Morwen Tallis Takes a Grey Cloak

Morwen Tallis came down to Cowl Staithe with empty hands, which was how Keepers of Names always came, and the gate-guard still turned her pockets out from habit. He found a comb and a bit of string. Her light was in her head, where no guard had ever looked.

House Foundry’s boat was loading. The bell had gone from Brannoch Vell’s chimneys up the valley, and Joss Penrude was hurrying the Throng aboard at two drops a span, a price even the staithe’s net-girls could manage. Half the deck had already gone grey: one great band, every traveller hooded alike, their light poured together so that no one at the rail could say whose went where.

Lowri Bassett, who led the band, held out a spare cloak. “You’ll want this.”

“I’ve nothing to hide,” Morwen said. “Look. Nothing.”

“I know. That’s why I’m asking.” Lowri nodded at the hooded rows. “Every cloak makes the rest of them harder to read. A woman in there is paying her son’s debts without his creditor knowing. One more of us, and the Confiscators’ sums get one row longer.”

Morwen had spent eleven years keeping her name where no eye could reach it. She had never thought to lend that dark to anyone else.

She took the cloak, pulled the hood over her bare head, and went aboard to stand among the others, one more grey shape no one could pick out.