Sect Year 5 · second month · night of day 4 · the forty-fourth life: Ferren Mouth, his thirty-first year
“Hold the storm-line until the boats are in.”
“Iron Constitution.”
The wind came over the harbour wall in long shoves, and each shove found the rope in Ned’s hands and tried to tear it free. He leaned back against the iron bollard with his boots braced on the wet stone and his palms bound twice in sacking. He didn’t let the line run.
Below him the storm-line stretched from the wall’s great ring across the black water to the moored boats in the lee, and each boat rode on its own short pennant, pitching in the swell. Every time one of them lifted and dropped, the whole line jumped in his grip.
Under the lantern light the sea heaved in long ridges, each with a white edge that came and went. The bollard was older than the new wall beside it, cast with a fish’s head on its boss. The salt had pitted its ring so that the rope ground across it with a sound like a file. He had always liked that sound. It told him where the rope was.
