The Dragon Warlord's Silent Bride

RAIGORO’S POV

Daric began with the least interesting explanation.

Perhaps Perrin Corven had not been the man buried under Perrin Corven’s name.

Raigoro let him eliminate that before allowing the false receipt to become anything larger.

Daric had checked the obvious possibility first.

Perrin Corven was dead.

His unit officer and surviving escorts had identified the body. His widow had identified him again after return, and the medical record matched an old break in his right hand.

”Any reasonable chance the wrong man was buried?” Raigoro asked.

”No.”

Good.

The question was no longer whether Corven had died.

It was what had happened to the shipment after he did.

”What was his last recorded duty?”

”Supply escort from Lower Stone Depot toward the outer northern stations.”

”The wardstone?”

”Part of the larger shipment.”

Raigoro looked at the route schedule.

Three deliveries had left the depot under one escort.

The attack occurred before the convoy reached the first receiving station.

Some wagons survived and continued after the dead and wounded were removed.

Others returned south.

Perrin Corven did neither.

He was dead.

Yet Central Logistics held a completed receipt in his name.

Daric tapped the page.

”The form is correct.”

”Seal?”

”Correct for the receiving station.”

”Receiving mark?”

”Corven’s.”

”Copied?”

”Probably.”

Raigoro looked at him.

Daric amended, ”It could be copied. I cannot prove who put it there.”

Better.

The Duchess stood at the side of the table with the original relief file under one arm.

She had not been invited into the classified logistics archive. She did not attempt to enter it either.

Raigoro had brought the relevant copies into the outer command review room instead.

Her office had found the discrepancy, but the classified logistics archive remained outside her authority. She accepted the boundary without argument. The time required to verify anything was another matter.

That irritation Raigoro recognized.

She wrote: THE OUTPOST?

Daric answered.

”Verification went into the northern relay this morning.”

WHEN WILL THEY ANSWER?

”Tomorrow if the roads remain clear. Later if they do not.”

The Duchess looked toward the clock anyway.

Daric said, ”You understand that the clock is not attached to the horse.”

She wrote: I KNOW.

Then continued looking at it.

Raigoro returned to the receipt.

The shipment itself mattered more than the dead signature.

Four crates of cut wardstone and associated repair material were enough to maintain several damaged field anchors or replenish one station after a serious repair.

If the station had received them, the false name might still be administrative fraud.

If it had not, Blackharrow had a supply failure disguised as completion.

Raigoro asked Daric, ”Who closed the central record?”

”Logistics clerk at the Citadel.”

”Interview?”

”Already waiting outside.”

”Bring him.”

The man entered nervous enough to make guilt difficult to distinguish from employment.

Raigoro kept the questions narrow.

”Did you create this receiving document?”

”No, Your Grace.”

”Did you alter it?”

”No.”

”Why did you close the shipment?”

”The station copy carried the correct seal and receiving mark.”

”Did you verify the soldier?”

The clerk looked confused.

”No. We do not normally confirm the location of every receiving guard independently.”

Of course they did not.

A system that required central clerks to locate every soldier before closing every supply receipt would stop functioning within a week.

”What did you verify?”

”Shipment number. Origin. destination. station seal. material quantities. receiving officer or assigned guard mark.”

”And they matched?”

”Yes.”

Daric asked, ”Any irregularity?”

The clerk hesitated.

”None I noticed.”

”Look again.”

Daric gave him the copy.

The man read it.

He reached Perrin Corven’s casualty date and stopped.

”I did not have this.”

Raigoro said, ”I know.”

The clerk looked relieved.

Too early.

”Who could generate the station form?”

”Receiving station. Supply depot. Command Logistics can issue replacement copies if the original is damaged.”

”Blank forms?”

”Controlled.”

”How controlled?”

The clerk became less relieved.

”Serialed bundles. Office issue records.”

”Bring them.”

He left.

The Duchess wrote: THIS COULD BE ONE STOLEN FORM.

”Yes,” Raigoro said.

ONE CLERK.

”Yes.”

WRONG DATE.

”Possible.”

She looked at the receipt again.

Raigoro understood what bothered her.

The document had passed every ordinary check because everything the system expected to see was present.

Only the human being attached to it was impossible.

The remote station could not answer them that afternoon.

The Citadel archives could.

A logistics clerk returned carrying two older requisitions from the same outer station.

Daric read the first.

Then the second.

Raigoro held out his hand.

Both requests asked for replacement wardstone.

The first had been filed after the shipment was supposedly delivered.

The second had been sent several days later.

His wife moved closer. WHY REQUEST REPLACEMENT IF THEY RECEIVED IT?

”Exactly,” Daric said.

The first request had entered the normal supply queue.

The second had been marked duplicate and held because Central Logistics already showed the original shipment as delivered and closed.

Raigoro placed the false receipt beside the two requests.

The outpost’s current confirmation would still matter.

They no longer needed to wait for it to know the records were contradicting one another in a way capable of affecting an actual ward.

”Suspend the shipment closure,” Raigoro said.

Daric nodded.

”And flag the replacement request for priority verification.”

Because Central Logistics believed the shipment complete, the second replacement request had been dismissed as a duplicate. A false receipt had already changed what Blackharrow did.

Raigoro looked toward the Duchess.

She was reading the same line.

Her chalk moved. THE WIDOW.

Daric looked at her.

She pointed to the family-relief file.

Her question had nothing to do with the wardstone.

Raigoro understood.

”Her payment proceeds separately.”

The Duchess waited.

”I’ll sign the command verification that Corven could not have received the shipment. Treasury can close the service responsibility against his estate.”

She nodded.

Daric said, ”You found stolen military material and you are worried about the widow’s payment.”

The Duchess wrote: THAT IS WHY SHE CAME.

Daric read the slate.

Then inclined his head.

Fair.

Raigoro signed the verification.

The human case returned to Household Relief.

The military problem remained on his table.

He looked at Daric.

”Narrow audit.”

”Same station?”

”Same supply class first. Ward-repair materials, last three months. Look for receipts completed after casualty dates, during hospitalization, leave, transfer, or deployment somewhere impossible.”

Daric nodded.

”Then widen only if the pattern justifies it.”

”No kingdom-wide panic.”

”Disappointing.”

”Also pull serial issues for the receipt forms and station seals.”

Daric gathered the files.

The Duchess remained beside the table.

Raigoro looked at her. ”You have other cases.”

She wrote: I FOUND THIS ONE.

”Yes.”

That seemed to be her entire argument.

Raigoro considered the receipt.

Her office had found the problem because the false military record had collided with a widow’s real life.

The military audit would handle what came next.

Still, excluding the person who had noticed the contradiction merely because her formal authority ended at the command boundary would be wasteful.

”You can receive the nonclassified audit findings that relate to the records you flagged.”

The Duchess read his face as though checking for a hidden condition.

”No active ward strengths. No deployment data. No current supply vulnerabilities.”

She nodded.

Daric reached the door. Then stopped. He was holding another file.

Raigoro noticed.

”What?”

Daric looked at the cover.

”I asked the archive clerk to start with wardstone receipts before I came down.”

”And?”

He crossed back to the table.

”This one was received eleven days ago.”

The supposed recipient was alive.

That was progress.

Daric opened the attached personnel record.

”He was also in the Citadel infirmary with a broken leg.”

His wife took the file.

The medical dates covered the entire period around the receipt.

Raigoro looked at Daric.

”He never left the Citadel?”

”Not unless the infirmary has developed a northern branch.”

One impossible recipient could still be an error.

Two deserved a pattern search.

Raigoro looked at the second receipt.

”Find the third.”