“I’ve something to say,” Maroth Marstel rumbled.
Ilkur nodded to Marstel. “The floor is yours, my lord.”
The old lord rose slowly to his feet. “Piracy in our waters is intolerable! The Merchant Council demands action to protect our trade against the depredations of pirates. The Sokol ship makes five lost in the last three months. We are being ruined by these murderous attacks! The lost cargoes are bad enough, but need I remind the council that dozens-no, scores-of our sailors have been slaughtered mercilessly?” Marstel banged his meaty fist on the table, warming up to his customary volume. In truth, he needed little coaching from Rhovann in bombast; all the elf mage had had to do was throw the old fool an issue to fire his imagination. “We’re pouring a fortune into city walls to deter an enemy that we have already defeated, while we are being pillaged on the high seas! I know of three merchant companies that cannot afford to lose one more cargo. They’ll be ruined in the next attack-and if our merchant companies fail, then they’ll no longer pay the harmach to cut his timber, they’ll no longer pay the good folk of Hulburg for their work, and they’ll no longer sell their wares in our streets! Disaster sails toward us, my lords and ladies, with cutlasses dripping blood and corpses in its wake, and yet we have done nothing! So when does the harmach intend to take action?”
Ilkur did not answer immediately, nor did anyone else. Perhaps they weren’t sure if Marstel had meant the last question to be rhetorical or not. Rhovann hid a smile. The last bit about cutlasses and corpses was pure Marstel bombast; the old man had been caught up in his own topic, as Rhovann had expected he might be.
Harmach Grigor sighed and looked at the old noble. “Lord Marstel, what would you have us do?”
“Sweep these corsairs from the Moonsea, and secure our livelihood!”
“In case it escaped my lord’s attention, I do not command a navy,” Grigor answered.
“Then you must begin outfitting warships immediately. The Merchant Council insists on nothing less.”
“Navies are expensive,” Wulreth Keltor objected. He was the Keeper of Keys, the official who looked after the harmach’s treasury. Rhovann found him a sour and querulous old man. “We cannot simply wish one into existence, Lord Marstel!”
“Nevertheless, if the harmach will not see to the safety of our commerce, then the Merchant Council will take steps to do so under its own authority,” said Marstel. “It is a matter of self-defense!”
Grigor’s eyes narrowed. Clearly he recognized the danger to his authority implicit in Marstel’s threat. Only a few months ago he’d almost been unseated by the Merchant Council under the leadership of his treacherous nephew Sergen. “You are welcome to arm your ships as you like and crew them with whatever guards you can afford,” he said. “But you have no authority to act in my place, Marstel. I am charged with the defense of this realm, not you.”
“I hesitate to suggest it,” Deren Ilkur said, “but is there some arrangement that can be made? Bribing the pirates to let our ships pass unmolested might be less costly than outfitting warships to deter them.”
“That leaves a bad taste in my mouth,” Geran Hulmaster said. The swordmage shook his head. “Forgive me for speaking out of turn, but those arrangements have a way of growing more expensive over time. And you’d still lose ships every so often, because you can’t bribe every pirate on the Moonsea.”
“If bribery isn’t an option, then how can we best defend our sea trade?” Burkel Tresterfin asked. “Can we guard the merchant coster ships with detachments of Shieldsworn? Or do we do as Lord Marstel suggests and build warships?”
“We don’t have Shieldsworn enough to man every ship sailing from Hulburg,” Kara Hulmaster said. She leaned back in her chair, thinking. “For that matter, even if we could afford to build warships, I don’t know how we could crew them. It would take at least two or three well-armed vessels to secure the waters near Hulburg. We would need several hundred sailors and soldiers.”
“Impossible,” Wulreth Keltor said. “We haven’t the treasury.”
“So we can’t afford a navy, and we don’t believe bribery is the answer. What is left to us, then?” the magistrate Nimstar asked.
No one spoke for a long moment. Rhovann nodded to himself. Even if the Hulburgans had settled on building a navy, it would take too long and cost too much to interfere with his designs. “There are other cities on the Moonsea that maintain fleets,” he said into the silence. “Perhaps we could ask Mulmaster or Hillsfar for protection?”
“That may prove more costly than building our own fleet,” Harmach Grigor said. “If we surrender our sovereignty for the protection of a larger city, we will never recover it. I consider that the last alternative.”
Rhovann willed Marstel to silence. He’d intended to catch the harmach in exactly this predicament, forcing him to choose between embarking on an expensive and most likely impractical scheme of fleet-building or weakening his authority by begging for another city’s help. Either way the harmach opened himself to sharp criticism. The disguised elf leaned forward to speak. “In that case, my lord harmach, I must add my concerns to Lord Marstel’s. What do you intend to do?”
Grigor Hulmaster gazed at the squares of blue sky outside the great hall’s tall windows. He might have been old and frail, but he was not stupid; he could see the dilemma confronting him. “It must be a fleet, then,” he finally said. “We’ll purchase a couple of suitable hulls in Hillsfar or Melvaunt and bring them back to Hulburg for fitting out. For the crew, I suppose we’ll have to hire mercenaries.”
“Two ships may not be enough to protect our sea trade,” Kara said. “Even if you assume that each can remain at sea half the time, it’s only one ship on patrol on any given day.”
“No, I expect it is not enough, Kara. But I hope that two warships are sufficient to serve as a deterrent,” Grigor said. He looked around at the assembled council members. “I hope you all understand that the Tower must find funds for this somewhere. To begin with, I expect that rents must be raised on mining and logging concessions.”
“Proceed with care, my lord harmach,” Marstel warned. “It doesn’t matter to the Houses of the Merchant Council if they’re ruined by piracy or taxation. Ruin is ruin.”
“You demand the harmach’s protection for your shipping, but you balk at paying for the forces necessary to safeguard you?” Kara snapped. “You can’t have it both ways, Lord Marstel. Where else should the harmach obtain the funds to pay for a fleet, if not from the merchant costers that will profit by the protection a fleet offers?”
Rhovann opened his mouth to counter the Shieldsworn captain’s point, but Geran Hulmaster shook his head and turned to address his uncle. “Perhaps there is an alternative to a standing navy,” the swordmage said. “Instead of building enough warships to defend our sea trade from every possible pirate attack, we should search out the pirates’ lair and destroy them there. A single expedition of one or two ships might do as much to protect our trade in a month as a fleet of four or five ships could in years of patrols.”
“Yes, Lord Geran, but where would you start?” Deren Ilkur asked.
The swordmage shrugged. “Kraken Queen. The Moonsea isn’t that large. She can’t hide for long against a determined search. As for other pirates, we should invest in information. Spread some gold around in ports like Mulmaster or Melvaunt, hire some harbor-watchers, and we’ll know soon enough where our enemies are hiding.”