I wish I did, lass, thought Demansk, as he watched her stumble to the bed and clamber onto it. Within seconds, she was curled against the wall and sound asleep. But I will say that you’ve helped. With my conscience even more than the numbers.
Thicelt cleared his throat. Demansk looked at him.
“The special courier ship left last night to bring word to Trae. If all works as planned, he will soon have a great accomplishment to his own name. At which point—”
Demansk grinned. “Odd, isn’t it, how great minds think alike? At which point, needless to say, it will be time for my youngest son to think about getting married.”
Chapter 20
But when Trae reached Chalice, three weeks later, he was anything but filled with self-satisfaction at his martial exploits.
“There wasn’t any fighting at all, Father,” he complained bitterly. He upended his cup of wine, drained half of it in one gulp, and almost slammed it down on the side table—without, amazingly, spilling anything.
Sourly: “Except for killing some of my own soldiers and sailors. On three of the ships—dammit, I gave clear orders ahead of time!—the bastards started raping the women.” He gave Forent Nappur, lounging on a nearby couch, a glance of approval. “Next time, if there is a next time, I’ll insist on having some of his men along. They’d have paid attention to them.”
Demansk was not lounging, he was sitting upright. “So what did you do?” he asked. The question was not an idle one. In and of itself, he didn’t much care about the travails of refugee women. Those who’d stayed behind on Preble would have suffered a much worse fate at the hands of Albrecht’s vengeful troops, after all, when they sacked the island. But the way in which Trae handled such a challenge to his authority was . . . critical.
Trae shrugged. “What could I do? There were only a handful of marines on each of those ships—which, as it was, were packed full of refugees. And—fucking swine—they were the ones leading the charge anyway. All I had was the steam ram.”
He grabbed the goblet, drained the rest of it—spilling some on his tunic, this time—and slammed it back down. “Ha! The marines on the first ship I ordered to cease and desist even had the gall to make obscene gestures at me.”
For the first time since Trae had stalked into the Governor’s Palace, an expression other than sourness came to his face. Granted, it was a young man’s snarl, a bit too flamboyant to be fully effective. But . . . effective enough, Demansk thought.
“So, of course, I rammed the ship. Broke it in half! Then ordered the nearest three ships to pick up the refugees out of the water and leave the marines and the sailors to the sharks. They did it right quick, too, damned if they didn’t.”
The other men in the room, Demansk and Nappur and Thicelt, burst into laughter. Demansk more loudly than the others.
“Crude, crude,” reproved Thicelt, still chuckling, “but I dare say it was effective.”
The scowl was back on Trae’s face. “I had to do it twice, dammit! The fleet was too big and spread out for all the ships to see what had happened to the first one.”
Demansk nodded. “And the third ship?”
Trae jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing in the direction of the harbor below the palace. “I had the crew and marines arrested when we came ashore.” With some heat: “I’d have had them—”
He broke off the angry statement. “But I’m not in charge here, so I just had them put in custody. Forent’s men have them.” He looked at Thicelt. “I guess you are, since you’re the Governor. I think—”
Nappur’s deep, growling voice went through the room like a predator’s stalk. “No, he’s not in charge, on this matter. I am, since it’s a matter of army discipline. Those men disobeyed clear instructions from their commanding officer, given to them beforehand. You did, correct?”
Trae nodded vigorously, almost fiercely. “By the gods, yes! We spent weeks preparing for the expedition—months, rather. I even made a special trip to Rope to meet with the ship captains, all of them.”