The great admiral of the Imperial Fleet looked significantly less terrifying wrapped in a grey wool blanket on the timber apron of Berth Two.
Grand Admiral Valerius Brand sat on an upturned nail keg. He grabbed a tin mug of hot chicory with trembling, blue-veined hands.
His purple sash was ruined, his velvet breeches were caked with harbor slime. His stitched sea boots squeaked softly whenever he shifted his weight.
Around him, sixty royal captains and naval lieutenants stood in wet, shivering silence. It was surrounded by twenty of Kenneth Drake’s guard post guards who leaned on their pacing rods with casual discipline.
“How?” Brand croaked, looking up as Giles Croft walked onto the wharf with his drafting board.
“We had four thousand guns. We had eight hundred quintals of powder.
We had sixty feet of seasoned oak and bronze rams that could split a mountain. How did you turn the sea into air?”
“Water-flow bubble-curtain array,” Giles said, not pausing as he checked the tally sheet.
