"I see," Lakyr said. Then he paused and shook his head. "Actually, My Lord, I don't see. Not yet, at least."

"That's honest, at any rate, Sir Vyk." Jynkyns smiled. It was a brief smile, and his face quickly sobered once again.

"In point of fact, Sir Vyk," he said, "I'm here on the direct instructions of Chancellor Trynair and Grand Inquisitor Clyntahn."

Lakyr felt his facial muscles congeal, but he simply nodded.

"The Office of Inquisition, and the Council of Vicars, have determined that the pernicious doctrines, misrepresentations, blasphemies, and lies being spread by the apostate heretics of Charis are even more poisonous and corrupting to all of God's people than was at first believed," Jynkyns said. Something in the bishop's tone sounded to Lakyr like a man who wasn't in complete agreement with what he was required to say, but the prelate went on unflinchingly.

"Because of the corrosiveness of the blasphemous teachings of the so-called 'Church of Charis,' the Grand Inquisitor has determined that it is incumbent upon him to limit their spread by any means possible. And, since it has been well established that the merchant ships of the Kingdom of Charis carry its heretical teachings with them wherever they may go, as witness the copies of the apostate Staynair's falsehood-riddled 'letter' to His Holiness which have been so broadly distributed, Grand Inquisitor Clyntahn has resolved to close all ports of all God-fearing realms against their entry and the seduction of their lies. Accordingly, you are to take steps to close Ferayd to them in future . . . and to seize and intern any Charisian-flag vessels currently in the port. According to my own dispatches, the King is in agreement with the Chancellor and the Grand Inquisitor in this matter. Mother Church has made the semaphore available to him, and I believe you will be receiving confirmation of these instructions from him shortly."

Lakyr felt as if someone had just punched him unexpectedly. For a moment, he could only stare at Jynkyns, unable to immediately comprehend what the bishop had said. Then his brain started working again, and he wondered why he'd felt surprised.

Because this is going to effectively destroy Ferayd's economy, that's why, a stubborn voice said in the back of his brain. The city had grown wealthy and powerful because it was the major port of the Kingdom of Delferahk . . . and because its relative proximity to Charis made it a natural transshipment point for cargoes from and to ports all over the west coast of Howard, as well. It's like spanking a baby with an ax!

"If those are my orders from King Zhames and from Mother Church, My Lord Bishop," he said, "I will, of course, carry them out to the best of my ability. However, I feel I should point out that there are at least twenty-five Charisian-flag vessels in the harbor at this very moment. For that matter, there are probably more than that; I haven't checked with the harbormaster lately, but there have been more of them even than usual since . . . ah, since that business in Darcos Sound." He cleared his throat a bit nervously, then continued. "Not only that, but at least half of them are lying to anchor, waiting for dockside berths, not tied up alongside one of the wharves. That's going to make them rather difficult to seize if they realize what's happening and try to make sail."

"You'll have the assistance of several galleys," Father Styvyn said rather abruptly. A flicker of annoyance flashed across Jynkyns' face and his lips pressed firmly together for perhaps a single heartbeat, but he didn't rebuke Graivyr for inserting himself into the conversation.

Of course he didn't, Lakyr thought. Graivyr's not exactly noted for his humility and easygoing temperament at the best of times. God only knows what he's likely to report to the Temple if he decides someone-even the Bishop-is obstructing the Grand Inquisitor's decrees. Which is a point I'd better bear in mind, as well.

"That will undoubtedly help a great deal, Father," he said aloud. "It's still going to be tricky, though. We'll do the best we can, I assure you, but it's entirely possible that at least a few of them will evade us."

"Then sink them if they try," Graivyr said coldly.

"Sink them if there's no other way to stop them," Jynkyns corrected quietly. The look Graivyr gave him was not the sort Lakyr was accustomed to seeing a mere upper-priest give a bishop, but Jynkyns met it levelly.

"Of course that's what I meant, My Lord," the intendant said after a brief hesitation.

"Ah, that might be more easily said than done, I'm afraid, Father," Lakyr said delicately. Both clerics turned back to him, and he shrugged. "At the moment, none of the island batteries are manned. I have skeleton gun crews for the waterfront batteries, but not for the outer batteries. If they get out of the harbor proper, they'll have a free run through any of the main channels."

"Then get them manned." Graivyr sounded as if he thought he were speaking to an idiot, and Lakyr felt his jaw muscles tighten.

"It's not that simple, Father," he said, trying very hard to keep any emotion out of his voice. "I don't have the gunners for those batteries. We don't normally keep them manned during times of peace, you know."

Which, he carefully did not say aloud, is because they're over a hundred frigging miles from the city, you . . . uninformed soul.

The large islands between Ferayd Sound and the Southern Ocean, and the extensive shoals around them, helped shelter the huge bay from the often fractious weather off the southern tip of Howard. The islands also offered handy places to put batteries to cover the shipping channels, but manning fortifications like those was expensive . . . and Zhames II of Delferahk had a well-deserved reputation for pinching marks until they squealed. Aside from what were little more than bare minimum caretaker detachments, the island batteries were never manned in peacetime.

"It would take several days at a minimum-more probably the better part of two or three five-days, to be honest, even if you permitted me the use of Mother Church's semaphore-for me to request the necessary gun crews, get them here, and then get them transported all the way out to the islands," he continued in that same painfully neutral tone. "My impression was that you intend for me to close the port to Charis promptly. If that is, indeed, the case, there won't be sufficient time to get the gunners we need to man the channel forts."

"I see." Graivyr looked as if he wanted to find fault with Lakyr's explanation and felt nothing but irritation when he couldn't.

"You're correct about how quickly we need this done, Sir Vyk," Jynkyns said. "And"-he glanced at Graivyr-"all God can ask of any man is that he do the best he can within the capabilities he has. I feel confident that you, as always, will do just that."

"Thank you, Bishop." Lakyr gave him a slight but heartfelt bow.

"In that case, we'll leave you to begin making your preparations," the bishop said. "Come, Styvyn."

Graivyr looked briefly rebellious. Because, Lakyr realized, the intendant wanted to take personal command of the entire operation. Since he couldn't do that, the next best thing would have been to spend several hours telling Lakyr how he should go about doing it.

And wouldn't that result in afine mess, Lakyr thought sardonically from behind the careful shield of his eyes. Not that it isn't likely to wind up as exactly that anyway. And just how do Clyntahn and the Chancellor expect Charis and King Cayleb to react to all this?

He had no answer for his own question . . . yet.

Edmynd Walkyr, master after God of the galleon Wave (when his wife wasn't on deck, at least), stood by the galleon's after rail and worried.

That was where he always did his worrying, by and large. And he preferred to do it after sunset, as well, when none of his crew could see his expression and be infected by his worries. And, of course, when Lyzbet couldn't see him and offer to clout him on the ear as her own, thankfully unique antidote for anxiety.

Not that she really would . . . in front of the crew, at least.

I think.

His lips twitched at the thought, but his amusement was brief, and he quickly returned to his worrying as he gazed across the dark harbor's waters at the dim lights of the Ferayd waterfront.

I don't care what she says, he told himself firmly. Next voyage, Lyzbet's staying home. And so is Greyghor.

He didn't expect that to be an easy decision to enforce. Like at least a third, and more probably half, of the total Charisian merchant fleet, Wave and her sister ship Wind were family-owned. Edmynd and his brother Zhorj were the master and first officer, respectively, of Wave, and Edmynd's brother-in-law, Lywys, and Edmynd's youngest brother, Mychail, held the same positions aboard Wind. Family members usually formed the nucleus of the crews aboard such vessels, and Edmynd's wife, Lyzbet, acted as Wave's purser. There were sound reasons for that arrangement, and under normal circumstances, when all a man had to worry about was wind, weather, shipwreck, and drowning, it didn't especially disturb Edmynd's sleep.

But circumstances weren't normal. Not remotely normal.

He leaned both hands on the rail, fingers drumming while he frowned. Ever since the Group of Four's unprovoked onslaught upon Charis, tensions had run incredibly high. Well, of course they had! When the Grand Inquisitor himself connived at the destruction of an entire kingdom, merchant ships from that kingdom could expect to find themselves in what might charitably be called "an uncomfortable position."

Still, things hadn't seemed all that unsettled on the first voyage Edmynd had made after the Battle of Darcos Sound. He'd left Lyzbet home for that one-not without a battle of wills which had left him longing for something as peaceful as a hurricane-but he'd experienced no problems, really. The Tellesberg-Ferayd circuit was Wave's usual run, and the factors and merchants with whom he normally dealt here in the Kingdom of Delferahk had seemed relieved to see him again. Given the quantity of goods which had built up in Ferayd's warehouses, awaiting transshipment, not to mention all the merchants who'd been waiting for consignments from Charis which had been delayed by the war, that probably shouldn't have been as surprising-or as big a relief-as it had been.

Unfortunately, it had also suggested (as Lyzbet had predictably pointed out) that there was no reason she shouldn't come along on the next voyage. Which she and their oldest son, Greyghor, had. And he wished to Heaven that he'd left both of them home again.

It's that letter of the Archbishop's, he thought unhappily. I can't disagree with anything he said, but that's what it is.

The last time he'd been here, that letter had been in transit. Now it had arrived, and the Church's reaction had been . . . unfavorable. The fact that, as far as Edmynd could tell, every mainland port had been flooded with thousands of printed copies of the same letter hadn't helped matters, either. Before, everyone had wanted to pretend it was still business as usual, that the attack on Charis really had been made by her purely secular enemies-and, of course, by the equally secular "Knights of the Temple Lands." Now that Archbishop Maikel's challenge had been so publically thrown down, that was impossible. Worse, what had really happened had been wildly distorted in the Church's accounts . . . with the predictable result that many people were prepared to assume it was Charis who had lied.

Most of Ferayd's merchants were still eager to see Charisian galleons and Charisian goods, but they weren't that eager to see Charisians. Or, rather, they weren't eager to be seen seeing Charisians. No doubt much of that was because associating with someone who'd been designated as an enemy of the Church carried with it the active threat of official displeasure. But there was also an undertone, a virulent hostility which had nothing to do with officialdom, bubbling away beneath the surface.

There was always an element, in any harbor city, which resented the wealth and strength of the seemingly omnipresent Charisian merchant marine. Local shipowners who resented the Charisians for taking "their" legitimate cargoes. Local seamen who blamed Charis for their frequent bouts of unemployment. Local artisans who resented the flood of Charisian goods that undercut the prices they could charge. Even local shipbuilders who resented the fact that everyone "knew" Charisian-built ships were the best in the world . . . and went ship-shopping accordingly. There was always someone and now those someones had the added "justification" (not that they'd really needed any additional reasons, as far as Walkyr had ever been able to see) that obviously all Charisians were heretics out to destroy Mother Church.

There'd been some ugly incidents in the waterfront taverns, and one party of Charisian seamen had been set upon in an alley and severely beaten The city guard hadn't exactly worn itself to the bone trying to figure out who'd been responsible for the attacks, either. By now, by unspoken agreement, the masters of the Charisian ships crowding Ferayd's harbor and waiting their turns at wharfside were keeping their men aboard ship at night, rather than allowing them their customary runs ashore. Many of them-like Walkyr himself-had made quiet preparations against possible riots down here on the waterfront, as well, although he hoped it would never come to that. On the other hand, he wasn't at all certain it wouldn't. . . and it said a great deal about just how tense things were that the crews weren't even complaining about their captains' restrictions.

No, he told himself firmly. When I get Lyzbet and Greyghor home again, they're damned well staying there. Lyzbet can throw all the tantrums-and pots-she wants, but I'm not going to see her hurt-or worse-if this situation gets any further out of hand.

His mind flinched away from the thought of anything happening to her, and he drew a deep breath, then looked up at the moonless sky with a sense of decisiveness.

Of course, he told himself, there's no great need for me to rush into telling her about my decision before we get back to Tellesberg, now is there?

"All right," Sergeant Allayn Dekyn growled, "does anybody have any last-minute questions?"

No one did, predictably. Which, Dekyn thought, equally predictably guaranteed that some damnfool idiot didn't understand something he damned well ought to have asked about. It was always that way; every sergeant knew that.

Even without all of the extra things waiting to go wrong tonight.

Dekyn grimaced and turned to look down the length of the poorly lit pier from his position in the ink-black lee of a stack of crates. Personally, he thought this entire operation was about as stupid as they came. Which was not a thought he intended to express aloud to anyone. Especially not anywhere some overzealous pain-in-the-arse could go running to the Inquisition.

Allayn Dekyn was as loyal a son of Mother Church as anyone. That didn't mean he was deaf, dumb, or stupid, though. He was more than willing to agree the Charisians had gone much too far in openly defying the Council of Vicars' authority, and even the authority of the Grand Vicar himself. Of course they had! But still . . .

The sergeant's grimace deepened. Whether they'd gone too far or not, he couldn't pretend he didn't understand a lot of what had driven them. For that matter, he sympathized with their complaints, and even with their explicit charges of corruption against the Church's hierarchy. But however much he might have sympathized with Charis, the Inquisition obviously did not, and he felt glumly certain that the reason for tonight's activities owed far more to the Inquisition's desire to teach the heretics a lesson than it did to anything else remotely rational. And its timing probably owed more to the Inquisition's impatience than it did to any sort of actual planning. The middle of a pitch-black night wasn't the best time Dekyn could have thought of to be putting armed men, many of whom had no experience at all down here on the waterfront, aboard totally unfamiliar ships on less than one day's notice.

Well, that's probably not entirely fair, he told himself If we're supposed to take over the ships out in the anchorage, too, we need the cover of darkness, I guess. And at least they assigned us arbalests instead of matchlocks, so we won't stand out in the dark like a flock of damned blink-lizards! But Langhorne knows there's a Shan-wei of a lot of things that can go wrong trying to do this all in the middle of the night! And I might not be a sailor, but it occurs even to me that doing this when the tide is going out isn't exactly brilliant, either.

He shook his head, then gave his platoon one more glower-more out of habit than for any other reason-and waited as patiently as possible for Captain Kairmyn's signal.

Had Sergeant Dekyn only known it, he was scarcely the only Delferahkan who cherished reservations about the upcoming operation's timing and his own part in it. Captain Hauwyrd Mahkneel, of the galley Arrowhead, agreed with him completely about that much, at least.

Mahkneel's ship had been detailed to cover the main shipping channel out of Ferayd Sound. It would have been nice if they'd been able to find another ship to support Arrowhead, especially if they wanted to do this on a moonless night while the tide was going out. The channel between Flying Fish Shoals and Spider Crab Shoal began almost a hundred miles from the waterfront itself, and it was over twelve miles wide. Expecting a single galley to guard that much water against the flight of any of the Charisian merchant ships in the harbor went beyond ridiculous to outright stupid, in his considered opinion.

Not that anyone had been particularly interested in asking his opinion, of course.

He stood atop the galley's aftercastle, looking up at the heavens. At least the timing meant that any fleeing galleons wouldn't reach his own position until after dawn, so he ought to have light to spot them. Assuming the weather cooperated. The stars were clear enough . . . for now, but he didn't much like the way that growing bank of clouds was blotting out the starscape to the north as the wind carried the overcast steadily southward.

And that was another thing, he groused to himself. Not only had the people who'd planned this overlooked the interesting little fact that any fugitives were going to catch the ebb tide at both ends, but the wind wasn't likely to cooperate, either. The sound was just past high water, which, given the thirteen-and-a-half-hour tidal cycle and the probable speed of any fleeing galleons under the current wind conditions, meant the tide would be ebbing again, setting strongly through the channels to the open sea, by the time any fugitives got this far south. That, along with the fact that the wind was almost straight out of the north-northwest, would favor any galleon making for the main channel or for the East Pass, between East Island and Breakheart Head, as well. And with wind and tide both in its favor, even something as fundamentally clumsy as a galleon-and Charisian galleons, at least a third of which seemed to have the new sail plans, were far less clumsy than most-might well elude even a well-handled galley.

At which point none of Mahkneel's superiors would particularly care how well-handled Arrowhead might have been. Or about the fact that Mahkneel had been required to give up over half his hundred and fifty Marines and a quarter of his three hundred oarsmen for the boarding parties Sir Vyk Lakyr had required. It was tempting to blame Lakyr for that, but Mahkneel knew the garrison commander hadn't had any more choice about his orders than Mahkneel himself did if he was going to scare up the necessary personnel and boats.

And when you come right down to it, it's past time someone did something about these damned heretics and their lies, Mahkneel thought grimly. This may not be the smartest possible way to go about it, but at least someone's finally doing something!

"All hands will be ready to man their stations an hour before first light, Sir," a voice said, and Mahkneel turned away from the rail as Rahnyld Gahrmyn, Arrowhead's first officer, appeared beside him.

"I notice you didn't say all stations will be fully manned and ready, like a good first lieutenant should, Master Gahrmyn," Mahkneel observed with a tart smile.

"Well, no, Sir," Gahrmyn admitted. "First lieutenants are supposed to be truthful, after all. And given how thin we're stretched, I thought that probably would have been something of an exaggeration."

"Oh, you did, did you?" Mahkneel chuckled sourly. "An 'exaggeration,' hey?"

Gahrmyn had been with him for almost two years now. The captain had cherished a few doubts about the lieutenant initially. After all, Mahkneel was a sailor of the old school, and he'd been more than a little leery of an officer who spent his off-duty time reading and even writing poetry. But over the months they'd served together, Gahrmyn had amply demonstrated that however peculiar his taste in off-duty recreation might be, he was as sound and reliable an officer as Mahkneel had ever known.

"Well, 'exaggeration' sounds better than calling it an outright lie, doesn't it, Sir?"

"Maybe." Mahkneel's smile faded. "Whatever you call it, though, it's a damned pain in the arse."

"I don't believe anyone's likely to disagree with you about that, Sir. I'm not, anyway."

"I wish they'd been able to find at least one other galley to help us cover the channel," Mahkneel complained for what was-by his own count-at least the twentieth time.

"If they'd given us another few days, they probably could have," Gahrmyn pointed out.

"I know. I know!" Mahkneel glowered back in the general direction of the city . . . and of the oncoming clouds. "I don't like the smell of the wind, either," he complained. "There's rain behind those clouds, Rahnyld. You mark my words."

Gahrmyn only nodded. Mahkneel's feel for weather changes was remarkable.

"While I'd never want to appear to be criticizing our esteemed superiors, Sir," he said instead, after a moment, "I must say I'm not certain this is the wisest way to go about this."

"Wallowing around all by ourselves in the dark like a drunk, blind whore at a formal ball?" Mahkneel cracked a hard laugh. "What could be unwise about that?"

"I wasn't just referring to the timing, Sir," Gahrmyn said.

"No?" Mahkneel turned back around to look at him in the faint backwash from the port running light. "What do you mean, then?"

"It's just. . . ." Gahrmyn looked away from his captain, gazing out into the darkness. "It's just that I have to wonder if closing our ports is the best way to deal with the situation, Sir."

"It's not going to be pleasant for Ferayd, I'll grant you that," Mahkneel replied. "It's going to be even less pleasant for those damned heretics, though!"

The captain couldn't see Gahrmyn's expression as the lieutenant looked away from him, and perhaps that was as well. Gahrmyn paused for a few seconds, considering his next words carefully, then turned back towards Mahkneel.

"I'm sure it is going to be painful for Charis, Sir. As you've said, though, it's also going to be painful for Ferayd. And this isn't the only port where that's going to be true. I'm afraid that ordering the ports closed is going to be a lot easier than keeping them closed once the trade really starts drying up."

"You may have a point," Mahkneel acknowledged. "But if that happens it's going to be up to us and the rest of the Navy to see to it that anyone who might be tempted to cooperate with these godless apostates gets shown the error of his ways, too."

"I just hope we'll have enough ships to do the job, Sir."

"Mother Church is building enough that we ought to," Mahkneel half grunted. Something about Gahrmyn's last comment bothered him. The lieutenant had an unfortunately valid point about the difficulties the Navy was likely to face keeping the bottle corked. There'd always be at least some men shortsighted enough to be more concerned with money in their pockets than where and how their souls would spend eternity, after all. And it was going to take a lot of galleys to enforce Vicar Zhaspahr's orders; anyone but an idiot had to see that coming! But Mahkneel had the oddest feeling that Gahrmyn's observation hadn't been what the lieutenant had started out to say.

"I hope you're right, Sir," Gahrmyn continued, a bit more briskly. "And, with your permission, I'll just go and take one last turn around the ship before I turn in. Given how shorthanded we are, I don't see how it could hurt."

"Neither do I, Rahnyld," Mahkneel agreed with a smile, and the lieutenant touched his left shoulder with his right fist in salute and disappeared back into the darkness.

"Does it seem to you that there was a lot of boat traffic this morning, Kevyn?"

Kevyn Edwyrds, first lieutenant of the Charisian galleon Kraken, turned in some surprise at the question from behind him. Captain Harys Fyshyr had turned in over two hours ago, and, like most professional seamen, he understood the value of getting as much sleep as a man could whenever he could. Which was why Edwyrds hadn't expected him to reappear on deck in the middle of the night when Kraken lay snuggly at anchor in sheltered waters.

"Excuse me?" the lieutenant said. Fyshyr cocked his head at him, and Edwyrds shrugged. "I didn't quite catch the question, Sir," he explained.

"I asked whether or not it seemed to you that there'd been a lot of boat traffic this morning."

"As a matter of fact," Edwyrds frowned, "now that you mention it, there actually seemed to be less boat traffic than usual, all day today. We only had three or four bumboats trying to come alongside this afternoon, instead of the usual couple of dozen."

"I wasn't talking about regular boat traffic," Fyshyr said. "Although, now that you mention it, that's another interesting point. It's just that after I'd turned in, I got to thinking. Did you notice that every galley left the harbor almost before dawn this morning?"

"Well, no, Sir," Edwyrds admitted slowly. "I can't say I did-not really. Of course, I didn't have the morning watch, either."

"I didn't think too much about it, myself," Fyshyr said. "Not then. But like I said, I got to thinking after I turned in tonight, and I've got this memory kicking around the back of my brain. I could swear I saw at least two or three navy launches rowing into the harbor shortly after the galleys they belonged to left the harbor."

Edwyrds frowned again, more deeply. He hadn't really noticed that himself, but Captain Fyshyr wasn't the sort to imagine things. And the Delferahkan Navy, like several navies, allowed its captains to paint their ships' boats to suit their fancies. Most of them-especially the ones who wanted to advertise their wealth-adopted highly individualistic paint schemes which made them readily identifiable. And which also meant that if Fyshyr thought he'd seen launches which belonged to specific galleys, he'd probably been right.