Midst Toil and Tribulation by David Weber
“From our perspective, though,” the treasurer continued, “what matters is even without that sort of, ah, questionable approach, we’re effectively putting money that doesn’t exist into the economy, and everyone knows it. Put another way, we’re about to see an explosive … inflation, for want of a better word, in the cost of everything we buy because a Temple mark is going to be worth less and, with Charis now completely excluded from mainland markets, there are going to be fewer goods available for those less valuable marks to purchase in the first place. We were already losing ground on the Charisian mark before this entire war began, but it was a slow gradual process at that point. Now it’s accelerating like an avalanche. Before the Jihad, a Temple mark was worth roughly fourteen percent more than a Charisian mark; now it’s worth eleven percent less, and I don’t think it’s going to get any better anytime soon. Ultimately, our income depends on the size and wealth of the economies from which the tithe is drawn. We literally can’t squeeze out money that doesn’t exist, although Zhaspahr seems to have difficulty grasping that minor point from time to time. I’ve almost given up on making him understand that, but what he’d damned well better understand, at least in the short term, is even simpler. We no longer have the reserves to back our debt, and if people realize that—which they assuredly will if the situation continues heading in its present direction—everything I’ve just described will only get worse. We’ll literally be unable to pay Mother Church’s bills, and our ability to support the war will collapse. We have to increase our revenue flows, or the Jihad fails. It’s that simple.”
Trynair winced as the other vicar used the verb “fails,” but Duchairn’s steely eyes never flinched.
“But we can put Allayn’s armies into the field this year?” the chancellor pressed.
“We can put them into the field, but without an agreement to increase revenue significantly—which is going to mean the provisions I’ve already mentioned at a minimum—we can’t keep them there. That’s the bottom line, if you’ll forgive me for using the term, and we damned well better make sure Zhaspahr understands that before we send a couple of hundred thousand men we won’t be able to feed—or pay—into a wasteland where food supplies are already exhausted or destroyed. Somehow I don’t think having hordes of hungry soldiers nominally in the service of Mother Church pillaging—and undoubtedly raping and looting, once they start stealing food—the provinces which revolted against the Lord Protector in her name will have a very salutary effect on their future loyalty to her. Do you?”
Zahmsyn Trynair stared at Mother Church’s treasurer, and the snow roaring outside the window was no colder than his own heart.
.XVIII.
Bargetown, Barony of High Rock, Kingdom of Old Charis, Empire of Charis
“Well, Zosh?”
Ehdwyrd Howsmyn stood beside his master artificer in the hot, late-morning sunlight, staring up at the beached sea dragon looming above them. The empty river barge seemed enormous, despite its squat appearance, as it crouched on the massive timbers of its supporting skidwork. Getting it out of the water had been significantly harder than getting it into the water when it was first launched. The gravity which had slid it down the ways then had worked against the four hill dragons who’d been harnessed in tandem to get it back out again. Fortunately, Howsmyn’s minions had acquired a remarkable degree of experience in moving massive weights and coming up with ways to use blocks and tackle to get the job done.
Now Zosh Huntyr scratched his short brown beard and grimaced.
“It’d’ve been a hell of a lot easier to haul the bitch back out if we’d had time to do it Nahrmahn’s way, Sir. I know we didn’t, but steel rails and proper wheels would’ve moved her a lot more efficiently”—he grinned as he used Howsmyn’s favorite word to his employer—“than rollers did.”
“No doubt,” Howsmyn said dryly. “Unfortunately, Their Majesties were rather firm about wanting us to get this done this year. Speaking of which—?”
“I think we can do it, Sir—and meet Their Majesties’ schedule … more or less. I can’t promise, but barring something none of us’ve thought of to worry about yet, we should do it.”
“Including the re-engining?” Howsmyn turned to look at his master artificer, rather than the unlovely functionality of the barge’s design, and his expression showed a certain degree of worry.
“Stahlman says we can do it, Sir. Not without pulling more work crews from other assignments than either of us is going to like, but we can do it. The original engine room was only a box in the hold, with the boilers in the open out front. So all we’re really looking at doing’s just a question of building new foundations, moving the thing, putting in a second engine and the second set of boilers—and balancing them to maintain stability properly, of course—then pulling the original propeller shaft, moving it, stealing another shaft from one of the incomplete boats, building the boxing around both of them, plugging the hole in the hull where the original shaft went, stealing a second propeller and thrust bearing from the same barge we stole the second shaft from, installing it as well, and then building the gundeck across the whole length of the ship. Oh, and the cabins, bunkers, and such, of course.” He shrugged. “What could be simpler than that, Sir?”
“Well, put that way, I don’t understand why you needed anyone else to help you with it at all!” Howsmyn said. “I’ll get right back to the office and tell all those other work crews you’re going to handle it personally.”
He and the master artificer grinned at each other, but then Huntyr shrugged.
“The truth is, Sir,” he said in a less ironic tone, “right now that’s just a big empty box. We can arrange its innards any way we need to, and doing it before we build the gundeck’s going to make that a lot simpler.” He shrugged. “It’s going to take a lot of sweat, but we’ll get it done. And we’ll be going right ahead armoring the casemate while we do it. As long as the armor mill can turn out the one-inch plate in time and keep the supply of bolts ahead of requirements, we’ll meet the schedule.”
“Good, Zosh. In fact, very good.” Howsmyn patted his master artificer on the shoulder. “I knew you could do it all along. Honestly—I did!”
Huntyr gave him a moderately skeptical look, and Howsmyn chuckled.
“Well, I hoped you could, anyway, when I was making my promises to Their Majesties.”
“None of the lads’re any more wishful of disappointing Their Majesties than I am, Sir. We’ll get it done,” Huntyr repeated, and Howsmyn nodded in satisfaction.
“Then I’ll get out from underfoot and leave you to it.”
He gave Huntyr’s shoulder one more pat, then turned and headed purposefully towards his waiting conveyance.
The introduction of the deceptively simple bicycle was another of those small things with profound consequences, he reflected as he swung his leg over the frame. He would have been a lot happier with pneumatic tires, but that wasn’t going to be possible for quite some time, so he’d settled for providing the saddles with the best springs he could contrive. No spring could turn a tooth-rattling ride over cobblestones into an enjoyable experience, but the ability of human beings to move themselves at average speeds of ten to fifteen miles per hour over a smooth surface was nothing short of revolutionary, and the wonderful thing about this particular innovation was that no one could possibly suggest it came even close to infringing the Proscriptions.
And it doesn’t do us sedentary, paper-pushing, ruthless robber-baron capitalists one bit of harm to burn off a few pounds getting back and forth to work, either, he told himself dryly as he stepped down on the raised pedal and moved off in a smooth rattle of bicycle chain. Although I do have to admit that falling on my arse when I first tried to master the damned contraption didn’t do a thing for my sense of dignity!
The current model remained fairly crude, a coaster-brake design without gearing and far heavier than the lightweight versions a more sophisticated industrial plant could have produced, but it was stil
As he pedaled back towards the main works’ pall of smoke, passing pedestrians headed both ways and a handful of other bicycles headed in the opposite direction, he reflected on his conference with Huntyr.
The master artificer was right about how badly the ironclads were going to disorder other projects in his carefully organized queue. On the other hand, that “carefully organized queue” of his had been pulled apart and put back together so often over the last few years that it had acquired a certain … flexibility. And Huntyr was also right about the priority they’d been assigned.
The good news was that the project was doable, always allowing for the provisos Huntyr had just registered. In fact, his rough calculations when Merlin first suggested the possibility had, as he’d anticipated, been heavy. The supply of three-inch plate on hand would actually be enough to convert four of them and leave several hundred tons to spare, which had allowed for things he hadn’t counted on, like properly armored pilothouses placed where the helmsman could actually see where he was going.
The bad news, which had contributed significantly to the labor and resource costs, was that Sir Dustyn Olyvyr had flatly refused to send converted river barges with a single propeller and shaft across several thousand miles of salt water. Despite his faith in Howsmyn’s artificers, and despite his own inclusion in the inner circle, with the information access and vast reservoir of technical knowledge that bestowed, the navy’s chief constructor was a firm believer in the Demon Murphee. And however good the workmanship, and however reliably the engines in question had run during their brief operational experience on the Delthak River and the Delthak River Canal, they’d never been run continuously for five-days on end. Had it been possible to accompany them with galleons to assist in the event of a breakdown, Olyvyr probably wouldn’t have complained, but that wasn’t going to be possible, given that the ironclad’s sustainable speed was so much greater than that of a wind-dependent galleon.
Somewhat to Howsmyn’s surprise, Stahlman Praigyr had firmly supported Olyvyr’s position. Much as the artificer loved the new steam engines, he was a practical man, and love hadn’t blinded him to the teething problems of his beloved offspring. Cayleb had come down firmly on Olyvyr’s side as well, so Praigyr and Olyvyr had put their heads together. Both had been determined to make the project work, and the solution they’d come up with was simple: just install a second engine and propeller in each barge for redundancy’s sake. With two engines and twin propeller shafts, immobilizing breakdowns would become far less likely, and with four ironclads traveling in company, a tow should always be available even if that were to happen to one of them. Nor would it hurt anything to have that same redundancy in the face of possible combat damage … or the additional power, if it came to that. Fortunately the engines and propellers had been available from barges still under construction, so Howsmyn hadn’t had to sacrifice four more operational boats, thank God. The hole taking these four out of service had already made in his materials transport chain was painful enough.
“See?” a voice said in his ear as he pedaled onward. “I told you we could do it!”
Howsmyn glanced around, making sure no one was close enough to hear him, then snorted.
“Who’s this ‘we’ you’re talking about, Merlin? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t seem to recall seeing you turning any wrenches or swinging any hammers on this little project of yours.”
“That’s because I’m a concept sort. A big-picture person,” Merlin returned airily. “I come up with ideas, then delegate. You should try learning to do that yourself.”
“How badly will it hurt my toe to kick a PICA in the arse the next time I see one?”
“Alas, the fate of great minds is always to be resented.”
“Yes, sure.” Howsmyn shook his head, grinning. Then his expression sobered. “It really is making a big hole in the rest of our production schedules, though, Merlin,” he said, voicing his earlier thought. “And even when we’re finished, we’re only going to have four of them. I’m willing to admit they’ll be able to handle just about anything they run into, but they’ll still only be able to be in four places at once, and that’s if we’re willing to operate them in singletons.”
“Agreed.” Merlin’s voice was more serious than it had been. “And I hate throwing improvisations at you. One of your greatest strengths is your ability to coordinate—to envision the parts of a task and organize the best way to accomplish it—and I know how far the ripple effect of upsetting that organization of yours can flow. In this case, I really don’t think we have much of a choice, though.”
“I agree they’re going to be good to have,” Howsmyn said. “At the same time, and fully acknowledging how important rivers and canals are going to be to our operations, I’m afraid I don’t see any way just four of them could hope to be anything like decisive. Not given how badly outnumbered we’re going to be. It’s not just the size of their armies, Merlin; it’s how many of them they have.”
“I don’t know that they are going to be decisive,” Merlin acknowledged. “I do think they’re going to be extraordinarily useful in the Gulf of Mathyas, though, and I’ve got a couple of other notions noodling around in the back of my brain. Having them available can’t hurt, and the resources we’re diverting to them aren’t going to directly impinge on your production of small arms or artillery.” Howsmyn had the sense of an unseen shrug at the other end of the com link. “They give us options—or I hope they will, anyway—and as you’ve just pointed out, we’re outnumbered enough we’re going to need every bit of flexibility we can scrounge up.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Howsmyn sighed.
He pedaled in silence for another minute or so, then snorted.
“I’ve been looking at what Thirsk is up to, again. This whole conversion project got me to thinking about him, because when he hears about it, he’s going to use it to hammer Fern and that idiot Thorast where his own ironclad project’s concerned. You do realize it’s likely to guarantee him a higher priority for all of those other projects his Lieutenant Zhwaigair’s come up with, don’t you?”
“Can’t be helped,” Merlin said philosophically. “They’re not going to start building steam plants next five-day, whatever they do, and they aren’t going to be able to match the quality of your Howsmynized armor, either.”
“No, but they are going to be able to build quite a few of them, given the yard capacity the Church built up building its galleon fleet. In some ways, I’d like to see them do that, since every pound of iron they divert to armor is a pound they won’t have to use for artillery or rifles. But for the foreseeable future, even with me operating at full stretch, the majority of our fleet’s still going to be wooden-hulled and sail-powered, and I’ll be damned if that ‘screw-galley’ approach doesn’t look like working, at least in short, tactical bursts. It’s going to give our galleon skippers fits. And God only knows what Zhwaigair’s going to come up with next!” Howsmyn shook his head. “The inventive little bastard reminds me entirely too much of a much more junior Ahlfryd!”
“He does, doesn’t he?” Merlin said, and Howsmyn’s eyebrow rose at the oddly approving edge in the seijin’s tone.
He started to reply, but he was coming up on a work crew trudging towards Bargetown. It would probably be a bad idea for his employees to decide he was beginning to talk to himself, he reflected,
“You say that like you think it’s a good thing,” he observed then.
“I do … in a way,” Merlin replied. “Oh, I’m not blind to how much more difficult someone like Zhwaigair’s likely to make our job in the long term, but he’s not going to have any immediate effect in Siddarmark, as far as I can see. And, let’s face it, no matter how smart he is, unlike Ahlfryd, he doesn’t have even indirect access to Owl or the Royal College. Or to you, for that matter. But he represents what I’ve been looking for all along, when you come down to it. Once the mainlanders get into the habit of coming up with innovations, the genie’s out of the bottle, Ehdwyrd. Clyntahn’s not going to be able to cram it back inside once it gets its feet under it. And the beauty of it from our perspective is that he doesn’t have any choice but to let the genie out if he’s going to try to beat us militarily. If it weren’t for the little problem of the ‘archangels’ promised millennial return to check on things, all we’d have to do would be survive long enough for that genie to cut the ground out from under his feet. Unfortunately, we’re on a shorter time limit than I’d ever expected.”
The “genie in a bottle” was a concept all the inner circle had become accustomed to, although the ancient Old Earth story had no exact parallel in Safehold’s literature. The idea behind it was far from alien to Safehold, but it traditionally took the form of fiercely denunciatory religious parables and Writ passages designed to demonstrate the dark consequences of challenging the Proscriptions. “Shan-wei out of her prison” was the way Safehold told the story. And, unfortunately, there were moments when, as a Charisian, he found his own appreciation for genies popping out of other people’s bottles was somewhat less pronounced than Merlin Athrawes’.