Page 41 of The Infernal Battalion

They were in Raesinia’s—​formerly the captain’s—​cabin, the largest space on the ship with any semblance of privacy. The wind had picked up, so the air was a mass of creaking, groaning wood and straining ropes, mixed with the shouted commands of the sailors struggling to keep the sails in the right places. It was all gibberish to Raesinia, but the racket provided enough cover that she felt like they could be reasonably sure they weren’t overheard.

Unfortunately, the constant sway of the ship left them both rolling back and forth like wobbling jellies. Dorsay seemed unaffected, but there was a distinct queasiness at the pit of Raesinia’s stomach. The binding heals me from everything else. Can’t it do something about seasickness? She did her best to put it out of her mind.

“You know we didn’t have time to be diplomatic,” Raesinia said. “The army is on its way to confront Janus as we speak. Aid that arrives weeks after the decisive battle is no better than no aid at all.”

“Yes, yes,” Dorsay said. “I have fought a campaign or two of my own, young lady.”

“What I don’t understand is why Georg”—​she’d adopted his habit of familiar reference to the King of Borel—“isn’t being more helpful. He sent you and your army to Murnsk to stop Janus, with the authority to make a deal with me if that’s what it took. Why hesitate now?”

“If it were entirely up to Georg, I believe he would send help at once. But the situation is more complicated.”

“You’ve said that before.” Raesinia sat on the bed, which was bolted to the floor, in the hopes that it might help with her stomach. It didn’t. “Maybe you’d better explain. Borel doesn’t have anything like the Deputies-​General.”

“Not officially, no.” Dorsay sighed and stroked his famous nose. “There’s a group of nobles who serve as advisers to the king. They call themselves the ‘Honest Fellows,’ possibly in jest. Some of them are from old families, others are merely vastly rich, but together they represent the most powerful forces in the realm. The ordinary business of the government is handled by one of them, or their subordinates, with the permission of the king.”

Raesinia frowned. The way they talked about him in Vordan, she’d always imagined the King of Borel as a tyrant, with no checks on his authority. I should have known that politics is politics, wherever you go. “And these Honest Fellows don’t want to help?”

“Some of them might. Some might complain about the cost. Others might prefer that Vordan weaken itself with a long civil war.” Dorsay scowled. “I am convinced that there is a faction that wants us to continue the war with Vordan, presumably because they have interests in the armaments industry. A few might prefer to deal with Janus than risk your notions about ‘votes’ and ‘Deputies’ spreading across the Borel Sea. The point is that a majority among the advisers would like Borel to stay well clear for the present, especially now that Janus is no longer threatening to march on Elysium.”

“Was that true when you brought your army to Murnsk?”

“More or less. Georg can, of course, overrule the Honest Fellows when he wishes. In that case, he knew that if he did nothing and Elysium was destroyed, the peasantry would be incensed.” Dorsay coughed. “I may have had something to do with it as well. I spoke in favor of intervention at some length.”

“But now you don’t think he’ll be willing to act again.”

“As I said, the case is no longer as clear. It... may be possible to persuade him.” Dorsay’s gaze went distant for a moment. “But he will demand concessions, and you may not be able to agree.”

Raesinia nodded slowly. “And I take it our friend Ihannes works for the nonintervention faction?”

“Decidedly so. His patron is Fredrick Goodman, one of the Honest Fellows and possibly the wealthiest single individual in Borel. If not the world. He leads the voices who argue against any action that might impinge on state coffers.”

“Lovely,” Raesinia muttered. “Well, I’m sure he and Cora will have a great deal to discuss.”

*

Cora was standing at Raesinia’s shoulder, bouncing on the balls of her feet, as the Prudence arrived at the mouth of the river Brack. It was a cold, blustery day, with a spitting rain falling from low-​hanging clouds to moisten the deck and everyone on it. Despite the weather, there was no question of remaining below. The port of Harborside was one of the wonders of the world.

Viadre proper straddled the Brack somewhere upstream, protected from the swells driven by cold northern winds blowing across the Borel Sea. In ages past, Harborside had been a separate town, where ships too big to ascend the shallow river could shift their cargo to flat-​bottomed barges. Over the years, Viadre had sprawled into the countryside, tendrils of streets and buildings reaching out to engulf the nearby communities, until places like Harborside were part of the city in all but name. The old docks, with their wood piers and crumbling stone breakwater, had been cleared away more than a hundred years ago.

Their replacement was built on a massive scale. The Brack let out into a wide bay, with three channels to the sea separated by a pair of small islands. The old breakwater had protected only a portion of this space, and ships had been forced to ride at anchor around the islands, with frequent wrecks when the winds grew too high. The new breakwater closed off the bay completely, two of the channels blocked by massive wood-​and-​tar palisades anchored to stone pilings. More walls flanked the main channel, including a mobile barrier that could be swung closed at need in high seas.

With the bay protected from ocean swells, docks had sprung up like fungus, spreading out from the river mouth in both directions. Stone quays served His Majesty’s Navy and other official ships, while wooden piers of every possible description belonged to trading companies and other concerns.

All of this Cora explained to Raesinia as the captain slowed the Prudence and carefully navigated the harbor entrance. She was unable to help herself, so Raesinia bore it stoically. To her, the breakwater looked like the outer wall of an old-​fashioned hill fort, rising out of the water instead of clinging to a mountaintop. But there were no defenses here—​no hoardings, no embrasures for guns. It was a deliberate statement, she decided. His Majesty’s Navy was protection enough for Borel, and always would be.

The harbor inside the breakwater made its own kind of statement. Raesinia had often seen the docks in Vordan City and marveled at the complexity of commerce, the sheer number of people hurrying about in what looked like absolute chaos but was actually a strange kind of order. It had always reminded her of an anthill, that same busy sense of motion. But if the Vordan City docks were an anthill, then Harborside was the city rising around that anthill, utterly dwarfing it.

The ranks of docked vessels went on forever, stretching out as far as she could see through the curtains of falling rain. They came in every possible variety and combination of colors, shapes, and sizes, an endless forest of masts with sails tied tight around their spars. Raesinia recognized a few men-of-war, flying the muddy red Borelgai flag, but the ensign of every nation she’d ever heard of was represented, along with quite a few she hadn’t. Small boats scurried around them, propelled by sweating, swearing oarsmen wrapped in brightly colored oilcloth.

“That’s a Hannamen junk,” Cora said, bouncing higher and higher as they came closer. “They’re from the southern kingdoms! And that one’s a League warship. It has to be at least a hundred years old. And—”

“Your young companion knows her ships,” Duke Dorsay said, coming to stand with them at the rail.

“She’s here in her capacity as an official of the treasury,” Raesinia said. “But I find she knows just about everything.”

“Not everything. I—” Cora flushed and stopped bouncing, then looked awkwardly at Dorsay. “Thank you, Your Highness. I’m sorry if I was overexcited.”

“Don’t worry on my account,” Raesinia said, flashing her a smile. “Just remember what we came here for.”