Clockworks Chronicles of Zahn

16) Tin in the Cup

Sir Markus stood outside Her Eminence’s office waiting admittance. He had submitted an emergency appointment request through her secretary half an hour before. He was careful to keep his outer appearance of a very worried man. Inside he was calm as ice. He knew for his next move he had to appear to be near panic for The Civilization’s and Her Eminence’s sake. He also knew, however, he needed to keep his head clear in order to ensure this step be flawless.

He had watched Her Eminence’s Privy Council leave with purpose in their eyes not more than 15 minutes before. He was pretty sure he wasn't the subject, at least not in name, for the particular meeting. He did wish he could’ve been a fly on the wall during that meeting. He tried to imagine what was discussed in the meeting and how this exalted body was so inadequate. Not for the first time he was thankful for whoever it was running the Shadowmen because they were creating much needed distractions from his own plans and maneuvers.

Shortly, the door opened and High Lord Colonel Cooper and one of the Children of the Crown left the office. Sir Markus did a double take when he saw the young boy, thinking, ‘Wasn’t that the boy said to be gravely injured in an assassination attempt?’ He must have been mistaken.

Cooper paused and said, “Sir Markus.” There was something unnerving about the way Cooper looked him up and down.

Sir Markus bowed, “High Lord Colonel.”

Cooper continued to look at Sir Markus with a gaze much like an eagle or some other raptor trying to decide if he were prey.

Sir Markus continued to keep a worried look on his face but he deliberately didn’t shrink back from Cooper’s gaze, “May I be of service to you my lord?” he asked.

“No, not at present.” Cooper then conducted the boy away towards his own office.

The Sargent at Arms said, “Sir Markus, Her Eminence will see you now.”

Her Eminence was sitting at her desk looking up at him as he approached. She asked, “What is so urgent Sir Markus?”

“Your Eminence, it grieves me to report to you there are ten million sovereigns of gold unaccounted for from the treasury.”

“I see. Do you have any explanation or suspicions how this came about?” with an obvious look of concern on her face.

“I believe before and during the coup attempt, High Lord James had the funds moved for his own purposes.” Of course, he was thinking, ‘actually I did it in his name’.

“I see. How does that impact our other operations and functions at this time?”

“Well, Your Eminence, it grieves me to report it’ll majorly affect our abilities to continue to function militarily at our current tempo. The seized funds from the rebellious barons have all but been used up or at least allocated for the repairs and reparations in Grandeur City. No balls or other such affairs of state have been scheduled in the near future, so, no funds are needed for that, but we need to curtail any further movements towards the investigating the other nobility who were related to the coup attempt. At least for now Your Eminence.”

She pursed her lips and nodded then said, “What of Our emergency stores of gold and other caches?”

“It will take some time to call in those funds, they are spread out all over The Civilization for obvious reasons.”

He watched as she looked to be considering the impact of this. He waited the appropriate amount of time then he struck while the iron was hot, “Your Eminence, I may be able to arrange a loan to the Crown.”

She looked thoughtful then said, “We do not normally do business like that. It is not our way.”

He nodded then said, “Then I must insist we furlough half our military assets to cover the shortfall. Otherwise, we will not be able to pay them.”

She looked at him with an intensity he felt almost like she was looking at his very soul. She then shook her head and said, “Very well, explore the loan but until then We will pay Our soldiers from Our personal funds if need be. Is there anything else?”

He was surprised she was willing to pay her soldiers from her personal funds. He hadn’t anticipated that, but he was pretty sure her personal assets wouldn’t be enough to continue to do so.

He shook his head and said, “No, Your Eminence, not at this time.”

“Very well, see to the necessary arrangements on the loan but do not, I repeat, do not commit Us until We have had time to look at the terms.”

“Yes, Your Eminence.” He left thinking, ‘well not entirely as planned but oh well, I will have her and The Civilization at my command soon enough’.

Victoria stared at his back as he left. The man was so obvious in his intent and tipped his hand so early, she almost couldn't contain her laughter when he mentioned one minor operational expenditure as the very first and only thing the money shortage must cease, the investigation of nobility. So many other, much more expensive activities would be curtailed long before she stopped the rooting out of the traitors, especially with the earlier meeting revealing one of royal blood brought Her back.

New recruit training will be the first thing, reduced by fifty percent. That expenditure alone costs four times as much as the investigation. Personnel movements and routine change of assignments will also be suspended. This will put enough buffer back into the coffers. There were half a hundred measures she could do long before she followed Markus's road. He had just revealed himself either a traitor or accomplice of traitors at worst and an incompetent at least. He has had too much access to the Crowns coffers. This man needs a great deal of Cooper’s style of attention. The next question will be do I have him scooped up right now and squeezed like a Perri fruit till all that remains is pulp, or do I let him continue to braid the rope I will hang him with?

She decided to let Coop weigh in on this, so she scribbled a note in Cooper’s and her private code and summoned a page.

Late afternoon, after Ouihan and Cooper laid out a plan to go forward, Ouihan went to the library’s restricted section to do some research. Sister was with him.

The librarian was reticent about letting him in there alone. But her orders from the Empress were specific.

While Ouihan and sister walked along the book racks which contained the most dangerous tomes on Zahn, his 12-year-old self couldn’t help but feel trepidation. He saw the same trepidation mirrored in Sister’s eyes. However, his thousand-year-old soul knew where he needed to start. The Wingdama Aling section.

Trying to look casual, he perused some of the titles of the books they were walking past. He paused and looked at a title he thought humorous. “Look, this one’s called The Dragon’s Cookbook.” He reached up and took it down from the shelf and carefully, respectfully opened the book up.

After perusing a few pages, he realized it was an actual dragon’s cookbook on how to prepare lesser creatures. When he came to the chapter on preparation and cooking of humans, he decided Sister shouldn’t see the illustrations. He closed the book quickly and said, “Maybe not.”

He did notice she was looking blankly at the text and realized it was written in Draconis. He also realized he didn’t know how he knew it was Draconis.

He replaced the book on the shelf and continued on toward the Wingdama section. They were both surprised to see Sir Markus busily scribbling down classic magic script and runes on a piece of paper.

He looked over Sir Markus’ shoulder for a few seconds, long enough to know he was copying the codex on sentinels and guardians from volume two of the Wingdama Aling Tomes. He smiled inwardly realizing the particular codex he was copying was incomplete because he had written a separate arcana specifically for the sentinels.

He cleared his throat and then said, “Sir Markus, what are you doing?”

Sir Markus looked like he about jumped out of his skin. He turned to Ouihan and said, “Are you supposed to be in here children?!”

Ouihan was about to divulge why he was in here but then something about Sir Marcus wasn’t right. His instinct, which has always served him well, told him he didn’t need to know and as a matter of fact he wasn’t supposed to be here himself. So, he took Sister’s hand and said, “We have a special project for school and Her Eminence gave us special permission to read from the Wingdama Aling Tomes. As a matter of fact, Volume Two is the volume we need to read today.”

Sir Markus looked around nervously and said, “Well, quite right. I am almost done with it.”

“Well, Sir Markus, may I ask what you are doing?” he asked trying to just look like a curious 12-year-old.

“No, you may not! Affairs of state are none of your business child!” as he bent back to copying the rest of the codex.

“Very well Sir Markus, we’ll wait over here until you’re finished.” And he pulled Sister over to the bookcase. He told her, as soon as Sir Markus left, she was to go get Colonel Cooper and bring him here as soon as possible.

Back in an obscure corner of the HESS’ offices on the palace grounds was a large table with several chalk boards and clockworks communications devices surrounding it. At any given time, there were 20 or so analysts sitting around this table looking at various bits of intelligence gathered and assigning interpretation and importance to the data.

Timothy Newstead was one of these analysts and he had been given the assignment of examining the Alexander Journals captured by Colonel Cooper during his raid on the Shadow’s Lair. While sorting through the copious entries in the journals he kept coming across the designation “SMA” in reference to funds being received from Calador.

He carefully noted the designation and number of occurrences and collated the information in a flash report he held up for the duty officer to process. While waiting for the duty officer to collect his report he saw the message board key up, “Sir Markus Adders under suspicion of treason. Please examine all records on him. Timothy saw this and lowered the message and checked the urgent box on the form and then started waving it to get the attention this was an urgent message instead of routine.