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She did not know what Captain Tenira or Grag said to the crew, but no one evinced any surprise when she appeared on deck in her boy’s togs.

Ophelia entered Bingtown Harbour on a crisp breeze that made the hands work lively.

If any of the crew recognized Althea as Athel from Candletown, no one was foolish enough to admit it.

Instead, they accepted her toiling beside them with only a bit of good-natured teasing.

Ophelia sailed with a will. The seasoned ship knew her business and cooperated with her crew, calling out suggestions to the man on the wheel.

This was not operating a contraption of planks and canvas and lines to a place beside a dock, but the guiding of a cognizant creature into her home.

The Ophelia’s boats were put out to assist her to her berth at the tax dock.

Althea took a spot on a bench and an oar; Captain Tenira had decided it was the best way to distance her from the ship and give her a chance to slip away if she needed it.

After all their preparations, it was almost a disappointment to see the harbour traffic so ordinary.

No one seemed to take any unusual notice of the Ophelia.

As Althea’s eyes roved over the busy trading port, she felt a sudden rush of emotion far stronger than any homesickness.

She had been on longer voyages with her father, and travelled farther than on this last trip.

Nevertheless, she felt as if she saw Bingtown for the first time in years.

Bingtown was cupped in a sparkling blue bay.

Rolling hills in the bright greens of spring backed the lively merchant town.

Even before they docked, she could smell the smoke and cooking and cattle.

The shrill cries of the hawkers in the market floated out over the water.

The streets bustled with traffic, and the waters of the harbour were no less busy.

Small craft plied back and forth between the shore and anchored ships.

Little fishing vessels threaded their way through the tall-masted merchant ships to bring their catch to market.

It was a symphony of sight and sound and smell, and its theme was Bingtown.

A discordant note jarred the harmony as the departure of a ship slowly disclosed a Chalcedean galley tied up at the tax dock.

The Satrap’s banner hung flaccid from the single mast. Althea knew at a glance it was not the same galley that had accosted them; this one sported a fanged cat’s face upon the figurehead, and showed no signs of fire damage.

Her frown only deepened. How many of the galleys were in Bingtown waters?

Why had it been allowed into the harbour at all?

She kept her thoughts to herself and performed her share of the docking tasks as if she were no more than a ship’s boy.

When Captain Tenira barked at her to bring his sea bag and follow snappy, she did not flinch at the unusual order.

She sensed he wanted her to witness his meeting with the Satrap’s tax minister.

She shouldered the small canvas bag and followed meekly at his heels.

Grag, as first mate, stayed aboard to supervise the ship.

Tenira strode into the tax minister’s office. A clerk greeted them and brusquely demanded the manifest of the ship’s cargo. Althea kept her eyes averted, even when Tenira slammed his fist on the counter and demanded to speak with the tariff minister.

The clerk gave a startled squeak, then got his face and voice under control. ‘I am in charge here today, sir. Your manifest, please.’

Tenira tossed the bundled documents to the counter with a fine disdain. ‘There’s my ship’s manifest. Stick your nose in it, boy, and figure out what I owe. But get me someone down here who can talk of more than coppers and cargo. I’ve a complaint.’

The door to an inner room opened and a robed man emerged.

His shaven pate and topknot proclaimed his status as the Satrap’s minister.

He was a well-fleshed man. His robe was embroidered on sleeves, breast and hems. His pale hands nestled together before him.

‘Why are you abusing my assistant?’ he demanded.

‘Why is a Chalcedean war galley tied up to a Bingtown dock? Why did a similar galley accost my ship, supposedly in the Satrap’s name? Since when have the enemies of Jamaillia been allowed safe harbour in Bingtown?’ Tenira punctuated each query with a thud of his fist on the counter.

The minister was unruffled. ‘The Chalcedean privateers are agents of the Satrap. They have been allowed to dock here since the Satrap appointed them guardians of the Inside Passage. The galleys both reported here formally, presenting their letters of merit. Their sole purpose is to control piracy. They will attack pirates, on their ships and in their outlaw settlements. They will also combat the smuggling that supports the pirates; if those miscreants had no markets for their stolen goods, their trade would soon cease.’ The tariff minister paused to straighten a fold of his sleeve.

In a bored tone, he resumed. ‘It is true there were some complaints from a few Bingtown residents about the Chalcedean presence, but the tariff dock is the property of the Satrap. No one save he can forbid the Chalcedeans to tie up here. And he has given his express permission that they may.’ The minister gave a small snort of contempt.

‘I do not think the captain of a trading ship can override the Satrap’s word. ’

‘This dock may belong to the Satrap, but the waters that surround it are Bingtown Harbour, given by charter to the Bingtown Traders. By tradition and by law, we allow no Chalcedean galleys in our waters.’

The minister looked past Tenira. In a bored voice he replied, ‘Traditions change, and laws do too. Bingtown is no longer a provincial backwater, Captain Tenira. It is a rapidly-growing trade centre. It is to Bingtown’s benefit that the Satrap combats the pirates that infest the waterways.

Bingtown should normalize trade with Chalced.

Jamaillia sees no reason to consider Chalced an enemy. Why should Bingtown?’

‘Jamaillia does not share a disputed boundary with Chalced. Jamaillian farms and settlements have not been raided and burned. Bingtown’s hostility toward Chalced is well-founded on history, not suspicion.

Those ships have no right to be in our harbour.

I wonder that the Bingtown Traders’ Council has not challenged this. ’

‘This is neither the place nor the time to discuss Bingtown’s internal politics,’ the minister suddenly declared.

‘My function here is to serve the Satrap by collecting his rightful tariffs. Corum. Are not you finished with those figures yet? When I accepted you for employment here, I understood from your uncle that you were swift with numbers. What is the delay?’

Althea almost felt sorry for the clerk. He was obviously accustomed to being the subject of the minister’s displeasure, however, for he only smiled obsequiously and clattered his tally sticks a bit faster.

‘Seven and two,’ he muttered, apparently for the benefit of those watching him.

‘Docking fee and security fee…and patrol fee brings it to…And the surcharge on non-Jamaillian woven goods.’ He jotted a number onto the tablet, but before Althea could decipher it, the minister snatched it away.

He ran a long-fingered nail down it with a disapproving glare. ‘This is not right!’ he hissed.

‘I certainly hope not!’ Captain Tenira agreed vehemently. He was taller than the minister and looked over his shoulder easily. ‘That is twice what I paid for “fees” last time, and the percentage on non-Jamaillian woven goods is…’

‘Tariffs have gone up,’ the minister interrupted him.

‘There is also a new surcharge on non-Jamaillian worked-metal goods. I believe your tinware falls into that category. Refigure this immediately, accurately!’ He slapped the tablet back down before the clerk, who only bowed his head and nodded repeatedly to the criticism.

‘Rinstin is a Jamaillian town!’ Tomie Tenira declared indignantly.

‘Rinstin, like Bingtown, acknowledges Jamaillia’s rule, but it is not in Jamaillia and is therefore not a Jamaillian town. You will pay the surcharge.’

‘That I shall not!’ Tenira exclaimed.

Althea suppressed a small gasp. She had expected Tenira to bargain over the tariffs that were due.

Bargaining was the fabric of Bingtown society.

No one ever paid what was first asked. He should have offered a generous bribe to the minister in the form of a lavish meal in a nearby establishment, or a selection from the more choice goods on board the Ophelia.

Althea had never heard a Bingtown Trader simply refuse to pay.

The minister narrowed his eyes at Tenira. Then he gave a disdainful shrug. ‘As you will, sir. It is all one to me. Your ship will remain at this dock, her cargo on board until the proper fees are paid.’ He raised his voice suddenly. ‘Guards! Enter, please! I may require your assistance here!’

Tenira did not even look towards the two burly men who stepped inside the door. His whole attention was riveted on the minister. ‘There is nothing proper about these fees.’ He poked at the tablet the scribe was still trying to complete. ‘What is this for “patrol” and this for “security”?’

The minister gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘How do you expect the Satrap to reimburse those he has hired to protect you?’

Althea had suspected that Tenira’s outrage might be some sort of a bargaining ploy.

Colour rose so high in his face that she no longer doubted the sincerity of his anger as he asked, ‘You mean those Chalcedean scum, don’t you?

May Sa close my ears before I hear such idiocy!

I won’t pay for those pirates to anchor in Bingtown Harbour. ’

The guards were suddenly standing very close, right at Tomie Tenira’s elbows.

Althea, in her role of ship’s boy, strove to look tough and follow her captain’s lead.

If Tenira threw a punch, she would be expected to jump in.

Any ship’s boy worth his scrap would do so, but it was a daunting prospect.

She had never been in a real brawl before, other than that one brief dust-up with Brashen.

She set her jaw and chose the younger of the two men as her mark.

It didn’t come to that. Tenira suddenly dropped his voice and growled, ‘I’ll be presenting this to the Traders’ Council.’

‘As you see fit, sir, I’m sure,’ the minister purred. Althea thought him a fool. A wiser man would have known better than to bait Tomie Tenira. She half expected the captain to strike him. Instead, he smiled a very narrow smile.

‘As I see fit,’ he rejoined smoothly. With a curt gesture to Althea to follow him, they left the tariff office. He spoke not a word to her until they were back aboard the ship. Then he sent her to ‘Fetch the mate, and smartly now. Have him come to my cabin.’ Althea obeyed him promptly.

When they were sequestered in the captain’s cabin, Tenira himself poured three jots of rum for them.

He didn’t pause to consider propriety, nor did Althea as she drank it off.

The scene in the tariff office had chilled her worse than a cold night on deck.

‘It’s bad,’ was Tenira’s first greeting to his son.

‘Worse than I’d feared. Not only are the Chalcedeans tied up here, but the Traders’ Council hasn’t even challenged it.

Worse, the damn Satrap has tacked more duties and taxes on to our trade to pay them to be here! ’

‘You didn’t pay them?’ Grag asked incredulously.

‘Of course not!’ Tenira snorted. ‘Someone around here has to start standing up to this nonsense. It may be a bit rocky to be the first one, but I’ll wager once we’ve set the example, others will follow.

The minister says he’s going to detain us here.

Fine. While we’re tied up here, we take up this much dock space.

A few more like us, and he won’t be able to process ships or tariffs.

Grag, you’ll have a quiet word with Ophelia.

Sa help us all, but I plan to give her free rein and let her be as unpleasant and bitchy as only she knows how.

Let the dock workers and passers-by deal with that. ’

Althea found herself grinning. The small room was as charged as if a storm were brewing.

It was a storm, she told herself, and one her father had seen gathering for years.

Still, it humbled her to watch an old captain like Tenira announce that he would call the first bolt down on himself. ‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked.

‘Go home. Take word to your mother of all you saw and heard. I didn’t see the Vivacia in the harbour, but if she is in, I ask you to set aside your differences with your brother-in-law and try to make him see why we must all be together in our defiance.

I’ll be heading home myself in a bit. Grag, I’ll be trusting the ship to you.

At the first whiff of any sign of trouble, send Calco to me with a message. Althea?’

Althea weighed his words, then nodded slowly. As much as she hated the idea of a truce with Kyle, Captain Tenira was right. It was no time for the Bingtown Traders to be divided on anything.

The smile the Teniras gave her was worth it. ‘I suspected I could count on you, lass,’ Captain Tenira said fondly.

Grag grinned at her. ‘And I knew I could.’