But no, he mused, not quite; the matter of constructing and repairing warships was not quite the same.

Proculus, head of the municipal curia (who had brought two shrewd members of that body with him) coughed. Guntram turned slowly back, wearing a sour and challenging expression.

“My lord Comes,” Proculus said primly, “it is not that shipwrights cannot be had. There are enough and to spare, it would seem, to knock merchant vessels together.” He stressed the one word with distaste, while blandly ignoring the men of commerce also present in the chamber. “Fashioning warcraft, no doubt, is a different matter, and the men able to do it fewer-”

“And most of them,” Athanagild put in, for he commanded the royal fleet based in the Garonne, “would liefer work for shares in pirate loot.”

The comes or count banged a sword-strengthened fist on his oaken table. Objects jumped, and so did his secretary, who was sorely needed since my lord Count could neither read nor write. The count did not notice how he’d disrupted the poor man-or paid no mind, at any rate.

“Pirates!” he roared. “By the heart of Arius, I’ve gone through reports of pirates all morning until I’m fairly sickened. That shipping isn’t safe is ill enow. That these northern thieves have dared pillage ashore is enough to make me-me, a man who followed king Euric into battle after battle-wish for Judgment Day!”

“Their numbers alone make them difficult to destroy as rats, my lord.” The smooth, rather soft voice came from Philip the Syrian, a swarthy man and pockmarked. He blinked heavy eyelids. “The noble Commander Athanagild must cope with Breton corsairs, Saxons and Jutes out of Britain-King Hengist notable among them-aye, and their cousins settled in the Charente, upon his very doorstep as it were-”