Marius had friends who worked the ships. People like Marius had friends everywhere. It’s harder to do the kind of business Marius did without the right sort of introductions from the right sort of people, and Marius had been doing that kind of business for long enough to build up a significant web of contacts. The only problem, such as it was, was that Marius’ kind of friends invariably didn’t recognise him without money passing between them first. Thankfully, the streets were crowded. Within half an hour, he was able to stop in the shadow of a tenement at the western fringe and distribute several tenpennies worth of coins into various hidden pockets, as well as two wedding rings which had probably been on their way to a pawn shop.
By common consent, the docks did not tolerate dips. There were a million ways for a foreign sailor to lose his money in a city like Borgho. The most interesting ones were illegal, or at best, highly immoral, even by Lower Scorban standards. It was mutually agreed, in an unspoken pact going back centuries, that what the city guard did not see it could not close down. And too much money fed too many people in the area for anyone to want that arrangement to go bad because the wrong sailor got dipped before he could lose money to his satisfaction. It was not a case of one bad apple ruining a whole bunch, so much as the whole barrel being rotten but the customer not needing to know until they’d already bought it and carted it home. Besides, an off-duty guard’s money was as good as a sailor’s, and nobody wanted to dry up a regular source of revenue. So: no dips; no footpads; no knives dug into ribs and sudden visits to side alleys. Marius knew the rules, and at what street corner they started to apply. As soon as he passed the end of Fishwife Lane and turned onto the wide street known to all as The Pipe Barrel, he left his fingers in his trouser pockets, and walked without caution past the crowds that milled about the endless stalls and displays of the city’s most determinedly honest criminals.
Remmitt Paschar looked like a corn dolly made flesh, his sun-baked skin having been flogged so often for so many civic misdemeanours that it had taken on the scarred and wizened aspect of the dried corn husks. Like a true Borghan street man, however, he had turned this impediment to his advantage. Decked out in whichever style of blue uniform was in favour amongst the dolly families this year he paraded throughout the docks, offering the discerning new arrival slivers of the genuine decking of Severn Magnassity’s sloop the Tidy, or lucky charms folded from the original pages of his map book, and even, should the sailor in question look especially noble or discerning, at a price that was killing Paschar, and he wouldn’t even be thinking of this if it weren’t for his children not having eaten anything but dumcabbage broth for the last week, the complete sextant with which Severn Magnassity himself calculated the exact position of Haventide. As Paschar himself would tell you, it’s not thievery if both sides receive something from the deal, even if one side doesn’t always get exactly what they think they’re getting.
He was just taking the weight off for five minutes, sitting on an upturned crate in the space at the back of a mussel-fryer’s stall, trying to light a fresh snout from the butt of a dead one, when Marius slid past the stall and stood over him.
“Hello, Remmitt.”
“Ach!” Paschar leaped backwards off the crate, banged the back of his head on the wall behind him, and fell back to Earth. “God damn it.” He scrabbled across the grimy cobbles until he recovered the bent snout and jammed it into his mouth. “Look what you made me do.” He looked up at Marius, letting his gaze travel his entire body before settling somewhere around the arc of jaw visible beneath the cloak’s overhanging hood. “Are you in need of a genuine relic of the rich history of our city, friend? I can see you have a keen appreciation–”
“Your mouth.”
Paschar raised a hand to his lips. “My mouth? What about it?”
“Close it.”
“Hey, now friend. I’m a friendly fellow, but–”
Marius reached down with one hand, and grabbed Paschar’s shoulder. He hauled the trader to his feet and slammed him against the wall in one strong, fluid movement. Paschar gasped, then began choking.
“My snout…” he managed.” Swallowed… God….”
Marius waited, effortlessly maintaining his grip. Paschar eventually subsided, drawing his breath in a heavy wheeze, his eyes streaming tears. When he was at last able to breathe without hacking gobs of tobacco-flecked spit onto the ground, Marius used his free hand to pull back his hood.
“Remember me?” he said, in a friendly tone that wouldn’t have fooled a child. Paschar stared at his pallid, cracking face for several seconds. He made one attempt to swallow, then another. Finally, he gathered enough saliva into his mouth to attempt speech.
“Helles?”
“In the rotting flesh.”
“What on Earth happ… you’re looking…. How are you?” Paschar smiled, a weak attempt that gave up and died instantly.
“You know something? I’ve been better.”
“Shame.” Paschar nodded in sympathy, stopping when it became apparent that if he didn’t intervene now, he’d probably not be able to stop it for at least several minutes. “I’ve always wished the best for you, Helles, you know that. Always felt–”
“Shush, now.” Marius shook him gently, so that only his teeth rattled, and not his whole skeleton. Paschar shushed. “I’m glad you feel that way, Remmitt. I really am. Because I’ve got a way for you to prove it.”
“I’d love to, Helles, really I would.” Paschar found enough courage to reach up in an attempt to prise Marius’ fingers from his shoulder. Marius clenched. The fingers found flesh, and Paschar quickly gave it up as a bad idea. “It’s just, I’ve got these kids to feed, see–?”
“You have two children, Remmitt. They live with their mother in Jarsik Way, you’re allowed to see them once a month as long as you’re accompanied by a special constable, and last I heard, the oldest one is training for the priesthood because he heard you’re allergic to churches.”
“Well, you know kids. Always playing tricks on their old man…”
“I need information, Remmitt.” Marius reached into his pocket, and removed a tuppenny piece, which he held before Paschar’s eyes.
“Ah, well, I’m sure I don’t know anything about it, Guv.”
“You don’t know what I want to know about yet.”
“Yes, well,” Paschar looked from the coin to Marius’ face, swallowed, and decided it was better to focus on the coin. “I’m pretty sure I don’t know anything. Not for that price, you know what I mean?” He devoted the last of his courage to another smile. It wasn’t quite enough. Marius refrained from sighing. He drew out another penny.
“That’s enough.”
“I’m not sure–”
“It wasn’t a question.”
“Ah. Yes. Well, that’ll do nicely.” Paschar reached up and took possession of the coins. “How may I assist your enquiry?”
“The Minerva.”
“Oh, yes. That’s a lovely pub, that is. Other side of the city, I think you’ll find. Next to an undertakers, not that I’m recommending–”
“It’s a ship, Remmitt. A very big ship.”
“Oh, that Minerva. Right.” Paschar swallowed. “Got you.”
“Fifty thousand tonnes. Must have lots of crew. I’m sure some of them would have been interested in a genuine sliver from the Tidy. I bet some of them would even like to talk to the fellow that sold it to them. I bet they’d like to ask just how big the Tidy was to hold so many genuine slivers.”