Mercutio heard shouting from the council chamber before he even reached the door. He turned and gave his sister a grin. She winced in reply. They knew what kind of meeting this was going to be.

  They did not even stop when their Viscount entered the room, which Mercutio was fairly certain was the protocol even when all the councilors were, as they never stopped reminding him, more than twice his age. Mercutio stood just inside the doorway and waited for the shouting to subside. The damnable thing was, the chaos was such that he could not even tell what they were arguing about, or who was on which side. And what, really, was there to argue about? As they quieted he walked to the head of the table and took his place in what he still thought of as his father’s chair. Bernicia took a chair near the foot.

  Around the table were the wise men of the Viscount’s court, such as they were. On his right was Nautas Brasilia, always known simply as The Admiral. His hair was pure white but his body straight and hard as a sword. At this moment his eyes gleamed fiercely at the man across from him. That was Marcus Porcino, the Procurator, another old man whose imperial title went back to the days before the Fall and the Wave. Along with, Mercutio imagined, the arguments between him and the Admiral. If the Admiral was like a sword, the Procurator was more like a bear, large, clumsy and perhaps a little soft, but with menace in his growling voice. This was the traditional arrangement, the war chief on the viscount’s right hand, the chief of gold and silver on his left. Next to the Procurator was the Chancellor, whose title sounded grand but whose power was meager since he was an officer only of the Viscount’s household and not of the old empire, then the Aedile, Lucio Venito, who was in charge of the markets, then Captain Fabricus, the senior galley commander, and finally Captain Turro of the Viscount’s Guard. On the opposite side below the Admiral was Julius Zen, the chief judge of the imperial lawcourt. Then Tritono, the chief priest of the Sea God Kadonnos, then the empty chair set aside for the chief priestess of the Mother, who also happened to be Mercutio’s mother but who thankfully had not attended a council in years. Then Bernicia.

  Mercutio spoke. “Is there any doubt who attacked us?”

  “None, my lord,” said Porcino. “It was the Capuchin.”

  Mercutio glanced down the table. No one disagreed. “Then we are at war with monks.”

  “Warrior monks,” said the galley master.

  “Assassins,” said Captain Turro.

  “Barbarians,” said Porcino. “Haters of civilization.”

  Mercutio began to wonder what they had been arguing about so vociferously, since they seemed to agree about the situation. He said, “We have been talking about launching an attack on them for years. Since my father’s time, I believe. Their town is only four days’ sail away. Is now the time?”

  Voices exploded on all sides, trying to shout over each other and failing. Ah, thought Mercutio, that is the point at issue. He pounded his fist on the table until the shouting ceased.

  “We will speak in order,” he said, “and hear all. My Lord Admiral?”

  “My Lord Viscount,” said the old man, “We have already entered the season when we might see the first Autumn storm, and there is less than a month before the hard weather arrives in earnest. Malovana is the only port on that whole stretch of coast that could shelter our fleet from storms. Nor is it really a safe anchorage for more than a few ships. There can be no siege, so we must take the town by sudden assault or not at all. Our soldiers are mostly in the west, some in the hills several weeks’ march away. Many of our merchant vessels are away, making their last long voyage before sailing season ends. We lack the ships and the men to attack before winter.”

  Hissing and muttering came from around the table, but Mercutio ignored it and turned to his left. “Procurator Porcino?”

  “Now is the time to strike,” said Porcino, his eyes fixed on the Admiral. “Malovana is not a large place and the walls are not high. The monks have men but no warships. They surely planned this attack thinking we could not retaliate before winter, so we would take them by surprise.”

  “By surprise!” cut in the Admiral. “You saw today that they can fill our town with spies and assassins. We will not fool them.”

  Mercutio raised his hand to cut him off. “In order,” he said. He moved his gaze down the table.

  “Aedile Venito?”

  “Attack now,” he said simply. “We cannot let this insult stand. If we do, we will appear weak and our ships will be attacked wherever they go.”

  “Chancellor Rugera?”

  “My Lord, it is too risky. They have invited this action, and we can bet they will be prepared for our response. We need all our ships and all our soldiers. Allies would also not be amiss. Have we sought any? And what of the Red Admiral? Has anyone considered that he might somehow be involved in this?”

  Porcino said, “It is well known that he and the monks hate each other.”

  Rugera would not be put off. He said, “But he is devious, and he might well be planning to fall on us when we are distracted by the monks.”

  Mercutio considered this. He said, “Has anyone heard any hint that the Red Admiral might have some plan to attack us? Have any of his ships been seen, or his agents heard from?”

  No one answered. Mercutio said, “Then let us keep our focus on the monks. Captain Fabricus?”

  “The men will be hot and angry now and ready for battle. If we wait until spring, their ardor will cool. I say strike now.”

  “Learned Tritono?”

  The priest was a man of middle age, strongly built, with large hands still showing the roughness of the sailor he had been. He let his eyes travel around the table before he spoke, as if measuring the men around him, though he had known them all for years. “This we know,” he said, “the will of the Gods governs all things. The Capuchin is a holy man who does the Gods great honor. He may be our enemy, but we must consider this. His people believe he speaks for Heaven. They die willingly for him; you all saw this. They believe they have the favor of the Gods, and this makes them brave. Are we sure they do not?”

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  “Are you saying the Gods ordered today’s barbarity?” snarled Porcino.

  “In order,” said Mercutio.

  “I am saying,” said Tritono, “that we must consider more than ships and men. Ships and men do not govern the world.”

  “Captain Turro?”

  “I am eager to wet my sword with the blood of vile assassins.” At this Porcino laughed, and Mercutio had to stifle a laugh himself. It was so like the man, direct and violent.

  “Judge Zen?”

  Zen was a thin, serious, balding man, with a hawk nose. He said, “My Lord Viscount, we should think a little about the monks and what they are doing. I do not think this attack was a random act. It was part of a plan. That must mean they expect us to attack them in turn, whether now or in the Spring. So our attack must also be part of their plan. And yet I find myself in agreement with the Procurator, that we should still attack them whether they expect it or not. Whatever their plan is, ours must be to destroy them, and this is the best way.”

  Captain Fabricus said, “Indeed, the best way to thwart any plan is to attack directly, before it can be completed. The more time we give them, the more traps they can devise.”

  “Lady Reliquay?”

  “Have you forgotten our father’s death?” she said. “We were attacked, we thought by an enemy of no great strength, and he raced off in the night to fight them. He never came back. Nor did any who rode with him. Do you wish to die as he did?”

  “Your father,” said Porcino, “was brave enough to recognize his duty and do it despite the dangers. I would hope the same could be said of his children.”

  “That they threw their lives away fighting needless battles?” said Bernicia. “That they gave more thought to their honor than the future of their people?”

  “Enough,” said Mercutio. “We all know how our father died. Indeed we have all thought much on it. He died as he might have wished, defending his people.”

  “If I may, My Lord,” said the Admiral. “I have been in more battles than any other here, on land and sea, so I believe I have some right to speak of this. It is one battle that looms in my mind now, one you all know of. It was one week after the Wave struck, in a shattered city, all our ships destroyed, all our captains killed when the Wave breached the citadel and drowned everyone within. We were shocked, grieving, wounded, sick, and afraid. For days we simply sat, surrounded by corpses and wreckage and foul things that belonged deep under the sea, wondering why we still lived, waiting for the world to end. Everything was covered in sand and mud and for days none thought to clean anything, for the labor seemed beyond us if we worked all our lives – which we thought would not be long. After a week we began to stir ourselves, to sweep the sand out of houses, to drag the rotting bodies of sharks back to the sea. I alone of all the naval officers survived, and only because I had been on the landward wall, sent to speak to the guards at the Fishing Gate about smuggling. I gathered a dozen men and went to explore the outer harbor, to see if by chance any lived, if anything could be salvaged from the wreckage. We took few weapons, for we did not think to find enemies. But we found them. From the wreckage of the fleet and the ruin of the naval harbor they came, rising from shallow water, rising from mud and sand, crawling slowly up onto the land, moaning, reaching for us with swollen hands and gaping mouths. They disgusted us but at first we did not fear them, for they seemed so slow and clumsy. When one came close I struck it with my sword, thinking that would be the end of it. But it did not stop. None of them stopped. We ran back, oh how we ran, shouting and crying for help. We reached the Temple of Kadonnos and had them ring the bells as if for war, and people came to us, rising from the benches where they lay in melancholy ruin. We stopped them, yes, with a wall of rubble we built with our hands. But we lost too many, too many more after the Wave had swept half of us away.

  “The lesson is simple. We were not prepared for what we found in the harbor. It took me years to understand my mistake. I pretended I had done nothing wrong, that there was no way I could have known, all the lies men tell themselves to excuse their failings. But in time I saw through my own evasions to my fault, and I tell you this today: never enter battle unprepared.”

  Mercutio stared at the Admiral. He knew this story; everyone in Calyxia knew it. But he had never heard the Admiral tell it himself. The man must be worried indeed to play this valuable trump card, this tale of how Calyxia as it now was came to be.

  Porcino now spoke. “We all honor what you have done for this city, My Lord Admiral, but thanks to your efforts we are not the ruined place we were then. We have rebuilt our walls and driven the maremorbos back from much of what they claimed that day. We have a fleet of eight war galleys, and we can call on many other vessels that trade from this port. We know the Capuchin. We know Malovana, where many of us have been, including you and me. We must prepare before battle, yes, but we are not dazed men wandering a ruined city. We are strong, and we should prove it so our enemies do not mistake us.”

  “I, too, helped build the wall that held back the Drowned Ones,” said the priest Tritono. “I was but a boy, but I carried stones until my hands were bloody. I ask again: who controls the world? Who sent the Drowned Ones to attack us, and why? What does it mean to be prepared against such enemies? Are swords enough? Are war galleys enough?”

  Mercutio spoke then, very clearly and precisely. “My Lord Admiral, how many ships and men could we have ready to sail in two weeks?”

  The Admiral considered. “All the war galleys, perhaps twenty other ships, thirty if we are lucky. At least fifteen hundred men, if we impress all the sailors.”

  “Two thousand, I would think,” put in the galley master.

  “The garrison of Osas can reach here in time,” said Mercutio. That is two hundred more, all fully armed. And we can call in some men from nearby towns.”

  “Is that enough to storm Malovana?” asked the Aedile. “I know it is not a large place, but I have heard the Capuchin has five hundred monks.”

  “I have heard the same,” said Turro, “but many are children.”

  “What must we do today to make this happen?” Mercutio asked.

  “Close the port,” said the galley master. “Well, it is already closed, after the attack, but keep it closed and make sure no sailors flee.”

  “Summon the ship masters,” said the Aedile. “For a meeting tonight or tomorrow.”

  “Send word to Osas,” said Bernicia.

  “Send spies to Malovana,” said Judge Zen. “We must know what measures they have taken for defense.”

  No one else spoke. “Then we all know what we have to do.” Mercutio said. “We sail with the morning tide on Saturday two weeks hence. Learned Tritono, can you arrange a departure rite for us?”

  The priest nodded.

  There was a scuffle in the hall, and shouting. Mercutio recognized the voice and said to his sister, “tell the guards to let our fiend in.”

  As the guards stepped aside a large man burst in, large in every dimension, tall, broad-shouldered, heavy around the waist, with a wide face and a bristling black beard. He spoke loudly, almost shouting, with fire in his eyes. “Whatever cowardice has been decided here, I speak against it! I denounce it. We must–”

  It was Festus Morcar, known to all as the Crab, who had been born a poor fisherman before the Wave but was now one of Calyxia’s great merchants. When there was finally a pause in his flow of words Mercutio said, “Can you sail in two weeks? We make for Malovana.”

  Morcar stopped. He considered for a moment, then bowed. He said, “I am the Viscount’s to command. Only two of my ships are here but I am ready today, tomorrow, any day.”