Tobys raised his teacup again. Clansmen were a hardy lot, less impressed by birth and more by ability than the folk of many another land, and Lord Tairwald and the Council of Clan Lords had chosen him as their envoy because they trusted both his wit and his judgment. He actually had more authority to adjust prices than might have been expected in someone of his outwardly lowly rank, and he’d known before he set out that Eastshare would never accept the Council’s initial offer. The Raven Lords’ current estimate was that he’d be moving at least forty thousand men, perhaps a quarter of them cavalry, through their territory. Leaving aside the freight wagons which would certainly have to accompany them, how ever much of their total supplies might be carried by water along the coast, that would have come to three hundred thousand marks, enough to buy one of the new Charisian-style war galleons with all the trimmings. It would also have been more cold, hard cash than the Council normally saw in an entire year. Eastshare’s counter offer, however, would drop it to only a hundred and twenty thousand marks. Still, as Duke Eastshare had just pointed out, a tidy sum, but.…
“I think we need a number somewhere out in the middle of that, Your Grace,” he said now. “Suppose I were to suggest four marks per infantryman and horseman alike and accept your three-and-five for each wagon? And, of course, the artillery would still be passing through free of charge?”
“That might be acceptable,” Eastshare said after a moment. “Assuming, of course, that my quartermasters don’t find themselves being exorbitantly charged for landing supplies at any of your ports along the way.”
“The Council thought you might be a wee bit bothered by that possibility.” Tobys smiled slightly. He’d never liked Lord Theralt, anyway. “So, after debating it a bit, they thought it best to assure you you’ll not be charged a tenth-mark more than the normal port fees per ton of cargo landed. And”—his eyes gleamed for a second—“the Council’s also made it clear that the ‘normal port fees’ are the ones as were in force before ever the thought of your little jaunt along the coast was first suggested.”
“I see.”
Eastshare’s lips twitched. He was quite well informed on the relations between Barjwail Suwail and the rest of the Council, and he didn’t doubt for a moment that Lord Shairncross had taken a certain pleasure in ramming that proviso through. Not that Theralt and the other small harbors and fishing ports along Raven’s Land’s southern coast weren’t going to receive an ample landfall, even at existing rates. And not that Eastshare had any objection to improving the local economies as he passed through, either. And, for that matter, he rather suspected the Raven Lords didn’t realize how many troops he’d been able to concentrate in Ahlysberg. He’d be taking the next best thing to eighty thousand men through their territory, which would mean a greater profit than they’d probably anticipated, even at the lower rate Tobys was suggesting now.
And, frankly, it’s as good as you’ve got any realistic prospect of getting out of them—especially with the Council sitting on Theralt and the others. Theralt, for one, would cheerfully double or triple his fees when we arrived … without ever mentioning ahead of time he was going to do it.
“Well,” he said after a moment, setting his teacup aside and nodding to Green Valley. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I think it’s time we opened one or two of those bottles, My Lord.”
.XI.
King’s Harbor, Helen Island, Kingdom of Old Charis, Empire of Charis
There were too many of them to fit into Baron Seamount’s office this time, so they’d met in Sir Dustyn Olyvyr’s drafting office, instead. The drafting tables where the assistant designers of the Imperial Charisian Navy’s Chief Naval Constructor normally labored had been moved back against the enormous room’s walls and a conference table had been moved into the middle of the floor. The louvered skylights were open, allowing the harbor breeze to swirl through, and sunlight poured through the glass, flooding the room with the light the draftsman normally required. The smells of salt water, freshly sawn timbers, tar, and paint came with the breeze, and the cries of gulls and sea wyverns, mingled with the shouts of foremen and their work crews, floated through the opened windows over the racket of hammers and saws.
“Every time I get out here, it seems like you’ve figured out how to cram at least one more building into the waterfront, Sir Dustyn,” Cayleb Ahrmahk said wryly.
“It’s not really that bad, Your Majesty,” Olyvyr said.
“No, not quite,” Domynyk Staynair agreed. “Although, I do seem to recall having authorized you to demolish four of those warehouses associated with the old foundry in order to build new slips over there. Is my memory playing me false?”
“Well, no. It isn’t.”
“I thought not.” Baron Rock Point nodded, standing behind his chair at the table and surveying the assembled group. Almost half were members of the inner circle, which was going to make the ensuing conversation interesting, since they’d have to remember the other half weren’t.
“All right.” Cayleb slid Sharleyan’s chair up to the table after she was seated, then dropped into his own, “I know we’re all short on time—especially with Sharleyan due to leave for Chisholm in only seven days.” He grimaced. “She and I both have a lot of things we need to do before then, and all of you have just as many projects and responsibilities waiting for you. It’s not often we get a chance to sit down in one place together, though, and before we scatter to our various roosts, I want to make sure we cover everything that needs to be covered. Ehdwyrd,” he looked at Ehdwyrd Howsmyn, “I know you and Captain Rahskail and Commander Malkaihy need to spend at least a full day of your own discussing the new artillery designs. I want to sit in on that as well, if I can find time. At the moment, though,” he returned his attention to Olyvyr, “I’m more interested in where we are on the new ship designs.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” Olyvyr nodded and settled into his own chair, like all of the others—except Seijin Merlin, who stood comfortably beside the only door into the big room—after the emperor and empress had been seated. Then he folded the hands which bore the long-faded scars of chisel, saw, and adze on the table in front of him and nodded to the man at his right, Captain Tompsyn Saigyl. “Tompsyn and I have been working on that, and we’re confident we’ve solved the last design problems—assuming Ehdwyrd and Commander Hainai’s final drawings and performance estimates on the engines are accurate?”
He raised one eyebrow, and Howsmyn shrugged.
“The test engine’s completed and running, Dustyn, and we’re actually producing about ten more dragonpower than predicted.”
Olyvyr nodded. One dragonpower, the unit Stahlman Praigyr had proposed to measure the energy output of his beloved engines, equated to about twenty-five Old Earth horsepower.
“Of course, at this point we haven’t had a chance to see how well our projected propeller efficiency will stand up,” Howsmyn continued, “but the rest of the numbers we’ve given you are sound. And the canal boat propellers we’ve tested so far have come out fairly close to the efficiencies we’d predicted. We’ll be delivering the first harbor tug in about another three five-days, so you should be able to play with it yourself, if you like.”
“And the plate production estimates?”
“There I can’t be quite as confident,” Howsmyn admitted. “Those depend on whether or not we’re able to continue to increase capacity at the projected rate. And whether or not we have enough iron, for that matter. Nickel production’s running a little ahead of our estimated requirements, but there’s only so much iron ore to go around.”
“That’s why I authorized you to strip the iron guns off our Desnairian and Navy of God prizes,” Rock Point said. “It’s not like we’ve got the manpower to crew every ship we have anyway, and the workmanship on the Desnairian guns, especially, is less than reliable, so if we’re going to find you scrap metal, better there than anywhere else I can think of.” He glanced at Cayleb and Sharleyan and grimaced, his expression u
nhappy. “I don’t like disarming that many galleons, but Ehdwyrd’s already melted down everything else I could think of, and we can always move guns from some of our early emergency-build ships into the prize vessels later. We always knew using so much green timber was going to cost us in the end. God knows we’re starting to have enough problems with dry rot, and it’s only going to get worse over the next year or two.”
Cayleb nodded, although he was actually hard put not to smile, and from the way Sharleyan was squeezing his hand under the table, she was as well. The idea had been hers, after all. They were going to need lots of transports to lift Eastshare’s expeditionary force across to the Republic, once they officially found out about it, and Howsmyn and the rest of the Empire’s foundries needed all the iron they could get. So, since war galleons were already fitted to carry large crews, which meant they had the berthing space and water and food stowage for feeding and transporting sizable numbers of men, why not kill two wyverns with one stone? Go ahead and begin stripping the artillery out now for Howsmyn and his fellow ironmasters, which would just happen to leave Rock Point with a significant number of galleons, berthed right here at Helen Island or Tellesberg, which could immediately be sent off to Chisholm.
“That’s going to help a lot, obviously,” Howsmyn said with admirable gravity. “And Brahd Stylmyn thinks he can increase output at the High Rock mines by perhaps another five, possibly even six percent once the new engines are fully available. I think he’s underestimating a bit, but there’s no way we’re going to get an output increase of more than, say, ten percent in anything less than four or five years, no matter what we do. Those new deposits in the Hallecks are going to help, too, but it’s going to take at least several months to get the mines operating, and transport’s going to be a real problem even after we do. That’s why we’re putting so much effort into the Lake Lymahn Works right now, to decrease how far we’d have to ship it.” It was his turn to grimace. “Which, of course, is diverting trained manpower at the moment we need it most to support your new project, Dustyn.”
“So, bottom line, are we’re going to be able to produce the necessary iron and steel or not?” Sharleyan asked.
“The answer is … probably, but not certainly. For the immediate future, that is,” Howsmyn said, manifestly unhappily. “On the other hand, the answer for the entire program the High Admiral and I originally discussed is more likely going to be no, I’m afraid, at least in anything like our original time frame.”
“Would that change if we pulled those workmen of yours home from Lake Lymahn and the other new works you’re building?” Rock Point asked.
“Not hugely.” Howsmyn leaned back and shook his head. “And if we pull them back, we lose the increased production we’re going to need even worse down the road.”
“I think you’re entirely right about that,” Cayleb said. “In fact, I think we probably need to make it a hard and fast rule that we’re going to reserve at least, what, ten percent of your total capacity for expansion?”
“Your Majesty, I don’t know if we can do that,” Baron Ironhill, the Empire’s treasurer, said. He looked back and forth between Howsmyn, Rock Point, and the emperor and empress. “Your Majesties know how bad the Treasury numbers look right now, especially with the loss of all the trade that was moving through Siddarmark to the rest of the mainland. I expect to see some recovery in the revenue numbers in the next year or so, but it’s not going to make up for what we’ve lost. Frankly, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to steal enough money to finance the Crown’s projected share of the new works after all, and even if I can, we’re going to be committed to supporting a major land war in Siddarmark. That means we’re going to have to operate on a mainland scale, and we’ve never done that where the Army and the Marines are concerned. If we don’t produce what they need now—and find the money to pay for it somehow—it won’t matter what we may be able to produce in another three years’ time. And right now, frankly, Ehdwyrd’s running at full capacity just to meet current needs.”
“Ahlvyno’s right about what we’re going to need, at least in the next year to fifteen months.” Trahvys Ohlsyn, the Earl of Pine Hollow, who’d replaced the murdered Rayjhis Yowance as Cayleb’s first councilor, didn’t look happy to hear himself saying that. “We can’t afford to cut back the Navy—the Empire’s fundamental security won’t let us do that—but we’re going to find ourselves under huge pressure to support Stohnar and any troops we put ashore in Siddarmark. But you’re right, as well, Your Majesty. We have to keep expanding output if we’re going to meet our future needs.”
“But—” Ironhill began, only to close his mouth again as Cayleb raised his hand.
“I understand both viewpoints, Ahlvyno, and I’m sympathetic to both. Unfortunately, the best we can manage in this case is a compromise no one’s going to like. We’ll talk about it—let Ehdwyrd, Ahlfryd, Domynyk, and Sir Dustyn discuss exactly how they need to balance expansion and present output—and do our very best to meet those numbers, but we have to continue to expand. I hate to say it, but even if we lose more—or all—of Siddarmark, we’ll still survive and still have a chance to win in the end as long as we can maintain and increase our qualitative edge. But however good our quality, we have to be able to produce it in sufficient quantity, as well. So if it’s a choice between cutting current production to the bone over the next year or so, whatever problems that causes in Siddarmark, and not having the capacity we need two years from now, we’re going to have to opt for the future.”
Ironhill looked worried, but he recognized an unpalatable reality—and a final decision—when he saw them, and he nodded in understanding.
“All right,” Cayleb continued, turning back to Olyvyr and Howsmyn. “I think one place we’re going to have to make some hard choices is by reducing the number of new ships.” He shrugged his shoulders unhappily. “God knows we need as many as we can get, but at the moment we have effective superiority over every remaining ship the other side has, and we are going to have to shift emphasis to supporting land operations. So instead of a dozen, I want you to plan on only six, Sir Dustyn. At the same time, though, I want you and Captain Saigyl to begin thinking about ironclad riverboats.” He showed his teeth. “With any luck at all, we’re going to need them even more than we need the oceangoing variety.”
“Of course, Your Majesty,” Olyvyr replied. “No one saw Siddarmark coming, so we haven’t really considered it yet, but we’ll begin immediately. And while I hate postponing the full number of blue-water ships, the idea of building a smaller group first has a certain appeal. It might not hurt to see how well our first experiments work out before we commit to building vast numbers of seagoing ships.”
“I’m glad you think so … even if I can’t quite escape the feeling that you’re searching hard for a bright side to look upon.”
“If you have to do it anyway, Your Majesty, you might as well see the upside as well as the downside.”
“That’s true enough,” Sharleyan agreed. “Although, personally, I think your ‘first experiments’ are going to turn out quite well, Sir Dustyn.”
“I hope so, and I actually believe you’re right, Your Grace … assuming Doctor Mahklyn’s newfangled numbers work out as well as everyone keeps assuming they will.” Olyvyr grimaced, and Sharleyan nodded gravely, although the truth was that Olyvyr had been initiated into the inner circle almost a year ago. He’d been using Rozhyr Mahklyn’s new formulas to calculate displacement and sail area even before that, and he’d been like a little boy in a toy store ever since he got access to Owl and started calculating things like stability, metacentric heights, prismatic coefficients, and a hundred other things which had always been rule-of-thumb—at best—before. He still had to do quite a lot of those calculations himself (or have Owl do that for him) rather than allowing his assistants to perform them, since the formulas—and concepts—hadn’t been officially “invented” yet, but he and Mahklyn were working hard to introduce the ideas. Wi
thin another year or so, at the outside, Charisian shipbuilders outside his own office would be starting to apply all those even more “newfangled” theories and rules, as well.
“In the end,” he continued, looking around the table, “and even before we started worrying about Ehdwyrd’s output numbers, it became obvious to Fhranklyn and me that we were going to have to go with composite construction, at least for the first blue-water class.” He twitched his shoulders. “It would simplify things enormously to go directly to all-iron construction, but we simply don’t have the output. So, we’ll be using cast-iron framing and deck beams, wooden planking, and steel plate from the Delthak Works for armor. Iron frames will give us enormously better longitudinal strength than we’ve ever had before, which is critical for the weights incorporated into these designs, and there are several other foundries here in Old Charis which can produce them while we leave the more complex aspects to Ehdwyrd’s artificers. Of course, I’m sure some of your captains are going to scream at the notion of ironwork, Domynyk,” he said, looking across the table at Rock Point. “In fact, I’m positive at least one of them is going to point out that they can’t repair an iron deck beam at sea the way they can one made out of wood.”
“Oh, I’m sure your number’s off, Dustyn.” Rock Point waved one hand dismissively. “I’ll be astonished if I hear that from less than a dozen of them!”
A laugh circled the table, and Olyvyr shook his head with a smile. Then he sobered.
“The river ironclads we can probably build with wooden frames if we have to, although it would help a lot to use iron framing for them, as well. They’d have to be a lot smaller, too, which is going to mean a lot of compromises. In particular, it’ll probably mean thinner armor, but they should be facing primarily field artillery or light naval guns, which will help a lot.