2

Head Commissioner Bishop’s tour itinerary was publicly available, and Mick had already asked Chester, the local librarian, to procure a copy. He knew that she was supposed to get to Sunhampton for eight o’clock on Sunday. She wouldn’t stay here long, which ought to give him time to get to the Tillwright’s farm later and see what was going on there that needed a guard’s presence.

Dressed in his best, freshly-ironed shirt and wearing lace-up boots that he’d wiped all the mud stains off and gotten so polished they gleamed, Mick waited by the town gates. He wished he could be wearing an official guard uniform today, but all his written requests for one had gone unanswered, and even paying a trip to the commission office in Full Striding had seen him return with nothing but a loathing for bureaucracy.

As he stood and waited, his watch hands seemed to slow to a crawl. No matter how much he stared at them, he couldn’t make those hands get to eight o’clock any quicker.

There was still no sign of Wendira Bishop’s carriage twenty minutes later, but he didn’t move from his post. As a guard, one talent he possessed was patience. Every fourth Sunday, he kept watch at the gates as merchants filed into town for the crafter’s market. That could be a boring job, no denying it. The kind of job that would have cured Ma’s insomnia, probably. Not for him, though. The ability to stand in one spot and coexist with his boredom was something that saw Mick in good stead.

“Ahoy, Mick. Market on today?” asked Phil Brownhill, who was walking out of the town gates. The fella was covered in tattoos of boats, anchors, and sea creatures. Seemed to have more every time Mick saw him.

“Just waiting for someone,” said Mick.

“Want some company?”

“Yeah, why not, Phil? That’d be grand.”

Mick kept a watchful eye on the road leading to town as he and Phil chatted about this and that. Phil was on his way to his boat, the Water’s Edge. Mick had yet to go and see it, but it was a marvel, apparently. Lewis Cooper had done a bunch of work on it for him, turned it into a store where he could sell his boats up and down the River Rumber.

Soon, movement on the horizon caught Mick’s eye, marking the emergence of a carriage heading towards town. Jitters danced in his stomach.

“Ah, this’ll be your commissioner, then,” said Phil. He gave Mick’s shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll be off. She doesn’t need to see a ruffian like me, it’ll give her a bad impression of the town. Best of luck, mate.”

“See you, Phil. I’ll be down to visit your store one of these days.”

“Looking forward to it.”

Mick forced himself to adopt a rod-straight guard posture as the carriage drew nearer. Finally, the driver urged his two horses to slow to a trot, then a complete stop. A passenger compartment door opened, and Head Commissioner Wendira Bishop stepped out.

What a lady, he thought to himself. Her guard uniform was impeccably fitted, with not a single crease to be seen anywhere. On her left sleeve were the four arrows and a star depicting her rank. On her right were little patches of color, each representing merits earned through duty.

It wasn’t just her uniform that impressed him. Her bearing was effortless, and authority seemed to pour out of her even as she merely stood there and cast her gaze around. Mick forced himself to keep his posture as her stare settled on him for a moment. He tried to recall his carefully rehearsed words to mind.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Greet her, enquire about her journey, answer any questions and then ask about the guard budget, he repeated to himself as a mantra.

A man stepped out from the cart now. He was shorter than Wendira Bishop, and the symbols on his sleeve denoted him as being several ranks her junior, despite looking older physically. He was probably Sergeant Bole, her assistant, if Mick’s research was correct.

“This is Sunhampton then?” said Wendira.

Mick noticed that the man was holding a notepad in his right hand and a pen in his left. He’d trained himself on this, the art of observing little details about people. Not just the details, though. Details alone meant nothing. Forming the right conclusions from them was key. From the way this man held his pen, Mick supposed he was a leftie.

“Sunhampton. Population at last census, four hundred and six,” the man said.

“That’s not what their sign says,” replied Wendira.

Mick saw this as his chance to introduce himself. “The sign was artificed wrongly. It counts up how many living souls are in ‘Hampton, but it includes chickens, ducks, mice, and everything else. We keep it mostly out of novelty.”

Wendira looked him up and down. “Right. Very…interesting.”

Mick smiled brightly. “Mick Mulroon, your Guardship. Head of Sunhampton’s guards.”

The man and Wendira shared a look now. Mick didn’t like it, but he reminded himself to project positivity, and so pushed it out of his mind. Wendira said, “Ah. I hadn’t known that you’d…”

“I took the liberty of meeting you here, Madam, so I could answer any questions you have about our town.”

And so I can convince you to release a coin or two from the guard budget once my charm wins you over, he thought.

“Very well. Sergeant Boles?”

Mick allowed himself an inward self-congratulations that his research had been correct about this man, then waited patiently as Boles whispered something to Wendira. Mick only caught part of it, this being ‘-ke something up.’

Sergeant Boles cleared his throat. “Ahem. Tell me, mister, uhm, Muldoon…”

“It’s Head of Guards, sir. And it’s Mulroon.”

“Apologies. Can you give me a breakdown of…uhm…violent crimes in the last twelve months?”

Mick almost laughed. “Violent crimes? In ‘hampton? Well, someone smashed one of the King’s Head’s windows, but it was just kids messing around. I had a word with their parents, got them to pay for the glazing. Kids wrote a letter apologizing, as well. It was no bother.”

“Right. Very good. Tell me about your… your crime prevention schemes.”

Mick thought he had prepared for most things he might get asked today, but this caught him off guard. And as a guard, that was possibly the worst way for him to get caught.

Thinking on the spot, he said, “I make a swift patrol of the town twice per day. I’m only a volunteer, and I have to work things around making a living, you see, but I make sure to patrol my beat morning and evening, without fail.”

It wasn’t a lie. Not exactly. They didn’t need to know that his twice daily jogs were more to keep in shape than to oversee the town.

“A volunteer, you say?” asked Boles.

He hadn’t expected the conversation to reach this destination so soon. He hoped he might be able to take them on a tour of the town, and perhaps go for a coffee at the Sunny Café and talk it over somewhere better than the town gates. Still, you couldn’t choose what day it rained, as Ma always said, but you could certainly grab an umbrella and make the best of it.

He had something of a speech prepared for this moment, after all. When the opportunity came to ask them for a budget toward his duties. All that had changed was the time and the place.

“You see, Head Commissioner Bishop, Sergeant Boles, performing guard duties in this fine town isn’t-”

Wendira interrupted him. “I’ve just realized, Sergeant. We have to be in Perentee by eight thirty, don’t we?”

“We do, Madam? Oh, yes, we do.”

“Lovely to meet you, Mr. Muldoon. Keep up the good work.”

With a quick salute, he was dismissed. Caught between wanting to say something and keeping up his discipline with regards to their authority, Mick could only watch in surprise as the two walked back toward their carriage.

It became clear to him now that this was no tour at all; it was an exercise in box ticking, was all. Head Commissioner Bishop was visiting every town and village in the north, sure, but she was spending ten minutes at each one. And that was if they were lucky.

You know what? I’m going to say something. Because this ain’t right. I work hard for this town, and I do it for free.

He strode toward the carriage, already forming a speech in his head. Only a few steps into his march, the driver flicked his reins and urged his horses on. Soon, the beasts carried the vehicle away, and it wasn’t long before they followed a left fork in the road and disappeared from view entirely.