Sister Merrow and Pella didn’t arrive at the beached barges with town court guards or armed guards. They arrived with two heavy cart carts loaded with dry woolen blankets, four sacks of rolled oats, a barrel of clean drinking water. An official billeting order signed by Councilor Elna Vesk.
The families living in the rotting hulls of the grain barges were the poorest watermen of Lathmere. Men with crippled limbs from winch accidents, widows of draymen, and twenty ragged children whose bare feet were blue with river mud. Merrow kicked the hatch open. Then, they huddled in the dark hold, expecting the customary academy eviction by heavy club and torch.
‘Come out of that bilge water, Martha,’ Merrow commanded. She lifted a shivering six-year-old girl into her warm wool shawl. ‘We’re moving you up to Salt Warehouse Number Four on the High Dock. The roof is sound, the stoves are lit with dry birch wood. Councilor Vesk has allocated a silver coin to every family to replace what gets wet in the moving.’
Old Tam, a sixty-year-old river pilot whose right leg had been crushed forty years ago at the Third Gate, climbed out onto the muddy deck. He leaned on a rough ash crutch. He looked at Pella, then looked at the two heavy cart carts waiting in the lane.
