The Tyrant by Eric Flint and David Drake

Eight. One to hold the beast, one to cut his throat, five—because it’s a prime number and thus mystical—to convince the pig that Becoming a rasher is better than Being a swine. And the eighth, of course, to be the sophist arguing the pig’s side of things.

At the moment, as it happened, the guildmaster of Solinga’s shipwrights was holding forth on the significance of prime numbers. In this case, the mystical superiority of the number seven over the number five. Any resemblance to a lowly fishwife haggling in the marketplace was, of course, purely coincidental.

“It just can’t be done for five thousand solingens, august Triumvir. Not a whole great ship like you’re asking for, not even”—sourly, this last, since it would leave the sub-guild of decorators squealing like pigs themselves—”with such a simple and crude design.” Ponderously: “Need at least seven thousand, and even at that”—more sourly—”a good thousand of it will have to be devoted to alms for the starving decorators.”

Demansk decided he’d been polite enough, for long enough. “Bugger the decorators,” he growled. “They can turn their skills just as easily to carving mantlepieces and headboards in the mansions of the soon to be rich merchants and tradesmen of the city as they can to carving useless sternposts for warships. I’ll allow an extra five hundred just to tide them over the transition, that’s all. Five thousand, five hundred per ship. That’s assuming, of course, that you can deliver on your promise to build the size fleet I require in the time allowed. If you don’t meet the schedule, the price will drop by five hundred solingens for every week you go past the deadline.”

As one voice: Per week?? ABSURD!! Pardon, august and mighty (etc. etc.) Triumvir, sir, but you just don’t understand—

And so it went, for another four hours. At the end, feeling more exhausted than he could ever remember feeling after a battle, Demansk tottered out of the room back into his command center. By then, he was relieved to see, Prit Sallivar had arrived.

“I held them to six thousand, two hundred,” he said weakly. “With a three hundred solingen penalty per fortnight.”

Sallivar pursed his lips. ” ‘Bout what I expected. The penalty’s meaningless, of course. Those swindlers will have that fleet ready a month early—you watch—and then start squalling that they deserve a bonus. Six thousand per ship, now . . .”

Demansk watched as his banker did some complex calculations in his head. Then Prit shrugged and said: “It’ll do, Verice. Not even that tight, really. Willech, the bastard, had a third again more treasure stored up than I’d estimated. We’ll have a sizeable cushion.” He gave Demansk a wintry smile. “Even enough to hire this bizarre new bodyguard you seem to have your heart set on. Although I hope you don’t start trying to put together an entire unit of such trolls. The food bill alone would bankrupt us.”

Demansk frowned, puzzled. Sallivar pointed toward the door with his thumb. “Forgotten already? Sad, what age does. The man’s been waiting out there for hours.”

The sergeant. Demansk had indeed forgotten all about him.

“I’ll see him in my private quarters. Give me ten minutes to wash up a bit.”

* * *

The sergeant seemed a bit ill at ease when he came into Demansk’s salon, but not as much as the Triumvir had expected. Oddly, the giant’s uneasiness seemed to increase after Demansk ordered his three regular bodyguards to leave them alone.

“I’d have thought you’d prefer not having armed men standing at your back,” he said almost, but not quite, slyly. “What with old village sayings about dead men telling no tales running through your head.”

The sergeant seemed to flush a bit. Then, after discreetly clearing his throat: “T’ain’t thet, sir. I was na worret ’bout thet.”

Demansk found it interesting that the man’s eastern accent was so much more pronounced now than it had been when the sergeant was, so to speak, “on stage.”

The next words confirmed the guess.

“Don’ think tha’s a man in tha regiments—nor yars, naebit—what does no trust ya, sar. A soldier’s general, yar know’d t’be. ‘Tis just . . .”

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *