The arrival of the King’s navy transformed the Salt-Pan reach from a lonely, outlaw-ridden swamp into a theater of sovereign military law.
By the second bell after midnight, The King’s Plover was moored securely to the stone dolphins of the ancient royal navigation pier below the Salt-Pan Lock. Her thirty-foot spruce yards were braced sharp against the wind. Her battle lanterns, glazed with thick horn lenses, cast long, brilliant halls of yellow light across the dark, swirling water. And on her quarterdeck, Captain Wren had established his summary court-martial table beneath an awning of painted canvas.
Sitting on the wet stone quay beneath the watchful muzzles of four repeating naval crossbows were twenty-two captured hired blades of the Silt-Road Trade ring.
They were stripped of their weapons, their iron-riveted jacks unbuttoned. Their wrists were bound behind their backs with three-strand hemp marline. Among them sat Bailiff Taggart, his broken collarbone roughly braced with two pieces of driftwood, his face gray with agony and terror, his small pig-like eyes darting wildly toward the cutter’s yardarm where a heavy hemp noose hung swaying in the cold night wind.
Tomas Reed stood beside the mast of The King’s Plover. He looked out over the quiet stone quay where the prisoners were being processed.
