So my summer was pretty much walking around the all too small grounds of the fourteenth desperately waiting for a day when I could go out on heavily supervised duty patrols. It didn’t escape my notice that I was only sent out with Sir Pelli or Sir Micah who kept a close eye on me. However, any thoughts of running off to indulge in heroics were far from my mind as despite what Dr Haskell had said my chest hurt for ages after he let me out of the infirmary and it took the rest of the summer for my breathing to get back to what I thought was normal.
Sir Flynn, who I think had been punished even more harshly than I had been, he wouldn’t tell me the details and neither would any of the rest of my squad, was still as friendly as ever with me regardless which was a relief and had taken to sitting in with me in the squad common room in the evenings teaching me some of the basics of cartography. So in theory I now could use a compass, find my laitude using a sextant and how to triangulate distances and elevations using a theodolite. I say in theory as I hadn’t actually had a chance to really practise these techniques in real life but my skill with mathematics meant that I could easily calculate the sums necessary in my head.
I was looking forward to being able to use them as I had found out that my autumn training exercise would be heading out into the hinterland to re-survey the area bordering Alasce. Part of me wondered if I should be worried about returning to the area where Neesha had ‘died’ and Neesh had been born but to be honest I couldn’t think of any risks - the only two people who had seen me were dead, by my own hand, and the search for me had long since been abandoned.
“Attention knight apprentice Neesh,” a voice suddenly interrupted my thoughts and made me sit up with a start.
“Matty!” I said, realising who it was who had startled me.
“Who else?” she said, grinning as I looked up from my bowl of congee, “you realise you’re practically the last person left here this morning.” I looked around, and found she was right, although this wasn’t an uncommon experience, being confined to headquarters meant that on rest days like today I had plenty of time to linger over my food with no particular place to be.
“Nine more days,” I said, at this point I could tell you to the hour the amount of time left before I could leave headquarters.
“Not long,” she said, “and then you can introduce me to your mysterious friends.”
I had promised Matty I’d introduce her to the boys on a long planned end of confinement celebration at the Hare. Not that Fig, Alex and Dene hadn’t been regular visitors (and teachers of various card and board games) but I had so far managed to stop them crossing paths with Matty. I was oddly nervous about her meeting them, or rather the boys meeting her. She had already become a topic of intense speculation amongst the boys who had convinced themselves I fancied her. I could just imagine them all staring at me for any sign their speculation was true and to be honest that moment was something I had been putting off.
“It’s not that big a deal,” I said.
“Not a big deal, you do realise you’re friends with Alex Commorof, nephew and heir of Sir Paval Commorof, hero of the city,” she said, as she did every time we got onto the topic of Alex. It was annoying, but I guess she didn’t know what an idiot he was yet.
“I do know who he is,” I said, “just when you get to know him you realise he’s just like the rest of us, just with a bit more money and I suppose he’s not too bad with a sword.”
“His uncle trained him, he couldn’t be anything less than exceptional with a sword,” Matty grinned, I reckon she knew she was winding me up and enjoying it.
“So,” I said, drawing the word out, “how goes the world of medical training.”
“Fascinating,” she said, it was something she was genuinely enjoying and I was both pleased for her and pleased to be able to divert her train of thought, “Dr Haskell took me to the morgue yesterday and we dissected a cadaver.”
“You got over your squeamishness then,” I remembered her nearly fainting after I had slit the throat of one of our captors.
“Gods Neesh, there’s a difference between watching you stab someone in the neck and cutting someone up who is already dead and donated their body to science.” I guess she had a point. “You’re lucky I still talk to you at all,” she teased.
“Lucky is one word for it,” I said, joining in.
“Enough of your cheek or I’ll leave you to sit on your own and go and enjoy the fresh air outside.”
“Ok, ok, I’m sorry,” I said, raising my hands in a gesture of defeat, “don’t leave me!”
“Well as you’re sorry I guess I can spare you a little more time,” she said, “besides I have news.”
“Oh really?” I said.
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“Yeah, I get to come south with you in a few weeks, Dr Haskell wants me to get some practical first aid training and is sure you lot are going to spend the whole time injuring yourselves.”
“We’re making maps, it’s hardly going to be dangerous.”
“Well he said last time the company sent six squads out on a cartography survey they came back with one broken leg, two fractured wrists, a crushed foot and two severe cases of dehydration.”
“From cartography?” I said sceptically.
“Yeah, I’m coming to realise that you knights aren’t all you’re cracked up to be,” she said.
“I guess not,” I admitted, maybe she had a point, I’d have to talk to my squadmates about it.
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Erik had spent the last few weeks tracking down the assets of the gang linked to the Parasians; they had to wait for Lancel to leave in a huff first obviously, but now without the fear of worsening the diplomatic situation Shi, and by extension Erik, had been finally free to make good on his promise to root out the prostitution ring. It was easy at first, grunt work, rounding up gang members, interrogating suspects and following things up the chain.
Now things were getting serious, Shi had told them to follow the money wherever it led and that was where things were getting complicated. Things always seemed to once money was involved Erik mused.
“So you’re saying Councilman Dennro was involved?” he said, finally looking up from the the papers strewn across the table.
“Yes, it’s clear from the figures, Abslom Dennro was receiving a cut of the profits from the Northgate cell,” Mrs Elthorpe said, “You can see in last summer’s ledger the payments clearly didn’t come from the councilman’s printing business. The payments are too regular and too consistent compared to his other income streams.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Erik said, Mrs Elthorpe had been running the Company’s financial affairs for over a decade now so if there was anyone who understood this stuff it was her. “The question is whether he was a corrupt and immoral bastard then or a treacherous, corrupt and immoral bastard.”
“I don’t think we can prove from the financial trails he knew the gang was linked to the Parasians,” Mrs Elthorpe admitted, “the Parasians were careful and the support they were providing was less traceable.”
“So what do we do?” Erik asked.
“You’re the knight, you tell me,” Mrs Elthorpe said, “arrest him and see if he rolls over when you interrogate him.”
“And set off merry hell on the council,” Erik said, “I’ll need to talk to Shi before we do anything.”
“That goes without saying,” Mrs Elthorpe said, “but you are going to arrest him. I mean those poor women.”
“We are,” Erik said, if it had been him in charge he wondered if he would have had the resolve to do the right thing in the face of the scandal and chaos that the Militia intervening in the political world of the council would have, but he knew Shi and once his mind was set on a course of action nothing would stop him.
“Good,” Mrs Elthorpe said approvingly, “well I best make sure you understand the evidence before you do then.”
“Am I that obvious?” Erik said.
“Well you’ve been looking at the wrong sheet of paper for the last half hour,” Mrs Elthorpe said.
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“So should I be worried?” I said. I was sat in the squadroom playing whist with Sir Flynn and Sir Micah; we were the only ones about tonight.
“About what?” Sir Flynn said.
“You should both be worried,” Sir Micah grinned, pointing at the stack of chips he had taken off us already this evening.
“We’re not playing for stakes,” Sir Flynn said, Sir Steven had forbidden Sir Micah from playing for money if I was playing.
“Glory is even more precious than money,” Sir Micah said, and whilst he clearly enjoyed taking the others’ money, his willingness to include me in his gaming did seem to show he really did just enjoy getting one over on the rest of us. He was even a surprisingly gracious, if rare, loser.
“I didn’t mean that,” I said, “I meant the cartography mission.”
“Oh that,” Sir Micah said dismissively, “why are you stressing about that?”
“Matty said, Dr Haskell told her that last time squads went out there were a lot of injuries.”
“Oh Matty said, did she,” Sir Micah said, a glint in his eye that was even worse than the one Alex got whenever we discussed her.
“Yes,” I said sheepishly.
“Well I can see why you’re stressing now, don’t want to make a fool of yourself in front of your crush?”
“No!” I spluttered, before recovering my composure a bit, “I just want to make sure I’m not underestimating the task.”
“Stop teasing the lad,” Sir Flynn said, I was grateful for the support but I also suspected there was more than a little bit of Sir Flynn that was happy he was no longer the baby of the squad and these comments were no longer directed at him, “and you’re right Neesh to think about whether you’re underestimating the task. It might seem simple but every mission carries its own risks.”
“Yeah well, that and the last time we ranged out we were mapping the Great Eastern Mountains - not many level surfaces to set up a theodolite there I tell you.”
“But that’s outside the hinterland?” I said, confused.
“Yes well, we’ve got good maps of the hinterland,” Sir Micah said, “no point spending time remapping that. It’s foreign territory we need maps of, especially with war coming.”
“Do you mean we’ll be going into Alasace?” I said.
“Yeah, sorry thought that would be obvious?” Sir Micah said.
“No!” I exclaimed.
“Well Neesh, it’s not something we advertise,” Sir Flynn said, “officially we’re just re-surveying the hinterland yes, but unofficially we’ll be going into the forest south of the mountains. I suspect command want to get better maps of the area to see if they’d be viable for allied forces from the Eastern kingdoms to use to come to our aid in a war against Paras as we can be pretty sure Aldberg would close the Hamule pass for their suzerains.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling stupid.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sir Micah said, “the Alasceans are in so much trouble themselves they won’t have anyone near the border and the Triesti army in the south are a bit of a mess by all accounts. Even if we did run across them I’m pretty sure we could talk our way out of any trouble if the commander has any sense he’ll know what’s going on and why but the chances of us running across anyone are pretty slim; bandits and the like will be much more of a problem but to be honest it’s slim pickings for them even just farm trade really nothing really profitable to prey on; just border reivers stealing each others’ livestock.”
I possibly felt even dafter now I realised even Sir Micah had a good strategic overview of the situation on the Alascean border. I probably should have known all this too - it was the sort of stuff they taught us at the fifteenth; maybe it was all the disruption to my training or maybe the instructors were too focused on Paras and Aldberg and we hadn’t covered this stuff yet. The thought of encountering Triesti forces, however remote, also put me on edge a bit.
There was absolutely no reason it should worry me though, should it, well apart from the general increased risk of a skirmish that could get me killed breaking out, there would most likely be no one in the Southern army who had ever met Princess Neesha, let alone any who would see through my appearance as an anonymous Malinese knight. I guess it was all a bit close for comfort though.
I wondered if Matty knew about all this and whether there was a way I could find out without revealing my own recent ignorance.
“Trumped you again lad,” Sir Micah said gleefully, making me look down to see he’d taken my queen with a measly three.