The low-ceilinged taproom of the Four Anchors smelled of salt cod, stale small beer, burning spruce tar, and the sour wool of forty-eight damp coats drying before the hearth.
Outside, the autumn gale drove salt spray against the thick bullseye window panes. But inside the tavern, the only light came from four smoking animal fat lamps hung by iron chains from the adze-hewn ceiling beams. Around the long deal frame stand tables sat forty-eight men. Every licensed lighterman, tidal pilot, and barge master who had survived twenty-four years of Factor Corve’s trade ring rule along the Lower Delta.
These were not men of gentle speech. Their knuckles were swollen from cold river water, their palms scarred by four-inch hemp hawsers. Their faces weathered to the color of smoked leather by decades of salt fog.
At the head of the center table sat Tomas Reed. He was flanked by Hester Quill and Apprentice Olla.
Tomas sat with his forearms resting on the scarred deal planks. His left wrist remained secured in its three-buckle calfskin brace, the leather dark with dried river silt and oil. Beneath the buckled hide, the jagged white scar across his radius throbbed with a dull, persistent ache in the humid tavern heat. He reached for the baked-clay ink-pot. Then, his left hand merely clamped the wooden base to keep it steady. At the same time, his right hand wielded the goose quill. The permanent thirty-five percent loss of grip strength in his left fingers was a physical…
