax," she insisted. "That ship is more than seaworthy enough to stay out of sight of land, except for—"

  "Every other night," growled Demansk. "Prevailing winds be damned, Thicelt still has to make landfall often enough to determine where he is. Pirates are rife all down the middle portions of the coast, in the no-man's-land between the Confederacy and the powerful Southron tribes of the interior. You know that as well as I do. If you have the bad luck to encounter a pirate nest. ."

  She shrugged. "We'll just move out to sea again. Even if the winds aren't favorable, that ship can be rowed almost as fast as a war galley."

  Demansk left off the argument, but kept scowling
. Helga was exaggerating the capability of a demibireme under oars. True, it could be rowed much more quickly than a normal merchant ship. It still couldn't hope to match the speed of a light galley, packed full with pirates at the oars. The only real chance it had was to stay far enough ahead of a pirate to exhaust the pursuers. Rowing was brutally hard work, especially at pursuit speed.

  But the chance of this demibireme being able to exhaust an enemy crew in a long chase was. . almost nonexistent. Most demibiremes carried very light cargoes. Gold, gems, jewels, spices, fine linens, the like. This demibireme would be carrying—

  "And here they come!" said Helga gaily. "Come on, Father. Don't tell me that sight doesn't cheer you up."

  Despite himself, Demansk couldn't help smiling. The sight did cheer him up, after all. As well equipped and disciplined a hundred as he'd ever seen, trotting down the long pier toward the waiting ship. Their thick-soled sandals, studded with iron nails, hammered the heavy planking in unison. Left, right, left, right, moving in the quick but orderly manner of experienced troopers.

  Not all of them were experienced, of course. Demansk couldn't see much, at this distance, of the faces beneath the helmets. Confederate helmets, unlike Emerald ones, left the nose uncovered. But the cheek flanges, combined with the jutting forehead protector and the lobster-tail flare at the rear, still left the soldiers' features obscure. Probably a good half, judging from what Demansk could determine, were youngsters newly signed up.

  But it hardly mattered. The eastern provinces, with their impoverished yeomanry, had been the traditional recruiting ground for the Confederate army for at least two centuries. Every one of those "newbies" would have been training under the supervision of veteran male relatives since they were eight years old. And, in this hundred even more than most, they were going into combat surrounded by their experienced older brothers, fathers, cousins, uncles and neighbors. What was trotting down the pier below him was as capable and veteran a unit as Demansk had ever seen. To all intents and purposes, that was the hundred his old First Spear had come from.

  His eyes scanned the pier and found the man he was looking for. Jessep Yunkers himself, still technically a civilian, was following the soldiers with a group of about forty men wrestling heavy handcarts up the steps leading to the pier's entrance. Seeing those carts — and the man giving the orders to their handlers — Demansk's scowl returned in force.

  "Come on, Father." Helga's tone was just a razor's edge short of a snap. Still most unsuitable, for a daughter addressing her august father. "You've got no more chance of keeping Trae behind than you do restraining a charging greatbeast with your bare hands. He is a son of Demansk, and since you've kept him out of the army he's not going to pass up this chance of getting properly blooded. You know it as well as I do."

  Demansk tightened his jaws, but made no reply — for the simple reason that he couldn't. However much his youngest son was given to thumbing his nose at tradition, in this at least he was forged on the ancient anvil. Trae, like any scion of Vanbert's aristocracy worthy of the name, would earn his spear. And since, for his own purposes, Demansk had insisted on keeping him out of the army proper. .

  "Besides," Helga added, "I'm certainly happy to have him along. Especially since he's the only one who really knows how to use those gadgets."

  Gadgets. Most of the troopers had now filed aboard the ship, and the handcarts were halfway down the pier. Close enough that Demansk could see their contents clearly.

  The lead carts were filled with heavy two-man arquebuses and their tripods. The trailing carts, with ammunition for the weapons. Trae had wanted to bring one of the bombards along also, but the experienced seaman Sharlz Thicelt had convinced the eager young nobleman that the thin planks and lightly-built hull of the ship wouldn't be able to withstand the recoil.

  The strange new weapons had been designed by Adrian Gellert and used by the King of the Isles against the Confederacy the year before. Some of the weapons in the cart below, Demansk imagined, had been captured during the fighting. But most of them — perhaps all of them — had been built by Trae's artisans in his workshop, using Gellert's design as the model. If no Vanbert natural philosopher would have ever dreamed of inventing the things in the first place, Vanbert's metalworkers and apothecaries were perfectly capable of duplicating them once shown how they worked.

  In fact, Trae claimed that his own arquebuses and firepowder were superior to the originals. Demansk didn't doubt the claim. Trae had destroyed more than a few workbenches in his experiments to improve the weapons' performance. Fortunately, he hadn't killed anyone in the process. Not quite. But several of Trae's workmen, as well as Trae himself, would carry scars and burn marks to their graves.

  Demansk took a deep breath. Then, forced the smile back onto his face. "Ah, well. The gods' will is whatever it will be." He put his hand on his daughter's shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. "Luck be with you, child. And my blessing."

  He gave the shoulder another squeeze, this one more in the way of an assessment than a reassurance.

  "You might want to leave off on the exercise," he said drily. "I'm not sure your Adrian fellow is going to be all that fond of a woman whose shoulders are wider and more muscular than his are."

  The jibe bounced off Helga like a pebble. She just chuckled and replied: "Oh, his shoulders are quite wide enough, even if he isn't a legendary athlete like his brother. But then, I forget — you haven't actually met him, have you?"

  Demansk shook his head. "Not really. I ran into his brains at a distance, you might say." His tone was a bit rueful. "He's an ingenious bastard, I'll give him that. I just hope his mind turns as readily to other things as it does to figuring out new methods of mayhem."

  "I think he'd much rather be putting his mind to work at other things, Father. His brother Esmond, now. . he's a hater, that one. Half-consumed by it already, when I knew him, and probably eaten up completely by now. But Adrian's a different sort. I think—"

  She hesitated; then, softly: "We'll find out, soon enough. But I think he'd rather be Vanbert's friend than our enemy, if he can just see a way to do it. ."

  Her voice trailed off, as she groped for the right word.

  " 'Properly,' let's call it," said her father. "That's a nice neutral sort of term."

  He gave her shoulder another squeeze, this one full of affection. More in the way of a hug, really. "And now you'd best get down there yourself. The ship will be ready to sail soon."

  * * *

  When Helga came aboard the ship, her attention was drawn to the stern by Trae's cursing. Despite the volume of his voice, the profanity seemed spoken more in enthusiasm than actual anger.

  "Not that way, you fucking whoresons! It's a clamp, now, not a tripod! Are you blind as well as bastards?"

  Still cradling the baby, Helga moved toward the stern, working her way around the benches and equipment spread over the entire deck. The soldiers of her escort were settling into their positions, none too quickly and with a great deal of awkwardness and uncertainty. Their own confused milling was as great an obstacle to her progress as their gear.

  As a rule, soldiers coming aboard a naval vessel were able to settle in easily enough. The soldiers doubled as rowers on the upper bank when the ship was not in combat. Even in sea battles, at least in the early stages, they remained on the benches. It was only when a boarding operation was about to begin that the soldiers abandoned their oars for their assegais.

  But on this trip, the soldiers were unneeded at the oars. Thicelt had hired a complete crew of rowers. The task of Helga's escort, in case of pirate attack, was to remain hidden and out of sight until — and if — a boarding attempt needed to be repelled. The factor of surprise, added to the already ferocious skills of Confederate infantrymen, should be enough to break most pirate attacks.

  Of course, that also meant that the none-too-spacious vessel was even more crowded than warships usually were. The soldiers, cursing almost as loudly as Trae, were trying to figure out
where they could fit their own bodies as well as their gear. Not even Vanbert infantrymen could sleep standing up, after all. And this would be a long voyage, even with the prevailing winds in their favor.

  Eventually, Helga worked her way through the press and came onto the cleared space at the very stern of the ship. "Cleared" in a manner of speaking. Trae's assistants — special squad, it would be better to say — had managed to keep the regular soldiery from spilling into the area. But between their own numbers and the ship's crew, the population density was only relatively lighter than that amidships.

  Trae was hunched at the stern rail, apparently showing one of his aides how to do the job properly.

  "We hinged the third leg, see? On board ship, the tripod doubles as a clamp. Slide it down over the rail. . till it nestles solidly. . then. . The gods damn this fucking thing!" Trae's voice faded into mumbling as Helga neared him. "There, that's it. A bit tricky, that's all, getting the screw to engage. Now. . tighten it down, like this. Right-over turn to tighten, just like a screw pump."

  The man standing next to him, watching, murmured something. Trae's half-cheerful/half-exasperated cursing came back at full volume.

  "Never seen a screw pump?" The young nobleman lifted his head and gave all of his nearby special squad members a glare. "None of you, from the ox-dumb looks on your faces! Fucking peasants! Fat peasants, that's the problem! Lounging about in the shade while the women do all the work. What little work there is on your rich bottomlands."

  His squad members were fighting grins. Obviously, they'd had enough experience with Trae to know the difference between his genuine anger and this half pretense. Judging from their appearance, Helga thought all of them were the same type of easterners who filled the ranks of the soldiery proper.

  "I'm an idiot!" bellowed Trae. "I should have engaged nothing but those barbarians from the Gya desert! They know how a pump works, even if they are a lot of savages. Gotta have pumps in those drylands."