A Signature With the Wrong Loop

The courier found Severin Callow at Pelling Mill, sitting on a sack of grist under the stopped wheel, wearing the same grey cloak as forty other people waiting for the Sun-House’s boat. The courier didn’t recognise him until Callow spoke. That was the point of the cloak.

The paper wanted a countersign. It was his own report, recommending a warm lamp offer to Hale Corrigan of House Sec, and at the bottom was his name with a loop on the S that he had never made in his life. Someone in Copperhythe had a careful hand and a poor memory for his.

“Sign it and the offer goes to Hollin Scar on the next boat,” the courier said. “Your mother’s stipend goes on as before.”

Ivo Starling was handing cloaks down the line, a drop and a fifth a span apiece and no questions. Delphine Copthorne’s boat was already nosing in, sun painted fresh on the bow, deep with the band. Callow looked at the loop for a long time.

Then he folded the paper, tucked it inside his cloak, and wrote on a scrap of grist-sack instead: Corrigan, the report under my name is not mine. Read the small print aloud to your stokers. S. Callow, plain S.

He gave the scrap to Ivo to carry across in the band. The courier went back south with nothing signed, which, Callow supposed, said enough.