Free Scimitar Sun by Chris A. Jackson Page A

looks like two ships united into one big raft!”
    “Aye, it is a strange lookin’ contraption, ain’t it?” Dura guided them around to the two bows and pointed. “She don’t have a name for it yet, but I suspect, just like happened with the schooners, some bloke’ll latch a moniker to it and it’ll stick. She said she got the design from the natives’ outrigger canoes. The outrigger makes the boat more stable, ye see, so she just took the idea and made it bigger. About seventy feet bigger.”
    “This is a wonder!” Norris exclaimed. “Surely this is not a cargo vessel! The hulls are too narrow to hold much of anything. What is its purpose?”
    “She never said what purpose she had for it, other than to see how it sailed. It’d probably haul more’n you think, though. Her profile’s low, and you could stuff a good bit of cargo on the main deck, dependin’ on how she was rigged. The booms’ll be set high, or they’d sweep the deck clear of crew when she jibes, but—”
    “Booms? One mast on each hull, then.” The count squinted up at the planked hulls and the massive arches connecting them.
    “Er…no, yer graceship. She’ll have two masts set fore an’ aft, schooner rigged, with gaff tops’ls.”
    “Why not one mast on each hull?”
    Dura just looked at him like he’d suggested pigs should take up knitting, and said, “I just build ‘em, yer graceship, I don’t design ‘em.”
    “Well,” Norris said, stepping back as if trying to imagine the finished vessel, “the emperor will be very interested to hear about this. I’ve neither seen nor heard of the like.”
    “Why would Emperor Tynean have an interest in something like this, Count?” Camilla tried to keep her tone casually curious, but her mind was spinning ahead with concern.
    “The emperor’s interest in your mistress’ new ship designs is one of the primary reasons for my visit, Lady Camilla. As I said, your schooners have created quite a stir in Tsing. He sees many potential applications for such craft.” His eyes shifted from the sleek hulls to her, as if gauging how both might be best applied to serve his emperor. “I’m sure we can reach some amicable agreement that allows the empire to utilize this astonishing breakthrough in naval architecture.”
    “You might reach such an agreement,” Camilla began with a dissembling smile, “with Cynthia Flaxal. I cannot make any agreements regarding her ships’ designs, and she is not disposed to begin selling them, yet.”
    “She has said as much?” The count seemed surprised, but Camilla could see that it was feigned. “Surely there is room for negotiation, on this design, for instance.”
    “There is always room for negotiation, my dear Count,” she said, meaning it. “But of what value to the empire could an experimental craft be? It hasn’t even been tested at sea yet.”
    “One never knows how something so radically different might impact the affairs of the empire, Lady Camilla,” he said, as if the line were rote. “The world, and I daresay the Shattered Isles, is a dangerous place. Anything new that might be applied to the imperial defense, commerce, or even faster communications could vastly change the way we live, or indeed whether we survive.”
    “Oh, come now,” Camilla scoffed, patting his arm. “How could something as trivial as a new ship determine the survival of the empire?”
    “My dear lady, one can never determine how something might impact one’s survival until all of its potential applications are thought through. Why, something as seemingly safe as a sea voyage can determine life or death, as it has in my very own family.”
    “I’m sorry?” she asked, taken aback by his sudden admission. “One of your family was lost at sea?”
    “My entire family, my dear. My wife, two children and their governess, along with the entire ship and all her crew, were lost in these very waters not three years ago.” His tone was casual, but she could see