After lingering for several days in the back hills of the silver mine, Blackfish finally caught sight of the furtive figures he had been waiting for.
There were five of them in total, each holding a wooden staff and carrying a pack on their back, dressed like ordinary peasants.
Blackfish lay prone behind a rock. He was wrapped in a tattered gray cloak, and from a distance he blended almost perfectly with the stone and scrub of the hills. Only after the five men had gone far ahead did he silently follow, slipping away from the mountains along a rugged, barely passable trail.
Once they reached the plains, the five men bought a cart and headed southeast along the main road. Fighting exhaustion, Blackfish continued to tail them—keeping his distance during the day, then creeping toward their campsite at night to try and eavesdrop.
The trouble was that they spoke in a local dialect. Although it was technically Anglo-Saxon, it posed real difficulty for Blackfish, a northerner by background. Worse still, they deliberately kept their voices low. All he managed to catch were a few fragments that sounded important.
"…the cabinet's auditing accounts—our good days are over. Before they notice, we need to flee to—"
"…it's all that fat bastard's fault. He ran off without a word and didn't even warn us…"
The word "fat bastard" caught Blackfish's attention. He crept closer to the campfire.
Crack.
The sound of a snapped twig cut the conversation short. The five men around the fire instantly went on alert—one drew a dagger, another raised a hunting bow and loosed an arrow toward the direction of the noise.
"Don't let him get away!"
They chased the sound for a long time but found no one—only a few spots of blood on the ground. Whether it was human blood or that of a deer, they couldn't tell.
"Stop chasing. Go back."
Worried that the silver by the fire might be stolen by vagrants, the five men abandoned the pursuit, packed up their belongings, and slipped away into the night.
—
Some time later.
Blackfish opened his eyes to find himself lying atop a wagon. A sharp pain tore through his back, and he instinctively reached out—only for someone to grab his wrist.
"Don't touch it. You'll risk infecting the wound."
Blackfish struggled to lift his head. Beside the wagon stood a knight in mail armor, surrounded by a caravan. At the front of the convoy flew an unfamiliar banner—blue cloth emblazoned with a black castle.
"A noble?" Blackfish rasped.
The knight nodded. "Yes. My lord is the Baron of Bournemouth—Briarbird. Traveling with us is the Lord of Copton—Torgil." He pointed to another wagon flying a banner marked with a three-leaf clover.
The moment Blackfish understood who they were, his spirits surged. He identified himself as an agent of Londinium County and requested assistance from the two lords.
"You'd better not be joking," the knight said.
He spurred his horse forward to the head of the caravan. Moments later, the two great nobles arrived.
One of them spoke first. "I am Briarbird. Agent, what business do you have with us?"
Blackfish omitted certain details and gave a rough account of his mission, asking them to provide assistance with the investigation.
Briarbird declined politely. "We found you yesterday morning, and it's already noon on the second day. Those culprits are long gone. And with refugees and bandits everywhere, our priority is the safety of the caravan."
After Jorunn's relocation convoy had once encountered the Black Banner Brotherhood—escaping unharmed but badly shaken—everyone had grown far more cautious. After fighting so many wars to earn their estates, dying at the hands of bandits would be unbearably humiliating.
At that moment, Torgil noticed something amiss.
"You claim to be an agent of Londinium County. Then why are you alone in Nottingham? Who are your superiors—your inspector, senior inspector, chief inspector?"
With no other choice, Blackfish told the truth—his real identity and the conclusions he had drawn. The color drained from both nobles' faces at once.
After a brief discussion lasting half a minute, they proposed sending a rider back to Londinium to report the matter. Beyond that, they said, it would be inconvenient for them to be directly involved.
"Very well. Thank you for your help, my lords."
Having lost too much blood, Blackfish's strength failed him, and he soon slipped back into unconsciousness.
—
In early March, Blackfish returned to Londinium. Lying in a sickbed, he recounted the mission to an inspector and colleagues from the Analysis Division.
Halfway through, the inspector frowned. "You keep mentioning this 'fat bastard.' You suspect the matter is connected to the former Lord Chamberlain?"
Despite having been missing for half a year, Paphis's name still appeared frequently in bureaucratic reports.
For instance, when a tower of the Londinium city wall was found to have a weakened foundation, the official in charge blamed Paphis, claiming he had embezzled construction funds. When the old royal estates across the realm submitted their accounts, any deficits were likewise pinned on the former chamberlain.
In short, thanks to his abysmal reputation, the vanished Paphis had become everyone's scapegoat—anything could be blamed on him. As a result, Blackfish found it difficult to convince his superiors or the analysts.
"Did the civil officials uncover anything else while auditing the mines?" he asked.
The inspector glanced out the window at the lawn and replied casually, "No. The mine supervisor and his close associates fled with the money. The remaining miners know very little. The cabinet concluded it was embezzlement and has already submitted a report to His Majesty."
With the transfer of royal power, many matters had become hopelessly muddled. The inspector sighed, advising Blackfish to recover in peace. This mission would be graded as 'Good', and once healed, he could return to duty.
—
The intelligence report eventually reached Vig's desk. He skimmed it, finding it largely aligned with the cabinet's conclusion. At the end, an extra line noted that the fugitives' mention of a "fat bastard" was suspected to be linked to Paphis.
"Suspected?"
Vig had lost count of how many times he'd seen the former Lord Chamberlain's name in reports. The man had become the perfect scapegoat—and a convenient way to balance accounts.
Before Vig could complain, his aide Sebert delivered another stack of documents. Vig scribbled a few lines at the end of the report, assigning follow-up work to Lucar, the Minister of Industry.
He thought to himself, As long as the three silver mines deliver seven hundred kilograms of silver ingots by the end of the year, I'll let the past slide. England's silver reserves are limited—we'll have to make money elsewhere.
The previous year's war had devastated southern Britain. Londinium, Cambridge, and Tamworth could provide very little tax revenue.
Minister of Agriculture Kemi Wildfire had proposed promoting clover and turnips in the south, but the results would be slow—far too slow to resolve the immediate fiscal crisis.
On the commercial front, relations between Vikings and Franks had collapsed after Ragnar's second invasion of West Francia. Trade volumes plummeted, and customs revenues at Dover and Southampton followed suit.
To raise money quickly, Vig took out a parchment he had stored away for years—a sketch of the Jenny spinning machine.
Back when Tyne Town was first founded, he had already considered this era-defining invention. Its profits, however, were so enormous—and so difficult to control—that he had shelved it until now.
In addition, he had long toyed with the idea of producing distilled spirits. Distillation technology already existed, but strong distilled liquor had yet to become widespread in Europe.
It's time to make a fortune.
—------------------------------
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