Day Two: 8.45 am

Hunchmausen's Headquarters: Day Two, 8.45am

Rimmer gives his men only a short rest. At 08.40 they head northeast towards Widenlau.

At 8.42, a certain Lieutenant Balan arrives in Schrote on horseback. For those readers (if both, indeed are still following the events detailed in these missives) with very, very long memories, Balan had been detailed at the beginning of the campaign to find in northern Schrote a blacksmith capable of fashioning some brackets and bolts and a small wrought iron cage big enough to hold a small powder barrel. This was to be used to provide further means to ensure that The Traitor Agorn did not fall into enemy hands (or, indeed, into any other available enemy body parts). Elsewhere in Europe, finding those with the skills to create at short notice an innovative combination of prison, torture device, and exploding machine of execution might have proved quite a difficult and time consuming process. In Mittelheim, of course, such items are much, much easier to find - certainly much easier to find than, say, a pair of pants, or an incidence of evidence-based analysis. Following his orders therefore, Balan managed yesterday successfully to procure a strange wrought iron cage, thanks to the efforts of a blacksmith in Schmallenhard who had time on his hands as he waited for the next delivery of underwear.

Having achieved his goal, Balan set off first thing this morning. The route through Widenlau was blocked by enemy forces, so he has returned via Flumpe’s Stump. The cage was then ordered to be bolted inside The Traitor Agorn's carriage with a small barrel of powder inside.

At 8.45, Kraftstein, skilled member of the Vulgarian Artisan Guild of Gaolers, Torturers and Ancillary Tradespersons, appears at Hunchmausen's headquarters. He looks disappointed. His apron is entirely clean. Rather than putting up some entertainingly messy resistance, farmer Matthias has folded like a top-flight laundry. In fact, Kraftstein didn’t really have to threaten the chap at all – just give him a few schillings and a go on his thumbscrews. It turns out that the farmer and one of his labourers were paid in Schrote by some bloke in a red dress to take 'a special package' out of Schrote town and hide it well. Evidently, however, that all sounded rather too much like hard work, especially since item for delivery really wasn't a package, or even a carton, but instead a drunk aristocrat in his jimjams, clutching some booze, who snored like Beelzebub's ringpiece. So instead, they kept the wagon, flagon, and night clothes, and sold the supine form of the victim to a smuggler before quitting Schrote with their cash. The smuggler seemed to head southwest, along the Redderblau track.

The baron immediately orders a messenger sent after Rimmer. With apologies, Rimmer is ordered to detach a squadron of hussars and send them back to Schrote, and then southwest to Redderblau. The remainder of Rimmer's force are to continue as ordered to Widenlau join the forces shadowing the enemy there.