Hester Brayle Loses a Retainer

The Tide House sounded its catch from the headland above Mallow Quay, and Hester Brayle stuck one more pin into the cork board behind her toll-hatch. One pin per fare. It was the only count she trusted, and today it had taken a beating: a band of grey near three hundred strong had gone through her gate at two drops and a bit a span, dear for the quay, and every hood alike.

Silas Pengelly leaned on her rail, ringed finger tapping. He had paid her a small retainer since spring to tell him who crossed owing him money.

“Tobiah Venn was in that lot,” he said. “Him and the forty coins he borrowed for a boat. Which one carried it over?”

“They paid in one purse and walked in one shape,” Hester said. “The link has every drop of it, sound as a bell. It doesn’t have Venn.”

“You stood at the hatch. You saw the hands.”

“I saw three hundred grey sleeves.”

He slid a coin-slip under the hatch, more than the retainer. “Guess, then. Point. I’ll do the rest.”

Up on the headland Maudry Kell’s lamps were already dimming for the next attempt, the Tide House having taken its gift and moved on. Hester looked at the slip, then at the board, where the pins stood in no particular order, as they always had.

She pushed the slip back, and the spring’s retainer with it.

“Find another hatch,” she said. “I count fares. I don’t sell guesses.”

Pengelly went. The board kept its pins.