The Lieutenant's Private Trade

A dismasted storage hulk rides at anchor inside a dense fog bank, with the Excise revenue cutter Plumbline moored to her port side and a smuggler's sloop tied to starboard. Deckhands are hauling confiscated crates out of the cutter's hold, across the hulk's rotten planks, and down into the smuggler's hatch—each crate ticked off by a crisp-collared officer holding a tally board. You have found Lieutenant Emlyn Wace fencing this month's seizures.

Battered and smoking, the Plumbline has surrendered, and Lieutenant Wace sits locked in your brig with his uniform collar still immaculate. He has already calculated his odds. "Those barge skippers won't hang me—they want my signature on thirty cargo release forms, which will ruin my career and land me in debtors' prison. However, there is a Crown internal examiner at the Charter port who quietly buys back disgraced officers to prevent public scandals. Deliver me to her, and she will bury this whole affair and reward you handsomely." He offers a thin smile. "You get to choose who owes you a favor."

Stepping to the Plumbline's rail, Wace appraises your ship like a clerk reading a cargo manifest. "Ah, the bargemasters' bounty poster. I heard they passed a hat around the taverns." He doesn't look the least bit worried. "I can pay you more silver right now than their hat holds. Or better yet: my fence, Sorrel Dunn, has a whole season's worth of my seized goods stashed inside a storage hulk up the fen, and I'm sick of her taking half the profits. Clear her out for me. I'll log the raid as a lawful Excise seizure, and give you a full third of the haul."

Five Lowborn barge skippers wait in the back room of a riverside tavern, seated around a scarred table holding a chalk slate and an upturned hat brimming with silver coin. Nobody raises their voice. The eldest skipper slides a thick stack of blank Excise release forms across the wood toward Wace, beside an inkwell and a tallow candle. "Every falsified seizure. Every stolen cargo mark. Take your time, Lieutenant—we have all night."

The Crown examiner works late behind a green-shaded oil lamp. She listens to your entire account without writing down a single word. "An Excise officer fencing seized goods is an internal matter for the Crown Service, not a tavern tribunal. I will pay you forty silver for him—less than the bargemasters' hat, yes—and ensure harbor inspectors leave your vessel undisturbed for a long while." She glances coldly at Wace. "He will be reassigned to a frozen rock in the far north. It isn't justice, Captain, but it is what we have."

Grounded on a mudbank amid a stand of dead cypress trees sits a roofed-over storage hulk draped in tarred canvas, with an armed guard sloop moored at her stern. Stashed inside her hold lies an entire season of plundered barge cargo. Sorrel Dunn has stayed in business this long by trusting no one—least of all a crooked Excise lieutenant who suddenly stopped haggling over prices.

Beneath the canvas roof, the hulk is stacked to the deck beams with stolen freight: sacks of grain, bar iron, loom assemblies, and an entire foundry order of cast brass. Every single crate bears its rightful owner's brand—stamped right over with Wace's fraudulent Excise seizure mark. Your crew are still tallying the haul when the Plumbline glides out from the dead trees with her cannons run out. Wace hails you from her bow: "A lawful Crown seizure, just as we agreed! Stand clear of government property, Captain—your one-third share is whatever I say it is."