day had been quite successful.
The waitress returned, this time with her tray empty but wearing quite the smile. She gestured to the food between them.
‘The good lady says these are on the house, and anything else you take a fancy to ordering. I guess you two must have found her sweet spot somehow. You’ll have to let me in on the secret when you’re done.’
From inside her apron she produced a brick of brown butcher’s paper, tightly bound by string.
‘With her compliments. And thanks.’
Jackdaw playfully nodded, watching her backside as the woman took her leave.
Cole, however, was too set on the package for his attention to be diverted. To satisfy his colleague’s curiosity, the paper was torn open, revealing a brick of paper money.
Cole spluttered his drink, wiping spots of foam from his lips. ‘How much is there?’ he asked, quite astonished.
‘Count it.’
Cole flicked through the notes with speed. When done, he restrained a knowing gasp. ‘That’s almost double what you would have got for offloading the merchandise.’
Jack noisily drained his second drink.
‘Exactly. The Sanders Boys stole what they could and were selling it off at this here market. If anybody objected they put muscle on them. Turns out, the boys were putting such a dent in the profits and faces of the other stallholders, they pooled their money together to buy a solution – which was me. I knew we were going to be roughed up by them, but it was necessary as we couldn’t just hand it over. They get some hot goods from us and attempt to sell them. The Bluecoats get word and haul them off. They’re put in cells for a few months, meaning I have no competition on their territory should I desire to encroach on it. Which I do.’ Jackdaw took a long draw on his drink and gasped in satisfaction. ‘And the fine, honest folk here get to go on with their livelihoods, unhindered.’
For the first time since their arrival, Cole formed something resembling a smile. ‘Clever.’
‘Ain’t it just? See what I mean about celebrating, now?’
Their tankards rang out as they struck them together.
The thorn and the rabble
Jack never said so but Cole’s initiation went smoothly. He had endured the punches with minimal complaining, was learning fast and seemed to be fitting in well. As far as Jack was concerned, Cole was performing as expected. There was little need to threaten discipline, as the newcomer seemed quite invested in his work. He still worked the kitchen in the morning but found the rhythm to cook breakfast and manage his duties without either one lagging.
Nothing ensured that someone was on the level more than taking a beating for the cause. It wasn’t ideal of course but this wasn’t the sort of job where you checked in after your probation to see how well you were doing. It was rough, dirty and if Cole confessed to himself, he was adapting to it.
He was told to shadow both Alvina and Blakestone for the following weeks and to, as Jack put it, use his initiative. He was coy to begin with, not wishing to tread on either’s toes. When they met contacts he listened, and offered to do the simple things – acting lookout, flashing iron. Generally, he spoke little, watching and learning the trade. That was, until he and Alvina were under the shadow of the Ajana.
The Ajana was a Hornet-Class Sand Ship. Compared to the larger cargo haulers that took their loads across the Sand Sea itself, it was relatively modest in size with only five decks, so it was dwarfed by its companions. Dockhands loaded and unloaded cargo, in crates and sacks, in bales and bundles. In a place such as Esquelle, the Bluecoats were easily bribed to look the other way to the point where they were not even a concern. Alvina addressed them on a first-name basis, referring to favours both past and future to encourage gaps in memory and selective blindness.
As Alvina and Cole ventured across the loading dock, Cole spied the circular paddle wheel at its rear, colossal and imposing. Even higher, its twin flumes reached skyward, painted in a bold red and darkest black. The loading ramp was at its port side, the ramps trembling with the weight of goods that teams of oxen hauled in wooden carts. Those working did nothing to interfere with their advance and, in fact, made way for them.
With the darkness setting in, the dock gas lighters were taking ladders to the lamps one by one, illuminating the area with soft, golden pools of light. Beneath one of these lamps, a man leant on its post, clearly enjoying half of a cigar with one hand and clutching a clipboard of papers in the other. He was smartly dressed, giving orders to those passing with varying degrees of urgency.
Upon spying the pair of Jackrabbits approaching, he took a tin whistle to his lips, indicating break time for the others. The workers vanished to presumably drink rum or play a few hands of dice. It didn’t matter what they did as long as they weren’t here.
‘Phillipe Denwell of the Ajana.’
Alvina looked him up and down, holding out her hand. ‘Welcome back to Esquelle.’
Phillipe patiently drew upon his cigar stub, relishing it, before slapping the clipboard of papers into her hand. He spat a wodge of phlegm onto the ground, following it up with a deep-reaching snort. Cole raised an eyebrow, disgusted.
‘It’s nice to be welcomed. That’s the thing with this place. Good beds, decent food and accommodating individuals like yourselves. It’s my sort of town.’ He withdrew his smoke, gesturing to the paperwork. ‘That’s the formalities done with – there you go. There’s what you’re looking for. I’ve done my bit.’
‘Pay the man, Cole,’ Alvina insisted. Money was exchanged but when doing so, Cole noticed the grimace on the individual before him. He begrudgingly counted the notes, not that there was any need to – he hadn’t done so the times before, but this betrayed his assertion that things were fine.
Alvina flicked through page after page. The ship’s manifest detailed all of the cargo it was hauling and where. It was commonplace for things to simply go missing when shipments were moved about, simply a risk of hauling goods. It was a hazard brought about the likes of the Jackrabbits, who skimmed off goods and tossed coin to the easily manipulated. It was easy work. Dockworkers and ship hands were normally poorly paid, jumping at the chance to earn extra on the side. They didn’t care about the cargo being taken. When questioned, they feigned ignorance about the items going missing. When being exploited by a second-rate shipping company, being able to get one over on them made the deals all the sweeter.
‘I’m going to need more for this information you know. It’s valuable stuff,’ Phillipe demanded.
There it was. Cole narrowed his eyes in suspicion but Alvina was already ahead of him with her response.
‘Don’t be stupid. You get paid what we agreed. This isn’t something you just haggle over.’
‘No, but there is a market for this kind of information.’ He puffed slyly, slowly, trying to draw their patience out and encourage rash behaviour. ‘Plenty of interest out there I dare say.’
‘Oh,
