At the Queen's Command

by Michael A. Stackpole

  The journey thoroughly amazed Owen. Every day led him into territory completely devoid of any sign of man’s passage. He knew it wasn’t true, since they found canoes and campsites, but he saw no fences, no houses, and no roads. He had to look hard for places where trees had been cleared. More than once the forest had reclaimed a lot his guides said had been carved out twenty or thirty years before.

  Owen studied the Prince’s list as they went, but the animals proved elusive. He didn’t regret not seeing a jeopard. At night wolves called to each other, competing with loons to be the loudest creatures around a lake. The noises had made him uncomfortable at first, but he learned to like them. Still, he never actually saw a wolf.

  They took special notice when the forest went quiet. Kamiskwa and Nathaniel would immediately find cover, check their weapons, and wait to see what was in the vicinity. More than once they heard Ryngian trappers crashing through the brush, all the while remaining undetected themselves. At night, Owen made note of the interlopers’ presence in his journal.

  Finally they crossed over a low ridge that separated the Bounty and Lindenvale watersheds. They followed a chain of lakes and streams north and by noon, they stood on a hilltop looking down into the Hattersburg Valley. The town sat at the convergence of three rivers, the largest being the Tillie. The town began with a palisaded fort on the high ground nearest the confluence, and had grown out from there. Trees had been felled and all around the town small homesteads had been cleared.

  Nathaniel slapped Owen on the back. “Hattersburg. Civilization as far west as allowed by law.” Then he pointed off toward the east. “Of course, law done stopped back there to catch its breath, so watch your step. This ain’t a place you want to be caught dead.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  June 7, 1763

  Hattersburg

  Lindenvale, Mystria

  They raced the sun to Hattersburg and barely beat it. On the way in they went past several small farms all connected by a sorry excuse for a road. Cabins had been made from logs and outbuildings from roughly sawn boards. Grass and mud stuffed cracks, and shutters closed over empty openings that passed for windows.

  “Glass is expensive out here?”

  “A mite delicate to be transported.” Nathaniel spit off to the side. “Folks born out here have a notion it don’t truly exist. Lenses on that telescope of yours is the closest they’ve ever seen. A window pane is pure fancy.”

  “Is there an inn where we can purchase a room? I do have money.”

  “Well, I was being honest with you back there, Captain Strake. You’d best be keeping your mouth closed tight. Listen and learn.” Nathaniel smiled and Owen didn’t feel all that reassured. “Got to trod a slender board in Hattersburg to stay out of trouble.”

  Hattersburg looked unlike any town Owen had ever seen, and it was not simply the rustic nature of the buildings. Few had proper foundations, so more than one of them sagged. Several had log buttresses shoring them up. A couple had fallen to ruin and then been pilfered for building material and firewood.

  The town itself started with the fort and had an irregular greensward to the side and around the front in an oddly angular crescent. Two roads paralleled it from one river and the other crossing it. They extended until they hit the Cool River coming down from the north. More roads ran at angles both irregular and convenient, dividing lots into unconventional shapes. The church stood inland from the fortress, as if balancing it, with houses, shops, and other buildings clustered haphazardly between. Some people had built on the eastern and southern sides of the river and had to rely on ferries and a single ford to get across.

  The roads weren’t much to speak of. They had sunken from much use and some half-hearted attempts to remove mud and pile it on the sides. The lack of recent rains made them dusty, yet any precipitation would reduce them to soup. Boards crossed the roads at various points, but lay mostly hidden in the dust while dry.

  Nathaniel led them to one of the larger buildings. It had started small, but other construction had been grafted on to it. The roof appeared sound, especially above the main parts of the second floor, but some of the walls had gaping holes between boards.

  He threw aside the leather curtain acting as the door and marched across the common room to the bar—two boards balanced on two kegs. Patrons sat at tables and benches of crude manufacture. A stone fireplace dominated the left wall, but no fire had been laid in it. Instead a man stood before it, a lamp on the mantle behind him, reading from a book.

  Nathaniel slammed a fist onto the board, bringing the tavern keeper’s head around. “You done gawking?”

  The owner, a rotund man with twice as many chins and half the hair normally allotted, raised his arms in alarm. “Nathaniel Woods! I heard you was dead.”

  “I know. Heard your daughters a-weeping all down Temperance way.”

  The barkeeper scratched at his left eye. “Should have known better. Heard it before and it ain’t never been true.”

  “You’ll hear it again.” Nathaniel jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. “This here is Owen. He don’t talk much. You remember Kamiskwa.”

  “What I remember is the last time you was here. You can stay in the stable.”

  “You really want to be more friendly to me, Samson Gates.” He extended a hand back past Owen, and Kamiskwa put two of the Ungarakii bracelets in it. Nathaniel slapped them down on the bar. “Your finest room, a round of your horsepiss ale, and meat that died some time after the last thaw.”

  Gates leaned over, inspecting the bracelets closely. “Eight shillings for the both of them.”

  “Either your inn has got a might pricier or you’re of a mind to be cheating me.”

  “I ain’t a cheat.” Gates folded his arms over his chest. “Parliament don’t like we don’t drink rum out here. They’re putting a tax on whiskey. My still’s going to cost me two hundred pounds in taxes.”

  “Now where did you hear a fool thing like that?”

  Gates nodded toward the man before the fireplace. “Mr. Cotton Quince, up from Margaretstown. Said Parliament passed that law back middle of February. Here it is the start of June and the Queen’s Agents are out and about.” His eyes narrowed. “How do you know this Owen fellow?”

  “I know him good enough. He ain’t no agent of the Queen! He killed hisself two Ungarakii and Chief Msitazi done welcomed him as a guest. Ain’t no redcoat could do all that.”

  “True words.” Gates held his hands up. “Just have to be careful hereabouts. I’ll get you your rooms. Kamiskwa still has to sleep in the stable. Food and drink, too. Just find yourself a seat.”

  Though most of the audience had given their rapt attention to the speaker, a few warily moved away from a corner table as Nathaniel approached. He sat with his back to the wall, and Kamiskwa kept his eye on the door. That left Owen with his back to the bar.

  He leaned in, keeping his voice low. “Parliament never passed a tax on whiskey. They passed a tax on rum to cover the cost of a new season of fighting in Tharyngia.”

  “There’s a lots of things get mixed up coming out here. Law stopped, common sense paused with him.” Nathaniel sat back and smiled up at the comely lass who brought him a foaming tankard. “Thank you, Meg. I have a powerful thirst needs slaking.”

  The dark-haired woman giggled. “Like as much you have an itch needs scratching, too. You ever give up them city women, you’ll know true pleasure.”

  “Take you for my wife and break the hearts of all these fine fellows? Won’t do it.” Nathaniel smiled. “Who is it overworking his jaw?”

  “Not sure. Father says he comes from Margaretstown. He can read. Father likes him cause he brings people in to listen. He’s reading from A Continent’s Calling.”

  Owen slowly turned on his stool. Cotton Quince leaned casually against the fireplace, an elbow hooked on the mantle. He held the book in one hand down and out in front of him. His posture reminded Owen of upperclassmen lecturing the younger students at school. Qu
ince’s voice carried just a hint of the same superiority. Slender, with a long nose, blue eyes, and blond hair to his collar, Quince remained clean-shaven and, despite wearing homespun clothes, appeared dandified. His clothes showed little wear and no patches, and his frock coat had been recently brushed.

  “And it says right here,” he began, raising a finger to point at the ceiling, “‘An eagle, no matter how grand and powerful, cannot dominate her offspring once they have departed her nest. No matter how powerful, no matter how lovely that nest, when her eaglets leave, they are free. They find their own nesting places. They find their own hunting grounds. They find their own destiny. And if she seeks to bring them under her domination again, they should, they must, they are ordained to destroy her.’”

  “I’m not liking that look on your face, Owen.”

  He glanced at Nathaniel. “He’s not reading it right. That last sentence, he added that.” Owen dug for the book and thumbed through. “I read that passage when I prepared my message to the Prince. He’s added a call for rebellion.”

  Quince snapped the book shut and held it up. “This book tells the truth, my friends. The Queen thinks we are her servants, her chattel. We’re slaves to her. She doesn’t send us troops to keep us safe, but she wants our gold to pay for her soldiers to play on the Continent. And those on the seaboard, they’ll not protest. They don’t drink our whiskey. They drink rum, just like the soldiers the Queen isn’t sending us. This is a dire circumstance, gentlemen, and we need to act.”

  Owen shot to his feet. “You’re lying.”

  Quince blinked, then let a serpentine smile slither onto his features. “Am I, sir? And you dispute the word of Samuel Haste?”

  “I dispute your reading of it.” Owen held up his copy of the book. “I have this book from Doctor Archibald Frost of Temperance. You added the sentence about the eagles needing to destroy their mother. It isn’t in there.”

  “Ah, so you have a text published in Temperance.” The man’s voice layered disgust into the word. “We’re to believe that your Doctor Frost didn’t edit the text to make it protect his interests? He is of the coast. He doesn’t care about us.”

  Over in the corner opposite, a huge man unfolded himself. Tall and broad, with a thick bushy beard and dark hair cut short, he dwarfed every man present. A most remarkable trio of scars started at his crown and extended down far enough that one bisected his left eyebrow. He loomed up out of his seat and took one lumbering step toward Quince.

  “Now see here, Mister. You talk fancy good, but I don’t know you. But my brothers and me, and my father and uncles before us, and my grandfather and his kin afore them, they’s all traded with the Frosts. Ain’t a manjack here will say he’s been cheated by them Frosts. Might not paid what we wanted, but they paid fair.”

  Quince, who had paled, raised a finger. “You make a very good point. I may have misspoken. There are patriots everywhere, men who believe in Mystria and all it can become.”

  Owen cocked his head. “Why are you lying about the whiskey tax?”

  “Again, sir, you accuse me of lying.” Quince’s chin came up. “How do you know they did not?”

  Owen was about to answer, but Nathaniel stood. “On account of we was in Temperance. They got them this new printer who put out a broadsheet. Had all the news from Norisle. The man just got off the boat, sailed end-of-February. His paper didn’t have no mention of no tax.”

  Another man snorted. “How would you know, Woods? You can’t read.”

  “I read what I need to read, Hiram Marsh, so I don’t get lost out in the woods. Unlike some other folks.” Nathaniel slapped Owen on the shoulder, albeit a bit harder than necessary. “But I decided to get me some education, so I gots Owen here to be a-reading for me. And he’da read me of taxes since I asked special.”

  Quince opened his arms. “Perhaps my source on this was misinformed. Mark me, however, the day will come when the Queen turns to us to sustain her, when she has done nothing for us. We are the sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters of those Norisle cast aside. We owe the Queen nothing, yet we are fettered by her laws, enslaved by her nobles, impoverished by her merchants. And though there may be traitors among us, you all know in your heart of hearts, that someday, and someday soon, we too will need to fly the nest and extricate ourselves from her deadly talons.”

  Many of the men grumbled and banged tankards on the tabletops. A few whistled and two invited Quince to join them at a table on the far side of the fireplace. The giant walked over to Nathaniel’s table and swung onto the wall bench, jamming Nathaniel into a corner.

  “Good to see you again, Magehawk.”

  Nathaniel squirmed a bit. “Be buying you an ale, will we, Makepeace?”

  “Your friend the reader will.” The giant smiled and extended a hand. “Makepeace Bone.”

  “Owen Strake.” His hand and half his forearm disappeared in Makepeace’s grip. “Thank you for your intervention.”

  “Well, I was tired of his palaver. Easier to wrestle a wooly rhinocerbus to the ground than make sense of his talking.” Makepeace gratefully accepted a tankard from Meg, drank, then licked foam from his lip. “Foul stuff this. His whiskey ain’t much better.”

  Nathaniel leaned left and Makepeace slid over a bit to give him room. “Where are you and your brothers trapping these days?”

  “Little north, little west.”

  “Seen Pierre Ilsavont?”

  “He died two years ago. Planted yonder.”

  “True.”

  The giant leaned back, his voice a bass growl. “Did see some sign reminded me of him. He never did walk straight after that hip got busted up. It was just tracks though. Late spring, a piece west of here. What’s your business with him?”

  “He owed me money.”

  “That’s a long line ain’t moving fast.”

  “Heard he might not be dead.” Nathaniel drank from his tankard. “We figured we’d see if we could scare him up.”

  Makepeace shook his head. “I hain’t seen him. Trib said he seen Maurice a year back. Maurice weren’t inclined to honor a debt.”

  Owen glanced at Nathaniel. “Trib?”

  “His brother, Tribulation.”

  Makepeace smiled. “My family is Virtuan stock.”

  “I see.”

  “Let me ask you something, Mister Strake. You read that book you’re carrying?”

  “Parts of it.”

  “Are you believing any?”

  “To be truthful, Mr. Bone, I’ve not read enough.”

  The big man pursed his lips, then nodded. “Ain’t many men admit to ignorance. Weren’t how Quince was inclined.”

  Nathaniel rolled his tankard between his hands. “Makes a man wonder why a man would be saying them sorts of things.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Magehawk, seems fair obvious. Men, they come out here, they cut a town from the wilderness, they have an edge to them. The ones that come after, though, ain’t leaders. They’s followers. Sheep. Every now and again comes a wolf looking for sheep. If it weren’t Quince, it would be some minister or a messiah. Down Oakland I hear a man dug up his own Bible and has been preaching it. Says Mystria is the promised land and that the Good Lord wants us to make a Celestial City in the heart of the Continent. He says every man should have a dozen wives and they should bear a dozen children and God will come again to bless them all.”

  Nathaniel smiled. “You going?”

  “Cain’t find me one wife, so I don’t reckon there’s a point to it.”

  “Good.” Nathaniel patted him on the shoulder. “Then you might want to help us with a errand tonight.”

  The man nodded. “What’s that?”

  Nathaniel chuckled. “We’re going to rob us a grave.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  June 7, 1763

  Hattersburg

  Lindenvale, Mystria

  It surprised Owen that Nathaniel’s comment, delivered quietly, shocked neither Kamiskwa nor Makepeace. Both men
nodded thoughtfully. Makepeace resumed drinking and Meg brought the others bowls of stew. She added a couple rounds of coarse-grain bread.

  Owen waited until she’d departed before he spitted Nathaniel with a hard stare. “You can’t be serious.”

  Nathaniel nodded, spooning stew into his mouth.

  “But that’s disturbing sacred ground. You can’t…”

  Nathaniel wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Didn’t none of us like Pierre. He didn’t like God none. And if he is in that grave, we’ll just be opening up a hole for him to get some cool air down in the Inferno.”

  Nathaniel’s stressing the word is killed any argument. They already knew he wasn’t in the grave, so they wouldn’t be disturbing a body.

  Makepeace chuckled. “Cain’t be buried deep. Found him start of March. Ground was still frozen. Seth Plant ain’t never been much for digging deep—in the earth or his pockets. We’ll have him up right quick.”

  Neither that prospect nor the idea that they’d found Ilsavont so far from his grave gave Owen any comfort. He ate the stew and in thinking on how he would describe it, came up with the word peculiar. He didn’t give himself too long to wonder what some of the vegetables floating around in the thick brown sauce actually were. He had no idea what the meat was and finally asked.

  Nathaniel shrugged. “Squirrel or coon.”

  “Coon.” Makepeace nodded toward the bar. “Out to the yard Gates’ got a brining barrel. Got two-three in there. His wife does it up nice.”

  The meat held up well, but most of the flavor had been boiled out of it. Not the same as beef, just a bit more dark, closer to rabbit. Very lean, but needed a touch of pepper. Owen looked about to see if any was available, then realized it would be even more rare than glass this far west.