By Schism Rent Asunder by David Weber

answer surprises me, but that’s certainly not your fault. Would you be so good as to draw up a list of the best alternate landing sites for future Church messengers so that I could get it to the Bishop Executor by tomorrow morning?”
    â€œOf course, Your Highness.”
    Zhaztro bowed, clearly recognizing his dismissal, and withdrew. Nahrmahn watched the door close behind him, then looked at his cousin.
    â€œI can’t say I’m delighted about the attached price tag, Trahvys,” he observed almost whimsically, “but at least the reaming Haarahld and Cayleb gave us has brought one worthwhile officer to my attention.”
    Pine Hollow nodded. Zhaztro’s apparent immunity to the gloom, doom, and despair which had sent most of the Emeraldian Navy’s surviving senior officers’ morale plunging was remarkable. The commodore had to be aware of the near hopelessness of Emerald’s position, but instead of dwelling upon it, he was actively seeking ways to strike back at Charis. As he had just finished pointing out, the Royal Charisian Navy lacked sufficient ships to blockade every Emeraldian port, and Zhaztro was busy fitting out light, jury-rigged cruisers as commerce raiders in every harbor with a boatyard. Most of them would be little more than lightly armed, outsized rowing skiffs or hastily converted—and even more lightly armed—merchantmen. Neither type could hope to stand up to any sort of regular man-of-war, even one without the devilish new Charisian artillery, but they could capture and destroy lumbering, lightly armed—or completely unarmed —merchantmen, and commerce raiding was probably the one way in which Emerald could hope to actually hurt—or inconvenience, at least—Charis.
    Not that it was going to do any good in the end, of course.
    Nahrmahn continued to gaze out the window for two or three more minutes without speaking. Pine Hollow knew the prince’s eyes were following the grayish-tan pyramids of the Charisian galleons’ weathered sails as they glided slowly, slowly across Eraystor Bay.
    â€œYou know,” Nahrmahn said finally, “the more I think about how we got into this mess, the more pissed off I get.”
    He turned away from the Charisian warships and looked his cousin in the eye.
    â€œIt was stupid ,” he said, and that, Pine Hollow knew, was the deepest, most damning condemnation in Nahrmahn’s vocabulary. “Even if Haarahld hadn’t been building all those damned galleons, with all those damned new guns of his, it would still have been stupid. It’s obvious Trynair and Clyntahn never even tried to find out what was actually happening in Charis, because they didn’t really care. They had their own agenda, and their own objectives, and so they simply said the hell with thinking things through and started moving their chess pieces around like blind, fumbling idiots. Even if things had worked out the way they’d expected, it would have been using a sledgehammer to crack an egg. And the way it did work out, they only pushed Haarahld into smashing everyone who could have hurt him! Oh,” he made an impatient gesture, “we didn’t know what he was up to, either, before he handed us all our heads. I’ll admit that. But we at least knew he was up to something , which was more than that idiot Hektor seemed aware of! And who did Trynair and Clyntahn decide to back? Hektor, that’s who!”
    Pine Hollow nodded, and Nahrmahn’s lips worked as if he wanted to spit on the floor. Then the prince drew a deep breath.
    â€œBut there’s another reason it was stupid, too, Trahvys,” he said in a much softer voice, as if he were afraid someone else might hear him. “It was stupid because it shows all the world exactly what the ‘Group of Four’s’ precious members really think.”
    His eyes had gone very still, dark and cold, and Pine Hollow’s stomach