Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber Page B

than he, and Cayleb’s frame was still in the process of filling out. He was going to be a muscular, powerful man, Haarahld thought, and he moved with a quick, impatient grace.
    I used to move like that , Haarahld reflected. Back before that kraken tried to take my leg off. Was that really twenty years ago?
    He stopped by the window, dragging his stiff-kneed right leg under him and propping his right shoulder unobtrusively against the window frame. His son stood beside him, and they gazed out across the broad, sparkling blue waters of South Howell Bay.
    The bay was dotted with sails out beyond the city’s fortifications and the wharves. There were at least sixty ships tied up at the docks or awaiting wharf space. Most were the relatively small one- and two-masted coasters and freight haulers which carried the kingdom’s internal trade throughout the enormous bay, but over a third were the bigger, heavier (and clumsier-looking) galleons which served Safehold’s oceanic trade. Most of the galleons had three masts, and they loomed over their smaller, humbler sisters, flying the house flags of at least a dozen trading houses, while far beyond the breakwaters, three sleek galleys of the Royal Charisian Navy strode northward on the long spider legs of their sweeps.
    â€œThat’s the reason we’re not going to find many friends,” Haarahld told his son, jutting his bearded chin at the merchant ships thronging the Tellesberg waterfront. “Too many want what we have, and they’re foolish enough to think that if they league together to take it away from us, their ‘friends’ will actually let them keep it afterward. And at the moment, there’s no one who feels any particular need to help us keep it.”
    â€œThen we have to convince someone to feel differently,” Cayleb said.
    â€œTrue words, my son.” Haarahld smiled sardonically. “And now, for your next conjuration, who do you propose to convince?”
    â€œSharleyan is already half on our side,” Cayleb pointed out.
    â€œBut only half,” Haarahld countered. “She made that clear enough this past spring.”
    Cayleb grimaced, but he couldn’t really disagree. Queen Sharleyan of Chisholm had as many reasons to oppose the League of Corisande as Charis did, and her hatred for Prince Hektor of Corisande was proverbial. There’d been some hope that those factors might bring her into open alliance with Charis, and Haarahld had dispatched his cousin Kahlvyn, the Duke of Tirian, to Chisholm as his personal envoy to explore the possibility.
    Without success.
    â€œYou know how convincing Kahlvyn can be, and his position in the succession should have given any suggestion from him far greater weight than one from any other ambassador,” the king continued. “If anyone could have convinced her to ally with us, it would have been him, but even if she’d been certain she wanted to support us fully, she’d still have had her own throne to consider. Corisande is as close to her as to us, and she has that history of bad blood between her and Hektor to think about. Not to mention the fact that the Temple isn’t exactly one of our greater supporters just now.”
    Cayleb nodded glumly. However much Sharleyan might despise Hektor, she had just as many reasons to avoid open hostilities with him. And, as his father had just implied, she had even more reasons for not antagonizing the men who ruled the Temple…and few compelling reasons to come to the aid of what was, after all, her kingdom’s most successful competitor.
    â€œWhat about Siddarmark?” the crown prince asked after several seconds. “We do have those treaties.”
    â€œThe Republic is probably about the most favorably inclined of the major realms,” Haarahld agreed. “I’m not sure the Lord Protector would be especially eager to get involved in our little…unpleasantness, but Stohnar