BY HERESIES DISTRESSED – snippet 8:
.III.
House of Qwentyn,
City of Siddar,
Republic of Siddarmark
“It seems we’re all present, gentlemen. Please, be seated.”
The half-dozen men in the private dining room looked up as one when their host stepped through the expensive, paneled door and smiled at them. Answering smiles were notable for their absence.
If the immaculately groomed, silver-haired man was perturbed by the taut expressions of his guests, he allowed no sign of it to cross his own face. He simply stepped forward, with the assurance that went with both his age and his stature within the Siddarmarkian business community.
His name was Tymahn Qwentyn, and he was probably the wealthiest private citizen in the entire Republic of Siddarmark. At seventy-three years of age (sixty-six in the years of Old Earth, although no one in Siddarmark was even aware that a place called “Old Earth” had ever existed) he remained vigorous and actively engaged. It was said, not without reason, that there was not a business transaction in all of Siddarmark which didn’t have a Qwentyn involved in it somewhere, and Tymahn was the acknowledged patriarch of the world-spanning family business. He was one of the Lord Protector’s intimates and a financial adviser to dukes, princes, kings, and vicars. He knew everyone, everywhere, and he had built a lifetime reputation as a man who’s word could be trusted and whose enmity was to be feared.
When Tymahn Qwentyn issued a dinner invitation, it was accepted. Even if some of the individuals on the guest list were more than a little anxious about just what he might have in mind. This evening’s invitees strongly suspected the reason they’d been called together, and there was a general air of nervousness as they waited to find out if their suspicions were accurate.
“Thank you all for coming,” Qwentyn said, exactly as if there’d been any probability that they might not have. “I’m sure that in these times of uncertainty, all of us can appreciate the necessity for men of goodwill to extend the hand of friendship to one another,” he continued. “Especially when the well-being of so many other people depends upon the decisions those men of goodwill make.”
The tension ratcheted slightly higher, and he smiled as if he both sensed their increased anxiety and was amused by it.
“I’m quite confident that all of us know one another,” he said, seating himself at the head of the table. “That being the case, I see no particular need for introductions.”
One or two heads nodded in agreement. Most of them did, in fact, know one another, but there were definitely times when official anonymity was greatly to be desired.
“I’ll come directly to the point, gentlemen,” Clyntahn continued. “I invited you here not simply in my private capacity as a senior stockholder in the House of Qwentyn, but also as a concerned citizen of the Republic. I have concerns of my own, obviously, but I have also been the recipient of certain statements of anxiety from other citizens, both within and without the government. Obviously, those anxieties have been expressed as one private individual speaking to another private individual, so please do not make the mistake of assuming that this meeting bears any particular official . . . stamp of approval, as it were.”
No one bothered to nod this time. Despite any qualifications he might voice for the record, Tymahn Qwentyn did not mention contacts with anyone “within and without the government” unless he was, in fact, speaking for that government. Or, at least, for those with very powerful interests within it. And given his close personal relationship with the Lord Protector, the chance that he would even consider acting against Greyghor Stohnar’s expressed desires was effectively nonexistent.
The only question in the minds of his guests was not whether or not he was being used as a sub rosa conduit by the Lord Protector, but rather exactly what it was that Stohnar wanted to tell them.
“Recent events both here in the Republic and elsewhere,” Qwentyn continued after a moment, “have resulted in extraordinary dislocations of business and finance. I’m certain all of you have experienced some of the dislocations to which I refer. And, as myself, I feel certain, you’re deeply distressed by the open schism between the Kingdom of Charis — excuse me, the Empire of Charis — and the Knights of the Temple Lands. In a time rife with so much uncertainty, it becomes inevitable that markets will be depressed, that trade will be dislocated and businesses will falter, and that some of those businesses will fail, with disastrous consequences not simply for their owners and shareholders, but also for those who depend upon them as a means to earn their own livelihood.
“While I feel confident none of us would dispute the Knights of the Temple Lands’ right to formulate their own foreign policy as they see best, or contest the will of the Grand Inquisitor when he acts to protect all of us from potential heresy and spiritual contamination, we may, perhaps, be aware of certain consequences of those decisions which have not occurred to those charged with making them. In particular, the decision to ban all Charisian-flag merchant vessels from the ports of the Republic — and, for that matter, of every other mainland port — is already producing business failures. At the moment, that’s largely due to the panic effect, but the consequences — the ultimate consequences — will be only too real. To be blunt, the collapse of more than a few trading houses would appear to be imminent, and if and when those houses fail, their collapse will be like stones dropped into pools of water. Ripples of additional failure will sweep outward from them, crossing and crisscrossing with potentially disastrous effects which will know no limitations of flag or border.”
He paused, and four of his guests very carefully did not look at the remaining two. Silence lingered for several minutes, and then one of the men no one else was looking at cleared his throat.
“No doubt your analysis is as accurate and pertinent as always, Master Qwentyn,” he said with a pronounced Charisian accent. “And I trust you’ll forgive me if I might seem to be getting ahead of events, or perhaps even appear to be putting words into your mouth. But may we assume that one of the reasons for your invitation this evening is to discuss ways in which those unfortunate repercussions could be . . . ameliorated?”
“In a manner of speaking, certainly,” Qwentyn replied. Then he leaned back in his chair, folding his hands before him on the tabletop, and smiled almost whimsically. “Obviously, the spiritual well-being of the Church’s flock must be the first responsibility and concern of the Grand Inquisitor. No one could possibly dispute that fact. Nonetheless, there have been occasions in the history of the . . . Knights of the Temple Lands when their policies have required the interpolation of those outside the Temple Lands if their true objectives were to be accomplished. Several people I’ve spoken to over the last few five-days are of the opinion that it’s at least possible this may be another of those occasions.”
“Interpolation”? That seems like the wrong word. Maybe just a typo, but I can’t imagine what he might be about to suggest that would fit with my understanding of that word.
“Interpolation”. What a marvelosly ambiguous way of saying “need to be ignored”. Here comes the plan for smuggling on a grand scale!
First, let’s get the typos out of the way. It should be “whose word could be trusted” and “Qwentyn continued”, not Clyntahn.
“Clyntahn continued” ?????????
Second… if I were a rich Siddarmarkian investor, it would seem to me that a big juicy gap had just opened in the market. Unless they aren’t even going to pretend to enforce the embargo, no amount of smuggling is going to fill the demand for Charis’s textiles and hardware. At the very least, I’d find out if the Church had reexamined its OK on things like spinning jennies and cotton gins — and if not, I’d put some guys to work figuring out how those things worked and how to build them closer to home.
finally.. was waiting to see the Siddimarkian perspective and still looking for signs of the Siddimarkian fifth column. (you know it has to be there)
Interpolation I agree is the wrong word in the context of the sentence and paragraph I would think “intervention” would been better in this context
Actually, it could be interpreted in more than one way, one he’s about to propose smuggling, or setting up industry in Siddermark or to end the war by having Caleb, Sharlyan and Maikel assasinated. With those three gone might not the survivors be convinced to negotiate a peace treaty? Or rather have one forced upon them? Where they give up the tech advances, destroy a bunch of ships, and return control of the Charisian church back to the main one in return for not having the people destroyed. Although the executions of the prests probably gave Clytahn his excuse for holy war.
I looked up “interpolation.” It has more than one meaning, but the closest is “inserting material into a text.”
In other words, they obey the Church (up to a point) (within reason) (but perhaps not in exactly the way the Church intended).
I agree with comments 1, 2, and 7, but I can’t see that “Siddarmark” is a typo, as comments 6 and 8 apparently assume. I don’t know (or care) about ‘the Siddimarkian perspective,’ but it will be interesting to see what the Siddarmarkian response will be; this snippet shows that it is not blind acceptance of the official Group of Four version and program, but the details are yet to emerge, and may well include some surprises.
I think this will be more or less what most of us have expected and speculated about previously Siddarmark will covertly allow some form of trade with Charis to continue even though officially supporting the embargo.
I wonder if the Charisisans are present to speed up the smuggling process by getting contacts etc
I also wonder if Holy war (when it is declared) will either stop that smuggling or damage the church’s authority? (or maybe a bit of both)
I use the word interpolation all the time. That’s why I was very confused to see it here. It means to “fill in the gaps” between two other things. For instance, if you have a two points on a chart but you want to find an intermediate value, you can draw a line between them.
In this case, I am almost certain the word that should be there is “interpretation”.
Hmm, well I wanted to know what Owl was about to send to Merlin for review. Hopefully we’ll get back to that at some point.
If it wasn’t for the fact that Stohnar is involved in this up to his neck, I’d actually lean toward the assassination idea. If they could then turn around and negotiate that peace treaty afterwards it would seem a logical idea to try. It would provide a way for Siddarmark to gain a huge amount of prestige on the world stage and put Clyntahn heavily in their debt (which would just about kill the hedonistic bugger from apoplexy). But with Stohnar obviously hip deep in this, I’d say it’s far more likely to be finding a way to reopen their markets to Charis (unofficially, of course).
As for the amount of trade a black market could support, it probably couldn’t replace the old trade but I’ll bet it could certainly take a good chunk out. It depends on just how “blind” everybody is going to pretend to be. They could fairly easily bribe the right people to look the other way and openly sail Charisian ships in. Another option would of course be the stereotypical side-harbor system. Depending on just how many people are willing to pretend they don’t know these side-ports exist, the unofficial ports could be developed really quickly and a quite respectable amount of goods could be moved even while they pretended that they weren’t.
Another option would be for Siddarmark to simply have its ships trade with Charis’ ports. Nobody in Charis is likely to report them for it, after all, and they might not be able to fully replace the volume of trade but I suspect they could both hurt a lot of their rivals (by stopping trade with them to free up ships to trade with Charis) and help themselves and Charis quite a bit in the process.
My bet, however, is on the rise of the “flag-of-convenience”. If Charisian ships simply struck their Charisian flag while still out on the high seas and replaced them with one of Siddarmark, they could sail right into Siddar openly. Sure there may be Charisian employees on the ship, but the ship is owned by a Siddarmark trading house and we have some beautifully made paperwork to prove it! Then after the trading is done, they sail back out for home and switch flags again.
RH
I suspect many of the holy orders will see a “major degree of uncertainty” in the future and will want to ensure their own welfare. In a word, bribery. The ‘working level’ of the church will get very rich very soon, and the few Schulerites that don’t go along may find their fellow priests more dangerous that the heritics. Remember what happened to St. Everhard (sp?)
CS
Well, Chuck, I like the idea, but the episode you state was that of a reformer trying to eliminate corruption in the church and (very likely) especially so the Inquisition. I have no proof but also no doubt he was murdered by the Inquisition. Unless you were going for a “what goes around comes around” I don’t think that can be used as evidence of its possibility.
Still, the lure of gold can have an amazing effect on the quality of certain people’s eyesight…
RH
RH@13. You know Robert, why not go one step further. Have the Siddermarkians actually buy stakes in the Charisian ships serving their ports. Perhaps not a controlling interest but a very visible one. This way the ships no loner ‘belong’ to Charis. Just as every Dohlaran vessel too afraid to leave port does nothing for Dohlar’s economy, every ship Charis looses reduces their ability to control Safehold shipping. So the Lord Protector may argue. The “interpolation” of the Knights intent would be to buy away the shipping the Knights tried to destroy; connecting the gap between the intent and goal of the Knights. This will do nothing about any G-4 demands that no mainland flagged ships go to Charis. It will however place a heavier burden on the Church to prove the “Siddermark” ships are going to Charis in the first place, since they have poorer espionage assets in Charis than the mainland.
Clyntahn had suggested Siddermark would be tempted to fill the gaps in Dohlar’s, Corsinade’s and Tarot’s lost shipping. We also have a financeer heading this meeting. This Qwentyn would naturally think in terms of mutually beneficial financial agreements to solve disputes.
PZ
PZ, yeah, that might work as a “coverup excuse” at least. Not sure about whether that would let them actually get into the ports tho (or at least not the official ones). So long as the ports are closed to Charisian shipping then it would seem the boats either need to be not owned by Charis (which means 51% or more by Siddarmark) or at least able to pretend that they aren’t (which means flag-of-convenience or something along those lines).
Now if the official paperwork is 51% but one or two of the “Siddarmarkian” share-owners are in fact cover personas for Charisians…
RH
RH
I was implying that church figures, no matter how highly placed, stand in the way of the churches usual business practices at their own risk. If a Grand Vicar can fall off a balcony right in the temple, how safe is it for a mere Grand Inquisitor to try stopping the members of the church from conducting buisiness as usual? Clythan(sp) will have an uphill battle if he tries to make church officials actually stop, rather than profit from, smuggling. He could easily become a casualty of that battle (except it would ruin the story line).
CS
Lots of ways you could get smuggling going and not even violate the letter of the law of the church within Siddermark.
The first way would be “False Flagging” where the Siddermark ships are really Charisian ones with Siddermark flags. They sail into Siddermark ports, off-load quickly in a “secure” warehouse/dock and reprovision at night, and then shove off on the morning tide. The crews might be Charisian, but no one who cares would know.
Another would be to have a “neutral” port or island off-shore where you could unload the cargos from the Charisian ships and reload them on the Siddermark ships.
There’s also the ever popular “smuggler’s cove” offloading at night near a port…but it isn’t as efficient to do (takes longer).
This book is getting interesting fast…no unnecessary long winded recaps going several pages in length this time. I like it! ;-)
Ah, OK, I getya now CS. Although I have to ask, how would it ruin the story? The Group of Four has to fall eventually, and removing Clyntahn from the situation in a “spectacular” fashion would doubtless lead the others to consider long and hard just how much they want to try to keep their grip on power. Of course, it would have to take time (like another book or two) for it to happen, but I don’t see why it couldn’t happen eventually…
PZ, I just had another idea. They could also play registration games. If a ship is officially registered in Siddarmark, are there public records as to whom actually owns it? If not, problem solved… “it’s a Siddarmarkan ship, I tell ya, so who cares that its crew are all from Charis? Just shut up and buy the cargo if you want this stuff, otherwise we’ll go find somebody else to deal with!” Even if there are public records, they could still set up a new Siddarmarkan trading company that officially owns the ships (and has some suitable figurehead as its official owner) but the original owners actually retain a high percentage of ownership in that company… perhaps under cover identities if necessary…
RH
Another alternative would be to have a Charisian ship meet a Siddarmark ship a few miles offshore and transship the cargo.
(On Earth large ships often had to transfer cargo to smaller vessels when the port was too shallow for the big ships to enter.)
The port would still be barred to Charisian ships (as the Group of 4 demanded) but the trade would go on.
“Interpolate” in this context would mean, “to extend from the known into the unknown.” What he is saying is, “The words of the edict do not cover the situation, so we will have to extend the instructions (lines) until they meet our needs (converge).” In other words he is going to ride some things to their logical conclusion.
J
Interpolation makes perfect sense to me – ther are gaps in the instructions, and they are going to extend those instructions to fill the gaps. Now, the gaps may be entirely mythical, and the extensions may not be ones that the church would approve of if they knew, but it’s a fig leaf to allow them to do whatever they want and still claim that they’re following orders.
RH, the idea behind buying the ships from Charisian merchants is to provide cover. If Clyntahn thinks his policy is forcing Charis out of the carrying trade, he is less likely to look closely at the Siddermarkian transactions for now. The importance of regestration is only to make a visible record of the transaction.
Will this happen? Probably something similar. Siddermark will not want to aggravate the remaining mainland powers into sending armies against itself. Short of supporting Charis openly, the other nations will look the other way. Kind of like what Harchong is doing with respect to Charisian privateers.
But EXTENDING the known into the unknown is “extrapolation”, not “interpolation”. There is a significant difference between those two words in the world of engineering. Perhaps I’m just overly sensitized to it, but what you guys are suggesting is not an “interpolation”.
I feel that to use the word in that context means to guess the intentions of the edict in the mind of the speaker in this case. Justification of intent is always required to hide one’s ultimate intentions.
“Interpolation” filling in the middle. As in “we are going to interpolate between the desire of the Knights to have no trade for their stupid war, and our desire to have free, open and unlimited trade to get rich.” We will of course be entirely supportive about supporting the Holy Father in Zion in his quest to arrest Charisian clergy, should any ever come this way.
Oh, I think he used the word “interpolate” quite intentionally and judiciously. The defination, in part, is “to alter (a text) by the insertion of new matter, esp. deceptively or without authorization.”
They are about to finesse the GO4’s edicts by adding all sorts of end runs useful additions. In short it’s the beginnings of a campaign to end run the edicts so as to maintain their commercial and industrial base.
I’m very surprised that there is a recognized definition of interpolation that emphisizes deception when applied to text, because it very much does not have that connotation in a mathmatical sense.
I hear (and use) the word so often in reference to data that I never would have guessed it has such a different implication for text.
Church response to interpolation: Interpol
I believe Kwentin (or however) was making an attempt at a joke, which he assumed his peers would understand.
Interpolation is about getting widely-spaced data points and creating your own in-between information. Widely-spaced points like, say, “Make sure no Charisian ships trade here!” and “We’re still trying to buy that fancy Charisian merchandise”, and in-between data like “Okay, no ship waving a Charisian flag will be allowed to make port here, though if they happen to be carrying fancy goods, we’ll naturally assume that they’re legitimate businessmen”. The details will depend on what the actual scheme here looks like, but it seems to fit the scientific definition of the word just fine.
While most posts have delved into the aspects of smuggling and how they could be best put into practice I believe we are forgetting a huge benefit for the Siddarmark trading houses. By becoming defacto partners with the Charisian trading houses they could corner the market of all goods coming from Charis and by definition charge whetever they wanted to the rest of Safehold for those same goods thereby stengthening the Siddarmarkian economy and the Charis economy as a result while placing burdens on the church and every other country that would weaken their economies and limit the amount of money that could be used to wage war on Charis.
This would do more to help Charis then for them becoming directly involved with the fighting at least until Charis has become too strong for the church to reasonably be able to eliminate and giving time for the new ideas springing up from Charis to become widespread.
I suspect the mistakes are due to the voice recognition software:
Clyntahn -> Qwentyn
interpolation -> interpretation
but that’s my guess.
@26: Interpolation might be the right word in regard to this particular definition.
@27: Even in mathematics interpolation isn’t such an innocent word, especially in statistics.
@18: In fact I don’t think a Grand Inquisitor would be nearly as vulnerable as a Grand Vicar : the inquisition is the branch that control all the church spies, as well as a lot of nasty individual and guards after all…
Jedai, IIRC the Church guards aren’t controlled by the Inquisition.
Also, while the Inquisition may have the most spies, I’d bet that most of the higher Churchmen have spies working for them. Got to keep an eye on their rivals within the Church.
The same goes for other nasty individuals.
I hope to God that Weber decides to edit the word “Interpolation” as a typo to be replaced with a more definite term. Just so I can laugh when I remember that this snippet recieved so many posts over that one word.
If anyone would like to find an appropriately placed “is” then we could also debate the meaning of that like Bill Clyntahn. :)
I suspect “interpretation” is what was meant rather than “interpolation”.
Wrong word, clerly he wanted a fancier way of saying “interpret”
inâ‹…terâ‹…poâ‹…late
   /ɪnˈtɜrpəˌleɪt/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [in-tur-puh-leyt] Show IPA verb, -lat⋅ed, -lat⋅ing.
–verb (used with object)
1. to introduce (something additional or extraneous) between other things or parts; interject; interpose; intercalate.
2. Mathematics. to insert, estimate, or find an intermediate term in (a sequence).
3. to alter (a text) by the insertion of new matter, esp. deceptively or without authorization.
4. to insert (new or spurious matter) in this manner.