The Muster's Winter Stores

Floating high and empty at her moorings like a dry cork, the Free Muster's supply hulk has been stripped of four hundred tons of winter rations. An old Emberkin night-watchman holds up his lantern as you board. "According to Captain Corbin Slade, Quartermaster Abery signed the entire winter stockpile out over three nights and fled on the fourth. Slade is the one who posted the bounty."

The old watchman carefully avoids saying whether he believes Slade's story.

Captain Corbin Slade's warship, the Fair Division, is already hovering off the Gull Stack, firing cannon round after cannon round into a cave mouth halfway up the cliff. Moored bow-out inside the cavern is a small chartered sloop, where a thin clerk stands on deck waving a heavy supply ledger over his head like a truce flag.

Slade hails you down the wind: "That's my fugitive and my bounty, Captain! Stand clear—or move in and help me flush him out!"

Wearing fine leather boots and an easy smile, Captain Corbin Slade climbs up your gangway with the bounty purse already jingling in his hand.

"Well fought, Captain! I'll take the prisoner off your hands right here—along with that ledger." Clutching the book to his chest, Abery speaks in a rush: "Check the authorization numbers in this book first, Captain! Open to any page and see whose captain's code ordered those winter rations sold!"

Stooped and clutching ledger folders under both arms, Quartermaster Teague Abery spreads the master account book open across your hatch. "Four hundred tons of winter provisions, sold to the Crown blockade through a broker on Captain Slade's direct orders. I signed the release forms because a clerk can't refuse a captain—but I kept duplicate copies of every page."

"The Council of Captains sits at the main Muster port. Slade posted this bounty to silence me and burn this book. You can escort me to the Council to expose him—or we can intercept the Crown bond barge two lanes over before she delivers our stolen food to the blockade tomorrow morning."

Nine senior captains sit around a canvas sail spread over trestles under the Articles banner. Without a single interruption, Abery reads his ledger aloud, shipment by shipment. When he finishes, the presiding captain flips Slade's bounty poster over and signs a ruling on the back.

"The poster demanded Quartermaster Abery and his ledger—and you have delivered both. The Free Muster honors its contracts, Captain, and we will pay your bounty directly out of traitor Slade's forfeited seasonal share."

Weighted down by four hundred tons of stolen Muster rations sealed in blue Excise wax, the massive bond barge wallows low in the air beside a single gleaming Crown Excise cutter. Peering through your spyglass at the barge's waterline marks, Abery nods.

"Every single cask is still aboard. The barge is too heavy to flee and carries no guns—all we have to beat is that escort cutter."

Cheers rise from the piers as the harbor boom swings open and you tow four hundred tons of recovered salt pork and hardtack into port. Standing proudly atop the barge's main hatch, Quartermaster Abery checks off every cask against his ledger out of sheer habit.

"Technically, no one posted a bounty for recovering the provisions themselves," Abery tells you with a warm smile, "so the court clerk can't pay you a fee. However, as chief quartermaster, I have full authority to issue fleet stores. What does the your ship need, Captain?"