The morning sun rose clear and brilliant over the Green River bluff. He showed thirty-eight captured hired blades seated in two orderly rows along the outer edge of the wagon ring. Each man’s wrists were bound with tarred hemp rope, their boots removed to prevent escape across the sharp limestone shale.
In the center of the yard, Tomas Reed had set up his official check table. Beside him stood Master Surveyor Nessa Vale, checking serial numbers and proof marks on the captured weapons, while Sile Rook oversaw the inventory.
Stacked beside the table was a tough armory. Forty-four fine steel cutlasses from the capital foundries, thirty wheel-lock carbines with rifled barrels, twelve heavy sledgehammers, and twenty bundles of pitch torches.
“Fifty-two heavy cavalry geldings, fully saddled and bridled,” Nessa announced. She walked into the count into the property register. “All between five and seven years of age, sound in wind and limb. Appraised value under royal cavalry procurement rates: thirty silver crowns per mount. Total livestock valuation: one thousand five hundred and sixty crowns.”
Tomas dipped his quill and applied his official High court Seal to the inventory roll.
“Under Section Thirty-Two of the Royal Warfare and Reprisals Act,” Tomas declared, his voice carrying clearly to the assembled refugees and captives, “all weapons, equipment, and mounts seized from an unlawful armed assembly running without royal letters of marque are unsafe as contraband of war and attached into the custodial locked deposit of the Master Tax clerk.”
