The Gate Thief (Mither Mages) by Orson Scott Card

Author:Orson Scott Card [Card, Orson Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2013-03-19T06:00:00+00:00

14

LOYALTY

Keel was as loyal a servant as a king could have, or so it seemed to everyone but himself. But Keel knew that it was mere coincidence that created that illusion.

In his twenties, he had been called Plank, because he was master of refitting of the King’s ships. His own father trained him to the task, for he was Plank son of Plank son of Plank, three generations of master shipwrights, who could heal a damaged ship and make it whole again.

Unlike his father, who was a grumbler and griper, Keel-when-he-was-still-Plank had never uttered a word of complaint. After the war with Gray ended badly, and the treaty forbade Iceway to have more than six small fighting ships, suited only for subduing pirates, Plank never criticized the treaty, nor said a word against King Prayard’s father for having started and then lost the war.

Instead, he quietly set about repairing all the ships that managed to limp home from the war. Five of the smallest and fastest he refitted for speed, to skim lightly across the water in pursuit of pirates.

The others—the great warships—he refitted so that even the most suspicious inspectors from Gray would see nothing but cargo vessels, suitable only for trade, ships that wallowed in the water, sluggishly lurching from port to port.

When Prayard became king, he came himself to see what Plank had done. He stood on a tower overlooking the harbor and watched the clumsy cargo vessels that once had been proud warships, as they bumbled up the Graybourn to the docks, or yawed their awkward way downstream, barely manageable from the helm. Prayard did not complain, either. “You have kept my father’s word,” he said to Plank. “It is a good servant who preserves the King’s honor.”

“I am the King’s true servant,” said Plank. Then, most softly, he said, “Return at night and see my obedience.”

Five days later, Plank was wakened by the hand of his youngest son, Knot. “A visitor who has no name,” said his son, and Plank knew it had to be the King.

No word was spoken, and only the most shaded lamp was used, casting a tiny bar of light whenever Plank raised the shield. He led his hooded visitor onto the most sluggish of the former warships. He dismissed the watch and took the King down into the belly of the ship, one deck above the bilge.

Then Plank lifted a hatch, handed the lantern to the King, and plunged down into the bilgewater. Rats squealed and scurried, but Plank paid them no attention. “Cast the beam here,” he said softly.

The King raised the shield and aimed the beam at Plank’s hands. Plank gripped a lever that was snugged up under a deck joist and pulled it toward himself, moving it through an arc that was one-eighth of a circle. Where the lever had been invisible, now it was plain to see.

“What does it do?” asked the King softly.

“This lever is attached to a baffle under the hull. When the lever is parallel with the joist, the baffle is extended.

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