"Simply stating the truth as I see it, Your Grace. The painfully obvious truth, I might add."

Normally, Merlin would have been aboard Royal Charis with Cayleb as the emperor's personal armsman and bodyguard. Circumstances weren't normal, however, and Cayleb and Sharleyan had agreed it was more important for the immediate future that he keep an eye on the empress. There wasn't much for a bodyguard to do aboard a ship battling her way against winter headwinds across nine thousand-odd miles of salt water from Cherayth to Tellesberg. And not even a seijin who was also a fusion-powered PICA could do much about winter weather ... except, of course, to see it coming through the SNARCs deployed around the planet. Cayleb could monitor that information as well as Merlin could, however, and he was just as capable of receiving Owl's weather predictions from the computer's hiding place under the far distant Mountains of Light.

Not that he could share that information with anyone in Royal Charis' crew. On the other hand, the Imperial Charisian Navy had a near idolatrous faith in Cayleb Ahrmahk's sea sense. If he told Captain Gyrard he smelled a storm coming, no one was going to argue with him.

"He may not mind weather like this," a considerably more sour voice inserted. "Some of the rest of us lack the sort of stomachs that seem to be issued to Charisian monarchs."

"It'll do you good, Nahrmahn," Cayleb replied with a chuckle. "Ohlyvya's been after you to lose weight, anyway. And if you can't keep anything down, then by the time we reach Tellesberg you're probably going to waste away to no more than, oh, half the man you are today."

"Very funny," Nahrmahn half growled.

Unlike Cayleb, who was gazing out into the dark the better to appreciate the weather, the rotund little Prince of Emerald was curled as close as he could fold himself into a miserable knot in his swaying cot. He wasn't quite as seasick as Cayleb's rather callous remark suggested, but he was quite seasick enough to be going on with.

His wife, Princess Ohlyvya, on the other hand, was as resistant to motion sickness as Cayleb himself. Nahrmahn found that a particularly unjust dispensation of divine capriciousness, since she'd said very much the same thing the emperor just had to him that very morning. At the moment, she was sitting in a chair securely lashed to the deck, knitting, and he heard her soft chuckle over the com.

"I suppose it really isn't all that funny, dear," she said now. "Still, we all know you'll get over it in another five-day or so. You'll be just fine." She waited half a beat. "Assuming the ship doesn't sink, of course."

"At the moment, that would be something of a relief," Nahrmahn informed her.

"Oh, stop complaining and think about all the scheming and planning and skullduggery you'll have to keep you occupied once we get home again!"

"Ohlyvya's right, Nahrmahn," Sharleyan said, and her voice was rather more serious than it had been. "Cayleb's going to need you to help sort out the mess. Since I can't be there to help out myself, I'm just as happy you can be."

"I appreciate the compliment, Your Majesty," Nahrmahn said. "All the same, I can't help thinking how much more comfortable it would have been to provide all that assistance from a nice, motionless bedroom in Cherayth."

"Coms are all well and good," Sharleyan replied, "but he's going to need someone to obviously confer with instead of just listening to voices out of thin air. And having another warm body he can send out to do things isn't going to hurt one bit, either."

"I have to agree with that," Cayleb said. "Although trying to picture any Charisian's reaction to the notion of using Prince Nahrmahn of Emerald as an official representative and emissary a couple of years ago boggles the mind."

"I'm sure it boggles your mind less than mine," Nahrmahn replied tartly, and it was Cayleb's turn to chuckle. "On the other hand, it's worked out better-and a lot more satisfyingly-than several alternatives I could think of right offhand," the Emeraldian continued a bit more seriously.

"I'd have to agree with that, too," Cayleb acknowledged. "Although I wish to hell you and I didn't have to go home and assist each other with this mess."

"I wish you didn't have to either," Sharleyan agreed somberly, "but this mess is a lot less ugly than the one we could've had."

Cayleb nodded, his expression sober, at the accuracy of her remark.

The Navy of God had outnumbered the Imperial Charisian Navy by a terrifying margin when they met in the Gulf of Tarot barely two months ago. Of the twenty-five Charisian galleons who'd engaged, one had been completely destroyed, eleven had been reduced to near wrecks, five more had lost masts and spars, and only eight had emerged more or less intact. Charis had suffered over three thousand casualties, more than half of them fatal ... including Cayleb's cousin, High Admiral Bryahn Lock Island. Yet hideously expensive as the victory had been, it had also been overwhelming. Forty-nine of the Navy of God's galleons had been captured. Fourteen had been destroyed in action, another seventeen had been scuttled after their capture as too damaged to be worth keeping, and only nine had actually managed to escape. Forty-one Harchongese galleons had been captured, as well, and the blow to the Church's naval power had been devastating.

Cayleb Ahrmahk had never felt so useless as he had watching that titanic engagement through Merlin's SNARCs. He'd seen every moment of it, including his cousin's death, but he'd been the better part of eight thousand miles away, unable to do anything but watch the death and destruction. Almost worse, there'd been no acceptable way for him and Sharleyan even to know the battle had been fought. They'd had to pretend they knew nothing about it, had no idea how desperate it had been or how many men had died obeying their orders. Even when Admiral Kohdy Nylz had arrived with the reinforcements dispatched to Chisholm when they'd anticipated the Church was sending its ships west to join Admiral Thirsk in Dohlar instead of east to the Desnairian Empire, they'd been unable to discuss it with him in any way.

It had taken another full two and a half five-days for a weather-battered schooner to arrive with Admiral Rock Point's official dispatches, and the only good thing was that their inner circle had had plenty of time by then to confer and make plans over their coms. Which was why Cayleb was already on his way back to Tellesberg, despite the fact that he and Sharleyan had been scheduled to remain in Cherayth for another month and a half. And it was also the reason Sharleyan wasn't headed back to Tellesberg with him.

One of them had to return. In theory, they could have used their coms to coordinate responses with Rock Point, Archbishop Maikel Staynair, Baron Wave Thunder, and the inner circle's other members in Tellesberg from Cherayth. In fact, that's what they'd been doing, in many ways. But there were limits to what their subordinates could do on their own authority, which meant either Cayleb or Sharleyan had to be there in person. For that matter, the entire world would be expecting one or both of them to return to Old Charis after such a cataclysmic shift in naval power. They couldn't afford the sort of questions not returning might arouse, and the truth was that Cayleb wanted to be there. Not that he was going to get there in any kind of hurry. This time of year, they'd be lucky if Royal Charis could make the crossing in less than two months, although Cayleb expected they'd be able to shave at least a five-day or so off of the time anyone else might have managed.

Unfortunately, Sharleyan couldn't come with him. He was just as glad to spare Alahnah the roughness and potential hazards of this particular winter voyage, but that wasn't the main reason she and her mother had remained in Cherayth. Nor was it the reason Merlin had remained with them. Sharleyan would be making a voyage of her own soon enough, and Cayleb didn't envy the task she was going to face at the end of it.

Well, no one ever told you it was going to be easy ... or pleasant, he reminded himself. So stop thinking about how much you envy Nahrmahn and Ohlyvya for at least being together and concentrate on getting your job done. Sharley will handle her part of it just fine, and the sooner she does, the sooner she will be joining you.

"I agree things could be a lot worse," he said in a deliberately more cheerful tone, then smiled wickedly. "For example, I could be just as bad a sailor as Nahrmahn!"

.III.

The Temple, City of Zion, The Temple Lands And aren't we four poor miserable looking sons-of-bitches for the most powerful men in the world? Vicar Rhobair Duchairn thought sourly, gazing around the conference chamber. None of the other faces were gazing back at him at the moment, and all of them wore expressions which mingled various degrees of shock, dismay, and anger.

The atmosphere in the sumptuously furnished, indirectly lit, mystically comfortable chamber was like an echo of the bitter blizzard even then blowing through the streets of Zion beyond the Temple's precincts. Not surprisingly, given the message they'd just received ... and the fact that it had taken so long to reach them. Poor visibility was the greatest weakness of the Church's semaphore system, and this winter's weather seemed to be proving worse than usual. It certainly was in Zion itself, as Duchairn was all too well aware. His efforts to provide the city's poor and homeless with enough warmth and food to survive had saved scores-if not hundreds-of lives so far, yet the worst was yet to come and he knew he wasn't going to save all of them.

At least this year, though, Mother Church was actually trying to honor her obligation to succor the weakest and most vulnerable of God's children. And seeing that she did was eating up a lot of Duchairn's time. It was also taking him beyond the Temple far more frequently than any of his colleagues managed, and he suspected it was giving him a far better perspective on how the citizens of Zion really felt about Mother Church's jihad. Zhaspahr Clyntahn's inquisitors circulated throughout the city and Clyntahn had access to all of their reports, but Duchairn doubted the Grand Inquisitor paid a great deal of attention to what Zion's poorest inhabitants were saying. Duchairn's own activities brought him into much more frequent contact with those same poor, however, and at least some of what they truly felt had to leak through the deference and (much as it distressed him to admit it existed) the fear his high clerical rank inspired. He might have learned still more if he hadn't been continually accompanied by his assigned escort of Temple Guardsmen, but that was out of the question.

Which says some pretty ugly things about how our beloved subjects regard us, doesn't it, Rhobair? He felt his lips trying to twist in a bitter smile at the irony of it all. All he really wanted to do was reach out to the people of Zion the way a vicar of God was supposed to, yet trying to do that without bodyguards was entirely too likely to get him killed by some of those same people. And it would make sense from their perspective, I suppose. I don't imagine some of them are differentiating very much among us just now, and given Zhaspahr's idea of how to inspire obedience, somebody probably would put a knife in my ribs if only he had the chance. Not that there's any way Allayn and Zhaspahr would let me out without my keepers even if everyone loved and cherished all four of us as much as Charis seems to cherish Staynair.

Duchairn knew perfectly well why Allayn Maigwair and Zhaspahr Clyntahn regarded Captain Khanstahnzo Phandys as the perfect man to command his bodyguard ... and keep an alert eye on his activities. As the officer who'd thwarted the Wylsynn brothers' escape from the Inquisition-and personally killed Hauwerd Wylsynn when the "renegade" vicar resisted arrest-his reliability was beyond question.

Of course, these days things like reliability and loyalty were almost as subject to change as Zion's weather, weren't they? And not just where members of the Guard were concerned. All he had to do was glance at the ugly look Clyntahn was bending upon Maigwair to realize that.

"Tell me, Allayn," Clyntahn said now. "Can you and the Guard do anything right?"

Maigwair flushed darkly and started to open his mouth quickly. But then he stopped, pressing his lips together, and Duchairn felt a spasm of sympathy. As the Captain General of the Church of God Awaiting, Maigwair commanded all of her armed forces except the small, elite armed cadre of the Inquisition. That had made him responsible for building, arming, and training the Navy of God, and it had been commanded by Guard officers on its voyage to Desnair.

A voyage which, as the dispatch which had occasioned this meeting made clear, had not prospered.

"I think that might be a bit overly severe, Zhaspahr," Duchairn heard himself say, and the Grand Inquisitor turned his baleful gaze upon him. Clyntahn's heavy jowls were dark with anger, and despite himself, Duchairn felt a quiver of fear as those fuming eyes came to bear.

"Why?" the inquisitor demanded in a harsh, ugly tone. "They've obviously fucked up by the numbers ... again."

"If Father Greyghor's dispatch is accurate, and we have no reason yet to believe it isn't, Bishop Kornylys clearly encountered a new and unexpected Charisian weapon ... again." Duchairn kept his voice deliberately level and nonconfrontational, although he saw Clyntahn's eyes narrow angrily at the deliberate mimicry of his last two words. "If that weapon was as destructive as Father Greyghor's message suggests, it's hardly surprising the Bishop suffered a major defeat."

"Major defeat," he thought. My, what a delicate way to describe what must've been a massacre. It seems I have a gift for words after all.

The fact that Father Greyghor Searose, the commanding officer of the galleon NGS Saint Styvyn, appeared to be the senior surviving officer of Bishop Kornylys Harpahr's entire fleet-that not a single squadron commander seemed to have made it to safety-implied all sorts of things Duchairn really didn't want to think about. According to Searose's semaphore dispatch, only seven other ships had survived to join Saint Styvyn in Bedard Bay. Seven out of a hundred and thirty. The fact that they'd been anticipating a very different message for five-days-the notification that Harpahr had reached his destination and united his forces and the Imperial Desnairian Navy into an irresistible armada-had only made the shock of the message they'd actually gotten even worse. No wonder Clyntahn's nose was out of joint ... especially since he was the one who'd insisted on sending them to the Gulf of Jahras in the first place instead of to Earl Thirsk in Gorath Bay.

"Rhobair has a point, Zhaspahr," Zahmsyn Trynair put in quietly, and it was the inquisitor's turn to glare at the Church's Chancellor, the final member of the Group of Four. "I'm not saying things were handled perfectly," Trynair continued. "But if the Charisians somehow managed to actually make our ships explode in action, it's scarcely surprising we lost the battle. For that matter," the Chancellor's expression was that of a worried man, "I don't know how the people are going to react when they hear about exploding ships at sea! Langhorne only knows what Shan-wei-spawned deviltry was involved in that!"

"There wasn't any 'deviltry' involved!" Clyntahn snapped. "It was probably-"

He broke off with an angry chop of his right hand, and Duchairn wondered what he'd been about to say. Virtually all of Mother Church's spies reported to the Grand Inquisitor. Was it possible Clyntahn had received some warning of the new weapon ... and failed to pass it on to Maigwair?

"I don't think it was deviltry, either, Zhasphar," he said mildly. "Zahmsyn has a point about how others may see it, however, including quite a few vicars. So how do we convince them it wasn't?"

"First, by pointing out that the Writ clearly establishes that Shan-wei's arts cannot prevail against godly and faithful men, far less a fleet sent out in God's own name to fight His jihad!" Clyntahn shot back. "And, secondly, by pointing out that nothing else these goddamned heretics have trotted out has amounted to actual witchcraft or deviltry. Pressing and twisting the limits of the Proscriptions till they squeal, yes, but so far all of it's been things our own artisans can duplicate without placing ourselves in Shan-wei's talons!"

That was an interesting change in perspective on Clyntahn's part, Duchairn thought. It had probably been brewing ever since the inquisitor decided Mother Church had no choice but to adopt the Charisians' innovations themselves if they hoped to defeat the heretics. Odd how the line between the acceptable and the anathematized started blurring as soon as Clyntahn realized the kingdom he'd wanted to murder might actually have a chance to win.

"Very well, I'll accept that," Trynair responded, although from his tone he still cherished a few reservations. "Convincing the common folk of it may be a little more difficult, however. And 'deviltry' or not, the shock of it-not to mention its obvious destructiveness-undoubtedly explains how Bishop Kornylys and his warriors were overcome."

"I think that's almost certainly what happened." Maigwair's voice was unwontedly quiet. The Group of Four's least imaginative member clearly realized how thin the ice was underfoot, but his expression was stubborn. "There's no way Harpahr could have seen this coming. We certainly didn't! And, frankly, I'm willing to bet the Harchongese got in the way more than they ever helped!"

Clyntahn's glare grew still sharper. The Harchong Empire's monolithic loyalty to Mother Church loomed large in the Grand Inquisitor's thinking. Harchong, the most populous of all the Safeholdian realms, formed an almost bottomless reservoir of manpower upon which the Church might draw and, geographically, it protected the Temple Lands' western flank. Perhaps even more important from Clyntahn's perspective, though, was Harchong's automatic, bone-deep aversion to the sort of innovations and social change which had made Charis so threatening in the Inquisition's eyes from the very beginning.

Despite which, not even he could pretend Harchong's contribution to Bishop Kornylys Harpahr's fleet had constituted anything but a handicap. Poorly manned, worse officered, and in far too many cases completely unarmed thanks to the inefficiency of Harchong's foundries, they must have been like an anchor tied to Harpahr's ankle when the Charisians swooped down upon him.

"I get a little tired of hearing about Harchong's shortcomings," the Grand Inquisitor said sharply. "I'll grant they aren't the best seamen in the world, but at least we can count on them ... unlike some people I could mention." He made a harsh, angry sound deep in his throat. "Funny how Searose ended up in Siddarmark of all damned places, isn't it?"

Duchairn managed not to roll his eyes, but he'd seen that one coming. Clyntahn's aversion towards and suspicion of Siddarmark were just as deep and automatic as his preference for Harchong.

"I'm sure it was simply a case of Bedard Bay's being the closest safe port he could reach," Trynair said.

"Maybe so, but I'd almost be happier to see them on the bottom of the sea," the inquisitor growled. "The last thing we need is to have our Navy-our surviving Navy, I suppose I should say-getting contaminated by those bastards. The embargo's leaking like a fucking sieve already; Langhorne only knows how bad it'd get if the people responsible for enforcing it signed on with that pain in the ass Stohnar!"

"Zhaspahr, you know I agree we have to be cautious where Siddarmark is concerned," the Chancellor said in a careful tone. "And I realize Stohnar is obviously conniving with his own merchants and banking houses to evade the embargo. But Rhobair's right, too. At this moment, Siddarmark and Silkiah have the most prosperous economies of any of the mainland realms precisely because the embargo is 'leaking like a sieve' in their cases. You know that's true."

"So we should just sit on our asses and let Stohnar and the others laugh up their sleeves at Mother Church?" Clyntahn challenged harshly. "Let them flout Mother Church's legitimate authority in the middle of the first true jihad in history and get rich out of it?!"

"Do you think I like that any better than you do?" Trynair demanded. "But we've already got one slash lizard by the tail. One war at a time, please, Zhaspahr! And if it's all the same to you, I'd really like to take care of the one we're already fighting before we start another one with Siddarmark."

Clyntahn scowled, and Duchairn heaved a mental sigh. The Church had already lost the tithes from the scattered lands which had joined or been conquered by the Empire of Charis. That was a not insignificant slice of revenue in its own right, but of all the mainland realms, only the Republic of Siddarmark, the Grand Duchy of Silkiah, and the Desnairian Empire were managing to pay anything like their prewar tithes, and it was questionable how much longer that would be true in Desnair's case.

The only reason the Empire was making ends meet was the depth and richness of its gold mines, and that gold was running like water as the rest of the Desnairian economy slowed drastically. The result was a drastic rise in prices which was crushing the poor and the limited Desnairian middle class, and in the end, far more of the total tithe came from those two classes than from the aristocracy. If they could no longer make ends meet, if their incomes dropped, then so did their ability to pay their tithes, and Duchairn could already see the downward spiral starting to set in.

All of that made the fact that the Republic and the Grand Duchy were able to pay their full prewar tithes even more important. And the reason they were, as Trynair had just reminded Clyntahn, was precisely because they were the only two mainland realms continuing to carry on a brisk trade with Charis. In fact, even though the total level of their trade had dropped significantly because of the need to evade Clyntahn's prohibition of any commerce with Charis, Siddarmark in particular was actually more prosperous than it had been three years ago.

Everybody knows Siddarmark's always been the main conduit between Charis and the Temple Lands, whether Zhaspahr wants to admit it or not, the Treasurer thought disgustedly. Their farmers have been cleaning up out of the need to provision all our armed forces, of course, but now that Charisian goods can't be imported legally into the Temple Lands-thanks to Zhaspahr's stupid embargo-Siddarmark's merchants and banking houses are making even more on the transaction. And it's still costing us less to buy Charisian than to buy anything manufactured here on the mainland. So if we break the Siddarmarkian economy, we break our own!

He knew how much the situation infuriated Clyntahn, but for once the Grand Inquisitor had faced the united opposition of all three of his colleagues. They simply couldn't afford to kill the wyvern that fetched the golden rabbit-not when Mother Church was pouring so much gold into building the weapons she needed to fight her jihad. That was the argument which had finally brought him-grudgingly, dragging his heels the whole way-into accepting that he had no choice but to close his eyes to the systematic violation of his embargo.

And the fact that it's his embargo, one he insisted on decreeing without any precedent, only pisses him off worse, Duchairn thought. Bad enough that they should defy God's will, but Langhorne forbid they should dare to challenge Zhaspahr Clyntahn's will!

"I think we need to turn our attention back to the matter at hand," he said before Clyntahn could fire back at Trynair and back himself still further into an untenable corner. "And while I know none of us wanted to hear about any of this, I'd like to point out that all we have so far is Father Greyghor's preliminary semaphore report. Reports over the semaphore are never as detailed as couriered or wyvern-carried reports. I'm sure he dispatched a courier at the same time he handed his preliminary message to the semaphore clerks, but it's not going to get here for a while, given the weather, so I think it's probably a bit early for us to be trying to decide exactly what happened, or how, or who's to blame for it. There'll be time enough for that once we know more."

For a moment, he expected Clyntahn to launch a fresh verbal assault. But then the other man made himself inhale deeply. He nodded once, curtly, and thrust himself back in his chair.

"That much I'll give you," he said grudgingly. "If it does turn out, though, that all this resulted from someone's carelessness or stupidity, there will be consequences."

He wasn't looking at Maigwair as he spoke, but Duchairn saw the Captain General's eyes flicker with an anger of their own. It was just like Clyntahn to conveniently misremember who'd originally come up with a plan that hadn't worked out. The frightening thing, as far as Duchairn was concerned, was that he was almost certain the Grand Inquisitor honestly did remember things the way he described them. Not at first, perhaps, but given even a little time he could genuinely convince himself the truth was what he wanted the truth to be.

Which is how we all got into this mess in the first place, the Treasurer thought bitterly. Well, that and the fact that not one of the rest of us had the guts, the gumption, or the mother wit to recognize where all four of us were headed and drag the fool to a stop.

"Something we are going to have to think about, and quickly, though," he continued out loud, "are the consequences of what's happened. The purely military consequences are beyond my purview, I'm afraid. The fiscal consequences, however, fall squarely into my lap, and they're going to be ugly."

Trynair looked glum, Maigwair looked worried, and Clyntahn looked irritated, but none of them disagreed with him.

"We poured literally millions of marks into building those ships," Duchairn continued unflinchingly. "Now that entire investment's gone. Worse, I think we have to assume that at least a great many of the ships we've lost will be taken into Charisian service. Not only are we confronted with the need to replace our own losses, but we've just given the Charisians the equivalent of all that money in the hulls they're not going to have to build and the guns they're not going to have to cast after all. We still have the Desnairian and Dohlaran navies, but if the Charisians can find the crews to man all the galleons they have now, they'll have a crushing advantage over Desnair or Dohlar in isolation. In fact, they'll probably outnumber all our forces combined, even if we include our own unfinished construction and the ships Harchong hasn't finished yet. Frankly, I'm not at all sure we can recover from that position anytime soon."

"Then you'll just have to find a way for us to do it anyway," Clyntahn said flatly. "We can't get at the bastards without a fleet, and I think it's just become obvious we're going to need an even bigger fleet than we thought we did."

"It's easy to say 'find a way to do it anyway,' Zhaspahr," Duchairn replied. "Actually accomplishing it is a bit more difficult. I'm Mother Church's Treasurer. I know how deeply we've dipped into our reserves, and I know how our revenue stream's suffered since we've lost all tithes from Charis, Emerald, Chisholm, and now Corisande and Tarot." He carefully refrained from mentioning the subsequent importance of any places with names like Siddarmark or Silkiah. "I won't go so far as to say our coffers are empty, but I will say I can see their bottoms entirely too clearly. We don't have the funds to replace even what we've just lost, far less build 'an even bigger fleet.'"

"If we can't build a big enough fleet, Mother Church loses everything," Clyntahn shot back. "Do you want to face God and explain that we were too busy pinching coins to find the marks to save His Church from heresy, blasphemy, and apostasy?"

"No, I don't." And I don't want to face the Inquisition because that's what you think I'm doing, either, Zhaspahr. "On the other hand, I can't simply wave my hands and magically refill the treasury."

"Surely you've been thinking about this contingency for some time, though, Rhobair?" Trynair put in in a pacific tone. "I know you like to be beforehand in solving problems, and you must've seen this one coming for some time."

"Of course I have. In fact, I've been mentioning it to all of you at regular intervals," Duchairn observed a bit tartly. "And I do see a few things we can do-none of which, unfortunately, are going to be pleasant. One thing, I'm afraid, is that we may find ourselves borrowing money from secular lords and secular banks instead of the other way round."

Trynair grimaced, and Maigwair looked acutely unhappy. Loans to secular princes and nobles were one of Mother Church's most effective means of keeping them compliant. Clearly, neither of them looked forward to finding that shoe on the other foot. Clyntahn's set, determined expression never wavered, however.

"You said that was one thing," Trynair said. "What other options have you been considering?"

He clearly hoped for something less extreme, but Duchairn shook his head almost gently.

"Zahmsyn, that's the least painful option open to us, and we're probably going to have to do it anyway, no matter what other avenues we turn to."

"Surely you're not serious!" Trynair protested.

"Zahmsyn, I'm telling you we've spent millions on the fleet. Millions. Just to give you an idea what I'm talking about, each of those galleons cost us around two hundred and seventy thousand marks. That's for the ships we built here in the Temple Lands; the ones we built in Harchong cost Mother Church well over three hundred thousand apiece, once we got finished paying all the graft that got loaded into the price."

He saw Clyntahn's eyes flash at the reference to Harchongese corruption, but there was no point trying to ignore ugly realities, and he went on grimly.

"Dohlaran and Desnairian-built ships come in somewhere between the two extremes, and that price doesn't include the guns. For one of our fifty-gun galleons, the artillery would add roughly another twenty thousand marks, so we might as well call it three hundred thousand a ship by the time we add powder, shot, muskets, cutlasses, boarding pikes, provisions, and all the other 'incidentals.' Again, those are the numbers for the ships we built right here, not for Harchong or one of the other realms, and between our Navy and Harchong's we've just lost somewhere around a hundred and thirty ships. That's the next best thing to forty million marks just for the ships, Zahmsyn, and don't forget that we've actually paid for building or converting over four hundred ships, including the ones we've lost. That puts Mother Church's total investment in them up to at least a hundred and twenty million marks, and bad as that number is, it doesn't even begin to count the full cost, because it doesn't allow for building the shipyards and foundries to build and arm them in the first place. It doesn't count workers' wages, the costs of assembling work forces, paying the crews, buying extra canvas for sails, building ropeworks, buying replacement spars. And it also doesn't count all the jihad's other expenses, like subsidies to help build the secular realms' armies, the interest we've forgiven on Rahnyld of Dohlar's loans, or dozens of others my clerks could list for us."

He paused to let those numbers sink in and saw shock on Trynair's face. Maigwair looked even more unhappy but much less surprised than the Chancellor. Of course, he'd had to live with those figures from the very beginning, but Duchairn found himself wondering if Trynair had ever really looked at them at all. And even Maigwair's awareness was probably more theoretical than real. No vicar had any real experience of what those kinds of numbers would have meant to someone in the real world, where a Siddarmarkian coal miner earned no more than a mark a day and even a skilled worker, like one of their own ship carpenters, earned no more than a mark and a half.

"We've had to come up with all that money," he continued after a moment, "and so far we've managed to. But at the same time, we've had to meet all Mother Church's other fiscal needs, and they haven't magically vanished. There's a limit to the cuts we can make in other areas in order to pay for our military buildup, and all of them together aren't going to come even close to making up the shortfall in our revenues. Not the way our finances are currently structured."

"So what do we do to change that structure?" Clyntahn demanded flatly.

"First, I'm afraid," Duchairn said, "we're going to have to impose direct taxation on the Temple Lands."

Clyntahn's face tightened further, and Trynair's eyes widened in alarm. The Knights of the Temple Lands, the secular rulers of the Temple Lands, were also the vicars of Mother Church. They'd never paid a single mark of taxes, and the mere threat of having to do so now could be guaranteed to create all manner of resentment. Their subjects were supposed to pay taxes to them, plus their tithes to Mother Church; they weren't supposed to pay taxes to anyone.

"They'll scream bloody murder!" Trynair protested.

"No," Clyntahn said harshly. "They won't."

The Chancellor had been about to say something more. Now he closed his mouth and looked at the Grand Inquisitor, instead.

"You were saying, Rhobair?" Clyntahn prompted, not giving Trynair so much as a glance.

"I think it's entirely possible we're going to have to begin disposing of some of Mother Church's property, as well." The Treasurer shrugged. "I don't like the thought, but Mother Church and the various orders have extensive holdings all over both Havens and Howard." In fact, as all four of them knew, the Church of God Awaiting was the biggest landholder in the entire world ... by a huge margin. "We should be able to raise quite a lot of money without ever touching her main holdings in the Temple Lands."