He'd already replaced his own Royal Guard-issue armor. Not because he needed it to keep him alive, but to avoid any embarrassing questions about why he hadn't needed it. It would be much easier to explain-or brush off-a bullet that failed to penetrate his breastplate when it should have than to explain why the hole that same bullet had left in his torso wasn't bleeding.
But now he was asking Cayleb to accept what the prince had to think of as "miraculous" armor of his own. And flexible though he might be, Cayleb was still the product of a culture and a religion which had systematically programmed their members for centuries to reject "forbidden" knowledge on pain of eternal damnation.
Silence hovered between them for several seconds, and then Cayleb smiled crookedly.
"I think that's a favor I can grant," he said. "Ah, are there any . . . special precautions we should take with this new armor of ours?"
"The only real thing to worry about," Merlin said, trying-not completely successfully-to restrain his own smile of relief, "is that it won't rust. That may require just a little creative explanation on your part. Oh, and you might want to be a little careful with the edge of your new sword. It's going to be quite sharp . . . and stay that way."
"I see." For just an instant, Cayleb's expression started to blank once more, but then the incipient blankness vanished into a huge, boyish grin.
"So I'm getting a magic sword of my very own, am I?"
"In a manner of speaking," Merlin said.
"I always wanted one of those. I was younger than Zhan is now the first time I read the tale of Seijin Kody and the sword Helm-Cleaver."
"It's not quite that magical," Merlin told him.
"Will I be able to slice right through other people's swords now?" Cayleb demanded with a laugh.
"Probably not," Merlin said in long-suffering tones.
"Pity. I was looking forward to it."
"I'm sure you were."
"Well, does it at least have a name?"
Merlin glowered at him for a moment, then laughed.
"Yes, Cayleb," he said. "Yes, as a matter of fact it does. You can call it 'Excalibur.'-"
"Excalibur," Cayleb repeated slowly, wrapping his tongue around the odd-sounding syllables. Then he smiled. "I like it. It sounds like a proper prince's sword."
Merlin smiled back at the youngster. Who really wasn't all that much younger than Nimue Alban had been, he reminded himself once more. Cayleb's reaction was a huge relief, but Merlin had no intention of telling him about the other precaution he'd taken.
He'd found a use for the med unit Pei Kau-yung had left Nimue, after all. He couldn't have offered Cayleb or Haarahld the antigerone drug therapies even if he'd trusted the drugs themselves after so many centuries. Having Cayleb running around at age ninety still looking like a twenty-something would have been just a bit awkward to explain. But he'd been able to acquire a genetic sample from the prince, and the med unit had produced the standard antigerone nanotech.
Merlin had injected it one night, five-days before. Keyed to Cayleb's genetic coding, the self replicating nano-machines would hunt down and destroy anything that didn't "belong" to him. They wouldn't extend Cayleb's life span-not directly, at any rate-but he would never again have a cold, or the flu. Or cancer. Or any other disease or infection.
Injecting it without Cayleb's informed consent had been a serious breach of the Federation's medical ethics, not to mention a violation of Federation law. Under the circumstances, Merlin had no qualms about either of those. What mattered was that the young man whose survival he'd come to recognize as critical to the success of Nimue's mission had been given the best chance of survival he could possibly provide.
And if, in the process, Merlin Athrawes had selfishly prolonged the life and health of someone who had become personally important to him, that was just too bad.
III
Royal Palace,
Manchyr
Prince Hektor of Corisande reminded himself that the Knights of the Temple Lands were doing exactly what he wanted them to do.
It wasn't easy.
"Excuse me, Father," he said, "but I'm not at all certain we can be ready to move that quickly."
"Your Highness must, of course, be better informed upon these matters than I am," Father Karlos Chalmyrz, Archbishop Bahrmyn's personal aide, said politely. "I merely relay the message I was instructed to deliver to you."
Which, as he carefully did not point out, came directly from Vicar Allayn Magwair.
"I understand that, Father Karlos." Hektor smiled just a little thinly at the upper-priest. "And I appreciate all your efforts deeply, truly I do. I'm simply concerned about the ability of my admirals and captains to meet the . . . proposed schedule."
"Shall I inform Vicar Allayn that you can't do so, Your Highness?" Chalmyrz asked politely.
"No, thank you."
Hektor smiled again, and reminded himself it truly wasn't Chalmyrz' fault. But assuming Dohlar had been able to obey its marching orders from the Temple, the Dohlaran Navy had been in motion for almost two five-days already. The fact that it was going to be hugging the coast all the way across the Harthlan Sea meant the Church's semaphore system could get a message to Duke Malikai from the Temple in no more than a few days. So, technically, Magwair could always adjust its progress at any point up to Geyra, when it was due to head out across the Sea of Justice. Unfortunately, it would require over a month for any message from Hektor to reach Magwair, or the reverse, which made any notion of close coordination a fantasy.
"I'll consult with Admiral Black Water this afternoon, Father," the prince said after a moment. "I'll know better then if it will be necessary to send any messages to the Vicar."
"Of course, Your Highness." Chalmyrz bowed. "If it should prove necessary, please don't hesitate to inform me."
"I won't, Father," Hektor promised.
* * *
"I can't do it, Your Highness," Ernyst Lynkyn, the Duke of Black Water, told his sovereign prince. He was a compact, muscular man with a short, salt-and-pepper beard and an expression which had become increasingly harassed over the past several five-days. "I'm sorry, but a month isn't long enough. It simply can't be done that quickly."
"I already knew that, Ernyst," Hektor said. "What I need to know is how much of the fleet we can have ready to move by then."
Black Water squinted his eyes and scratched at his wiry beard. Hektor could almost feel the painful intensity of the duke's thoughts. Black Water wasn't the most brilliant of Corisande's nobles, but he was reliable, phlegmatic, and-normally-unflappable. Hektor had summoned him as soon as Chalmyrz had departed, and the duke had arrived with commendable speed. Now he looked very much as if he wished he hadn't.
"We've got the active-duty galleys almost completely manned now, Your Highness," he said, thinking aloud, "but at least a half-dozen of them are still in dockyard hands. Mostly for fairly minor things. We should be able to have all of them ready to sail. It's the reserve ships that worry me."
Hektor simply nodded and waited as patiently as he could.
"Most of the reserve's going to need at least another four or five five-days, minimum, to refit. Then we're going to have to put the crews aboard them, and it's going to take them at least another several five-days to work up. I don't see any way we could have more than ten of them ready to move within the time limit. So, call it sixty galleys. The rest won't be available-not fit to fight, at any rate-for at least another five five-days after that."
"I see."
Hektor was scarcely surprised. Galleys laid up in reserve always deteriorated to at least some extent, however careful the maintenance effort. It wasn't at all unheard of for them to become completely rotten in an amazingly short time. Assuming Black Water's estimate was accurate, the dockyard would be doing extraordinarily well to get the entire reserve ready for service once again that quickly.
"Very well, Ernyst," he said, after a moment. "If that's the best we can do, it's the best we can do. And if everything goes according to plan, it's going to be two months yet before we actually have to commit them to battle."
"I understand that, Your Highness. It's that bit about 'going according to plan' that worries me." Black Water shook his head. "With all due respect, the timing's too tight on all of this."
"I tend to agree," Hektor said with massive understatement. "Unfortunately, there's not very much we can do about that. And at least Haarahld's going to have even less notice than we do. I'm sure he has his agents here in Corisande, but by the time they realize we're mobilizing the fleet and get the message to him, we'll already be on our way."
"I can't say I'm sorry to hear that, Sire," Black Water said frankly.
IV
Port Royal,
Kingdom of Chisholm
"A month?" Admiral Zohzef Hyrst looked at the Earl of Sharpfield and shook his head. "That's not very long," he observed mildly, and Sharpfield chuckled sourly.
"That's what I've always liked about you, Zohzef," he said. "That gift for understatement."
"Well, at least it's going to make it easier for us to leave most of our reserve at home," Hyrst pointed out.
"True." Sharpfield nodded. "Even without our handpicked idiots."
He walked across to the window of his office and gazed out across the city of Port Royal and the sparkling water of Kraken Bay. Port Royal had been founded almost a hundred years ago expressly to serve as the Chisholm Navy's primary base. From where he stood, he could see the dockyard crews swarming over the nested together reserve galleys like black insects, tiny with distance. Yard craft of every description dotted the harbor beyond them, tied up alongside other galleys, or plying back and forth between them and the shore establishment.
It was a scene of bustling activity which had been going on at full tilt for over three five-days now. And one which, he hoped, looked suitably efficient, even if it wasn't. Or, perhaps, especially since it wasn't.
"What sort of idiot thinks you can move a navy from a peacetime footing to a war footing, without any prior warning, in less than two months?" Hyrst asked.
"No doubt the esteemed Vicar Allayn," Sharpfield replied.
"Well, I guess that explains it. He probably thinks putting a galley to sea is as simple as hitching draft dragons to army freight wagons."
"I doubt he's quite that uninformed about naval realities," Sharpfield said mildly. "And, while I'm sure his lack of sea experience is playing a part, it's really not as stupid as it may seem to us."
"With all due respect, My Lord," Hyrst said, "expecting us to produce our full strength, 'ready for battle in all respects,' if I remember the dispatch correctly, off the coast of Charis two months from today is about as stupid as it gets."
"If he really expected us to be able to do it, it would be," Sharpfield agreed. "I doubt very much that he does, though. He's not going to admit that to us, of course. The whole object is to get us to Charis with as many ships as humanly possible, and making impossible demands is supposed to inspire us to do better than we think we can. But the main thrust of his strategy is to get us, Hektor, and Nahrmahn concentrated as quickly as possible, as well. He's figuring Haarahld won't even know we're coming until we're already there, which means it will be our active strength against his active strength. That gives us a better than three-to-two advantage, even assuming not a single one of his active galleys is in yard hands. And our reserve units will have at least a two-month head start over his."
"It would still be smarter to wait until more of our full strength was ready," Hyrst said. "Three-to-two sounds good, but two-to-one sounds a Shan-wei of a lot better against someone like Charis."
"Agreed." Sharpfield nodded. "I didn't say I agreed with him, only that his strategy's basically sound-or, at least, sounder than it might appear at first glance. And don't forget, Zohzef, we're not really supposed to take Haarahld on until Dohlar and Tarot arrive."
"Then we should be waiting until they get here before we move at all," Hyrst argued.
"Unless it turns out we catch Haarahld badly enough off guard to get past Lock Island and the Keys before he knows we're coming," Sharpfield pointed out. "I'll admit it's unlikely, but it is possible."
"I suppose anything is possible, My Lord." Hyrst grimaced. "Some things are more likely than others, though."
"Granted, but if you don't try, you'll never know whether it was possible or not, will you?"
V
Royal Palace,
Eraystor
"That was a nasty thing to do to my bishop, dear."
"Nonsense." Prince Nahrmahn chuckled as he fitted the onyx bishop into the proper niche in the velvet-lined case. "It's simply retribution for what you did to my castle two moves ago."
"Then if it wasn't nasty, it was at least ungallant," his wife said.
"Now that," he conceded with the sort of smile very few people ever saw from him, "might be a valid accusation. On the other hand," he elevated his nose with an audible sniff, "I'm a prince, and princes sometimes have to be ungallant."
"I see." Princess Ohlyvya gazed down at the inlaid chessboard between them, and a smile of her own lurked behind her eyes. "Well, in that case, I won't feel quite so bad about pointing out to you that it was not only ungallant, but also unwise."
Nahrmahn's eyebrows rose, then lowered in sudden consternation as she moved one of her knights. The move threatened his queen . . . which he could no longer move to a position of safety, because the knight's move also cleared the file it had occupied, exposing his king to a discovered check from her remaining bishop. Which was only possible because capturing her other bishop had moved his remaining castle out of position to block the check.
He sat looking at the situation for several seconds, then sighed and moved his king out of check. At which point her knight swooped in and removed his queen from play.
"You know," he said, sitting back as he contemplated his next move, "by now I should realize that whenever you offer me a nice, juicy prize like that, there's always a hook somewhere inside the bait."
"Oh, no," she said demurely. "Sometimes I leave them out there with no hook at all. Just to encourage you to bite the next time."
Nahrmahn laughed and shook his head, then looked around the library.
