Wilm Garside Asks Hollis Marr

Hollis Marr kept the gate at Cobble Staithe the way her mother had, with a stick of chalk and a short temper. When House Sec’s boat came in she drew two lines on the wet steps, one for each grey band, and let the cloaks file down between them, hundreds to a line, every hood the same, every fare paid in together at two drops a span.

Wilm Garside came off the boat with Sec’s slate under his arm and the look of a man who had been told off once already this Book. He waited until the last cloak was aboard before he spoke.

“The head wants the bands set down plain,” he said. “But the floor’s asking which of them paid fat and which paid thin. You’ve watched cloaks file past this gate all season. You’d know a rich walk from a poor one.”

“I’d guess,” said Hollis.

“A guess from you is worth more than nothing from me.”

“It’s worth exactly as much, and it costs more when it’s wrong.” She scuffed the first chalk line with her boot, then the second, until the steps were only wet stone again. “Two bands crossed. Two thousand four hundred and some souls besides. That’s what this gate saw, and that’s what this gate will swear to.”

Wilm stood a while with the slate against his chest. Then he turned it face down on the bollard, wrote nothing more on it, and climbed back aboard. Out on the water, Sec’s boatmen were already pulling for the far bank.