Swamped

"Who delivered the message? Are you telling me it just came by crow?"

Razor shakes his head.

"No. They sent a special courier out with one of the charity supply drops. I suppose they didn't want to appear to be involved with our less reputable partners." He chuckles a bit. "Silver left with them. We passed it off at the time as saying he wanted to escort them to the edge of the swamp personally."

"And it wasn't some kind of trick? A real pardon?"

"Most nations are content to leave their criminals rotting out here in the swamp. Kandria's the only place I know where they hold that much of a grudge. But Silver was just a thief from Lacran. A damned good thief, mind, one who slipped away with the crown jewels."

"That was Silver?" you ask. "The one the Queen was so furious with?"

"The late Queen. She took it rather personally. Blamed him for all sorts of things, even after he fled to the swamp. Her daughter wrote the pardon after taking the throne."

"Still seems weird. I mean, Silver was very respected here. Even with a pardon, if he went home he'd still have a reputation waiting for him."

"Well, those of us who haven't felt the call of the swamp tend to still wish we could go home."

Razor actually sounds wistful. That's a new one on you.

Then you remember something.

"Hang on," you say. "Now, this was a while back, and my memory's kind of fuzzy about that whole time. Hadn't really started pulling myself together yet. But wasn't Silver handling some kind of negotiation with the Bogknights around then?"

"Yes, I thought that odd at the time. He would have wanted to finish that up; it wasn't like him to leave work undone."

"At the time." You can't help but notice those words.

"Silver's been sending me letters since he left. I know a bit more about what was going on now, but it's mostly a personal matter."

"Mostly."

"You'll latch on to anything, won't you?" Razor laughs. "Well, then, here's what I can tell you. The pardon was written three years before it actually arrived."

"Three years! It took that long to get to the swamp?"

"It certainly shouldn't have, even considering the circumstances. Silver found that odd, too. Thought that somebody, somewhere along the line, was holding things up."

"But it didn't show up here until that supply drop?" you ask. "So the holdup wouldn't have been here."

"True. However, it came at an inconvenient time for those negotiations. And whoever decided that it was time to make use of the letter must have found that out from somewhere."

Oh. That's a good point.

What do you ask next?