At the Queen_s command cc-1 Read online

  "Did your dispatches say anything about the Queen's response? Are troops on the way?"

  "No, Captain. I gather that prudence and intelligence held sway. The flotilla was not large, so it is believed there can be little military threat in this season. Horse Guards believes that du Malphias will be creating a series of fortifications from which attacks can be launched. He was the architect of the defenses at Villerupt, after all. They will not be easy nuts to crack. Next year, they believe, is when he would move to the offensive, but only if he is substantially reinforced. To prevent that, we will attack into Tharyngia again this year. We'll either inflict the defeat that will make his efforts moot, or tax Ryngian resources such that he will never get the troops he needs to invade."

  Nathaniel leaned back on his hands. "I'm thinking that's a powerful lot of iffin' and supposin'. Cold comfort."

  "Agreed." The Prince drank some wine. "This is why your mission is even more important than before. We have to know where du Malphias is, how much he has in the way of resources, and what his most likely route of attack will be. I will be frank, gentlemen. If he were to pull together all the regular troops and militia in New Tharyngia and couple them with warriors from the Seven Nations, he would have a large enough force to overwhelm any single colony's defenses."

  The Prince came up on his knees and shifted his blanket around. He tugged it up toward the center, then twisted the edges, very quickly constructing a crude topographical map of north Mystria. He broke bread into crumbs, which he placed in strategic points, then plucked blades of grass and laid them out to represent rivers.

  "The Ryngians claim everything west of the mountains, including the Four Brothers Lakes, the land of two rivers, and Misaawa River. Up here in the north, Black Lake feeds into the Argent River, so they claim Black Lake as part of the Argent River watershed. But to the south, Black Lake also feeds into the Cool River, which is ours. The river flows south to Hattersburg where it joins the Tillie River. To date neither nation has acknowledged the other's claims. Further west, Lac Verleau has remained neutral, but the Governors of Queensland and Lindenvale have sold deeds to land on its south side. We have settlers moving into that area, creating tension with Ryngian trappers and settlers."

  Owen nodded. "If du Malphias brought troops down the Cool River, he'd go to the heart of Lindenvale, capture Hattersburg, then move east along the Tillie River to threaten Margaret Town. That would cut off Queensland, Summerland, and Lindenvale."

  Kamiskwa pointed at the crumb marking Hattersburg. "Many rivers meet to form the Tillie before it flows to the big water. He could come down from Anvil Lake in the west to loot and fight a retreat that would draw militia far from home. If he looses his Daskashii allies to raid…"

  Vlad pushed his glasses back up on his nose. "A sound point. Thank you, Prince Kamiskwa. You see, Captain, this is why your mission is so very important. We know these rivers exist, and we assume they will be the means du Malphias would use to transport troops, but we do not know how many of the rivers are navigable. A raiding party of two hundred men can move quickly, but an army of four thousand with cannon has an entirely different set of needs."

  Owen scrubbed his hands over his face. "You realize this mission is impossible, yes? To survey all of the rivers is the work of years, maybe a decade. Which path to choose? Black Lake seems the easiest route, but the Green River out of Lac Verleau and into the Upper Tillie and tributaries also works. Where to begin?"

  Nathaniel pulled his knees up to his chest. "Begging your pardon, but ain't the two of you looking at this ass-end around?"

  Owen frowned. "Meaning?"

  "You're guessing and call it figuring. Shouldn't look for where he'll end. Look for where he's starting." Nathaniel pointed at the map. "He sailed up the Argent two weeks ago. He'll be stopping in Kebeton to round up men and supplies iffen he's going to be building his forts. Take least a week. The Ryngians, they'll be a-wanting to hear him palaver about something. They'll feast him a bunch. He'll need scouts. He'll hire trappers and traders. We find out who is missing from his normal haunts, we find du Malphias."

  Owen smiled at the Prince. "I suddenly understand your liking this man."

  "Yes, don't let his rustic nature fool you, Captain. He's smarter than he wants to let anyone know."

  Nathaniel laughed, his long hair dangling as he threw his head back. "It ain't no strategizing, it's trapping. Find the beaver lodge, set the trap nearby."

  "This beaver will have very sharp fangs." Owen drank to wash the sour taste from his mouth. "This is important enough that you will want reports, yes, Highness?"

  "Yes. Encrypted, I should think." The Prince's brows furrowed. "You don't have a crypto-lens, do you?"

  "No, Highness."

  "Do you know how to work a book cipher, Captain?"

  "I fear not, Highness."

  "It is fairly simple and unbreakable save the enemy is able to find the book that is the key." Vlad pointed toward his house. "I will find a book, one for which I have the matching volume. To send a message, you write it out and then, leafing through the book, you find a page on which a particular word is printed. You substitute the page number, paragraph number, and word number for the word in your message. If the word 'amber,' for example, was found on page forty, third paragraph, fourth word, it would be written 40-3-4. Furthermore, you will date your notes, and subtract the date from thirty-six, adding the difference to every value. If you are writing on the 30th, the word would be represented as 46-9-10. Is that clear?"

  "Yes, Highness."

  "Eliminate articles like 'a' and 'the'-they just waste time-and underestimate any numbers by twenty percent. If someone does intercept a message and translates it, they will believe we are fooled. Send things to me by way of the Frosts, please."

  "Yes, Highness." Owen smiled and dug into his jacket pocket, producing the Haste book. "Doctor Frost gave me this to read. Could we use it?"

  The Prince laughed. "A delicious idea. No one would ever think a Norillian agent was using a seditious text for covert purposes. Splendid."

  Nathaniel grinned. "And what would a Prince of the realm be doing with such a book?"

  "Memorizing it, actually, and with more haste now, no pun intended. The book is fascinating." The Prince returned the smile. "You should learn to read. You would enjoy it."

  "I read honest sign. Man-scratches ain't never honest."

  "But they can be illuminating. Perhaps Captain Strake will be good enough to read you selections on your journey."

  Owen and Nathaniel exchanged glances. That isn't going to happen.

  "Captain, I've prepared a short list of things I'd like you to keep your eye out for. Samples, if you can, a description if you cannot. I understand the focus of your mission, but if you would indulge me…"

  "As you wish, Highness."

  "Thank you." He stood. "How will you travel?"

  Nathaniel chewed a big bite of chicken breast and swallowed fast. "We'll go due west up Old Ben as far as we can, then head north. The Altashee will be at Saint Luke, so we'll see what they have heard, then to Hattersburg. From there we go north or west. Probably north. Two-three weeks out from there, weather holds."

  "Very good." The Prince opened his arms. "Please, my friends, eat while I get that list. I wish you could stay but your mission, I fear, has an urgency none can deny."

  Kamiskwa and Nathaniel fell to devouring the chicken and cheese. Owen forced himself to eat, knowing he'd need it. Both of his companions lived well off the bounty of the land, but either could have hidden behind a scarecrow without fear of detection. Hunting didn't always mean killing, and fishing didn't always mean catching, so they might be days between meals.

  He was glad for the relative silence with which they ate. He'd accepted his mission on the mistaken belief that it would be a simple surveying job. It wouldn't be an easy one, but neither would it be terribly complex. He had expected to have the time to complete it and do it thoroughly so his work would not invite criti
cism.

  News of du Malphias changed all that. Though Nathaniel was right that they had to find du Malphias before they could concentrate on what routes he might use to attack the colonies, this perforce meant Owen could not accomplish his original mission. He'd been with the army long enough to know what that meant. Even if his work was critical in defeating du Malphias and driving the Ryngians from Mystria, the results of his mission would be compared against his orders. He would be judged a failure.

  That inevitability saddened Owen. The Crown had always rewarded bold explorers who returned with information that would increase the Crown's holdings and wealth. Owen had believed, deep down, that he might discover a pass that could be named after him, or a bountiful lake or river which led even further into the continent's interior. The Queen might see fit to grant him a peerage. If he was lucky, he could use his knowledge of Mystria to make money and gain status that would equal or surpass the Ventnor family. It would be his ultimate victory over his family.

  And Catherine would be even more proud of him.

  But now that avenue to glory had been walled off, and a malignant Tharyngian Laureate manned the barricade with his Platine Guards in tow. The only glory Owen was likely to win was posthumous, and he didn't find that idea appealing in the least.

  And yet, never did it occur to him to abandon his mission. His duty to the Crown superseded his own wishes. Moreover, the information he'd gather would save soldiers' lives. It would even create another opportunity for his uncle to swath himself in glory.

  Kamiskwa made a comment in Altashee and Nathaniel laughed.

  Owen arched an eyebrow. "What?"

  "Kamiskwa called you Aodaga. Means 'thunderface.' You're brooding and he reckons you're dangerous when you do."

  "I suppose he could be right." Owen popped a last bite of cheese into his mouth and finished his wine. "Du Malphias is someone I'd just as soon have back in Tharyngia."

  "I get a clean shot, I'll be happy to send him to Hell. That's fair close to Tharyngia, ain't it?"

  Owen laughed. "I expect it is."

  The Prince returned and handed Owen the list and a small jar of the unguent for his heels. He gave Kamiskwa a small, leather-bound box. "Your father had commented on my spectacles and I secured him a pair. I thought he might enjoy them."

  "You are very generous, Prince Vlad." The Altashee tucked the package into his bag. "He will visit you again when the leaves turn. And now he will find his way easily."

  "I look forward to his visit." The Prince started off down toward the wurmrest. "We had a bit of a wind two nights ago. A branch fell and, I'm afraid, damaged your large canoe."

  Kamiskwa set off with the Prince. Nathaniel grabbed Owen by the shoulder. "One thing you'll want to be learning about the Shedashee-the Twilight People."

  "Yes?"

  "Generous people to a fault. Among them, if you say you like something, admiring it like, they'll give it to you. If you refuse it, it's a great insult." Nathaniel nodded toward the Prince. "When Kamiskwa's father was here last, he took a serious liking to the Prince's glasses."

  "You're not having me on in saying this?"

  Nathaniel shook his head. "I'll still be joking with you about some things, but nothing there's likely to be blood over."

  "This mission is very serious. More so now."

  "You don't be worrying about me." He smiled. "I told you before I hate all men equally, but I reckon I can muster a bit more for this Ryngian. We'll find him, kill him, and then don't nobody have a reason for ruining my land."

  Chapter Sixteen

  May 2, 1763

  Prince Haven

  Temperance Bay, Mystria

  T he Prince and Kamiskwa dragged a birch-bark canoe, about fifteen feet long and tapered at both ends, from some brush on the river side of the wurmrest. A small hole punctured the left side just large enough for a child to slip her hand through. The two men turned the canoe upright and lay it on the grass.

  Kamiskwa studied the hole for a moment, then walked over to a trio of birches at river's edge. Using his glassy-bladed knife he sliced off a palm-sized bit of peeling bark. He crouched, placed it in the water, and anchored it with a stone.

  From within the wurmrest, Mugwump sniffed and snorted. In the dimness beyond the barred opening, a golden-eye glowed.

  Nathaniel moved to keep the Prince and Owen between him and the wurm's gaze.

  Owen smiled. "You're not afraid of the wurm, are you?"

  Nathaniel smiled wryly. "I ain't seeing keeping back from something what could take me in a gulp as much of a bad idea."

  Kamiskwa rejoined them. "Among the Shedashee there are stories of these beasts-much larger ones with wings. They are not good stories."

  "Wurms can be fierce in battle, but Mugwump is docile." Owen affected nonchalance, letting his lack of concern get under Nathaniel's skin just a bit. "Released in combat he'd be pretty nasty."

  "My point 'zactly, Captain." Nathaniel shook his head. "I reckon we can get all our gear in this canoe and not have to drag another."

  Kamiskwa grunted, then returned to the river and recovered the wet bark strip. He knelt beside the canoe and held the patch against the outside. The pink inner bark appeared through the hole. Then he placed his right hand over the hole, pressing it against his left hand on the outside. Slowly he began to rub his hands forward and back, introducing an oval motion that picked up speed as he went.

  He began to chant in a low voice, in his own tongue.

  Owen opened his mouth to ask what he was doing, but Nathaniel held up a cautionary finger. Owen caught a scent, the sweet scent of green wood that's been split open. It shifted a little to become the loamy scent of a forest after a soaking rain.

  After a minute Kamiskwa grew silent and stood. There's no hole. Owen stepped closer. He could see no sign of the hole. No scar, no discoloration, nothing. Try as he might, he could not see where the hole had been.

  He shivered. He'd heard rumors of tailors and seamstresses fashioning clothes without seams for nobility, but when he'd had a chance to view their handiwork, he'd always found that needle and thread had been applied generously. One of the Coronet 's sailors had always used magic to reinforce sail patches, but he secured them with thread regardless. As good as his work might have been, picking out the patch had never been difficult.

  But this, what Kamiskwa had done, it simply couldn't be done. It would require him to be more powerful than any mage in Norisle-and that mage would have been exhausted after accomplishing so much. The Altashee didn't even look the least winded.

  The Prince, however, looked delighted. "Every time I see that, it amazes me."

  Nathaniel smiled. "Our canoes do seem to be in the accidental way lots around here."

  Vlad shot Nathaniel a sharp stare. "Mr. Woods, were I wishing a demonstration, I would prepare one so that I could fully measure what happens and seek to replicate it myself. I am sure that Prince Kamiskwa would oblige me if I asked."

  Kamiskwa nodded, but smiled as well.

  Vlad held up a finger. "That reminds me." He turned, and scurried off into the wurmrest.

  Woods placed his pouches toward the canoe's front end. "Good craft, these. Sturdy and not so delicate as you might be wanting to imagine. Still, you have to be careful. You don't want to put a foot or an oar through the sides."

  Kamiskwa went back to where the canoe had been stored and returned with three leaf-shaped paddles. He handed one to Woods, but didn't give Owen the second.

  Owen frowned. "I may not be in the navy, but I can paddle."

  "The spare is just in case we need it. This canoe only requires two. It would steer funny if you was paddling." Woods pointed toward the middle of the boat. "You're just self-loading cargo, Captain."

  "Here is more cargo, for your father, Kamiskwa." The Prince returned with a burlap bag. He pulled out one of Mugwump's scales. "There's four. He'll find something to do with them, I hope."

  Owen held a hand out and accepted the scale from
the Prince. "Did you have this painted and lacquered?"

  "No. I just pulled four from a pile."

  The soldier traced a finger along a scarlet stripe. "Wurmriders paint and lacquer scales. Even when they do that, they're never as pretty or polished as this."

  Vlad took the scale back and slipped it into the sack. "While you're gone, I shall experiment. I'll leave some in the sun and see if that has any effect. Another mystery to explore. I shall be pleased to share the results upon your return."

  Kamiskwa accepted the gift. "The Prince again proves himself to be a good friend of the Altashee."

  "Merely returning kindnesses the Altashee have showed me."

  Kamiskwa stowed the scales with his other gear, then he and Nathaniel hefted the canoe and carried it down to the river. They slid it into the water, then pulled it around parallel to the shore.

  Nathaniel looked Owen up and down. "You'll be wanting to take off your boots and stockings. Your feet will get wet, but will dry off faster. Help your feet heal, too."

  That made sense, so Owen went barefoot. The cool water and oozing mud actually felt good as he put his gear into the canoe. A small deck made of gapped cedar planking kept him from thrusting his feet through the canoe. He arranged his pack so he could use the back of it as a desk, and slid his musket in on the right, keeping it close at hand.

  Prince Vlad held on to the canoe's stern as the other two men got in, then gave it a shove into the current. He waved from the shore. "Good luck!"

  They headed upriver. Though the Benjamin didn't have a strong current, Nathaniel and Kamiskwa paddled steadily to make headway. Both men glistened with sweat after a short time, but made no complaints about their labors.

  "I reckon, Captain, you figgered that rivers is our roads. Work fine going up, better coming back. Canoe full of pelts make a man rich down to Temperance."