She opened one.
A polite salutation. Praise for his continued diligence. A paragraph acknowledging “the difficulties of the present climate.”
The closing line, ‘Nevertheless, quotas must be met.’
Aoife’s jaw tightened.
She set that letter aside and scanned another.
It contained the same message, different wording. Careful pressure applied to the prefects to keep them in line.
Two large leather books were open on the table. She quickly identified the first as a ledger. Dates, quantities, and destinations were all carefully detailed. Her father kept something similar, though it was a lot less neat.
She opened the second ledger. It was nearly identical: the same dates, the same quantities, the same destinations. Why keep two ledgers of the same information?
She leaned closer.
The numbers weren’t the same.
Seven barrels of feldgrain in the first ledger. Nine in the second.
Four crates of apples were listed in the first. Six in the second.
Her pulse thudded in her ears.
One for the empire. One for himself.
She stared at the ledgers until the ink blurred. Halverton claimed he was barely meeting quotas, that he could not spare more grain, and that the Empire demanded too much.
But he was sending less than he claimed.
And keeping the difference.
She pressed her lips together, thinking. He’d argued with the other lords about keeping food back for the farmers. Had she judged him too harshly? Was he holding back more than he was supposed to?
It didn’t seem likely. He’d made his ambitions clear to her on the first day; he intended to be Viceroy. He wouldn’t jeopardise that for ‘a few insignificant peasants.’ So what was he playing at? Aoife couldn’t quite put the pieces together.
She forced herself to focus. Her eyes snapped to the open ledger. Nine barrels of feldgrain recorded in storage at the outhouse. It was a small, squat building on the property. She’d asked the gardener about it, and he’d told her it used to be used for garden tools, but Lord Halverton had them empty it out when he moved in. Now it was used for overflow storage.
Nine barrels of grain.
If she changed it would he even notice?
Aoife dipped the pen.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor.
Aoife’s breath hitched.
He couldn’t have returned already.
The ink trembled only slightly at the tip. With one careful stroke, she turned the nine into an eight.
A single line.
A tiny rebellion.
The footsteps drew nearer.
