At the Queen's Command Read Online Free

wiser heads could craft a campaign for the coming year. He would complete his survey, carry his report back to Launston, and the Tower Ministers would issue orders that would win glory for some and kill many more.
    And I shall be far away with my wife, happy at last.
    By mid-afternoon Owen rounded a hill covered in tall oaks and looked down upon the Prince’s estate. A small trail broke off to the south between two lines of trees onto the forested grounds. The main house—a massive brick building—had been fashioned after a summer hunting palace, complete with two wings at right angles to the center. Other outbuildings lay half-hidden in the woods nearest the river. Surprisingly little of the forest had been cleared, and in a few places it had made inroads into flat lawns.
    Aside from a thin trickle of smoke from a chimney, the only sign of life about the place was a peasant stringing pea-vines up in a small plot near the front door. Owen rode up and dismounted, making enough noise to attract the man’s attention. When the peasant continued puttering away, Owen assumed he was old and deaf, so moved to where the man could see him.
    Unless he’s blind as well .
    The man continued working.
    “Excuse me.” Owen prepared to hand the man his horse’s reins, but hesitated.
    The gardener wiped his hands off on his thighs, then tipped his broad hat back. He rocked to his feet fluidly—proving he was not particularly old, nor in any way deaf or blind. He smiled. “You would be Strake.”
    Owen dropped the reins. “Forgive me, Your Highness. I…”
    “I admire your restraint, Captain. The last man they sent was a Major who hit me with a crop.”
    Owen’s mouth gaped.
    Prince Vladimir laughed. Able to look Owen in the eye, he had a more willowy build. His brown eyes were a shade lighter than his mahogany hair, and a few wisps of white dotted his goatee. Leanness hollowed his face, and sun had weathered his flesh. He looked the very antithesis of nobles at his aunt’s court.
    Closing his mouth, Owen pointed at the peas. “You were tending peas when I arrived as a test?”
    “Come now, Captain, you are smarter than that.”
    Owen thought for a moment. There had been no way that the Prince could have anticipated the day or time of his arrival. “But, Highness, your refusal to acknowledge me…”
    “Yes, that was a test. Love to know a man’s temperament.” The Prince gathered up the bay’s reins. “Come along. You’ll have a packet for me and I’ll need my spectacles.”
    The Prince led him past the eastern wing and handed the reins to a stable boy. The Prince washed his hands in a drinking trough, then they entered the manor through a door facing the trail. They passed through an interior door into a massive room that occupied most of that wing’s ground floor.
    The Prince crossed to a large desk set against the interior wall. Owen waited in the doorway. Countless shelves filled the space, lining the walls and segmenting the room. Books filled some shelves, but others held jars in which dead specimens drifted in viscous suspensions. Frogs and fish he could easily recognize, but other things were beyond his ken. A live raven cawed from a cage opposite the desk. Posted on the top shelves, or hung from the ceiling, preserved and mounted alien animals stared at Owen with glassy eyes. The largest of them occupied displays in the corners, save for a huge bear reared up—claws and fangs clearly visible—beside the Prince’s desk.
    Vladimir removed his hat and hung it over the bear’s muzzle. He waved Owen into the room. “The packet, Captain?”
    Owen started, then removed the orders from inside his jacket and handed them over.
    The Prince smiled as he unlaced the leather wrapping. “Feel free to explore. You may find, here in my little museum, that some of your work has already been done.”
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Chapter Three

    April 27, 1763
    Prince Haven
    Temperance Bay, Mystria
     
    O wen cautiously approached the work table