Michael Stackpole - At the Queen_s command

Owen stroked a hand over his jaw. The Lieutenant presided over a warehouse that seemed quite well-stocked. In fact, the only thing it seemed to be lacking was men working in it.

"Might I have a look at the requisition?"

Palmerston opened a drawer to his desk and brought out a three-page document. "All signed proper like."

He was correct. Colonel Langford had signed the last page and initialed all the others. And if Owen was not mistaken, the document had actually been written by Langford. Owen studied it and fought to keep his growing anger hidden.

"Might I ask, Lieutenant, about this item here, about the beef for the trip. The charge for services, here."

"Oh, that's just standard, sir." The man scratched up under his eyepatch with a scarred finger. "You see, the cattle will be taken from our herd to Mr. Cask's slaughter house, killed, and butchered. They will smoke it and salt it, you see, sir, so there is your service."

"But, Lieutenant, that will take time and the beef won't be ready to go."

"No, sir, so we will issue beef here from our stores, and then that will replace it." The Lieutenant nodded reassuringly. "Just the way it is done here, sir."

Owen shook his head. "But the butcher, he'll take his customary forequarter, yes? And, forgive me, but don't we have butchers in the Regiment? Shouldn't they be doing that work?"

"And they would, sir, but they have other things to be doing."

"I see." Owen pointed to something else on the requisition. "Here they ask for brimstone and shot to make up five thousand rounds."

"Yes, sir."

"But they also ask for five hundred firestones. That much powder and shot only requires fifty firestones."

"Well, sir, in the wilderness…"

Owen grabbed the Quartermaster's jacket and yanked Palmerston across the desk. "I've fought on the Continent, sir, in pitched battles from which your unit ran. I've put a hundred-fifty, even two hundred shots through a firestone before it needed replacing. Those extra firestones, I would imagine, go for a pretty pence out here. You profit from that illegal trade, don't you?"

"Now see here, sir…"

"No, Lieutenant, you listen to me. I came to do a job. Others may have been convinced to stay here in town while the Casks and the Branches did their work for them, but that is not me. War will be coming to Mystria. My job is to prepare for that war. If you're not helping me do that, you're giving aid and comfort to the enemy. That's treason, sir, and I will prefer charges. Is this clear?"

The Lieutenant nodded. "Yes, sir."

Owen shoved him back into his chair. "Langford is profiteering. I know that. He sends trade goods back to Norisle as military cargo, avoiding tariffs. I shall assume, based on the orders concerning the beef, that the 'service charge' is paid back to him by the Cask family? And that you never quite get as many barrels of preserved beef as ought to come out of the number of cattle sent off to slaughter?"

"Yes, sir. And one of the Casks is a tanner, too, sir, so he gets the hides. The bones are ground for meal, used in the fields."

The Captain nodded. "And one of the reasons that our butchers are not available to slaughter our beef is that Langford has them off working as laborers?"

Palmerston's face closed. "They work for Cask in the slaughter house."

Getting away with hiring troops out as day labor would be simple to hide. Even if the troops reported this activity-and most wouldn't since they were just following orders and didn't know any better-where would the reports go? If the officers weren't part of the deal, rank and file soldiers likely wouldn't be believed. Many of the officers were convinced that the extra work would be good for the scum in the ranks. Even more would consider the whole thing beneath the honor of a gentleman, so if there were to be a court-martial, Langford would get off with a mild reprimand.

"How can you hide the loss of brimstone and firestones?" Mystria, for very sound reasons, was prohibited from manufacturing its own brimstone or firestones-both of which Her Majesty's government sought to strictly control. For hundreds to be stolen each year and distributed on the black market could not escape notice.

Palmerston fidgeted. "Well, sir, I am not the one who writes reports that go back to Horse Guards. But if I understand it, the Colonel makes up little operations against raiding Twilight People. He reports successfully repelling attacks, sir, with appropriate expenditures of brimstone and firestone. It seems, sir, that as long as he's winning, no one in Launston has any complaints. He even praises men like you, sir, in his reports; so there are those who say these things happen. If the Colonel likes you, sir, you might even get a medal."

Owen's stomach began to fold in on itself. "Tell me this, if you know it. The other expeditions, the ones the Casks and Branches did. How far did they go?"

The Lieutenant sighed. "I don't know for certain, sir, but I can tell you this. Come spring every year after these expeditions, Rufus Branch's wife has had her a baby. She ain't much to look at, and fear of Rufus would keep most men away if she was. But he hain't beat her for taking another man to her bed, and the children are all ruddy and red like their father. I'd say, sir, most all what's in those reports was dreamed up, and most like while he was sleeping in his own bed here in the South End."

April 28, 1763

The Frost Residence, Temperance

Temperance Bay, Mystria

T he arrival of a breathless messenger saved Palmerston from any further interrogation. The Private, straightening his hat as he snapped to attention, saluted abruptly. "Begging your pardon, Captain Strake. The Colonel's compliments, sir."

Owen straightened and returned the salute. "Yes, Private?"

"The Colonel requests you come to Government House straight away, sir." The soldier swallowed hard. "The Prince, sir, is in court and has requested the two of you attend him."

"Very well, Private. Please convey to the Colonel my intention to join him forthwith."

"If it pleases the Captain, the Colonel ordered me to conduct you there without delay."

"Yes, Private. Wait outside for me to join you."

The soldier departed and Owen turned to Palmerston. "You will write up a report concerning Langford's illegal activities. You will make two copies. One you will entrust to Caleb Frost. The other you will prepare for me."

Palmerston's eyes grew wide. "The Colonel, he'd kill me, sir."

"The only way you can prevent him from killing you, Lieutenant, is to prepare those reports. I will release them if any harm comes to you." Owen tapped a finger on his own requisition. "You will prepare my supplies immediately and you will cut the other order down to fifty firestones, do you understand? I will come back and count them."

"Yes, sir." The man sighed. "I wasn't meaning no harm, what I did."

"I understand that, Lieutenant." When the Tharyngian war ended, the army would shrink. Men like Palmerston would be retired on a fraction of their pay. The man likely had no other trade, no prospects, save for what he could put by. Avoiding poverty only made sense.

"You lost your fingers and eye on the Continent, yes?"

"Ryngian ambush. Musket-ball hit my barrel. Took two fingers. Stock splinter took my eye."

"I'm here to see that doesn't happen again. Without good information, the Ryngians will ambush us just as you were ambushed. And from what you've told me, a survey that's over a century old is more to be trusted than the one sent to Horse Guards last year. We can't have that."

The Lieutenant nodded. "No, sir. I'll do what you've told me to do, sir."

"Good." Owen sighed. "Her Majesty will thank you."

"If it's all the same, sir, I'd just as soon she didn't even know I existed."