The wind off the Gray Rush carried a biting autumn chill as thirty-four residents of Fish Street gathered beneath the timber roof of the Old Ferry Market shed. The shed smelled of dry reed baskets, salted herring scales, and the damp river slime crusting the granite boat ramp steps. Outside, the river ran high and dark, the brown water lapping against the top course of the flood wall, just four inches below the high-water datum line.
Mira Os stood on an overturned herring barrel, her heavy wool shawl pinned at her throat with a carved bone needle. In her apron pocket she carried an empty clay pot sugar crock, its glazed rim chipped at the handle. Beside her, Pella Rook and Eren Tal sat on a timber stringer, their boots resting in the dry cedar shavings. everyone could feel the silt stench from the low-water flats and the cold damp of wet stonework along the quay.
“We all saw the new board on Sister Merrow’s porch this morning,” Mira said. Her voice carried clear and sharp across the market stalls. “Two silver coins for a tenant cellar check. Five silver coins for a warehouse. Old Master Garrow walked away cursing because he thinks two silver coins is highway robbery. But I’m looking at Widow Kessel, whose floorboards have been floating in three inches of warm river soup since Tuesday. I know she doesn’t have two silver coins. She doesn’t have one silver coin. If she buys two silver coins of…
