Adventuring Hooks of Britannia

Who is hiring in Britannia in 4621, and why. Each hook names a patron from the volumes or the Faces, the job, the patron's real reason, the pay in the realm's money, the sources it rests on and what in it is new. Game Masters also see the catch.

Money is counted in twenties: 20 mites make a penny, 20 pence a shilling and 20 shillings a pound. Ordinary hired work is a shilling a day with keep; double wages are 2s. See Prices of the Realm.

What made a beast, a power or a possession is never stated here; it appears only in the mouths of those who hire.

Adventuring companies and guilds

Companies sub-hire, replace losses and take on hands for the season; patrons retain whole companies for first call on what comes back.

1. The Fourth Name on the List

Cambridge, then the Marches beyond the belt

Patron: Ismay Vance · Vance's Company
The job: Vance's Company is short two members for a commission into the Marches and will take on a hired party for one season to fill the gap. The party carries, guards and writes; Vance's own people do the finding. They leave in a fortnight.
Why they hire: Vance has lost more people than any company in the town and cannot recruit inside Cambridge on her name alone; outsiders do not yet know to be afraid.
Pay: Above the trade rate: 1s 10d a day each and keep, paid weekly to a named house in Cambridge; a tenth share of what is certified on return; no advance.
Sources: Face: Ismay Vance; Book III: the retrieval belt and its companies
New: The vacancy, the commission and the terms are invented.

2. Two Expeditions a Season

Cambridge and the retrieval belt

Patron: Dame Eleanor Markham
The job: Dame Eleanor's company of nineteen years has broken up after a death. She wants a new company retained on the same bargain: two expeditions a season, her first call on whatever comes back at prices fixed before leaving.
Why they hire: She has a collection to feed and a reputation for never asking where anything came from; she needs a company that will not tell her either.
Pay: A retainer of £12 a season for the company, all carriage and passage found, and fixed prices on return agreed in writing before each expedition.
Sources: Face: Dame Eleanor Markham; Book III: patronage in the retrieval belt
New: The end of her old company and the survivor are invented.

3. Six Make a Company

Cambridge, a hiring room off the market

Patron: Master Crispin Vey
The job: Vey will put a new party forward for a first commission, a small recovery from a cut-off chapel in the belt, on condition that they come to him as six: a leader, two to fight, one who knows the country, one to keep the material and one to write.
Why they hire: He wrote Notes on Hiring and Passage and is tired of burying companies that came home with stories instead of records; sponsoring one that follows the book is his argument made flesh.
Pay: A shilling a day each and keep, the ordinary rate, for a fortnight; carriage home of the party's own goods; Vey's letter of introduction, which is worth more than the money.
Sources: Face: Master Crispin Vey (Notes on Hiring and Passage, 4619); Book III: some thirty companies of reputation hold the belt
New: The chapel commission and the rival company's challenge are invented.

4. Under the Articles

A Kentish harbour quay

Patron: Factor of the Blackwater Contract Fellowship · Blackwater Contract Fellowship
The job: The Fellowship needs a party who are not its members to collect a debt from a ship's master who has fled his articles and gone to ground in a harbour town. The debt is real and the papers are good.
Why they hire: The Fellowship cannot be seen to send its own men; the last time it did, the town wrote to the Admiralty.
Pay: £3 to the party, half in advance; a tenth of what is recovered; passages found.
Sources: Figures of the Past: Captain Jorren Blackwater, The Fellowship Articles (4576); Book VII: Blackwater, rifles first and clerks after
New: The fled master, the debt and the agent's skimming are invented.

5. Read It Aloud

Any hiring room in the belt

Patron: Lady Margaret Vane's charge (read by the hiring hall)
The job: A cathedral chapter wants a chapel road tested that has gone wrong: walk it by day, walk it by night, record what is found and touch nothing. The hall that brokers it reads Lady Margaret Vane's charge on first commissions to every party before the contract is signed.
Why they hire: The chapter owns the road, the relics and the moral authority, and has no hands to spare; as Vane put it nearly a century ago, that gap is why companies are wanted at all.
Pay: 15s each for the week, a quarter in advance; a bonus of £1 to the party for a written account the chapter can act on.
Sources: Face: Lady Margaret Vane (charge on first commissions, c. 4530); Book I: why companies are wanted
New: The chapel road, the lay brother and the stones are invented.

Trading guilds and merchants

Cargo, routes and seals are money; a missing barrel, a moved bearing or a forged certificate costs more than a hired party.

6. Too Neatly Sealed

The lower Thames entries

Patron: Commissioner Alexander Marr · Thames Customs
The job: A reliquary has come in on a coaster under seals that are too good. Marr wants it followed, not seized: who collects it, where it goes, and whose house it ends in. He will not use his own customs men, whom every broker on the river knows by sight.
Why they hire: Devotional freight is his particular reputation, and he suspects a ring that moves relics past the cathedral registers by paying for perfect seals.
Pay: £2 a week to the party while the trail lasts; a further £5 if it ends at a name he can take to the Bench.
Sources: Face: Commissioner Alexander Marr; Book II: customs on the lower Thames and devotional freight
New: The reliquary, the ring and the canon are invented.

7. The Calendar Says Tuesday

Dover

Patron: Keeper Piers Quayle · The Dover packet calendar
The job: A sailing entered in the calendar for a Tuesday did not go, and the hull is not in any harbour. Quayle wants a party to ride the coast road to the eastern gaps and find out where the packet is, or what is left of it, before the owners' meeting on Friday.
Why they hire: An entered sailing that does not go is no breach; a hull missing from an entered sailing is the thing the office exists to prevent, and the owners will ask whether the calendar still works.
Pay: £4 to the party for the week, horses found; the owners' bonus of £10 if the hull is found afloat.
Sources: Book V §6.3: the Keeper and the packet calendar; Chronicle: The Black Wake (4615–4617); Known by Name: Things of Wreck and Shoal
New: The missing packet and the owner's early sailing are invented.

8. Who Holds the Paper

London, Exchange Court

Patron: Cyprian Ardle · Blue Ledger Company
The job: The Blue Ledger has paid out on a bonded warehouse fire at Queenhithe and now believes the goods were never inside. Ardle wants the party to find where the goods went, quietly, and to bring back proof he can use without a court.
Why they hire: Ardle writes policies that leave the owner unnamed; a fraud on one of those cannot be argued in public without explaining the policy.
Pay: £8 to the party, a third in advance; a fifth of anything recovered; Ardle's word that the party's own names never appear on a Blue Ledger paper.
Sources: Face: Cyprian Ardle, Chief Underwriter of the Blue Ledger; Book III: Cambridge's illicit trade lies outside the wall
New: The fire, the fraud and the destination are invented.

9. A Numbered Vessel

Cambridge and the road to Sarrum

Patron: Warden Martin Quince · Glassmere Company
The job: One of Glassmere's individually numbered sealed vessels has turned up for sale in a Sarrum pawn room, empty. Quince wants it bought back, and the chain of hands traced to the yard it left.
Why they hire: A vessel's failure is a containment breach; a vessel walking out of the yard is worse, and the guild would rather find its own leak than let the Walls find it.
Pay: £3 to the party and the cost of the vessel; a further £3 for the name of the yard hand.
Sources: Face: Warden Martin Quince; Book III: Glassmere, sealed vessels and containment breach
New: The vessel, the pawn room and the signature are invented.

10. Banked, Not Cold

Cambridge, White Furnace Row

Patron: Warden Abel Crowe · Blue Kiln Fellowship
The job: A furnace hand died in a kiln room that the master swears was safe. The Fellowship wants independent witnesses to go through the firing record, the room and the men's accounts before the inquest sits in nine days.
Why they hire: Crowe argues from the firing record, not from grievance; if the record is false, he needs strangers to say so, because a Fellowship man will be called partial.
Pay: 15s each for the nine days and keep; the Fellowship's standing invitation to its hall, which is a door into every fired trade in the town.
Sources: Face: Warden Abel Crowe; Book III: the Yard Interest, death payments and hours in dangerous heat
New: The death, the master and the fuel are invented.

The army and navy

The services are stretched across the Surge, the southern siege and the convoys, and hire short-term hands where regulars cannot be spared.

11. Either Side of the Wall

The stations either side of Port Saint Nicholas

Patron: The Crown service's agent for the southern stations · The Crown service
The job: The service wants parties at the stations on either side of the besieged port: keep the gates shut, see the water carriers safely to the wells and back, and still be standing on the day relief comes in. Nobody can say when that will be.
Why they hire: Port Saint Nicholas has been besieged since 4620 and the Commons is asking whether a position that cannot be held should have been taken; the service needs the stations kept until the argument is settled.
Pay: The highest fee of the season: £2 a week each, a quarter in advance, passages found; the clock is open-ended and the articles are being written in a hurry.
Sources: Book VII: the thirteenth commission (relief on the besieged coast); Chronicle: The Sand Incursion and the Siege of Port Saint Nicholas (4620)
New: The weekly rate and the missing withdrawal clause are invented.

12. A Garrison Hires Guides

The western counties

Patron: General George Ashcroft's staff · The Crown Army
The job: The army is laying a magazine road through hedged country where watch rotations have begun to fail. Before it admits the district is unsafe, the staff wants hired guides and investigators to walk the road ahead of the survey and report what is in the hedges.
Why they hire: Ashcroft fights a corridor war of roads and magazines; a regiment sent to hunt boar-things in hedgerows is a regiment not guarding the road, and a public admission would empty the district.
Pay: A shilling a day each and keep, the ordinary rate; 10s a head for any beast brought in dead, certified by the regimental surgeon.
Sources: Face: General George Ashcroft; Book I §10: garrisons hire guides and investigators; Chronicle: The Western Monster Surge (since 4619)
New: The magazine road and the head-bounty are invented.

13. The Mast That Did Not Answer

A guarded mast in the downs

Patron: Admiral-Captain Ysabel Mere · The Crown aerial service
The job: A guarded mast on the downland route has stopped answering signals for three days. Mere wants a party sent overland to find out why, because a craft sent to look may become the next thing that does not answer.
Why they hire: The Admiralty still claims the aerial service as a branch of maritime transport; a second lost craft would settle that question against her.
Pay: £5 to the party, half in advance; horses and a signal kit found; a further £5 if the mast is in working order when they leave.
Sources: Face: Admiral-Captain Ysabel Mere; Book II: guarded masts and lift discipline
New: The silent mast, the private craft and the steward are invented.

14. Convoy Seriousness

The southern ports

Patron: Admiral Sir George Blackwood's flag lieutenant · The Navy
The job: Blackwood wants armed passengers aboard a slow convoy to the southern sea: a party who can hold a deck, keep a cargo under seal and write the account of every sail sighted. Insurance on southern sailings has risen since Port Saint Nicholas and the owners will not sail without them.
Why they hire: The Navy cannot spare a frigate for every convoy; a hired party with a naval paper is cheaper than the Commons debate about the frigates it does not have.
Pay: £1 10s a week each, rations and berths found; prize money at a twentieth share if a raider is taken, which the articles describe as unlikely.
Sources: Face: Admiral Sir George Blackwood; Book VII: insurance on southern sailings has risen since 4620
New: The convoy, the double insurance and the paid crewman are invented.

15. Nine Attempts, No Loss

The Sarrum line, between Enginemead and the capital

Patron: Captain Iver Dane · The Sarrum line garrison
The job: Dane is short a detachment at the third blockhouse for a month while the Grey Pike men rotate. He will take a hired party onto the line under his articles: patrol the cut, keep the book, and do not go past the eleventh mile after dark.
Why they hire: His blockhouse book records nine attempts in eleven years and no loss, and he will not have the tenth on his watch for want of men.
Pay: A shilling a day each and keep, paid by the Sarrum council under the line contract; a written discharge from Dane, which the Sarrum hiring rooms honour.
Sources: Face: Captain Iver Dane; Chronicle: The Third Blockhouse (4601), The Eleventh Mile (4613); Book IV: the Grey Pike detachments on the line
New: The vacancy and the old serjeant are invented.

The militia and the watch

Ward officers are few and known; they hire strangers for the work their own faces would spoil.

16. Beyond What a Watch Can Manage

A river ward of London

Patron: Colonel Osbert Fell · The London militia
The job: Fell has drawn an emergency perimeter round a ward where the watch has lost two men in a week. He wants a hired party inside the line, where his formations cannot go without becoming a riot, to find what is taking the watchmen.
Why they hire: He once held a barricade through a night of disorder without a shot fired and means to hold this one the same way; a militia company going house to house would end that.
Pay: £1 each for the week, rations from the militia stores, and a pass through the perimeter both ways, which is the part that matters.
Sources: Face: Colonel Osbert Fell; Book II: London's layered force
New: The ward, the losses and the syndicate's plan are invented.

17. What He Cannot See

Sarrum, the Rows

Patron: Serjeant Aubrey Fenn · The Rows watch
The job: An insurer has hired the party to find out why a hall in the Rows keeps losing stock. The approach that has worked before is to ask Fenn what he cannot see, take the answer, and go and look there.
Why they hire: Fenn's men have kept the Rows unbreached since 4489 and he will not have an insurer's company call his watch dishonest; he would rather show them the blind spot himself.
Pay: The insurer pays: £2 to the party and a further £3 on proof. Fenn pays nothing, and that is his help.
Sources: Face: Serjeant Aubrey Fenn; Book IV: the Rows, the halls and the insurers
New: The hall, the clerk and the losses are invented.

18. Outside the Wall

Cambridge, outside the liberty

Patron: High Constable Adam Fenne · The Cambridge civic watch
The job: Two of Fenne's constables followed a cart out through the gate and did not come back. He wants a hired party to go where his men have no standing, along the roads outside the wall, and bring them home.
Why they hire: Inside the liberty Cambridge sees everything; outside it is blind by design, and the High Constable cannot ask the Collegium's yard officers to cross a line their charter does not reach.
Pay: £3 to the party, paid from the watch chest the day they return; a further £2 for each constable brought back alive.
Sources: Face: High Constable Adam Fenne; Book III: Cambridge has no quarter where the town's authority stops; the shadow trade lies outside the wall
New: The missing constables and the cart are invented.

19. The Beadle's List

London, Bell Lantern Ward

Patron: A ward beadle of Bell Lantern Ward · The ward watch
The job: The beadle knows his permit rolls, the lodging gossip, and which stairs in the ward hide an Afflicted child beneath the boards. A child on his permit roll has vanished, and he wants a party to find her before the ward officer writes it down.
Why they hire: Once a disappearance is written down it becomes a case, and cases in Bell Lantern Ward end with families moved on. The beadle would rather find the child than file her.
Pay: Whatever the beadle can raise: 12s from his own pocket and a debt of favours in the ward, which a company working London will need.
Sources: Book II: Beadle Thomas Rooke of Bell Lantern Ward and the permit rolls; Book I: the Hidden Lamp; Face: Sir Ralph Pembury (patron of unusual cases)
New: The vanished child, the beadle's commission and the sale of the roll are invented.

20. Changing the Walk

Sarrum, Hollowgate

Patron: The Sarrum line council's warden of the night watch · The Sarrum council
The job: The council wants a watch walked through Hollowgate for a month after the suppression of 4611 left three streets feeling wrong. Its own watch refuses the streets after the second bell; a hired party will take them.
Why they hire: The Black Lantern house said the ground was quiet; the streets say otherwise, and the council has already paid the house once.
Pay: A shilling a day each and keep for the month; lodging found in the watch house.
Sources: Chronicle: The Hollowgate suppression (4611); Book IV: Hollowgate and the Black Lantern Brethren
New: The month's watch and the drains are invented.

The nobility

Houses hire to hold, prove and defend ground, to settle quarrels quietly and to keep their names out of the record.

21. Before the Shrievalty Can

The Northern Fringes

Patron: Baron George Keldwick
The job: Keldwick wants a company to winter in two farmsteads his paper calls his and his reach does not: keep them occupied from Michaelmas to Lady Day, so that the record shows continuous keeping when the claim reaches court.
Why they hire: In the Reclamation Feuds what wins a claim is the land kept without a break, with neighbours who lived through it to swear so; he needs witnesses, and it is winter.
Pay: £15 to the party for the winter, food and fuel found; a lease of one farmstead for three years at a peppercorn if the claim stands.
Sources: Face: Baron George Keldwick; Face: Captain Jim Rook; Chronicle: The Northern Fringes Reclamation Feuds (since 4611)
New: The two farmsteads and the winter commission are invented.

22. After Dark, Ask Deane

Stone Oast, on the Wold

Patron: Baron Matthew Quire
The job: Quire is short of ready coin and long on grazing, and someone is taking his stock off the Wold at night. He wants a hired party to watch the open ground for a fortnight and name the takers.
Why they hire: He holds of the Crown and is free of the four Great Houses; he will not ask any of them for help, and he cannot afford a house's price anyway.
Pay: 15s each for the fortnight, keep inside the wall, and the pick of one yearling horse at the end.
Sources: Face: Baron Matthew Quire; Face: Captain Hugh Deane; Book III: Stone Oast and the Wold's usages
New: The stock losses and the takers' right are invented.

23. The Signal Mast Lights

Lantern Fort

Patron: Sir Martin Fell, for Baron Alured Greyfen
The job: The fort's signal mast lit twice in a week, and both times the next station along did not answer. Fell wants a party to ride the signal line, find out which station is failing and why, and be back before the district is called to readiness.
Why they hire: If the Crown calls the district to readiness the baron must provision the fort at the schedule's price, and the Greyfens have been arguing about the schedule since the Third Baron War.
Pay: £2 10s to the party from the baron's purse; Fell's leave to enter the fort after dark, which no letter from the baron can give.
Sources: Face: Sir Martin Fell; Face: Baron Alured Greyfen; Figures of the Past: Lord Gerold Greyfen (the schedule price)
New: The failing station and the purveyor's bribe are invented.

24. Owes the Banks Nothing

Hartfell Chase and the hay roads of the Sarrum county

Patron: Duke Nicholas Hartfell · House Hartfell
The job: A drover court has written that a Hartfell levy-man is taking beasts off the hay roads, as a levy captain did in the Long Hunger. The duke wants outsiders to ride the roads and find the truth before the court's next sitting.
Why they hire: Hartfell's strength is that it owes the banks nothing and the drover courts everything; a second Pale Stag would cost the house the one thing it cannot mortgage.
Pay: £6 to the party, horses from the Chase; the duke's thanks, which the drovers can see.
Sources: Face: Duke Nicholas Hartfell; Known by Name: Randal Hartfell, the Pale Stag; Book IV: the drover courts
New: The new reaver and the bank's payment are invented.

25. Wet Ground Is Governed

The fens

Patron: A Redmarsh factor · House Redmarsh
The job: Redmarsh wants a drainage cut altered and must have the consent of the holders at the reed sessions. Its factor hires a party to carry the proposal round four settlements, eat at each table and bring back their answers, written.
Why they hire: In the fens Redmarsh money goes a long way and buys no lordship; the duke is suspicious of grand schemes and will not send an engineer the settlements already dislike.
Pay: £2 to the party for the round, boats and a guide found; £1 more for every settlement that says yes in writing.
Sources: Face: Duke Walter Redmarsh; Known by Name: The Three Fens; Book VI: the reed sessions
New: The cut, the round and the fourth settlement's bargain are invented.

The clergy

Chapters and orders hire escorts, witnesses and hands for burial, suppression and the errands an office cannot be seen to run.

26. Watchers for the Godmersham Hearth

Godmersham, the Stour valley, Kent

Patron: The incumbent of Godmersham · Godmersham parish; the Black Lantern Brethren at Wye
The job: A household has reported a warm room with no fire, the first sign the valley reads as the Crooked Hearth. The parish wants hired watchers in the house day and night until a brother of the Wye house arrives, and the brother is a week away at best.
Why they hire: The parish cannot afford a suppression and knows it; what it can afford is to be able to say it did everything a parish could while it waited.
Pay: 2s a head a day and keep; £1 more to the company if the household is whole when the brother comes
Sources: Chronicle: Margery Chilham's report, 4620; Chronicle: the Crooked Hearth visitations, 4221; Book V: the Crooked Hearth
New: The watchers' pay and terms; the second-stage sign as a GM clock.

27. The Corpse Road to the Burning Ground

From the river wards of London to a burial field outside the city

Patron: Father Rowan Dene · London parish burial correction
The job: Six dead from a fever court must go to consecrated ground by night under the burial orders, and the usual carters have refused the route. Dene wants a company to walk the coffins, keep the lamps lit and see that every box that leaves arrives.
Why they hire: He has lost a body on this road before and spent a year answering for it; he wants witnesses who are not his own parish.
Pay: 15s a night for the company, paid at the gate of the burial field; double if the count is right twice
Sources: Book I: corpse lines, grave roads and burial watches; Face: Father Rowan Dene
New: This convoy and its route; the lighter box.

28. A Brother for Netherlode

The flooded parish of Netherlode, Sarrum's levels

Patron: The vestry of the parish next to Netherlode · Two parish vestries; the Black Lantern house at Sarrum
The job: The Black Lantern house has twice refused to attend Netherlode, whose drowned dead were never lifted and never prayed over. The neighbouring vestry wants a company to take a priest out by boat, say the office over the water, and bring back a written account the house cannot dismiss.
Why they hire: The vestry thinks the trouble is starting to walk inland, and that a third refusal would be harder for the house to make if there is a record.
Pay: £3 and a boat, half before; the company keeps whatever the vestry's letter wins from the Brethren later
Sources: Chronicle: the Black Lantern's refusals at Netherlode; Chronicle: the unanswered requests for Netherlode, 4599
New: The vestry's plan, the boat office and the priest.

29. The Cellar Mass

Southwark, the Bellmarsh lanes

Patron: Father Ignatius Mote · A hidden chapel off the Bellmarsh lanes
The job: Mote's cellar congregation are the excommunicate, the unregistered and Afflicted whose papers have lapsed. Two of them have been taken in the street by men claiming to be ward officers, and he wants them found and the men named.
Why they hire: He cannot go to the watch without bringing the watch to his cellar, and his people have nowhere else to pray.
Pay: Nothing in coin; he offers the confessions he has heard about the men who took them, and a safe room for a company that needs one
Sources: Book II: the hidden chapels and Father Ignatius Mote; Book II: Beadle Thomas Rooke and the permit rolls; Face: Sir Ralph Pembury (in review)
New: The two taken congregants and the beadle's sale.

30. The Grey Nails' Accounting

The hop gardens of mid Kent

Patron: The rector of a Kentish hop parish · A hop parish; the Grey Nails of Kent; the Wye house
The job: The Grey Nails dealt with a woman in this parish three years ago; now the trouble the parish is suffering comes from her grave. The rector wants to know what the Nails actually did, and he wants to know before he has to pay the Wye house to clear up after them.
Why they hire: His own churchwarden called the Nails, and the rector suspects the warden had his own reasons for wanting her gone.
Pay: £2 for the company and a dinner at the rectory; £5 if the account is good enough to show the archdeacon
Sources: Book V: the Grey Nails of Kent; Chronicle: house attendances at the graves of the Grey Nails' dead, 4611
New: This parish, the churchwarden's motive and the rector's fee.

The Collegium and Cambridge

Material must be found, carried, proved and accounted for; the Register forgives nothing and the yards pay for care.

31. A Trace from the Deep Workings

The New Lode and the deep workings, Sarrum

Patron: Doctor Hollis Prewitt · Ash House, Sarrum (the Schola's field house)
The job: Ash House needs a sealed trace taken from a gallery that the colliers have stopped working, and carried to the house the same day so it can be examined before it changes. Prewitt wants a company to go down with his examiner, keep the seals intact and keep the examiner alive.
Why they hire: A sound finding could reopen a profitable shaft and pay for the house for a year; a spoiled sample would be his third this season.
Pay: £4 for the company, a Black Lantern officer's fee paid by the colliery, and 10s a head extra if the seals arrive whole
Sources: Book IV: Ash House; Chronicle: founding of Ash House, 4608; Chronicle: the Unplanned Ground Rule of 4606; Face: Doctor Hollis Prewitt (in review)
New: The gallery, the sample and the brother assigned.

32. The Register's Missing Leaf

Cambridge, and wherever the leaf has gone

Patron: Registrar Margery Vaine · Cambridge Collegium, the Register
The job: A copied leaf of the Register, listing where three condemned items were sent for grinding, has turned up in a London sale catalogue. Vaine wants the leaf back, the copyist named, and the three items accounted for, quietly.
Why they hire: She has read the Register entire twice; she knows what a leaf like this lets a buyer find, and she does not intend a second White Vault in her time.
Pay: £10, paid by the Collegium on her warrant; the company's expenses in London met against receipts
Sources: Face: Registrar Margery Vaine; Chronicle: the White Vault Scandals, 4553–56; Face: Lionel James Petherick, Black Gull Auctioneer
New: The leaf, the three items and the sale.

33. Retrieval of the Unproved

A failed engine yard on the edge of the Marches

Patron: Examiner Ursula Kell · Cambridge Collegium, material examination
The job: A yard that went bankrupt left unproved stock in its sheds, and the Collegium has the right to take it before the creditors sell it. Kell needs it packed under seal, carted to Cambridge and handed over with the count intact.
Why they hire: Unproved matter loose in a creditors' sale is the kind of thing the Collegium exists to prevent, and she would like it done before anyone notices the yard has closed.
Pay: £6 for the company and the hire of two carts; a bonus of £2 if nothing is missing at the count
Sources: Book III: the rule of blessing, proving and recording; Face: Examiner Ursula Kell
New: This yard, its stock and the creditors' men.

34. A Guarantor for the Road

From the Oxford ring to Cambridge

Patron: Matron Joan Larke · Cambridge Guarantor Rooms
The job: A marked family has been given a hearing at the Guarantor Rooms, but must travel round the Oxford ring to reach it, and their papers lapse in nine days. Larke wants them brought in, with their papers dry and their sponsor's letter whole.
Why they hire: She has seen what a wet seal did at the North Gate, and she will not lose a family to the road between her rooms and their hearing.
Pay: £1 10s from the Rooms' fund, and the family's own savings, which Larke advises the company not to take
Sources: Face: Matron Joan Larke; Book III: the Guarantor Rooms; Chronicle: the Oxford North Gate Hanging; Chronicle: Barrow Ash, 4609
New: This family, its sponsor and the hostile party.

35. What Was Walled Up at Stonecourt

Stonecourt, the Cambridge stone country

Patron: Quarry-Master Alditha Rowe · Stonecourt quarry
The job: The eastern face has been stopped since 4609 and a walled hollow behind it has needed walling twice. The Collegium has finally asked in writing, and Rowe wants a company present when the wall is opened, to stand between her men and whatever the floor was walked by.
Why they hire: Rowe has carried the quarry's silence for twelve years; she would like it to be someone else's business by the end of the week.
Pay: £8 from the quarry; the Collegium's examiner pays nothing but will sign the company's certificate
Sources: Chronicle: stopping of Stonecourt's eastern face, 4609; Chronicle: the two hollows at Stonecourt; Face: Quarry-Master Alditha Rowe
New: The opening, its terms and the examiner's role.

Collectors and antiquaries

Provenance, recovery and the testing of legends; collectors pay well and ask few questions about method.

36. Correcting a Plinth

A market town of the High South, and its records

Patron: David Ashdown · Society for Corrected Antiquities
The job: A town is about to unveil a new bronze to a man its schoolchildren call a reclamation hero. Ashdown wants a company to find out, before the unveiling, whether he did what the inscription says, and to bring back the parish books that prove it either way.
Why they hire: The Society publishes; a finding against a plinth fills a winter's dinners, and Ashdown has already sold the paper to two subscribers.
Pay: £5 and expenses; another £5 if the finding is published under the Society's name
Sources: Book II: the memorial roll and the hero on the plinth; Face: David Ashdown
New: The town, the hero and the books.

37. The Lantern Chamber's New Piece

Westminster, then wherever the provenance leads

Patron: Lady Constance Mary Alderwick · Westminster collector-supper circles
The job: A devotional piece is to be shown at her next supper, and a rival guest has whispered that it came out of a sealed reliquary. Lady Constance wants its provenance walked back to the place it left, before the supper, by people who will not talk at it.
Why they hire: Her standing in the circles rests on never having been caught with a bad piece; she would rather lose the object than the reputation.
Pay: £12, discreetly; a supper invitation, which is worth more in Westminster than the money
Sources: Face: Lady Constance Mary Alderwick; Book I: relic testers; Prices of the Realm: the suppressing order
New: The piece, its chapter and the rival guest.

38. Salvage and False Provenance

The lower ways of London

Patron: Master Symon Rook · London lower ways brokerage
The job: A lot Rook brokered has come back to him with a buyer's complaint: the label says one descent, the mud on it says another. He wants the real descent found and walked, so he can say honestly where it came from and whether more is down there.
Why they hire: Rook's trade lives on knowing who carried the lantern and who held the key; one bad provenance and the better rooms stop sending to him.
Pay: A fifth of the next lot from the same descent, or £4 flat if there is nothing there
Sources: Book II: Master Symon Rook, Broker's Notes on the Lower Ways, 4619; Face: Master Symon Rook
New: The lot, the descent and the rival broker.

39. Making It Safe for Display

London, the Hall of Curiosities, and a country house sale

Patron: John Nicholas Pike · Hall of Curiosities
The job: Pike has bought a country house's cabinet unseen, and among its labelled pieces is one marked only in the old house's hand. He wants a company to collect the cabinet, keep it closed on the road, and stay in the hall the first night it is opened.
Why they hire: The Hall makes recovered matter safe enough to show; it cannot afford one piece in a hundred that is not.
Pay: £3 for the carriage and the night, and a free season's admission, which Pike thinks is a great deal more generous than it is
Sources: Book II: the Hall of Curiosities; Face: John Nicholas Pike
New: The cabinet, the unmarked piece and the note.

40. The Five Barrows

A dale of the Northern Wold

Patron: Antiquary Reginald Strangeways · Private antiquarian; the parish of a northern dale
The job: Strangeways opened the Tarn Mound carefully and in print, and was disbelieved about the five barrows the dale leaves alone. He wants a company to camp a month beside them, measure everything, and write down what the dale does around them.
Why they hire: He is tired of being disbelieved, and he would like the next paper to have witnesses who are not antiquaries.
Pay: 15s a week a head and his cook; the right to be named in his next book
Sources: Book VI: Strangeways on the tumuli of the Wold (4614); Chronicle: Strangeways's opening of the Tarn Mound, 4610
New: The month's camp and Strangeways's plan.

Spirits and demon matters

Terms break, powers change and households are taken; those who must live beside them pay for answers before the orders arrive.

41. Taking Down the Terms

A spring-keeping household of the upper Thames

Patron: A warden of the Concord of Saint Winnow · The Concord of Saint Winnow
The job: Another spring household has died out, and the water will go wrong within a few years unless someone takes its place in the terms. The Concord's warden needs a company to escort him, to find what the household's old men remember, and to witness the new terms if a family can be persuaded to keep them.
Why they hire: The Concord has kept two forsaken springs already and cannot afford a third.
Pay: £2 from the Concord, and the right to drink from the spring without terms for the rest of the company's lives, which the warden says plainly is the better part
Sources: Chronicle: the Concord's keeping of two forsaken springs, 4581; Book III: the Concord of Saint Winnow
New: This household, the mill and the warden's offer.

42. After Crozier Hill

The chalk vale below Crozier Hill

Patron: Archbishop Oswin Halden · Archbishopric of Oxford
The job: Since the power of Crozier Hill was taken alive and carried to Oxford, the vale has had nothing to keep its terms with, and its farms are failing in small, steady ways. Halden wants a quiet survey of every farm in the vale, so that the chapter knows whether it bought peace or bought a vacancy.
Why they hire: The Archbishopric paid for the taking and was thanked before a crowd; it would be a hard thing to explain if the vale were worse off for it.
Pay: £15 from the diocese, paid in three parts; a letter of commendation that opens chapter doors across the High South
Sources: Chronicle: the Suppression at Crozier Hill, 4597; Book III: Crozier Hill; Face: Archbishop Oswin Halden
New: The vale's decline and the new answerer.

43. The Ladies' Second Winter

The Cinders, Sarrum

Patron: The Ninefields association · Ninefields association, Sarrum
The job: In 4611 the Ladies of the county refused Sarrum. Ninefields wants to ask again, and wants a company to carry the request, protect the messenger on roads where a request of that kind is not welcome, and bring back the answer, whatever it is.
Why they hire: The association has buried too many after two hard winters and has run out of people who will listen.
Pay: £2 from the association's fund, raised by subscription at a penny a week
Sources: Chronicle: the Ladies' refusal of Sarrum, 4611; Book III: the Ladies and the pact-families; Face: Hester Quill
New: The second request and its price.

44. A Pacifier in the Wrong County

A county boundary in the High South

Patron: A haunt-pacifier working by house sufferance · A gentry house and the diocese next door
The job: A haunt-pacifier licensed in one county has followed a trouble across the boundary into a house where the bishop has not approved her. She wants a company to keep the diocesan men off for three nights while she finishes, and to swear afterwards to what they saw.
Why they hire: If she stops halfway, the house will be worse than when she started; if she is caught, she loses her licence in both counties.
Pay: £1 a night from the house, and whatever the pacifier can spare, which is little
Sources: Book I: haunt-pacifiers under diocesan approval or house sufferance
New: The pacifier, the house and the warrant.

45. The Three Fens Rumour Again

The southern belt of the Three Fens

Patron: The reed sessions of Mereton · Mereton reed sessions; the dike commissioners
The job: New embankment charters are being proposed for the belt where the Spirit War began, and the reed men say the old threat of three seasons still stands. The sessions want a company to walk the no-cut islands with their warden and record that they are uncut before the surveyors arrive.
Why they hire: If the surveyors cut an island, the reed men will be blamed for what follows, as their grandfathers were.
Pay: 15s a head and a share of the sessions' fowling for a season
Sources: Chronicle: the Spirit War of the Three Fens, 4402–07; Known by Name: The Three Fens
New: The new charters, the walk and the false report.

Investigations

Losses, disappearances and records that do not agree; insurers, families and offices pay to know what happened.

46. The Asked-after Column

Oxford and the marsh road

Patron: The sister of Frideswide House who keeps the register · Frideswide House, Oxford
The job: Frideswide House keeps a register of the missing, and since 4488 a separate column of who asked after each of them. Three entries this year have the same name in the column and no relative's. The sister wants the asker found and asked why.
Why they hire: Nobody has ever explained the column; she has decided it is time someone used it.
Pay: £2 from the house, and lodging in its guest rooms during the work
Sources: Chronicle: the asked-after column of 4488; Book III: Frideswide House
New: The three entries and the asker.

47. Unexplained Losses on the Dover Water

Dover, the packet calendar and the Narrow Sea

Patron: Cyprian Ardle · Blue Ledger Company
The job: The Blue Ledger is paying out on two hulls lost this autumn with no wreckage and no report, the kind of loss the town has not seen since the Black Wake. Ardle wants to know whether it is the water or the owners before he pays a third.
Why they hire: If the Black Wake has come back, the Blue Ledger needs to know before its rivals; if it is fraud, he wants it proved before the owners' dinner.
Pay: £20, half on taking the commission; Ardle pays well and remembers who embarrassed him
Sources: Chronicle: the Black Wake, 4615–17; Book V: the packet calendar and its Keeper; Face: Cyprian Ardle
New: This autumn's two hulls and the moved bearing.

48. A Seal that Should Not Exist

Cambridge and the carriers' roads

Patron: High Constable Adam Fenne · Cambridge Civic Watch
The job: A custody letter has reached the watch with a sealed endorsement from an examiner who died last year. Fenne wants the forger found, and every other letter the forger has made traced before something dangerous passes the town on one.
Why they hire: A forged custody letter is a forged licence to move condemned matter; the watch will be blamed for every load that went through.
Pay: £5 from the watch fund; a standing letter of introduction to Cambridge's constables
Sources: Book III: custody letters and seals; Chronicle: the Oxford North Gate Hanging; Face: High Constable Adam Fenne
New: The letter, the dead examiner's seal and its keeper.

49. The Eleventh Mile

The Sarrum line, the eleventh mile

Patron: Captain Iver Dane · The Sarrum line garrison
The job: The line was relaid two hundred yards east in 4613, officially for drainage. The company that owns it now wants the old section surveyed for its rails, and Dane, who will say nothing himself, wants a company he can trust to do the survey, so that his men do not have to.
Why they hire: The relaying speaks for itself, Dane says, and he would rather it kept speaking than had to be explained to a new owner.
Pay: £6 from the line company, and a night in Dane's blockhouse, which is the safest bed on the line
Sources: Chronicle: the Eleventh Mile, 4613; Face: Captain Iver Dane (in review)
New: The survey commission and the returning man.

50. The Second Ledger's Other Pages

Southwark, Cambridge and Westminster

Patron: Sister Agnes Malory · Saint Odilia's Rooms for Afflicted Children, Southwark
The job: Sister Agnes burned several pages of the second ledger before she told the governors. Two children sent out on its papers were found in neither Saint Odilia's books nor Cambridge's. She wants them found now, alive or otherwise, and she will tell a company what was on the pages she burned.
Why they hire: Her enemies say she destroyed evidence; she would like to prove she destroyed it for the children's sake, by finding them.
Pay: Little coin; the Rooms' governors will pay £3 if the children are found and the governors are not embarrassed
Sources: Chronicle: Saint Odilia Ledger Scandal, 4617; Face: Martin Vey (in review); Face: Sir Ralph Pembury (in review)
New: The two children's trail and the burned pages.

Monster activity

The Western Surge, old named beasts and blight-bred things; parishes, wardens and lords pay bounties and wages to keep roads open.

51. The Dunwold Watch Rota

Dunwold and its steps, in the western counties

Patron: Warden Mark-Crispin Hales of Dunwold · The Dunwold watch
The job: Since the slaughter at the Dunwold Steps the warden cannot keep his night rota full; two watches in five go unmanned. He wants a company to stand the empty nights for a month, walk the lanes between the farms at dusk, and bring him a true count of what comes down to the hedges.
Why they hire: He needs the count more than the kills: the county will only pay for a proper levy if he can show the beasts are coming together, as the hunters say, and not one at a time.
Pay: 1s 6d a day a head and keep at the warden's house; 10s for every beast brought in dead and entered in his book.
Sources: Chronicle: The Western Monster Surge (4619–); Chronicle: Dunwold Steps Slaughter
New: The empty rota, the count and the rates are new.

52. Lamp Oil for the Scarp

The chalk scarp near Wye, Kent

Patron: Earl Osbert Pike of Wye · The earldom of Wye
The job: The Chalk Hounds take whatever is left on ground nobody keeps, and the lamp line that holds them in has gaps where two tenancies have lapsed. The earl wants the gaps walked, the old lamp posts found and relit, and the lapsed ground fenced and claimed in his name before winter.
Why they hire: He wants the line kept, not the pack cleared: twice the county has refused the cost of a clearing, and two parties that went down into the chalk came back short.
Pay: £3 for the season's work, lamp oil and fencing found by the estate; 5s a night for any watch kept on the line after Michaelmas.
Sources: Book V: the Chalk Hounds of Wye; Chronicle: The Chalk Hounds settle on the Wye scarp; Attempts to clear the Chalk Hounds
New: The lapsed tenancies, the fencing and the season's terms are new.

53. The Fifteenth Summer

The hop parishes in the fourth and fifth weeks of the picking

Patron: the hop parishes' growers · The hop gardens of Kent
The job: Once in about fifteen years the trouble of the picking weeks passes beyond managing, and the last time was fifteen years ago. The growers are hiring early: a company to sleep in the pickers' huts through the fourth and fifth weeks and send for help the hour it starts.
Why they hire: Last time they called the Grey Nails, who came within the day; the growers would rather not owe them again, and would rather not wait a fortnight for a Brethren house.
Pay: £2 a head for the fortnight, beer and bread found, and the growers' bond to pay a suppression if one is needed.
Sources: Chronicle: The Grey Nails in the hop gardens, c. 4606; Chronicle: House attendances at the graves of the Grey Nails' dead
New: The early hiring and the growers' terms are new.

54. Churchyard Wall Repairs

The burial ground at Combe Bourne, on the Wold

Patron: the vestry of Combe Bourne · Combe Bourne parish
The job: Twice in living memory the churchyard at Combe Bourne has had to be cleared of corpse eaters, and the sexton says the signs are back. The vestry wants it done a third time, quietly, and entered in the book as repairs to the churchyard wall, as is the custom in the belt.
Why they hire: The parish fears the warning the books give: a ground that has wanted clearing twice has begun to keep bad order, and a third time may mean the Brethren and their fee.
Pay: £4 on completion, paid as wall repairs; the vestry will not sign anything that names the work.
Sources: Chronicle: The two corpse-eater clearances at Combe Bourne; Chronicle: The stopping of the Combe Bourne; Lurking Dangers: Corpse Eaters
New: The sexton's report and the fee are new.

55. Wherry-Breaker on the Spring Tides

The lower Thames stairs on the spring tides

Patron: Joan Kettering · The lower Thames ferry crossings
The job: Two wherries have been stove in at the stairs on successive spring tides, and the ferry-mistress has lost a boat and a passenger. She wants a company on the water with her for the next three springs, to see what comes up the estuary and to drive it off the stairs.
Why they hire: Her servants trust her judgement in foul weather above any municipal notice; if the crossing stops, so do the wards that live by it.
Pay: 1s a day each in the waiting days, 5s each on a spring-tide night, and £5 from the watermen's box if the thing is killed.
Sources: Lurking Dangers: Wherry-Breaker; Face: Joan Kettering, Ferry-Mistress
New: The losses, the watch on three springs and the bounty are new.

Fringe exploring

Ground won since 4611 must be walked, surveyed and kept; whoever writes it up first often owns it.

56. Two Surveys at Bleak Ford

Bleak Ford, in the Northern Fringes

Patron: Baron George Keldwick · The Keldwick barony
The job: The Bleak Ford clash came of two surveys that drew two different lines over the same ground. Keldwick wants a company to escort his surveyor back over the ford country, mark his line with stones, and sit on it for the summer so that his tenants can say it was kept.
Why they hire: In the fringes, continuous keeping witnessed by the people who live on the ground is the strongest claim there is; he is buying witnesses as much as guards.
Pay: 2s a day a head from Lady Day to Michaelmas, keep at the nearest steading, and £5 on the day the surveyor's book is sealed.
Sources: Chronicle: The Northern Fringes Reclamation Feuds (4611–); Bleak Ford Skirmish (4613); Book VI: survey paper and winter riders
New: The surveyor's return and the terms are new.

57. The Lapsed Valley

A side valley of the Northern Marches abandoned since the afterwar

Patron: Captain Jim Rook · Rook's holding in the Northern Marches
The job: Rook wants to know what lies in the next valley up before anyone else does: whether the old holdings stand, whether the road can be cleared, and what has been living in the steadings. He wants a map, a list of roofs that will take thatch again, and no fighting unless something comes out of the ruins.
Why they hire: Whoever keeps that valley first will own it in ten years, and Rook means it to be him rather than Blackmere or Crowle.
Pay: £1 retainer, 1s 6d a day each, and first refusal of a holding in the valley for any member who will stay and keep it.
Sources: Face: Captain Jim Rook; Lurking Dangers: Gorm of Crowdyke; Chronicle: The Northern Fringes Reclamation Feuds
New: The valley, the map and the offered holding are new.

58. Wharfe's Empty Wall

A blockhouse on the Northern March

Patron: Serjeant Gideon Wharfe · A Northern March blockhouse
The job: Half his local men have gone home for the harvest and Wharfe has a wall to keep with five. He wants a company to stand the harvest weeks with him, ride the morning patrol along the line, and learn the march's rules for what to shoot at and what to leave alone.
Why they hire: His wall has never failed, and he does not intend it to fail in a month when the march knows it is short-handed.
Pay: A shilling a day and found, as the march pays its soldiers, with a pound to each who stays to the end.
Sources: Face: Gideon Wharfe, Blockhouse Serjeant; Book VI: the Northern March
New: The harvest shortage and terms are new.

59. Past the Retrieval Belt

The wild country beyond the Marches, past the last kept road

Patron: Dame Eleanor Markham · Markham's retrieval patronage
The job: While she looks for a new company to keep, Markham is funding a small party to walk ground no company has written up: a dead market town on an old road, its chapel and its tithe barn. She wants a survey, a list of what is worth recovering, and nothing lifted on this first trip.
Why they hire: A first survey that recovers nothing is worth more to her than a rich one, because it tells the next party where to dig and keeps the find hers by record.
Pay: £6 on the delivered survey, keep paid in advance, and a share of the later recovery for the members named in it.
Sources: Face: Dame Eleanor Markham, Retrieval Benefactor; Lurking Dangers: Torn Sail; ragwing
New: The dead town and the survey terms are new.

60. What the Carriers Ask

The Northern Fringes, the carrier roads between the Blackmere stockades

Patron: Earl Nicholas Blackmere
The job: Blackmere wants the three carrier roads between his stockades walked end to end in a fortnight, every ford, bridge and stretch of bad ground set down, and every carrier met on the way asked one question: whose roads are these, in practice? The answers go into a plain book with names and dates.
Why they hire: His title is good on paper and he knows paper does not decide the fringes. He wants proof of keeping that a court cannot wave away, and he wants to know before his rivals do which stretch the carriers have already stopped thinking of as his.
Pay: £4 to the party, keep at the stockades, and a bonus of £1 for every carrier who will put his mark to his answer.
Sources: Face: Earl Nicholas Blackmere (the carrier's question about the Blackmere stockades); Chronicle: The Northern Fringes Reclamation Feuds (since 4611); Book VI: the feud parties
New: The three carrier roads, the question book and the bonus are new.

Ruins exploring and delving

Descents, the lower ways and sealed ground; salvage, survey and recovery under licence, and sometimes without one.

61. A Brethren Officer for the Cut

The New Lode at Blackdown, Sarrum county

Patron: the Blackdown pit owners · The Blackdown collieries
The job: A heading in the New Lode is two yards from breaking into old ground on no plan. Since 4606 nobody may open into unplanned ground without a paid Black Lantern officer present, and the owners want a company to go through with the officer, map the old working and secure it before the colliers follow.
Why they hire: The rule exists because insurers would not cover the pits after the Blackdown Stope; every day the heading stands idle costs the owners more than the company.
Pay: £8 for the opening, plus 3s a head for each day underground; the Brethren officer is paid separately.
Sources: Chronicle: The Blackdown Stope; The Unplanned Ground Rule of 4606; Lurking Dangers: bone-burrower; bell-worm
New: The new heading and the fees are new.

62. The Chapel Gable at Netherlode

The drowned parish of Netherlode, on the coal country's flashes

Patron: Joan Skerrit · Her own enquiry
The job: In the dry summer of 4611 the water over Netherlode fell far enough to show the chapel gable. Skerrit expects it to fall again this summer and wants a company with a boat and a long hook to reach the chapel, recover the parish register from its chest, and bring it out dry.
Why they hire: The parish is undissolved and its churchyard was never lifted; without the register nobody can say who lies there or ask the Brethren to attend.
Pay: £4 and the boat found; £10 more if the register comes out readable.
Sources: Chronicle: The drowning of Netherlode; The dry summer of 4611; The visitation of 4551; The unanswered requests for Netherlode; Lurking Dangers: fen-bride; drowned-mother
New: The register, the boat and the fees are new.

63. The Lower Ways for a Broker

A sealed stair below an old London quarter

Patron: Master Symon Rook · Rook's lower-ways brokerage
The job: A collector has bought, through Rook, a sealed descent below a Southwark warehouse. Rook needs a company to carry the lantern, hold the key, open the stair under licence and walk the vault, listing everything before the collector's man touches it.
Why they hire: The provenance is the money: a find entered by an honest party at the moment of opening is worth three times one that arrives with no papers.
Pay: £5 for the descent, 2s a head for each further day, and a twentieth of the valuation of anything entered.
Sources: Face: Master Symon Rook, Lower-Ways Broker; Book II: the lower ways and the descents; Lurking Dangers: vault-hound; lamp-leech
New: The warehouse stair and the collector are new.

64. Barrow Licence on the Wold

A barrow on the Wold, opened under licence

Patron: John Nicholas Pike · The Hall of Curiosities
The job: The Keeper wants a barrow opened properly for his Hall: under licence, with the parish told first and the work recorded hour by hour, as the antiquary Strangeways did at the Tarn Mound. He needs strong backs and steady guards for a fortnight's dig.
Why they hire: His Hall is accused of buying what thieves dig; one properly published opening will answer that better than a lawyer.
Pay: 2s a day each and keep, and the members' names printed in his account of the opening.
Sources: Chronicle: Strangeways's opening of the Tarn Mound; Lurking Dangers: Barrow Scourge; Face: John Nicholas Pike
New: The barrow, the fortnight and the published account are new.

65. The Thrum Under the Down

Swallow-holes and chalk galleries under a soured parish

Patron: the parish of a soured district · A chalk parish of the High South
The job: A swallow-hole has opened in a field and the plough-team went in with it. The parish wants the hole roped and descended, the galleries below walked as far as a lantern reaches, and the team's harness brought up, as the owner swears he will not pay for new.
Why they hire: The parish wants to know whether to fill the hole or fence the field; the cost of either is more than a year's rates.
Pay: £3 for the descent and 5s for every gallery mapped beyond the first.
Sources: Lurking Dangers: Thrum; maw-mole; Chronicle: Attempts to clear the Chalk Hounds (the chalk voids)
New: The swallow-hole and the lost team are new.

Murders

Killings dressed as accidents, hauntings or old stories; families, wards and patrons hire those the watch will not suspect.

66. The Deaths After the Burning

Otham, Kent

Patron: Joan Harrietsham · Her own account of Otham
The job: After the charm house burned in 4613 and its woman was cropped and put out, the deaths in the parish went on for two months. Harrietsham kept the only written account and has never believed they were what the parish said. She wants a company to find the cropped woman, and to find who in Otham profited from the funerals.
Why they hire: The earl paid the burned woman's costs and never said why; Harrietsham thinks somebody he trusted was killing, and the burning covered it.
Pay: £4 from her own savings, and a promise to publish whatever the company finds under her name, not theirs.
Sources: Chronicle: The Otham Burning (4613); Book V: the burning of charm houses
New: The two-month killings as murder, and the search, are new; whether they were is left open.

67. The Haunting that Wasn't

A crowded ward of Whitechapel

Patron: Bishop Nicholas Ferne · The see of London
The job: A lodging house has lost three tenants in a year, each found at the foot of the stair, and the ward says the stair is haunted. The bishop has paid for one attendance already and the house found nothing. He wants a quiet company to lodge there a month and find out who is on the stair at night.
Why they hire: If the house is not haunted, the deaths are murders and the parish has been paying for exorcism while a killer collected the rents of the dead.
Pay: 1s a day each, the room found, and £5 for a finding the coroner will accept.
Sources: Face: Bishop Nicholas Ferne; Book II: suppressing houses attend ground, not people
New: The lodging house and the deaths are new.

68. Rougemere Hour

London and the Red ports

Patron: Sir Julian Thornycroft · The Foreign Office
The job: A man who was inside the legation at Rougemere in 4588 has been found dead in his London rooms, and his papers are gone. The Foreign Secretary wants a company to find who else of the household still lives, warn them, and learn what correspondence survived the hour the house burned its papers.
Why they hire: Book I counts Rougemere among the sharpest Lyonnais grievances; if somebody is killing its witnesses, someone means to reopen it.
Pay: £15 from secret service money, paid in two halves, and no written receipt.
Sources: Chronicle: Rougemere (4588); Rougemere Embassy Killings; Face: Sir Julian Thornycroft, Foreign Secretary
New: The dead witness and the commission are new.

69. Poison at the Hunt Supper

An Ashcombe hunting lodge in the Weald

Patron: Duke Robert Ashcombe · House Ashcombe
The job: A guest died after the hunt supper at an Ashcombe lodge, and the physician who signed it off as a seizure has since left the county. The duke wants the death looked into by people with no place in his household, before the guest's family looks into it themselves.
Why they hire: Favour in Britannia is shared out at hunts, and a poisoning at his table, if it was one, makes the house a place where one cannot safely accept an invitation.
Pay: £10, lodging at the lodge as guests, and the duke's letter of thanks, which is worth more than the money.
Sources: Face: Duke Robert Ashcombe; Book I: favour distributed through hunts and house parties
New: The death, the physician and the timber dispute are new.

70. The Sarrum Hunts

The Rows and Yellow Ward, Sarrum

Patron: Serjeant Aubrey Fenn · The Rows Watch, Sarrum
The job: Sarrum talks of 'hunts': men and women gone from the rubble districts after dark, never found. The serjeant wants a company that can move in the Cinders without uniforms, find one of the missing alive or dead, and tell him whether the hunts are one hand or a story that covers many.
Why they hire: The council recognises forty thousand people and the rubble holds more nobody counts; Fenn cannot get a constable into low Hollowgate after dark, and he knows it.
Pay: 2s a day each for a fortnight from the Watch's own fund, and the serjeant's word with the Tin Saints for safe passage.
Sources: Book IV: the Sarrum hunts rumour; the Cinders and low Hollowgate; Chronicle: The Black Lantern attendances in Yellow Ward; The Yellow Ward refusal, 4614; Face: Serjeant Aubrey Fenn
New: The serjeant's commission is new; the rumour's truth is left open.

Bandits and raiders

Roads, rivers and coasts under pressure from robbers, gangs and raiders; carriers, towns and houses pay for escort and for ends.

71. Escort on the Hay Roads

The hay and drove roads of the Sarrum county

Patron: the drover court of the Sarrum county · The drover courts
The job: After two bad harvests the hay carts are being stopped again on the lonely miles. The drover court wants a company to ride with the autumn hay trains for six weeks and bring any reaver it catches before the court alive.
Why they hire: The court still measures every house by the Long Hunger, when a Hartfell turned levy-men into reavers and the court could only write it down; it means to do more than write this time.
Pay: 1s 6d a day each, a seat at the court's table on sessions days, and 10s for every reaver delivered.
Sources: Book III: the Long Hunger and the drover courts; Face: Randal Hartfell, the Pale Stag
New: The new robberies and the escort are new.

72. The First Clear Weeks

The Outer Strand, a raided northern shore

Patron: the Outer Strand town · The watch of the Outer Strand
The job: The raiders come in the first clear weeks after the ice, when the store is spent and the harvest not yet gathered, as the landing book has said since Sigrid Holm wrote it. The town wants a company on the strand for those weeks to stand the watch, man the bell and stop a landing at the water.
Why they hire: The town has kept its book for a century and knows the season to the week; it lacks only the hands.
Pay: £2 a head for the season, keep found, and the town's thanks in the landing book.
Sources: Face: Sigrid Holm; her landing book of 4511; Book VII: the northern raiders
New: The season's hiring is new.

73. Black Banner Prize Papers

London's quays and the southern sea

Patron: Port-Reeve Tobias Thornycroft · The Pool of London
The job: A hull lost to the Black Banners off the Iberian coast has come back into the Pool under new papers. The port-reeve wants a company to board her under his warrant, find her old master or what became of him, and prove the papers forged.
Why they hire: Every Black Banner prize sold in London raises the insurance on southern sailings; a forged hull caught at the quay is worth a convoy's escort.
Pay: £12 on a conviction, and the port-reeve's warrant and two constables for the boarding.
Sources: Chronicle: Black Banner piracy in the Southern Sea; Book I: a vanished shipmaster among the Black Banners; Face: Port-Reeve Tobias Thornycroft
New: The returned hull and the warrant are new.

74. Message Carriage Below the Western Wards

Three western wards of lower London

Patron: Hester Grayshott · The Nightstairs peace
The job: The Nightstairs peace is eighteen years old and fraying: a porter carrying burial traffic was cut on the stair last month and the Combine blames the Bellmarsh Black Net. Grayshott wants a company to find who did it before either syndicate decides for itself.
Why they hire: She arranged the first meetings in 4604; if the war starts again, burial carriage, hospital carriage and wharf labour fail again, and the wards will bury their dead in the street.
Pay: £6 from the publicans' compensation fund, paid only if the boundaries hold through the winter.
Sources: Chronicle: The Nightstairs War (4603–04); The Nightstairs peace; Face: Hester Grayshott
New: The cutting and the fraying peace are new.

75. Carts at Shift Change

The receiving yards and scrap routes of Sarrum

Patron: Hester Quill · The Ninefields association, Sarrum
The job: The Candlewick War ended in 4610 but the Three Nails and the Ash Dogs still fight over the receiving yards, and two association carts were burned at shift change in a month. Quill wants a company to ride the association's carts and keep its members from becoming the third side.
Why they hire: Her association pays its members a shilling a week to keep them from the truck table; every burned cart is a week of wages lost.
Pay: 1s a day each and the association's protection in the rubble districts, which in Sarrum is worth more than the shilling.
Sources: Chronicle: The Candlewick War (4608–10); The Ninefields pay-room scheme; Face: Hester Quill
New: The renewed burnings and the escort are new.

The Afflicted

Hiring by and against the marked: routes, papers, refuges and the Writ; the work is as much about mercy and law as about blades.

76. A Lost Seal at the North Gate

The road from Cambridge to Oxford's ring

Patron: Matron Joan Larke · The Cambridge Guarantor Rooms
The job: An Afflicted family under guarantee from the Rooms must cross the Oxford ring to reach a dying parent, with their custody letter and seal. Larke wants a company to escort them there and back and see that the letter stays dry and the seal unbroken.
Why they hire: Every Afflicted traveller learned from the North Gate hanging that wet paper can kill as surely as a crowd; Larke has never lost a guarantee and does not mean to.
Pay: £3 and the road paid, and the Rooms' written thanks, which opens doors in Cambridge.
Sources: Chronicle: Oxford North Gate Hanging; The Oxford Writ; Face: Matron Joan Larke
New: The family and the journey are new.

77. Breaking a Hidden Lamp Route

London's lower wards and the Undercity

Patron: Colonel Osbert Fell · The London militia
The job: A child has vanished from the permit rolls of Bell Lantern Ward, and the militia believe a Hidden Lamp route took the child below. The colonel wants a company to find the route and break it, and bring the child back to the rolls.
Why they hire: The colonel wants order and an example; the ward officers want the child back; the child's family may not want either.
Pay: £5 for the route, £5 more for the child, and a militia pass for the lower ways.
Sources: Book II: a ward officer wants a Hidden Lamp route broken; Face: Colonel Osbert Fell; Face: Mother Elspeth Crowe, Bell Lantern Rooms
New: The vanished child and the commission are new.

78. The Buyers of the Second Ledger

Southwark and the London patrons' houses

Patron: Sister Mercy Alderwick · The Southwark Infirmaries
The job: The second ledger of Saint Odilia's named two children sent out on papers who were never found in any book afterwards. The matron wants a company to trace them: who signed for them, which carriage took them, and which house they went into.
Why they hire: She has kept quarantine lines and beds for the lower wards for years and believes charity that will not follow its own children is only custody.
Pay: £4 from the infirmary's poor box, and her help with any physician or parish book the company needs to read.
Sources: Chronicle: Saint Odilia Ledger Scandal (4617); Faces: Martin Vey; Sir Ralph Pembury; Sister Mercy Alderwick
New: The commission is new; the children's fate is left open.

79. Barrow Ash, the Second Family

The Oxford ring to the Cinders at Sarrum

Patron: Corwin Rushe · Frideswide House
The job: In 4609 a Barrow Ash family was broken at the ring and in 4612 a company working for Frideswide House made it whole at Sarrum. Another family has been broken the same way this spring, a mother kept out and two children kept in, and Rushe wants a company to do it again.
Why they hire: Rushe was there the first time and knows it took eleven months; he wants a company that will not quit at the third.
Pay: £1 a month retainer each, keep on the road, and £10 when the family sits at one table.
Sources: Chronicle: Barrow Ash (4609–12); Book III: Frideswide House
New: The second family and the commission are new.

80. The Tin Saints' Mission Road

Low Hollowgate and the made ground, Sarrum

Patron: the mission women of Hollowgate · The Hollowgate missions
The job: The Tin Saints keep the mission routes open and touch no surgical house, but a new crew has started stopping the mission carts at the edge of the made ground. The mission women want the route walked with them for a month, and the new crew found and named to the Saints.
Why they hire: The women cannot go to the Watch, whose constables do not come down after dark, and they would rather the Saints settled it than the Watch.
Pay: 1s a day each and the Saints' word that the company may walk their streets; no money changes hands with the gang.
Sources: Book IV: the Tin Saints of low Hollowgate; Book IV: the Cinders and the rubble districts
New: The new crew and the mission carts are new.

The underworld

Syndicates, fences, brokers and dealers need strangers for the work their own faces would spoil: leaks, loads, policies and the new drugs.

81. Smaller Twists, Same Price

The Cinders and the essence works, Sarrum

Patron: Mother Brindle · The Red Shed and the drink trade behind it
The job: Nightcoal is killing Mother Brindle's customers in the streets behind the Red Shed, and the watch has started counting bodies at her doors. She wants a company to find who in the Cinders is making it, and from what, and to bring her a name before the council brings her a constable.
Why they hire: She has run the drink trade for twenty years by keeping the watch bored. A drug that leaves men dead in her doorways makes the watch interested, and she cannot send her own people into the Cinders without starting a war with the Ash Dogs.
Pay: £6 on a name, £4 more if the making stops; drink and a bed above the Shed while the work lasts.
Sources: Face: Mother Brindle; Book IV: Sarrum drugs, Doctor Pell, the Ash Dogs; Living Britannia 22.4 and Travelling Britannia 4: black opium and nightcoal
New: The deaths at the Shed, the clerk and Pell's interest are new.

82. The Sea Ring Wants Its Trade Back

Under Maidstone Bridge and the Medway wharves

Patron: Daniel Seasalter · his own trade
The job: Seasalter sells black opium and nightcoal under Maidstone Bridge. The men of the sea ring that first brought nightcoal in from abroad have come up the Medway, angry that home-made stuff has spoiled their market, and they want the names of the local makers from him. He wants a company at his back for a fortnight while he decides whom to sell.
Why they hire: He is very large, but he is one man, and the ring arrives in boats.
Pay: £5 in coin, much of it in small silver, and whatever the company can carry off the ring's boat if it comes to that.
Sources: Face: Daniel Seasalter; Travelling Britannia 6: Maidstone warnings; Living Britannia 22.4: nightcoal
New: The sea ring's return, the brother and the fortnight are new.

83. A Laundress Who Talks

Four wards of lower London

Patron: Joan Crale · The Bellmarsh Black Net
The job: Crale's message chain runs through a string of laundries, and for a month her messages have been arriving read. She wants a company to carry false washing through the chain, see where it is opened, and tell her who.
Why they hire: Her own people know every laundress by sight, and the laundresses know them.
Pay: 2s a day each and keep; a sovereign apiece if the leak is found before Lady Day.
Sources: Face: Joan Crale; Book II: the Bellmarsh Black Net and the laundries; Chronicle: the Nightstairs War (4603–04)
New: The leak, the false washing and the clerk are new.

84. The Price of a Stair

The undercity stairs below the Commons, London

Patron: Kit Verrall · The Nightstairs Combine
The job: A company needs to go below by a Combine stair, and Verrall has refused it without a single threat. His price for changing his mind is a service: carry one sealed load down three flights and leave it at a door, without opening it and without being followed.
Why they hire: His own porters are known on every stair, and the load must arrive carried by strangers.
Pay: Passage on the Combine's stairs for a season, with his route seal; nothing in coin.
Sources: Face: Kit Verrall; Book II: the Nightstairs Combine and undercity porterage; Book I: Verrall
New: The load, the door and the waiting party are new.

85. A Policy That Names No Owner

The Blue Ledger offices, London, and the Narrow Sea

Patron: Cyprian Ardle · The Blue Ledger Company
The job: A Blue Ledger policy on a cargo with no named owner has been claimed twice, by two respectable houses, each with a perfect certificate. The cargo went down off the Kentish gaps. Ardle wants a company to find the true owner, and the wreck, before he pays either.
Why they hire: His signature on a policy that names no owner is what makes doubtful cargo good. If both claims are paid, or neither, the Ledger's word is worth less on every quay.
Pay: £18 and a twentieth share of what is saved from the wreck.
Sources: Face: Cyprian Ardle; Book II: the Blue Ledger and contraband insurance; Book V: the free trade of the eastern gaps; Living Britannia 22.4: nightcoal's sea origin
New: The double claim, the wreck and the cargo are new.

86. Something Sold From the Supper Table

Lora Winterbourne's rooms, London

Patron: Lora Winterbourne · her furnished rooms and supper tables
The job: Something said at one of Winterbourne's cautious suppers reached a newspaper within the week. She wants a company placed among her servants for a month, as hired help, to find which of them sold it and to whom.
Why they hire: Her rooms are valued for what her servants do not repeat. One leak, unanswered, empties her tables.
Pay: £8 and a supper invitation each, which in some circles is worth more.
Sources: Face: Lora Winterbourne; Book II: vice and information; Living Britannia 27.9: where the underworld meets the respectable
New: The leak and the guest's test are new.

Rumours and legends

Stories told and never proven stand between people and their money; growers, wards, surveyors, dealers and heirs pay to have them tested.

87. The Bottom Row

A hop garden near Yalding, Kent

Patron: A Yalding hop-grower who will not give his name until the work is done · his own garden
The job: Every September the bottom row of his garden stands in crop and nobody picks it, because something is said to walk it in the fourth week. The price of hops is high this year and he has a London buyer waiting. He wants a company to pick that row, at night if need be, and to say afterwards whether anything walked.
Why they hire: No picker in the valley will go near the row, and his own sons refused.
Pay: The pickers' rate for the row and a bonus of £3; the buyer's money if the row is picked whole.
Sources: Known by Name: The Bottom Row (told, not proven)
New: The grower, the buyer and the commission are new.

88. The Gloved Visitor

Yellow Ward, Sarrum

Patron: Molly Pettit · The Lavender House
The job: Molly reads every visitor from the boots up, and one regular at the Lavender House does not fit: he never removes his gloves, never eats, pays in old coin and is always gone before first light. Yellow Ward has told a story about something living among it for forty years. Molly wants a company to follow him home, once, and tell her what the house is dealing with.
Why they hire: Sabine Rook laughs at the story and will not spend a penny on it. Molly will.
Pay: £3 from Molly's own savings, which is a great deal to her.
Sources: Known by Name: The Vampire of Yellow Ward (told, not proven); Face: Molly Pettit
New: The gloved visitor and Molly's commission are new.

89. Below the Lower Flight

Mudgate river stairs, London

Patron: The Mudgate ward's lightermen's club · its own stair
The job: Bet Lanyon will not go below the lower flight of the Mudgate stairs and says the water there is lower than the tide tables say. Sixty years ago Alice Fenn swore a cold hand turned her back on that flight from a step that was under water. The lightermen want the stair sounded against the tables on every tide for a month, at night.
Why they hire: Two lighters have grounded there this year on tides the tables call safe, and the ward will not pay to have the stair rebuilt on a story.
Pay: 1s 6d a night each and the club's credit at the stairs' taverns.
Sources: Faces: Alice Fenn (the Cold Nurse of Mudgate Stairs) and Bet Lanyon; Living Britannia 22.6
New: The groundings and the soundings are new.

90. The Lights on Lantern Mere

Lantern Mere, the northern march

Patron: A Harrowgate surveyor of the drainage interest · the Fen Commissioners' survey
The job: The ferry on Lantern Mere goes round the middle rather than across it, and the drainage interest wants the middle sounded before it asks Parliament for money. Lights are seen on the water. The surveyor wants a company to row him across at night, keep the lamp and the line, and bring him back.
Why they hire: No ferryman will take the middle, at any price.
Pay: £5 and the Commissioners' fee for a completed survey.
Sources: Known by Name: The Lights of Lantern Mere (told, not proven); Travelling Britannia 9: Harrowgate
New: The survey and the crossing are new.

91. A Chart of One Isle

London's chart dealers, then the Dead Sea ports

Patron: Lucan Ash · relic and curiosity broker
The job: A sheet has come onto the London market showing the drowned isle of the Basin as one island, as it was before the Apocalypse. No survey since can show it, so the sheet is a forgery or a copy of something older, and no test separates the two. Ash has a buyer at a fabulous price and wants a company to trace where the sheet came from before he sells it.
Why they hire: The chart office will neither grade it nor call it false, and Ash's reputation cannot survive selling a forgery to this buyer.
Pay: £10 and a tenth of the sale.
Sources: Face: Lucan Ash; Book VII: the Five Isles of Mist and the one-isle legend (the sheets); Book II: the curiosities trade
New: The sheet, the buyer and the copyist are new.

92. What the Fourth Man Left

Gant Fell, the northern march

Patron: The family of the fourth man, a dale household that will not be named in the book · their own claim
The job: Of four men who went up Gant Fell in good summer weather, three came down that evening and the fourth walked out two days later on the far side and never said what he had seen. He has died. His will leaves the dale farm to whoever brings down "what I left at the cairn". The family wants a company to go up and bring it.
Why they hire: Six attempts in eighty years, and the dale counts its losses in landslides and missing shepherds.
Pay: £20 and the farm's grazing for a season, or the farm itself if the family can be persuaded.
Sources: Known by Name: What Is on Gant Fell (told, not proven); Spirits: the Black Dragon of Gant Fell (as the dale names it)
New: The will, the cairn and the commission are new.