“A little man,” Skite says.
“You have the honors, Derc,” Holestar says.
Derc grumbles. He’s hardly little compared to most men.
“Go,” Holestar says. “We have maybe an hour and a half until dawn, two until we have to escort Herse to Council. Be nice to grab some sleep first.” He wishes Chelson would let them use powder.
4
* * *
An hour before dawn and riding a double high tide, a Shield galley called Blue Belong approaches Hanosh at double-time and under full sail. A dinghy with a customs official named Mags, a scrivener, and three sea guards is rowed out to meet them just beyond the gibbets. The galley lowers her sail and draws in her oars. The official declares himself and requests permission to come aboard. The captain, Sivarts, grants it, the dinghy ties on, and the party climbs aboard. The two rowers, employed in one of the last positions available to guild members, stay with the dinghy.
Sivarts has never given Mags problems before, and his paperwork is always neat and accurate, so Mags’s little visits are usually quick and uncomplicated. In the cant of his profession, they are enjoyable.
Sivarts presents his manifest. As he examines it, the scrivener looks over his arm to calculate the harbor fees. Mags hands it to him, then he takes some records from the satchel the scrivener wears on his back. He compares them to the manifest. Mags says, “Your load looks light compared to previous ones. And you’re three days early.”
“Our enterprise wasn’t paying out,” Sivarts says. “No sense in staying in Yness.” He knows questions like these are within Mags’s purview, but it’s always felt like prying to him. Fortunately the Shield’s informants say Mags isn’t an informant for their competitors.
“Why the rush?”
“Time. Tide.”
Mags checks the crew roster again and digs out more records. He says, “Why do you have three cabin boys? On your previous voyage you had two. I thought that was the standard Shield complement now.”
Sivarts says, “One fell ill in Yness. We took on a new boy to handle his duties.”
“Ynessi?”
“No, Hanoshi,” Sivarts says. “And a Shield boy. He’d been left behind by an earlier ship. Got a long-deserved whipping for tardiness.”
“You’re lacking two rowers.”
“Powder burn.”
“That why you took on a healer?”
“Yes,” Sivarts says. “My rowers’ boy has a heavy hand. That’s why he took ill, too.” Sivarts shakes his head. “Shame to lash someone so sick. He really couldn’t appreciate it.”
“This healer a Shield orphan too?”
“No,” Sivarts says, “but she’s Hanoshi. Traded her craft for passage home.”
“Good,” Mags says. “Let’s take a look at your cargo.”
“Is anything out of order?”
“Not that I can see,” Mags says, glancing at the paperwork. “But, security’s been tightened. We could be at war with Ayden in a few hours.”
“War? What’s changed in the last week?”
“Time. Tide,” Mags says. He turns to a guard. “You come with us.”
“You realize this is a Shield galley?”
“Entirely, Captain.”
Sivarts smiles with clenched teeth. So that’s the way of it. They need better informants. “Let’s go below.” He ushers the agent and reduced party forward.
The search is perfunctory, Mags’s point made. In twenty minutes the dinghy is leading the galley to the pier, where the cranes go to work immediately. Once Mags has moved off, a wagon is brought up. Two sailors carry a stretcher out of a stern cabin. On it an unconscious figure is wrapped to the chin in clean white sheets. What’s visible of her face is badly burned.
The new cabin boy, Rowan, walks with the stretcher to the wagon. He helps load her, then climbs aboard himself.
Sivarts says, “They’ll take her to the Castle. You’ll come with me to see an owner.”
“She’ll be taken care of?” Rowan says.
“Yes.”
The boy squeezes Everlyn’s hand and climbs out of the wagon. He and the captain walk uphill.
The wagon rumbles through the Harbor, nearly overwhelming the screeching that comes across the sky. The poth stirs, but can’t sit up. The straps beneath the sheets are too tight.
Before the lowest gates of the West Crest a crowd of workers has gathered. A few are half-drunk from earlier that evening. Most are sober and well behaved. No one says anything as Sivarts passes through them, but they barely part, forcing him to rub his pristine silk against their dingy leathers and sagging cottons. Rowan nods at them, but their faces don’t unscowl.
Sivarts says to a Crest guard corporal, “Who’s let these people gather?”
“That’s Quiet’s business,” he says. “Ours ends at the gates.”
“And where are they?”
The corporal has no response.
“Open the gates, then,” Sivarts says. “I have company business with Chelson. Sivarts, captain of Blue Belong.”