Langford still wore the woven canvas gun belt given to him by his first captain as a reward, but the flintlock was now replaced with a huge autofire called a Desert Eagle.
“They plan to attack an entire island with only six boats?” the chancellor asked pointedly.
The chief guard checked the message once more. “Four, sir. At least, that is what this message says,” he reported, squinting to see the tiny lettering. The words were badly spelled, the paper old and badly wrinkled from being tied around the leg of a falcon. But there was no doubt about the contents. The pirates had been found. Incredible.
Popping the leg of a kiwi bird into his mouth, Kinnison sucked the meat off the bone and chewed thoughtfully for a few minutes before swallowing.
“Good for him,” Kinnison said, picking his teeth with a thumbnail. “However, the question is whether we should commit more peteys as backup.”
“Yes!” the sec chief stated, thumping the table with a fist. “Destroy the pirates and we will rule the Thousand Islands unopposed forever?”
“I will rule, you mean,” Kinnison muttered in a dangerous tone.
Hastily, the pale sec man corrected his statement.
“Lord Chancellor, what is the minimum number of vessels needed to protect Mature Island from attack?” the baron demanded, refilling his mug from a clay pitcher. No glass was allowed on the dining-room table, nor any mirrors in the hallway. The baron never wanted to be reminded how hideous he was from the black rot consuming his acres of flesh.
“None, sir,” Langford replied instantly. “Our batteries of Firebirds can repel any attacking force. With your return to power, we are invulnerable.”
“From outsiders,” Kinnison stated softly, draining a cup of beer.
The others grew sweaty at the words, but Langford ignored the reproach. “My lord, we could send messenger falcons to the rest of the fleet hunting pirates and have them converge on Forbidden Island. That would give Glassman over fifty peteys and four windjammers to assist his invasion. Leaving us twenty more as reserves in the harbor, plus the Firebird batteries.”
“Reasonable,” Kinnison said, nibbling an ear of corn. “Lieutenant Kirkton, send the falcons at once. Include one for Glassman, telling him his family has been removed from the dungeon and have their own home in the ville. No harm will come to the kin of the man who found the pirates’ lair.”
“Of course, my lord.” The sec chief grinned in amusement. “And meanwhile I will” He left the sentence hanging, wailing for instructions.
“And meanwhile, you will do as your lord commands!” Langford bellowed, outraged at the implied discourtesy. “Release the woman and child from the dungeon and give them a good house, lots of foods, clean clothes and a couple of slaves.”
“Yes, Lord Chancellor,” Kirkton hastened to say, knowing the wrath of the young man was only marginally less terrible than the old baron’s.
Spearing a potato with a fork, Kinnison growled in agreement. He didn’t care for the idea, but if he didn’t keep his oath to Glassman, then nobody would ever believe his offers of rewards again. Ruling was a balancing act between the carrot and the stick. If a ruler lost either one, he was doomed.
As the sec chief and the messenger departed to their assignments, Langford refilled his mug of springwater and took a sip. “My lord, do you think the outlanders are pirates?” he asked.
“No,” Kinnison replied, savagely biting off chunks of a suckling baby pig, the rich gravy flowing between his pudgy fingers. “I don’t know what they are, but no pirate carried their kind of blasters. Or built a flying machine.”
The sec men at the table shivered again at the notion, and tried to force the image from their minds of air wags and falling bombs. The quartermaster of the palace looked as if he would be physically ill, then rushed from the room with a hand covering his mouth.
Openly, Kinnison scowled in scorn at the public show of weakness, but privately he agreed wholeheartedly. Death from abovethe words brought visions of skydark, and that was enough to break the spirit of any sane man.
Just then a serving girl hurried into the dining hall and whispered something to one of the sec men in charge of the black-powder mills. The man gave her a small pouch of powder in return and noisily cleared his throat, then did it again.