Illianaro gets a new assignment.
Chapter 23.
Admiralty House, Eribelle.
Illianaro stepped into his father’s office. “You wanted to see me sir.”
“Yes. I am relieving you of your command and giving you a new assignment.”
“Why?”
“I think that it’s time that you grew up a bit. Your brothers have their banners.”
“I’ve never wanted a banner.”
“I know, which along with the fact that you are good at your job, is why I’ve never pushed. Until the events recently, I haven’t needed to. But now I do. You ran into a new kind of navy out there and I think that if the empire is to survive, we will need that kind of navy. I want you to go out and see what it will take to get me that.”
“We can’t match what they have.”
“I think that what we can do is match their attitude. I can get people that can bend steel and make a steamship if I can get the steel. Those Ravathyra have been raiding and bringing people over and they didn’t pay as much attention to the people that they weren’t interested in and what they knew and did. I bought some of those people and when I had people who knew what the right questions to ask were, I fished for the right kind of people and pushed family at them to see if they would share blood and stay. A bunch of them did. Now that we have a channel to the blasted lands, I need somebody who knows the territory over there and the people so that he can get me the things I need. For that I need you.”
“Won’t the Inquisition have a fit?”
“We won’t parade things in front of them and I have some forceful arguments. I expect that the Ravathyra will give me more. When the Republic and the other countries down there were far away, having a navy that could match them wasn’t important. When a ship like the Melodic can make the journey in a couple of five days, it becomes very important indeed.
The Ravathyra are another reason that I want you out there. They won’t stop what they are doing, but they will get more sneaky. Ehlark Zylvyre had some frigates built a long time ago and, as you well know, the Ravathyra have family members serving in the Imperial navy as well as in the Ravathyra’s fleet.”
“Why did you allow the Ravathyra to have a fleet, father?”
“You will have to ask your grandfather. The whole thing kicked off about two hundred years ago, when the emperor of the time was looking to get rid of the navy and close the empire off from the outside world as much as possible. We and the Ravathyra protested, of course. Our family protested, because my father felt that even if the empire wasn’t interested in the world, the world might be interested in the empire. The Ravathyra had their own reasons, as you know. There was a commonality of interest at the time and when the Ravathyra suggested that we persuade the emperor to allow families to maintain their own ships, father joined with them. He really had no choice at the time. So we built ships to chase the pirates and the Ravathyra built their ships to raid the blasted lands, but didn’t say very much about what they were doing.”
“What ship are you sending me on?”
“I’m not.You can go on the Cloud to the island. You and Aegaea can have a nice long Swim and sojurn on the island.”
“She will like that. I will start on this and tell Aegaea that we are going on a voyage.”
“You don’t seem to be too upset that you are losing Swift.”
“Johan can have her. I think that you were right and I had new responsibilities. I could feel all during the thing with Paeris Zylvyre that what I was doing with that was more important than my command and the command was an actual drag on doing my real work. Was it that way for you, father?”
“Yes. Different circumstances, but father needed me to be his man on the council full time and I couldn’t chase pirates and do that. Why don’t you talk with your grandfather and grandmother as part of the brief for you new assignment?”
“I should see them anyway so that she knows how her oracle turned out.”
“She’ll like that. She’ll want to know all about what happened.”
“So will grandfather. I’m surprised that he hasn’t nailed me already.”
“And risk the wrath of Aegaea? He’s an admiral with long experience. He wouldn’t make that kind of tactical mistake.”
“Speaking of Aegaea, I have lunch with her here. When is grandfather expecting me?”
“Any time this afternoon.”
“Ok, it is Aegaea for lunch and grandfather after, then.”
The admiral looked at his desk clock and said, “I don’t want you to be late, so dismissed.”
Illianaro left the office and went to the Admiralty dining hall where his wife was waiting for lunch. After they sat down, Aegaea said, “So what did your father want?”
“I have been given a new assignment.”
“Good. I know that you like chasing pirates, but it made me nervous and there were those Ravathyra monsters. So what are you doing?”
“We are being sent to the Island to set up a Liaison with the people from the Republic. I will be the connection with their navy. I am also to observe how their navy works and see if we can do some of the things that they do.”
“It sounds like a big job.”
“Very.”
“Good. I could see that you were having it easy and that could make you sloppy. This time I can go with you too and meet the wonderful people that you were telling me about. So what are your plans this afternoon?”
“I’m going to grandfather’s to talk about the things that I saw.”
“Ok, then I will head out to the bower. Your grandfather’s is a bit inconvenient for me and grandmother pretends to get scandalized when I don’t wear clothes.”
“You could wear clothes.”
“That would be a bit of a nuisance, since I would have to go home, have Annalee dress me properly and then take a carriage to your grandparent’s place. Why your grandfather didn’t build his place on the water escapes me.”
“When he built it, the seafolk were raiders and not family. If the house was set back, the seafolk would have a harder time of it. Being inconvenient for seafolk was an asset and not a problem when he built the house.”
“I see then. I will see you for dinner later. Vamir and Riva are coming for dinner and I think that they have an announcement. Riva’s fins were red.”
“So, we will have another grandchild coming.”
“Yes, so you need to be ready for this big job.”
“I will see you later then.”
Illianaro rolled his wife to the handy water door, she leapt into the water and Illianaro handed the chair to a smiling seaman who put it away as Illianaro headed for the front of the Admiralty building to call for a carriage and head for his grandfather’s rather imposing home. The place retained some of the characteristics of it time as the family castle and city fortress where it defended the city and the Shanelis. The city had grown up around it and the raiders were by and large gone or deterred by the far more formidable defenses built up as part of the breakwaters protecting the outer harbor. Illianaro’s carriage drove up the long drive and his grandfather’s butler and old steward from his seafaring days was waiting. “Welcome, Illianaro. You grandfather is waiting in the solar with your grandmother.”
“It is good to see you, Almon.”
Almon smiled. “You didn’t bring your wife. The kids will be disappointed. They were hoping that they could persuade her to dance in the pool again.”
“She had things that she wanted to do and since grandmother insists that she dress when she is not in the pool, it was a bit inconvenient.”
“So that battle continues. Your grandmother wants your wife to dress like a proper elf wife and your wife doesn’t like to dress at all when it is warm.”
“Yes. Of course we will be away for a while on assignment.”
“To see to the end of Paeris Zylvyre.”
“What did he do to you?”
“Not me, but I bought the lady that became my wife and she wishes that we could see the trial. If the Admiral didn’t need me, I would be requesting that we go with you.”
Almon led Illianaro to the solar where his grandparents were waiting in two chairs that overlooked the pool and garden, both of which were full of childen running and splashing around. Illianaro looked at his grandmother and said, “Quite a crowd.”
“It is that. Isn’t it wonderful? When I was a girl, there were so few actual children about. We were supposed to be perfect little dolls, never see other people’s children and only the parents for proper things. Where is Aegaea?”
“She didn’t want to get dressed, so she didn’t come. She had some other things to do anyway.”
“The kids will be disappointed. Of course there are mermaid girls out there in the pool already.”
One had just made a great leaping flip and splashed back into the water in amongst a pile of laughter.
Illianaro’s grandfather said, “I hear that your voyage south was very interesting.”
Illianaro turned to his grandmother and said, “Why did you send us to chase Cloud?”
Oracle Bemere Shanelis looked at him and said, “I saw great profit for the family if you went south. I didn’t tell you to pursue Cloud. Your father did that after your uncle found out that Cloud was involved in the raid on the Yllanan estate. I had your father send you south after I put some things together. Some oracles will make a big deal of it and have a card that they supposedly read or a crystal that they look through. The reality is that you look at a lot of things and then think about them in a bit of a meditative state. I looked at the things that the slaves that your father was discreetly buying were talking about, what the Ravathyra were bringing back and the new traders that showed up in ships like Cloud. It was obvious that things were happening down there and the Ravathyra returned with things to sell and slaves about the same time every year. So sending you to look a bit before that time was going to lead to interesting things that would be profitable for the house. Were the things interesting?”
“Very, and more than a bit scary. You have seen the pictures that I have sent back of the things that I saw.”
“We have, haven’t we, Iolrath?”
“Yes. The ships and things are rather amazing, but the people, rather more so. That orc fellow for instance. He looked formidable.”
“Very. He is Paeris Zylvyre’s Barrister and he is very good at his job, at least he has a towering reputation with everybody I talked to over there.”
“They want to give Paeris Zylvyre a good representative? Considering the things that we have heard over the years, there is no doubt as to his guilt.”
“Considering that he was caught raiding Marius Leomaris’s trading station, took Marius’s wife and daughter for his usual fun and games and told me what he had done, no doubt at all. I think that that was why Mr. Ironaxe was appointed by the court. Mr. Ironaxe is known for forcing the state to make their case and he is very good at it. I think that the Republic wanted to make the point to the empire that even for the worst of the worst, they maintain their values.”
“The writ of extradition was fairly clear. The Lady Yllanan is far more competent than I would have expected.”
“She seemed to be, considering that she had been kidnapped, albeit by her own son and surrounded by her capable but rather inappropriate family. Poor Paeris didn’t know what to do when she just wrapped him up and handed him right over. He was going on about how Gwen couldn’t do that to him and she had the writ and both the Justiciars and the Regency Council wrapped around her fingers.”
“Then there was this trial. That seems a bit strange.”
“Not to them. Other than the fact that the entire country had been a victim of Paeris’s or was a relative of a victim. The entire trial is going to be a big thing.”
“How did they find the other ships?”
“The Republic has some new ships they call submarines. They are able to be submerged for a period of time and can attack with weapons that I don’t know about. Since the Ravathyra sent their raids out at about the same time every year the submarines were sent out on patrol just before the raiding season. The towns that were raided had a way to contact their admiralty, which sent messages to the submarines and the boats managed to intercept four of the raiding ships. They only missed Paeris’s flagship, which diverted to hit Marius. The boats were tracking the raiding ships so that the cruisers following behind could be directed to them. They were also hoping to have a bead on the Ravathyra’s hidden city. Paeris diverted his ships back to chase after Melodic after the news of my rather embarrassing encounter leaked out, hoping to trap it, which was just stupid. That was when I encountered Paeris and Terrible right before the Leomaris and Yllanan trading families went looking for Paeris with blood in their eye.”
“What happened to Terrible?”
“If you put a variation of blasting powder in a steel tube, you can use it to shoot things. The Melodic had some of those steel tubes that they didn’t use against me. They did with Terrible and the results were quick and deadly for Terrible. She was dismasted and disarmed in less than a hundredth. The trading people and the navy suffered no casualties.”
“That sounds rather frightening,” Bemere said.
“It was grandmother. The first encounter with Melodic was almost worse because there was nothing that I could relate to.”
“You surrendered your ship,” The Admiral said, with a bit of a grin. “You are first Shanelis to do that in a very long time.”
“I had a cruiser on top of me in the growing darkness and they had a light on me, weapons that would destroy me in seconds, my weapons were useless, half my broadside was dead anyway and I couldn’t evade or run. It was only for fifteen hundredths or so until they could get a boat and an officer to tell me where I needed to go anyway.”
“You did the right thing and there were a lot of captains who would have tried to fight that pointless fight just to prove that they weren’t cowards.”
“I hadn’t raided the Republican coast, I was just following Cloud to follow up on the raid of the Yllanans by, it turned out, the Yllanans, and they were not sure that the entire Empire was hostile, or just the Ravathyra. Why did you let them have their private fleet anyway?”
“I needed them. More to the point I needed to keep the navy from being destroyed by an idiot and allowing the pirates free reign on the coastal estates and maybe getting real power. I didn’t know what the Ravathyra were up to and where. I needed allies and to my sorrow, didn’t pay much attention to why they were doing it. Do you think that the raid was a family squabble or something else?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I do know that while they kept the lady and the guards in the dark, just about everybody else knew that the raid was coming and to be ready to move. At least that was the impression I got. I also know that things were set up so that the damage looked terrible, but was not fatal. Radhron has apparently raided other estates in the past. He doesn’t apologize for it and from what I heard when I talked with some of his people, the Lords in charge of the estates had neglected them, abused the people on them rather than trying to solve the problems and the estates were close to collapse anyway.”
“That explains those raids that were too well crafted for pirates and didn’t leave any witnesses around to tell the Justiciars or the lords what had happened. What happened to Edwin? His name hasn’t come up and if Radhron is involved with his mother again, then he shouldn’t be that far away.”
“I didn’t run into him. He was apparently on a Ravathyra ship, wrecked by seafolk, dragged under and has been working with his new family to build the trading empire. The raids were an effort to get money and build businesses by taking the people and starting them up in the Republic. I suspect that one reason that nobody is screaming about the raids is that the same goods came across the trading ships and so nobody noticed that the estates had shut down other than the Lords who no longer had the revenue. With all the exiles and turmoil during the Regency, the raids were just another bit of the chaos.”
“Now that the family is out in the open, I doubt that we will see any more raids from them, anyway.”
Almon came into the room, “Sorry milord. A message just came in from your son. Apparently House Qinvaris just cut the Ravathyra off utterly.”
Iolrath suddenly had a huge grin on his face. “What did Rolin do to annoy Rosaniya that much?”
“Tiarsus doesn’t have all of it yet, but apparently Camus has been going around trying, and failing to purchase slaves that he sold. The reason that he wants the slaves, according to sources, is that the slaves have family members on Paeris’s prosecutorial team and Parris’s representative wanted them repatriated so they couldn’t be used as leverage by the prosecution.”
“That must be that Orcish gentleman, Illianaro. He is as formidable an opponent as you said he was.”
Illianaro grinned. “I think that I actually sent that message. It was under diplomatic lock, but somehow, somebody got ahead of Rollin. Who was it?”
“Teiran Yllanan and his royal fae family made some purchases. The rest, like Rosaniya wouldn’t sell.”
“I haven’t been paying attention but Lady Rosaniya has a huge estate and thousands of slaves. Why wouldn’t she sell?”
“The slave in question was Richard.”
“Who?”
Iolrath’s grin got larger, if that was possible. “Richard Harper was taken by Paeris from the Republic twenty five years or so and sold as part of a lot to Rosaniya’s farm manager. Six months later, he was the farm manager’s troubleshooter, Rosaniya spotted him and liked what she saw. It took her four more years but she managed to get him into her bed and to share blood. By that point he was the farm manager’s boss. He still is, as well as being the father of Rosaniya’s four children.”
“Why didn’t they sign a marriage agreement?”
“Because Richard didn’t want to tarnish Rosaniya’s reputation and Rosaniya is a high elf. Also Richard didn’t want the Inquisition looking too closely at Rosaniya. Rosaniya loves Richard too much to push the issue. On the other hand, trying to put the squeeze on Rosaniya by kidnapping her daughters or push Rosaniya around would not end well. Rosaniya probably cut Rolin off as a preemptive measure to prevent Richard from doing worse things than cutting Rolin off. If any of Rolin’s people were actually to hurt the girls, Richard would destroy Rolin.”
“Richard could do that?”
“Those steel tubes that you were talking about? Richard probably knows all about how they work and how to make things go boom. He also has some seafolk that work for him that he emancipated and set up near his port. But he doesn’t need a boom. All he needs to say is that Rolin doesn’t eat and Rolin won’t have a fleet in about a five day, he’ll have a starving mob. Rolin was an idiot.”
The Arts Mechanical 