It was a minor and mostly irrelevant detail that Pores had somehow lost his recruits. Snatched away from the marine squads by someone nobody knew anything about. If trouble arrived Pores could look innocent and point fingers at the squad sergeants. Never make a roadblock of yourself on trouble’s road. No, make yourself a bridge instead, with stones slick as grease.
I should compose a mid-level officer’s guide to continued health, indolence and undeserved prosperity. But then, if I did that, I’d have to be out of the battle, no longer in competition, as it were. Say, retired somewhere nice. Like a palace nobody was using. And that would be my crowning feat-requisitioning a palace.
‘Queen Frabalav’s orders, sir. If you got a problem, you can always discuss it with her one-eyed torturer.’
But for now, fine Letherii smoked sausages, three crates of excellent wine, a cask of cane syrup, all for Fist Keneb (not that he’d ever see any of that); and extra blankets, extra rations, officer boots including cavalry high-steppers, rank sigils and torcs for corporals, sergeants, and lieutenants, all for his fifty or was it sixty vanished recruits-which translated into Pores’s very own private stock for those soldiers on the march who lost things but didn’t want to be officially docked for replacements.
He’d already commandeered three wagons with decent teams, under guard at the moment by soldiers from Primly’s squad. It occurred to him he might have to draw those three squads in as partners in his black-market operation, but that shouldn’t be too hard. Envy diminished the more one shared the rewards, after all, and with something at stake those soldiers would have the proper incentive when it came to security and whatnot.
All in all, things were shaping up nicely.
‘Hey there, what’s in that box?’
‘Combs, sir-’
‘Ah, for Captain Kindly then.’
‘Aye, sir. Personal requisition-’
‘Excellent. I’ll take those to him myself.’
‘Well, uhm-’
‘Not only is the captain my immediate superior, soldier, I also happen to be his barber.’
‘Oh, right. Here you go, sir-just a signature here-that wax bar, yes sir, that’s the one.’
Smiling, Pores drew out his reasonable counterfeit of Kindly’s own seal and pressed it firmly down on the wax bar. ‘Smart lad, keeping things proper is what makes an army work.’