The Master of Muscigny (The First Admiral Series Book 5) by William J. Benning

something,” Billy said and walked towards the double doors of the Residence.
    “Please! Don’t kill me!” the voice wailed once again as Billy stepped into the Residence through the open half of the double doors.
    The two-storey building, which seemed to have only half a roof, was dominated by the walkways that ringed each floor connected not by stairs, but by ramps. On the lower ramp a Landing Trooper was pushing and kicking a middle-aged human male figure in a long dusty brown robe towards the ground floor.
    “STOP!!” Billy called out to the Landing Trooper. “Bring them down gently!” he ordered, cursing himself for not making the order more explicit to the over-zealous Troopers in the first place.
    The Landing Trooper snapped to the ‘attention’ position as the brutalised figure tumbled down the last few metres to the foot of the ramp, landing in an ungainly heap at Billy and Gummell’s feet.
    “Please Great Demon, do not kill me!” the figure begged, scrambling to its knees and lowering its head and arms down to the dust.
    “Come on, please get up,” Billy sighed wearily to the prostrate figure.
    This wasn’t quite the introduction to his new feudal fiefdom that he wanted, having watched the Landing Trooper assault the first person they had found on the estate.
    “No! Please!” the grovelling elderly man pleaded.
    “No one’s going to hurt you,” Billy made the gesture to ‘dismiss’ angrily to the Trooper, who trotted away to search the rest of the Residence.
    Crouching down on one knee in front of the prostrate man, Billy took him gently by the arms and guided him unsteadily to his feet.
    “Who are you?”
    “I am Ibrahim, I am the Steward.”
    “Well, Ibrahim, I am First Admiral Caudwell,” Billy said, offering the frightened old man a handshake. Shying away from the hand, Ibrahim stared at the newcomer, wide-eyed as a frightened animal. “Where I come from, we usually say it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Billy said, taking the terrified old man’s right hand in his own and shaking it gently.
    Nervously, the old man looked at Billy before drawing his hand away quickly. Looking at the elderly Steward, Billy saw that he was short, even for the twelfth century. That was going to be useful, he considered, as many of the crew on the Aquarius were Thexxians. The Thexxians were generally much shorter in stature than the humans from the late twentieth century. But here they would be close to what was considered a normal height.
    “Ibrahim, do you recognise this?” Billy asked, holding the parchment scroll with the heavy wax seal out towards the elderly Steward.
    “It is the Great Seal of Jerusalem.”
    “That’s right Ibrahim, the King has granted me this estate. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
    “You are the new Lord and Master of Muscigny?”
    “Yes, Ibrahim, if I can call you Ibrahim? And, I want to know exactly what goes on here.”
    “Yes, Sidi, of course, Sidi, if you’ll follow me,” Ibrahim addressed Billy with the new honorific and gained some of his composure, hesitantly leading the way to one of the rooms beneath the first floor walkway.
    In the small, cramped, dirty room with the low ceiling, Ibrahim swept the dust, and a loudly-protesting scrawny red chicken, from the parchments strewn over the small table that filled almost the entire space. Light flooded in from a large window with ramshackle shutters which hung perilously from their hinges and gave a panoramic view of the entire northern part of the estate.
    “Sidi, I have done my best to keep records,” Ibrahim began, holding up a long and wide piece of yellowing parchment covered in a spidery scrawl that passed for writing, and long wavy lines that indicated the extent of the estate.
    “This is your map of the estate, Ibrahim?” Billy asked, spreading the parchment out on the table.
    From the crude drawing, Billy could see that Muscigny was L-shaped. The Citadel stood at the southern edge of the estate,