Corvin Ashby Files Unknown

Corvin Ashby bought a fare chit at Greyhithe Gate for the sake of having paper, and Gaspard Thew sold it to him at two and seven-tenths drops a span without asking why a Glare Confiscator needed to cross water he had no intention of crossing.

The Tide House’s boat went out low and slow. Maudry Kell stood in the stern in her tarred coat, counting nothing, and amidships sat the great band, hood beside hood, so alike that Corvin’s eye kept sliding off them like rain off oilcloth. Apart from them, in plain wool and a good hat, sat one man who had paid seven hundred and nine drops a span to sit in the same wet boat as everyone else. He had not hidden. He had simply been in a hurry, or afraid, or rich enough not to care.

Copperhythe wanted a name by the next courier. That was where the bonus lay, and the bonus was his mother’s rooms with the south window. The man in the hat would do; a fat fare looked guilty on paper, and nobody in Copperhythe would ever check.

Corvin turned the chit over and wrote on its back with a split nib: One fare, 709 a span, paid openly, no crime in it. Band crossed, persons unknown. He signed his full name, not his number, and under it added: Let the south rooms go. He folded it once, hard, and handed it to the courier before he could think better of it.