At the Queen_s command

"What happened here is very clear. The Twilight People killed the Private. Lieutenant Marnhull grabbed his rifle and shot one of the raiders before being gravely wounded himself. Citation for bravery. Captain Strake killed one man who had stumbled, and the cause of death of the fourth is still under investigation. Note that Captain Strake attempted to claim credit for all four dead men, clearly out of guilt at having led the raiders to this very post."

"I must protest, my lord, this is not what happened."

Rivendell's eyes narrowed. "I think you would do well to understand, Captain Strake, that this is my expedition. I am the sole arbiter of truth. I have rendered my decision and, depending on how things proceed from here, I might be called upon to revise my view. I might find that in the excitement of the event, you misremembered what happened."

Owen tossed the Private's rifle down and recovered his own. He made a show of wiping blood from the brass butt-plate. "I'd be remiss in my duty, sir, if I did not point out that hostiles are still in the area and killing you would go a long way to destroying your expedition."

Rivendell quickly shot glances into the darkness, but did not immediately retreat. "Sergeant, have two men conduct Lieutenant Marnhull to an aid station. Bring his ear. And you, Captain Strake. I have a message to go to Prince Vladimir immediately. Tonight."

Owen looked at him. "Tonight, through these woods, knowing the Ungarakii are out there?"

"Yes, he must be warned. You are his liaison officer. You will bear the message."

At least, out there, I can kill my enemies. "Permission to reload my musket, sir?"

"It should already be loaded, sir, but I shan't write you up for that breech this time." Rivendell sniffed with indignation. "The message shall be ready in an hour."

After an hour's wait, Owen made it through to the Mystrian camp without difficulty. He had not traveled on the road, but nearby so as to avoid ambushes. Upon arrival he reported to the Prince and handed him the hastily scrawled note. Though Rivendell requested a reply to be sent back immediately by the same courier, the Prince declined to provide one and ordered Owen to remain with his party until they reached Hattersburg.

This gave Rivendell two days of apparent joy at Owen's death. It evaporated when he spied Owen in the frontier town on the ninth. His fury should have evaporated in the face of an even larger difficulty, but he immediately convened a court-martial with Langford at its head. Charges were disobeying a superior officer's direct order.

Prince Vladimir immediately invalidated the charge. "The order was never issued to Captain Strake by Lord Rivendell. The order was included in a confidential communication to me. I know his lordship would not presume to give me an order, nor did his message instruct me to instruct Captain Strake on what the message read. Since no order was issued, no order could have been disobeyed."

Even with that direct evidence, the panel deliberated long enough for a work crew to set up a flogging cross. None of the men were happy to see that, and the Mystrians became restive. Owen might be a Norillian, but there was no disguising the fact that the charges were personal. Their general dislike for Rivendell worked in Owen's favor and the tribunal returned a verdict of not guilty, forestalling a general mutiny.

Rivendell sulked for a while, then returned to high spirits when reunited with his school chums from the cavalry. The fact that their horses had not yet arrived did not seem to cause him much concern. Nor did the more distressing fact that the supplies that were supposed to be in Hattersburg had not made it in the promised quantities. The cavalry had done its best to eat their way through much of what had arrived-save for the horse fodder, which had come upriver in abundance.

The evening of the ninth consisted of two basic operations. The troopers-Mystrians and Norillians-reported to the warehouses to draw rations. By Lord Rivendell's order, rice, beans, and other staples were doled out by a curious formula by which each Mystrian was only counted as two-thirds of a person. His rationale had been that since official ration tallies were set for Norillian fighting men, and that the Mystrians were not of that caliber, they should not need a full ration. This rationale also got applied to supplies of brimstone and shot, prompting one Mystrian to wonder how it was that his musket would be less hungry, being as how it was bigger than the cavalry carbines.

The Mystrians did not complain too loudly, however. Hattersburgians learned of the injustice and opened their larders to their fellow citizens. Word circulated quietly, along with a guarantee by Prince Vlad in which he indemnified all Mystrians for the supplies they gave the troops. He even sent an order down-river with the Bookworms to send more supplies to Hattersburg to cover the donations.