23rd of Eystre

Those days aboard the canal steamer were long, in many ways, but also flew by too quickly.

Thanks to Denzig, we had a private berth and enough money to pay the two lyr a day for breakfast and dinner from the steamer's tiny canteen. Breakfast was always a crumbly biscuit and the hot, bitter drink the canal bargemen drank. Dinner was always a soup made of whatever fish and vegetable they had handy, and another biscuit. It wasn't awful, but it was a far cry from wonderful.

The plan was to stick to the Altyran canals rather than going straight to the coast as fast as we could. Ronyr, while being a relatively open country in recent decades, was not known for its overwhelming trust of strangers, and neither of us could pass for Ronyran. That alone would make us stand out too much, and with our Altyran papers, we would run greater risk of being noticed than if we stuck to a more indirect Altyran route.

The route might have been indirect, but that didn't mean we were less likely to run into people. Our steamer was packed to bursting with other passengers, all of them fleeing the larger city centers for one reason or another. Mostly, they were heading back to family, or hoping to find work where there was less chance of being arrested or questioned in the street.

Their stories were chilling. Most of the people who had been in a bigger city knew of someone who had lost everything because they had been reported as suspicious. It had gotten so bad in Arritagne – and Lodes in general – that anyone who even looked a little like they might possibly have Illyrian blood (their skin was a little more ivory than olive, or they spoke with an accent, perhaps they wore their hair long or had unusually blue-green eyes or high cheekbones) was being questioned in depth about their family and their connections, regardless of what their papers said. Hundreds were reported missing, now, with no way of finding out what had really happened to them. All of their belongings and properties were seized, and in many cases whole households had been turned out into the streets without any more warning than the Magis at their door, and no defense that could stand up to the 'for the peace and good of the public' clause at the bottom of their eviction papers.

For most of our trip from Ix to Anmyrros, then to Durro, then south-east along the border of Ronyr, that was the topic discussed when we ventured outside the cabin. It was something safe. Something that other people were easily distracted by. Something we fit right into. We didn't have to lie when we said we fled Vreis because of the blockades. There were nods of understanding from our neighbors.

And since all of our neighbors were working class people, that was another way we fit right in. They didn't expect Arramy to have more than one or two shirts, didn't find it odd that he wore the same pants every day. If anything, my fashionable skirts were looked at with interest. Mrs. Lafton from the cabin next to ours had an eye for quality fabrics, but my excuse that they were seconds from a well-off cousin seemed to be enough of an excuse, and no one else bothered remarking on them.

So far as convincing everyone that we were Kaen and Larra Anderfield, Married Couple, no one batted an eye at that either – although Mrs. Lafton asked one afternoon how we met.

I swallowed too much of the over-sour iced citrus the canteen served and tried like mad to remember if we had ever decided on that particular detail.

"Oh, please don't take it wrong, sweeting, you just seem so very different to each other, is all," Mrs. Lafton said, leaning across the tea table to give my arm a friendly pat. "I'm always interested in love matches. The more unusual the better. So tell me how you two caught each other."

"Ah. He. Um. He worked for my father," I blurted, making a mental note to tell Arramy. "I helped in my father's business office quite a bit, and... we got to know each other well. Then my father... my father died... suddenly... and without a will, leaving me penniless. My sweetheart at the time broke off our engagement when he found out, and Mr. Anderfield – Kaen – was kind enough to offer to marry me to save me from a life on the streets."

Mrs. Lafton's eyes had gone quite round at all of that, and I hid a wince behind another gulp of citrus, hoping she wouldn't think it too dramatic. There was probably a waddingpage with that exact plot on the shelves of an arrum-pages bookseller.

But Mrs. Lafton shook her head, her eyes soft and concerned. "Oh, dear. I'm sorry to hear that your father is dead. That is so very sad. Isn't it Argie?"

"Yes, very sad," her husband mumbled from beneath the copy of the Dailies he had propped over his face to ward off the fierce afternoon sun and the ever-present river flies

"Very sad. But. At least you have a handsome husband from it. Not too bad of a trade in the end, I must say."

I stared at her. She wasn't exactly swimming in the deepest of mental waters, but I didn't doubt she meant well. She certainly wouldn't have any idea how deep her words cut, or why they might hurt so very much. Not too bad of a trade. I finished my citrus water and gave her a little smile by way of excusing myself, then got up and left, heading back to the tiny one-berth cabin I shared with the man I had traded for my father.

~~~

That night, as usual, I made quick work of stripping down to my chemise and small clothes, then got into bed, faced the wall and pulled the blankets to my chin. 

At my whispered, "Alright, I'm in," Arramy turned away from the corner by the door and began getting himself ready for bed.

I nodded my head in time with the thump thump of his boots hitting the floor. Then the whish of fabric when he shook out the extra blanket. The soft whup of his pillow against the wall beneath the tiny window. Then I bit my lower lip at the clink of his beltbuckle, and the rustle of his clothing as he removed his shirt and pants, folding both neatly and setting them next to his boots.

Then he turned out the light and stretched out on the floor. Always on his back. Always with his left hand tucked under his head as he stared up at the ceiling.

Silence descended, and with it the sounds from the cabins on either side of ours became that much more obvious.

Mr. Honekrail stumped into his cabin to grab his coin purse for a bit of gambling at the card game in the galley. That usually lasted until the early hours.

Then Mr. and Mrs. Lafton retired and began thumping about next door, doing whatever it was that real married couples did before going to sleep.

After a few minutes they stopped moving about, and everything went quiet. 

Then Mrs. Lafton let out a very loud groan.

With a sigh, I pressed my lips together and got ready to put my fingers in my ears when there came a rather strident, exceedingly disappointed, "Aw, Argie!... Bad enough to gag a maggot!"

Mr. Lafton's lower, base rumble: "What? It's not as if your farts smell of flowers and sunshine... Rotten swamp mud, more like."

"That's better than the greasy, bloated carcass of whatever dead thing you've been eating — Oh, you've been at that sausage again! I told you that was for my sister."

"I see. So your sister can fart bloated carcass, but I may not."

"Not in this cabin, you mayn't... Oh, you've done it again, haven't you, you horrid man! Open the window!"

I buried my face in my pillow, shoulders shaking, giggles threatening pop out. 

Behind me I heard a light snort.

Unable to resist, I rolled over to face Arramy, my voice straining and high as I whispered, "So... would it help our fake marriage if I farted more often? Do you think?"

He was watching me, a smirk playing about his mouth. At first I thought he wasn't going to respond at all, but then, after a moment, he looked up at the ceiling again. Lifted an eyebrow as though considering that ridiculous question. Tilted his head. Pulled a mug. "Well... Not more often..."

My mouth fell open on an indignant hah! and I pushed myself up on an elbow. "You weren't supposed to agree, you great lump, I don't fart at all!" I grabbed my pillow and swung it at his head. 

It connected with a satisfying whomp. For a second he just lay there. Then he rolled away from me, making a great production of tucking my pillow beneath his head and wallowing down into it.

I pouted. "Give that back." 

"Possession is nine tenths of the law, kid. I possess the pillow. It is mine."

Rolling my eyes, I flopped back down onto the berth mattress. This was not over. "I'm not your kid," I tried after a moment. "And I don't fart."

That got another snort.

I looked at him again. I didn't really care if he had my pillow. He always took the floor, so I could do without a pillow. It was proving too much fun, though, picking on him. This teasing back and forth was becoming a thing I looked forward to.

So I waited until the moon was high and the Laftons were quiet and Arramy was breathing deep and even. And then, inch by inch, I carefully stole his blanket.

When I finally tugged the last corner free, I bundled it up beneath my head and lay there gloating for all of five seconds before I glanced at Arramy again.

And went still.

The moonlight was gilding his body, emphasizing the depth of his muscles, the strength of his arms, casting every detail in sharp relief

I had seen his scars before. There were the two bullet wounds, now puckered and slowly fading. A few of the claw marks from those strange animals had been deep enough to scar as well, although Mrs. Burre was an excellent hand at stitching flesh, and they were barely noticeable. There were numerous other wounds that he had probably gotten during the war. An old slice on his right shoulder. A shallow crescent shaped divot over his ribs. It was the lines crisscrossing his back that made me pause, now. I hadn't really cared to know how he had gotten them, before, but upon studying them for a little longer than that first red-faced half-glimpse, I could see they were too straight and too numerous to be inflicted in battle. No weapon I could think of would make such marks. They weren't random, either, layered in a definite X pattern, which spoke of intent. I swallowed, realization dawning. 

Arramy had been whipped. Repeatedly.

I stopped gloating.

Then I ran my hand over my face and let out a sigh. He wouldn't want my pity, but the cabin was unheated. He would sleep better with the blanket, even if that meant he wouldn't find out how sneaky I was.

Ever so carefully, I got out of bed and draped the blanket back over him.

I was nearly asleep when a large, warm hand slid beneath my neck, lifting and gently easing my pillow under my head.

29th of Eystre

There it was, the Isle of Phyrros, the farthest a canal boat could take a person before running out of canal. The island itself rose from the middle of a sheer stone bowl, crouching low like a squat, dumpy grey-brown toad in front of the towering limestone pillars that marked the river's outlet to the Carakian Sea. On the land side of the island, it was all river barges and cargo quogs. On the other side, the masts and smokestacks of tall ships and ocean steamers could be seen above the rooftops, sticking up from the small sea harbor in the mouth of the river.

Phyrros was not exactly something stunning to look at, but there was the sea and there were the ships, and that was all it took to have me standing in the prow, valise in hand, waiting for our steamer to put into port.

After so many false starts and changes in plan, surely this would go well. It had to. We would be able to join up with NaVarre's pirates and rejoin the fight.

I tried to believe that, I really did, but if I had been forced to learn any one thing in the last month, it had been that simply hoping for a thing rarely made it happen. In fact, it was foolish to start hoping for anything at all. A more realistic 'wait and see, then adapt accordingly' seemed to fare better.

So I waited while we disembarked on the riverside docks. I waited as we made our way across the island to the seaside docks. And then I waited while we stood in line for not one, not two, but three of the five international travel agencies occupying the bustling seaside wharf.

At each one, Arramy's shoulders sank a little further, his jaw knotting a little tighter.

It was the same story each time. They didn't have any open berths for three months, and even if they could find a passage, the rates were already stupidly high, much too high for the little we had managed to scrimp and save of Denzig's money. And those rates were only going up.

After we left the third office, Arramy looked a bit like he wanted to punch something. He paused on the street corner beside the agency we had just come from, his lips set in a thin, unforgiving line as he stared at the ground. 

I came to lean against the wall next to him, head bowed. And I waited some more.

"Three hundred marks a person. We're never gonna be able to pay for a berth at this rate," he muttered after a moment. "Not even on a D deck common room in a poorman's freighter."

I didn't say anything. 'We need more money' would have been stating the painfully obvious, and I couldn't think of any other answer.

Arramy was staring at me. I could feel his gaze, and I tilted my head back, looking up at him, meeting those very familiar silver eyes of his.  I gave him a tired grin.  "We've come this far. We'll think of something."

He shook his head, a small, rather bitter chuckle breaking free. "Don't hold your breath. That could take a lot longer than we've got..." His words trailed off, his eyes narrowing, his attention on something beyond me, across the street.

I turned. A banner fluttered on the side of the building on the opposite corner, an advertisement for an event, bold black plainface letters proclaiming a Skilled Trades and Labor Auction to be held on the 29th of Eystre in the Fourth Street square.

Arramy looked at me again, eyebrow raised. The auction would still be going on. Then he started walking, heading in the direction the sign indicated.

I peeled myself off the wall and caught up with him.

A few minutes later, we found the Fourth Street square. It was choked with people, men, women, even children, all waiting for their chance at a job, standing in groups around the front of the city fountain at the center of the square.

It was noisy, and confusing, with different employers stopping by to shout at the prospects and offer their employment terms, and the workers shouting and vying for the offer, then the employers selecting the workers they needed and disappearing.

Arramy considered the lines a moment, then stepped into the one designated Skilled - Engineer or Smithing. It was a little shorter than the other groups.

At a loss, I looked around. Was I supposed to just... stand somewhere? Should I try? What skills did I even have that anyone would want, here? All the signs I could see were for dockhands, hard labor, or a skilled trade like carpentry, nothing involving translation or even simple clerical work. I was still trying to decide what to do with myself when Arramy gave me a nudge. "That's a seamstress opening, and the employer's still looking," he said, pointing two lines down. "If you hurry you might be able to snag something."

I bit my lip, trying to figure out how he knew all that from just a sign, but nodded. I could sew. Not very well, but I could learn, couldn't I? It couldn't be that hard... I stepped around the group waiting for Construction and Hard Labor, walking to the space where the line for Seamstress began. That slot was empty.

There was a short, rail-thin woman in her fifties coming straight for that section. She could be a seamstress, I supposed. Her dress was neatly made, anyway. I started to smile, and stepped forward, only to be shoved roughly out of the way by a girl from the hard labor group.

"I've been here longer, ya minger, no cutting," she hissed, gouging knobby fingers into my ribs as she pushed me behind her and crossed into the Seamstress section.

"Sorry," I mumbled, stepping back, face flaming.

The thin woman arrived, asked if the girl could make a neat stitch, offered her ten lyr a month, and the two of them left.

With a sigh, I turned, and nearly ran into a boy on a stepladder who was rubbing a mark off the Seamstress sign. There were no more marks, but I could guess how Arramy had known the seamstress was still looking.

I scanned the other signs, but the marks were dwindling rapidly. In the span of only a few seconds the only one left was for Carpentry. There was a collective grumble from the people still left in the other lines and they began dispersing, wandering back to wherever they had come from.

Arramy was talking to a man in a dockman's jacket, a woolen cap pulled down over a bush of grey hair tied back in a seaman's knot. He seemed to be giving Arramy directions, aiming his hands this way and that, drawing lines in the air. Then he clapped Arramy on the arm and left, moving off at a rapid clip toward the street that led down to the wharves.

Arramy watched him go, then turned, searching for me.

I took a breath, smiling a little when he found me and crossed the square. "You got a job." It was a statement, not a question. Of course Arramy got a job. He was a job magnet. Who wouldn't give him a job?

"It's just dockhand labor to start, but it comes with an apartment and a food allowance. I have to go down to the shipping office and sign the papers now."

I swallowed, then nodded.

"Did you land anything?"

My nod turned into a head shake. I looked down at my boots. That failure wasn't a small thing. Twice the income would mean we could get out of there faster. We would both have to work as much as possible if we were going to make enough to beat that price gouge on passage to the Colonies. 

Arramy was quiet. Then he put a hand on my shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze. "Come on."

~~~

I stood with my back against the sunwarmed brick of the Padashiri's Shipping office, my face to the sea. The sounds of the wharf were familiar. Gulls crying as they wheeled overhead, boots clomping about on decking, men singing a raunchy ballad while they shaved barnacles off the hull of a ship in drydock. The creak of winching tackle, the rumble of barrow wheels on loading ramps, the shouts of the dockhands as they loaded and unloaded goods onto the ships moored at the piers.

Some of those goods were passenger's luggage boxes. Some of the people moving along the dock were the passengers about to embark for the Colonies.

There was a man at the end of the dock, hawking the tickets he had bought two days ago for three times the price of the tickets sold that morning.

Not a bad gig, if you could afford the tickets in the first place...

I glanced at the large timekeep over the Shipping Office door. Arramy had been inside for all of half an hour. My stomach let out a prolonged gurgle. How long did it take to sign papers? 

With a yawn, I stretched, rolling my shoulders. At least the sunlight felt good.

I wasn't entirely sure what brought my attention to the man leaning on the rail of the dock. He wasn't particularly interesting, although he clearly thought he was. He slouched in that way men do when they're convinced they're attractive, all low-slung hips and sleepy glances from under their eyelashes. Even with the width of the dock separating us, I could make out a strong, square jaw and an aquiline nose. Full, sensual lips. He was probably someone's idea of handsome. Not mine, at all. That wasn't what caught my  eye. Perhaps it was the fact that he was facing me, his legs straight and crossed at the ankle, his upper body half reclining on the rail, held up by his elbows. Maybe it was the snake tattoo crawling up the side of his neck, although I had seen much more impressive inks on some of NaVarre's pirates. Most likely it was the fact that he was staring at me. Boldly. 

He caught my gaze, and a decidedly predatory smile tugged at his mouth.   

I blinked and drew a breath, a shiver of apprehension rolling down my spine. 

Snakeneck's little smile spread wider, revealing more teeth. He glanced lazily up and down the dock, then pushed himself to his feet and started toward me. 

I frowned. Surely not. The Coventry would never be that obvious. Still, Coventry or no, he was definitely aiming at me and not the doorway to my left, and he was doing so even though I was fairly sure he had seen Arramy with me. 

He didn't have a chance to get close. Footsteps sounded inside the building, and then the door to the shipping office opened and Arramy came ducking out onto the boardwalk.

Snakeneck stopped walking, some cold, shifty, brazen thing sliding around behind his eyes as he took Arramy's measure. 

I almost burst out laughing. The man had no idea how little a chance he had. I bent and picked up my valise. Then, just to give Snakeneck the message, I slipped my arm through Arramy's and beamed up at him. It wasn't an act. I was glad he was there.  

Arramy's brows drew together a little. He glanced down at my hand on his jacket sleeve. "Something wrong?" 

I shook my head, still smiling. "Not at all. Did you get your papers signed?" 

Arramy slid a keen look at the man with the snake tattoo, but then he turned back to me without missing a beat. "Aye." He held up a set of keys on a strip of leather. The tag read '68 Southend.' "I also received a day's advanced pay and my first commissary ticket book. And... Padashiri knows of a place that will hire day laborers without references or experience."

"Good. I'll try there tomorrow." Still arm in arm, I fell into step beside him as he began strolling up the street. "For tonight, I just want to take a bath, eat a meal that does not involve fish or biscuits, and go to bed on a mattress that isn't moving. Not necessarily in that order." 

The corner of Arramy's mouth ticked up in dry amusement. "I'm not sure if there's a bathtub, the mattress may still be moving, and it will have to be dinner at the local tavern."

I shook my head in mock wonder. "You know what you are? You are a fun sucker. You suck the fun right out of things. There it goes. Gone." 

That dry amusement was still there. "Aye, well... I take my job very seriously." 

I gave him a flat glare askance, but couldn't quite smother a grin, so I pretended to take an interest in window shopping. I didn't deliberately look back. The wharves were simply reflected in the windows we were passing. 

Snakeneck was still there, watching us walk away.