A Mighty Fortress by David Weber

expression and, for a moment, at least, feeling every bit as young as the rest of the world thought she was. Wishing she were still young enough to climb up into his lap, put her head down on his shoulder, and let him hug away her fears while he promised her everything would be all right.
    But everything wasn’t going to be “all right,” ever again, and she knew it.
    Don’t let them take you away from me, Phylyp, she thought. What ever else happens, don’t let them take you away .

.IV.
    City of Manchyr,
    Duchy of Manchyr,
    Princedom of Corisande
     
    CORISANDIANS!
    CITIZENS OF MANCHYR!
    The Blood of your slain Prince cries out from the very stones of your City! The boots of the slaves and lackeys of the Monster who shed that Blood march through your streets! The voices of Apostate Priests speak in your Churches! The Defenders of the True Faith are driven into silence and hiding!
    How much longer will you endure these Insults? These Affronts to both God and Man? How much longer...
    Paitryk Hainree frowned in concentration as he considered the composing stick and the current line of type. As a silversmith, he was a skilled engraver, but he’d discovered (not to his surprise) that there were very few similarities between engraving and typesetting. For one thing, he still had trouble reading the mirror- imaged letters. There was no problem identifying each letter as he took it from the proper pigeonhole of the job case (although he still had to look to be sure it was the proper pigeonhole), and it was easy enough—ahead of time—to chart out which letters had to go where on the composing stick before they were transferred to the forme and bound together. But his brain still persisted in reading each word as he set up the type, and he’d discovered that it tried to trick him into reading the letters in the “correct” order instead of in the reversed order they had to go into for the press.
    Still, it wasn’t an impossible skill to acquire, and if it wasn’t the same as silversmithing, there were similarities. He’d always liked the detail work, the concentration on the little things, working with metals, the fine coordination of hand and eye. The printer’s was a different art, but it was still an art, and he’d found that the part of him which had never expected to become a street agitator treasured the retreat back into an artisan’s role, even if it was only temporary.
    He reached for the next letter, and behind his focus on the task in hand his mind was busy. This broadsheet would be transported from the carefully hidden basement press through a network of dedicated supporters. Copies of it would be tacked up all over the city by tomorrow night. Of course, parties of the City Guard would be busy tearing them down by the following dawn. Not all of those City Guardsmen would agree with their orders in that regard—Hainree was sure of that—but they’d obey them. The “Regency Council” and that traitorous bastard Gahrvai would see to that!
    Hainree discovered his jaw was clenching once more and ordered it to relax. It obeyed . . . after a fashion, and he drew a deep breath. Just thinking about Sir Koryn Gahrvai was enough to send rage pulsing through every vein. Gahrvai’s effortless defeat at the hands of Cayleb Ahrmahk and his army could have been put down to mere feckless incompetence. In his more charitable moments, Hainree would even have been prepared to put at least some of it down to simple bad luck, or to the fact that Shan- wei looked after her own. But Gahrvai’s decision to actually accept command of the traitorous forces prepared to do Ahrmahk’s will here in Corisande had to make a man wonder. Had he truly been simply unlucky, or incompetent, or had there been something more sinister at work? Some quiet little understanding between him and the invaders?
    Had his treason against Corisande and the House of Daykyn begun only after his defeat . . . or before it?
    Most of the time, Hainree was