The Honest Escapement

In her basement workshop beneath the Crown Excise Hall, horologist Odalie Ferrant cracks the wax seal and lifts out brass crystal-meter movements one by one. "The Excise ordered me to rig these movements so noble mansions are underbilled for crystal power while dockside tenements are overcharged."

At the bottom of the crate sits an older, faster-ticking brass escapement. "This one isn't mine—it's the master escapement from the Admiralty gunnery clock. Someone pulled it because it proved the noble houses' cannon foundries were delivering slow-firing guns, and they banished its inventor to wind dock lamps at the front."

At the top of the basement stairs, an Excise duty inspector blocks the exit with a weighing scale, logging every parcel that leaves the hall. Hidden inside a leather glove in your coat pocket, the Admiralty escapement ticks twice as fast as any household clock.

Nailed shut on Odalie's handcart, the crate of forty rigged meter movements ticks like rain on a tin roof. "It has to travel as sealed cargo under my official Excise stamp, or the inspector on the stairs will pry it open," she warns. "If your cargo hold is full, leave the crate and take just the old Admiralty escapement in your coat."

At the frontier port, Tobren Hask spends his days winding dock lamps by hand. He cradles his old escapement in his palm. "I built this for the Admiralty proving clock. When its true beat proved the noble houses' cannon foundries were cheating on firing rates, they buried my report and exiled me here."

He nods toward the harbor entrance, where a Crown Excise cutter has just dropped anchor. "That cutter trailed you into port."

The Free Captains' assessor examines the rigged movements in disgust. "Proof at last that the Crown underbills noble estates and gouges the dockside slums! We can publish these blueprints on every pier to expose the fraud—or we can install these rigged movements on our own border meters to overcharge Crown naval stations and split the profits with you."

Caged in brass behind your battery deck, the Admiralty escapement beats with flawless precision. Hask wipes his hands on a rag. "I can wire it to time your entire battery between shots, or dismantle it to rebuild your gun mounts from the deck up."

By the dim beam of a shuttered lantern, Hask works to wire the escapement into your battery deck while the pursuing Excise cutter shadows your stern light.

"She's waiting until dawn to close in and board us," Hask warns. "Keep her off our tail until sunrise so I can finish the mounting!"

Aboard the Excise cutter, the inspector pours you a glass of brandy beside the confiscated escapement. "I will log this mechanism—and the awkward questions it raised—as destroyed at the front. On top of your thirty silver, you may claim a forty-silver bonus, or ask a favor from my office."

By evening, broadsheets exposing the rigged Crown meters are posted on every pier, with the fraudulent gear-tooth circled in bold print. The assessor meets you at your rail. "The Crown will want to know who leaked this. My name is already printed at the bottom—do you want your ship's name credited on the broadsheet as well?"

Within a week, the first inflated power bill hits a frontier Crown lamp-station. The assessor shows you the station's desperate reply: unable to pay the silver, the frontier station has offered twelve sacks of reserve crystal to keep their harbor lamps lit for another month.