Teague Mollard Eats His Hatband

Orla Benbow had crossed four borders with nothing in her pockets but lint, so she noticed the man in grey who kept touching his hat. Two bands were boarding at Kittle Hythe on the Foundry’s link, word of it come down from Brannoch Vell’s chimneys in the Kilnrows, and both bands wore the same cloth, so the gate-clerk had given up and simply waved the wool aboard. The man stood at the edge of the second band, fingering a strip of paper tucked into his hatband.

“That’s your name,” Orla said, falling in beside him. “Written down.”

Teague Mollard went red to the ears. “I’ve a bad memory.”

“You’ve a good cloak and a bad hat. Sixty people look alike, and you’re the one carrying a label.” She kept her voice low. “Say it. All twelve.”

He tried. He stuck at the seventh and looked at the paper. She made him start again, and again, while the band shuffled forward and the boatmen called the drop-a-span crossing like a fishwife’s price. On the fourth try he got through without looking. On the fifth he got through without moving his lips.

Then he took the strip out, folded it twice, put it in his mouth and chewed, grimacing.

“Ink tastes of nothing,” he said, swallowing.

“Better nothing than somebody,” said Orla, and stepped back into the other band’s grey.