In the temporary survey tent on the gravel ridge, Hester Quill laid out the two parallel records of the Fourth Fenland Levy before Magistrate Valen.
On the left lay the royal casualty roll, approved nineteen years earlier by the Grand Adventurers’ Guild Board and signed by Sir Justinian. On the right lay the field journal of Captain Brand and the one hundred and forty brass tags recovered from the chapel.
Magistrate Valen sat at the folding table, his face as gray and grim as marsh slate as he read the parallel columns.
“In the Royal Gazette,” Hester explained, her steel pen tapping the official court record, “Sir Justinian declared that on the night of the breach, Company Four abandoned their weapons, broke through the outer edge in mutinous panic, and scattered into the Weeping Delta to avoid battle. Under the Royal Articles of War, Section Nine, every man was recorded as a Deserter in the Face of the Enemy.”
Valen leaned back in his campaign chair, his mouth pressed into a thin, white line. “And the civil consequences?”
“Total devastation for one hundred and forty families,” Hester replied. Her voice shook with restrained fury. “Under country law, a deserter’s old family lease is forfeited to the crown. Their cottages in High-Fen and Brook End were auctioned off. Their widows were denied all military pensions and forced into the town poor-houses. Their children were charged double tithes on all peat cutting as ‘traitor’s kin.’ For nineteen years, the families of these…
