HONORIS CAUSA

The four red uniformed pressed the rifle butt into their shoulders, impatiently waited for the command, and as it came, they cocked their head to the side and pulled the trigger. One struck the straw doll into its chest, another into the shoulder and the other two missed it totally, which made Katelyn chuckle quietly. The men in the courtyard weren't able to hear her through the glass of the window she stood behind, though, she wished they would, so that she could see this wonderfully amusing expression of shame on their faces, which men always put on when she, as a woman, demonstrated how to fight correctly. Of course she knew why those soldiers, and probably the majority of all who made use of muskets, looked away at the crucial moment, however, for her such a behaviour was out of the question. She would never look away because of the sparks and the smoke, reducing the opportunity to shoot her enemy in the head, would never indulge in a moment of inattention, since she would rather be blind than dead.

Only at the sound of footsteps behind her she took her eyes off the reloading british soldiers, just to face another immediately afterwards.

"The general is now ready to receive you, Miss."

At the term of address he used for her Katelyn's lips formed a smirk, which abashed the young man visibly. Guiding her out of the narrow corridor, which she had only had to wait a few moments in since her arrival, to a door, he barely dared to look into her face.

The room she entered now was cluttered with boxes, weapons and various other objects, since it had just been captured together with the rest of Fort Washington, though, as busy as he seemed to study the maps on the desk he was bent over, General William Howe obviously didn't plan on staying here a long time anyway. He glanced up and striaghtened himself then, giving Katelyn a polite smile.

"Mrs. Garnett." Howe walked over to her, bowed slightly, which she responded to with a light nod and a small curtsey. "Please, take a seat."

Actually she would have preferred to stand, but she didn't want to be rude and stay at eye level with her contact man. So, crossing her legs, she made herself comfortable on the chair in front of the wooden table, Howe was sitting behind now.

"How was your journey? I hope not all too troublesome."

"Well, at least I was so fortunate as to arrive after your victory here in New York." She smirked again. "Congratulations by the way, General."

He took in a deep breath through his nose, looking down at the maps in front of him. Based on the almost imperceptible muscle tensions of his body, which Katelyn registered with shrewd eyes, she noticed that this topic made him uncomfortable apparently. "As long as Washington is at large in New Jersey, I will not rest on my laurels, but spend all the time I have to break this rebellion. Therefore, I hope you will forgive me if I get straight to the point."

For a moment she looked at him, lightly grinning, and waved her hand then. "Go ahead, please."

Howe leant forward a bit, interlaced his fingers. "As you certainly can imagine the last months were... tumultous. Some of my informants lost their lives in battle, others got busted and executed by the colonists, still others deserted to the very same. I barely get information about the movements of single troups, let alone of single persons. To cut the matter short:" He straightened his shoulders. "We were thrown off the track of your brother. I haven't got the slightest idea of where he is."

At one blow Katelyn's smile fell. It took a short while until she found her voice again. "What?", she said, her eyes wide with anger that had begun to seethe within her immediately after the shock.

Howe didn't let her expression and looks that could kill disconcert him. "I am sorry for disappointing you so soon after your arrival, Mrs. Garnett.", he assured her in completely calm tone.

"A disappointment, indeed." The bitterness clearly resonated in her voice as she leant back in the stool with her slightly clenched fists put on the armrests. "The Order will not be delighted to hear about your failure..."

Suddenly, a shadow was cast over the face of her opponent. "I fear you are judging your status here to be higher than it really is, Mrs. Garnett." He didn't take the gaze of his dark eyes off of hers even once. "I am not helping you in this special affair because you asked me to, but because your father did. I owe him and the Templar Order, not, however, do I owe you. And should you make such a statement that could be mistaken for a threat directed at a General of the British Army again, I shall have you arrested and dumped in the next ship to England."

The two glared at each other, looking like predators readying themselves for an attack on their prey. Instead, however, the tension was loosened by Katelyn's silent but ringing laughter.

With her arms crossed in front of her chest she adopted a more relaxed stance. "I admire this perseverance of a true General of the British Army." She briefly glanced down at him and continued then: "Alright then. Do you have any suggestion as to how I could find the trace again?"

Howe seemed to be relaxed again as well. "Unfortunately not. What I can do, however, is give you all the information pertaining to your brother that I have been able to gather so far." He got up, walked up to a box filled up with paper scrolls and pulled out a map, which he subsequently spread out on the table in front of Katelyn. Interested, she bent over it, marvelled at the dark lines on it while carefully listening to the General's words. "The last thing I could uncover was that he joined a troop of Continentals here in the south of the city." He pointed at a spot, of which Katelyn observed the vicinity more closely, so as to not have to look back later on. "According to that he could have become a part of Washington's Army, or he was redeployed."

"I can hardly search every single Continental camp.", she said, almost murmuring, fully consumed by the drawings in front of her and mental the search for a way out of her dilemma. "Do the Continentals have a list of all recruits too?"

"As far as I know they do, however, if I were you I would not rely on that. After all, your brother could have provided a false name."

Katelyn sighed. "I have to start somewhere... Who could possibly be in possession of such lists?"

Slowly, Howe let himself sink into his chair, forwning. "I presume Generals and other commanders." When something crossed his mind, he bent over and quickly eyed the map in front of him. "You could..." A cheerful smile crept onto his face and again he looked up at Katelyn. "You could join the cavalry unit of Colonel Harcourt, who is commissioned with gathering intelligence on the movements of General Charles Lee's troops. With the help of a competent templar like you, however, they may achieve even more..."

Katelyn paused for a moment. "General Charles Lee, you said?"

Howe nodded.

Charles Lee... Katelyn knew that name well. It was the name if the Grand Master's second-in-command of the Colonial Rite, the name of the man who would become the leader of the Continental Army as soon as George Washington was eliminated, which General Howe had no clue about, of course. He was no templar, he merely came to their assistance every now and then, since they had helped him attain his current position. He didn't know anything of the Templar's actual plans, their noble goals, their real motives of why they supported the British during this war. For him they were nothing but a group of mysterious fighters, who defended the crown against these recalcitrant colonists. In reality, however, the crown was worthless to Katelyn and her templar brothers, though, the man in front of her wasn't allowed to know of that.

"Good.", she said. "I will bring you Lee."

Again Howe stood up - Katelyn a moment later as well - to get a piece of paper, whereon he put down the corresponding orders in curved letters. "I will arrange that Harcourt's men join you. In the meantime I would ask you to apply your special skills to be of service for the British Army."

"In what way?"

Whilst writing he pointed at the map. "There is a village in the southwest whose inhabitants, as it has been reported to me, have supplied Washington with ammunition and other items during his retreat. I want you to go there and squeeze every ever so little information about the Continentals out of them, which weapons they gave them, if they were able to pick up something of Washington's plans, how the physical as well as the mental wellbeing of his soldiers was, in other words how many casualities and deserters, et cetera, et cetera... As support I will provide a unit of, let's say... 20 men, for you. Do you think you are up to this task?"

Again a grin crept onto Katelyn's lips. "Absolutely."

Howe nodded without looking at her, signed the paper and then called the young soldier from earlier in, handing the letter to him. "Send this to Colonel Hartcourt and round up 20 volunteers for a mission outside the city."

The boy bowed his head, seemed to consider to d that for Katelyn too for a moment, but then quickly went off as he sah her smirk and piercing look, which amused her enormously.

She turned to Howe. "General, I have to raise an objection, though. My unit... I don't think that those men are keen on taking orders from a woman. I believe they would much rather do that, if they could follow someone of rank... Honorary, naturally."

His current expression didn't seem directly deprecating, rather surprised. "Which rank do you have in mind?"

"Hm..." She strolled over to the window, watching the soldiers practise shooting in the courtyard. "How about Captain? Or even better: Major! Major Katelyn Phillis Garnett." Grinning seductively she walked back to the big wooden table, against which she leant now. "Has a ring to it, don't you think, General?"

Unimpressed, Howe raised one brow and continued to write on another piece of paper. "Honoris causa, Lieutenant Garnett, and only until this affair is settled."

Katelyn faked a pout, but couldn't hold back a wide smile.