Page 4

V iv woke in the predawn indigo to the growing murmur of the city outside.

The pigeons cooed in the loft where they’d returned to their nests.

She rose and checked on the flagstone above the Scalvert’s Stone.

Undisturbed, of course. Gathering a few things, she slipped into the street, chewing the last of her hardtack and inhaling the moist morning scent of shadows giving way to sun.

She felt limber and coiled, like she was up on her toes, ready to break into a sprint.

Across the street, Laney had swapped her broom for a bowl of peas and sat on a three-legged stool shelling them. They traded amiable nods, and then Viv locked up and left in the direction of the river.

She found herself humming as she walked.

* * *

In the receding morning fog, Viv made her way to the shipyards clinging to the bank of the river.

The place was alive with the clatter of hammer and saw, shouts muffled by the mist. What she wanted was fixed in her mind, but she didn’t expect to find it right away.

She could be patient, though. In her experience, you had to be.

After long hours spent reconnoitering or staking out a beast’s lair, Viv had made peace with the passage of time.

She bought some apples from a rattkin urchin hawking them from a burlap sack, found a stack of crates out of the way, and settled in to observe.

The boats here weren’t large—mostly keelboats and little fishing boats best suited to the river.

A dozen or so were up on the long quay, attended by small knots of shipwrights, being scraped or tarred or repaired.

She watched them as they worked, keeping an eye out for what she wanted.

The crews ebbed and swelled as the morning progressed.

Viv was on her last apple when she found what she’d been looking for.

Most of the crews worked in twos and threes, big men with big voices, scrambling over the hulls and hollering to one another as they did.

A few hours on, though, a man of smaller stature appeared, hauling a wooden box of tools half as large as himself. His ears were long, body wiry, skin leathery and olive, with a flat cap pulled low over his brow.

You didn’t see hobs often in cities. Humans disparagingly called them ‘pucks’ and shunned them, so they liked to keep to themselves.

Viv could relate, but she was more difficult to intimidate.

He labored alone at a small dinghy, while shipwrights and dockworkers alike avoided him.

She watched his diligent, fastidious work.

Viv was no woodworker, but she could appreciate craft.

His tools were meticulously organized, sharp and well cared for.

There was a deliberate economy to his every motion as he used drawing knife and plane and other things she didn’t recognize to shape a new gunwale.

She polished off her apple and watched him at his work, trying not to be too conspicuous about it. Lurking was a well-used part of her skill set, after all.

It was noon when he tidily replaced his tools and unwrapped a lunch from his toolbox, and Viv approached.

He squinted up at her from under his cap, but said nothing as she loomed over him.

“It’s nice work,” said Viv.

“Hm.”

“At least, I expect it is. I don’t know much about boats,” she admitted.

“I expect that dulls the compliment a touch, then,” he replied, his voice dry and deeper than she’d expected.

She laughed, then looked up and down the quay. “Not many here that do the work alone.”

“Nope.”

“You get a lot of work?”

He shrugged. “Enough.”

“Enough so you wouldn’t like to have a lot more?”

He removed his cap then, and his look was more speculative. “For someone who don’t know much about boats, seems odd you’re expectin’ to need much shipwrightin’.”

Viv dropped to her haunches, tired of towering over him.

“Well, you’re right. I don’t. But wood’s wood, and craft’s craft.

I watched you work. Live long enough, you realize some folks can be handed a problem and some tools, and they’ll sort it out.

And I never think twice about hiring that sort of fellow.

” Although, she reflected, the tools and fellows had been historically a lot larger and a lot bloodier.

“Hm,” he said again.

“I’m Viv.” She held out a hand.

“Calamity.” His own callused paw was swallowed by hers.

Her eyes widened.

“Hob name,” he said. “You can call me Cal.”

“Whichever you like best. I don’t need your name to suit me.”

“Cal’s fine. The other’s too much a mouthful.”

He folded the linen back over his lunch, and she now felt that she had his full attention.

“So, this… work. That a here-and-now sort of prospect or–?” He flapped his hand at some vaporous future.

“Here-and-now, well-paid, and with the supplies you ask for, not the ones I choose for you.” She withdrew her purse, opened it, removed a gold sovereign, and extended it to him.

Cal held out his hands as though to catch a toss, but she deliberately placed it in one palm. He pursed his lips and bounced it in his hand. “So. Why me, exactly?” He made to hand the coin back to her, but she declined.

“Like I said, I watched you work. Sharp tools. You clean as you go. Your mind’s on your business.” She looked around at the conspicuous absence of men nearby. “And you do it even when some might say it’s wiser not to.”

“Hm. So you want me for my lack of wisdom, eh? It ain’t boats you want built. What exactly have you got in mind?”

“I think I have to show you.”

* * *

“ Wrack and ruin ,” Cal swore under his breath. He removed his cap to tuck it into the top of his breeches.

They stood outside Parkin’s Livery, the stable doors thrown wide, and Viv experienced a momentary twist of uneasiness.

“Don’t know much about roofin’,” he said as he peered up at the hole.

“But you can figure it out?”

“Hm,” he replied, in what Viv was coming to understand was an affirmative.

He walked slowly around the interior, kicking at the stall panels, stomping on the flagstones. Viv tensed when he walked over the one above the Scalvert’s Stone.

He peered back at her. “How many you plannin’ to hire?”

“You have someone you like to work with, I’m not opposed. Other than that, I’m a ready pair of hands, and I don’t tire easy.” She held them up in demonstration. “It’s not a livery I’m wanting though.”

“No?”

“Ever hear of coffee?”

He shook his head.

“Well, I need a… a restaurant, I guess. For drinks. Oh!”

She went to her satchel and withdrew a set of sketches and notes.

Suddenly, she was unaccountably nervous.

Viv had never cared much for the judgment of others.

It was pretty easy to ignore when you had three feet and six stone on most of the folks you encountered.

Now, though, she worried that this small man would think her a fool.

Cal was waiting for her to continue.

She found herself rambling. “I came across it in Azimuth, the gnomish city out in the East Territory. Was there for a… well, it doesn’t matter what I was there for.

But I smelled it first, and I came across this shop, and they made…

. Well, it’s like tea, but not like tea.

It smells like….” She stopped. “And it doesn’t matter what it smells like, I can’t describe it, anyway.

At any rate, imagine I’m opening a tavern, but with no taps, no kegs, no beer.

Just tables, a counter, some room in the back.

Here, I did some sketches of the place I saw. ”

She thrust the papers at him and felt color rising in her cheeks. Ridiculous!

He took the pages and examined them, paying careful attention to each, as though he were committing every line to memory.

After several agonizing minutes, he returned them. “Those your sketches? Not bad.”

If anything, she flushed hotter.

“And you’re plannin’ to stay here, too?” He cocked a thumb at the loft. “Seems that’s suited.”

“I… yes.”

He put his hands on his hips and stared into the bay where the stalls stood.

She’d half-expected him to turn on his heel and leave, but now she was beginning to think she might’ve chosen just right.

“So….” He walked around the space again.

“Seems you could keep the stalls. Cut ’em down some.

Tear out the doors, box it in along the walls for benches.

Take some long planks, set ’em up on a trestle in between.

Then, you got yourself some booths and tables here along the sides.

Tear down that wall into the office. The counter might do. Need to check for rot.”

He kicked at the splintered wood from the ladder and raised his eyebrows at her. “Gonna need a new ladder. Couple bags of nails. Whitewash. Paint. Clay tile. Some river stone. Bags of lime. Might want a few more windows in the place. And… a lot of lumber.”

“So you’ll do it?”

He gave her another one of his long, speculative looks.

“What’d you say? I do things when it seems wiser not to?

Well, if you’re helpin’, I guess so. Gimme some of that parchment and a stylus if you’ve got it.

We’re goin’ to need a list. A long list. Tomorrow, we can see about gettin' the orders filled and how much flatter we can make that purse of yours.” For the first time since she’d met him, he offered a thin little smile. “Not gonna ask how much it’ll cost?”

“Do you figure you even know, yet?”

“Don’t suppose I do.”

“Well, then.” Viv dragged an old tack crate away from the wall, blew away the dust, and handed him a stylus.

They bent over the parchment together as Cal started writing.

* * *

Cal left in the late afternoon to complete his work on the dinghy, promising to return in the morning.

Viv tucked away the materials list and then stood in the hush of the livery, where the low noise outside seemed hardly to intrude.

She looked out the doors and across to Laney’s porch, but found it empty.