Kings and Pawns

Chapter 2

After a quick stop in my apartment to change from my official dress uniform that I had worn to my audience with the Emperor, I headed across the palace grounds to the record room. It was a place that I seldom vivited, inhabited by the dozens of clerks and assistants that kept track of all of Clarkadia's economical records, taxes, businesses, lands, trades, and shipments.

The hall to the record room was empty, causing the sword that I always had strapped to my hip to sound louder than it usually did. I put my hand in the hilt in attempts to stop its clatter. My face was furrowed in concentration as I pondered the best way to go about searching for the information that I sought.

I reached the end of the hall, opened the door and strode in without pausing. I encountered a startled page boy, colliding into him as he scurried by my. He dropped what he had been carrying. Loose papers spread like an avalanche across the grey stone floor. The accident attracted attenton, several clerks that were scribbling on papers at near by desks stopped their writing to stare at us.

A short balding man, whom I assumed was the head record keeper, strode quickly across the room.

"Darien!" he reprimanded the page boy, "Look at what you've done! Get these papers organized immediately. I have had just about enough of your shennanigans."

The boy scrambled to gather the papers before scurrying into the other room.

The portly grayhaired man turned to me. "I am sorry, Sir William, the boy is new here and has not learned his place."

I straightened my jacket. "That is quite all right, the mishap was more my fault than the boy's. I assume that you are the head record keeper here, sir?"

"That I am, Sir William. Clayton Ebbersol at your command. How can I be of any assistance to you, Sir?"

I eyed the clerks that were still watching us. Mr. Ebbersol followed my gaze and snapped at them to get back to work.

"Sir, if you'll follow me to my desk, we'll have some privacy."

He turned smartly and hurried back across the room. I folowed him to a small alcove set some distance from the other desks. He sat behind the desk, automatically taking up a quill pen before asking his question again. "What can I do for you, Sir William?"

"I'm looking for a particular shipment," I said, acting as if it was perfectly normal for a combat trainer to be searching for shipping information.

He smiled at me. "You've come to the perfect place. Every shipment that has been legally sent or received has been documented here."

He looked uncertain for a moment. "However, I am not quite sure how useful the information will be though, each documented shipment is simply a date, the cargo, the starting point, and the destination, very little else."

"That is fine Mr. Ebbersol, I only need the specifics of the shipment."

He beamed again.

"Good, good, the first thing we'll need to know is the date of the shipment that you are looking for, either the starting date or the date it was received. That is the fastest way to sort through the filed chaos."

"The shipment was yesterday."

Mr. Ebbersol's smile faltered. "So recent? Oh, uh, that may not have been recoreded yet. I may be wrong though, so we'll continue. Do you know what the cargo on board the shipment was? And the starting point?"

"The cargo was silver, copper and iron ore. The location is the information that I am looking for. I do know that it came from the west, close to the border."