Naturally, my questioning of the Protectorate officers on the scene produced either a bland but polite “no comment” or a frosty suggestion that I seek grist for my “Voterist propaganda” elsewhere. Consequently, I was compelled to elicit information from a more willing source, albeit reluctantly.
I found Sigmend Talwick midway along the wharf, his lanky, poorly tailored form perched on a crate as he scribbled in his note-pad. “Miss Tythencroft,” he said upon noting my approach. His broad smile would have been taken for warm and welcoming if not for the poorly concealed carnal interest he simultaneously displayed in surveying my person. “How are things at the Gazette? I hear your circulation is booming, almost breaking four figures last month.”
“Five figures,” I lied, as I often do in Mr. Talwick’s presence and find it scarcely tweaks my conscience at all. “I must congratulate you on the Intelligencer’s latest issue,” I went on. “For a periodical given to vulgar and tasteless reporting, your paper truly outdid itself today. Corvantine rebels are roasting and eating aristocratic babies, apparently.”
He stiffened a little, his smile fading. “I am merely a correspondent, miss. Not the editor.”
“Quite so, sir.” I turned and nodded at the rising harbour doors. “Might I enquire if any of your Protectorate friends have enlightened you as to the meaning of all this?”
“No,” he replied, somewhat archly. “They haven’t, but one doesn’t raise all three doors for a single ship, does one?”
“A fleet then. And not composed of enemies.”
“So it seems. But from where does it hail is the question. Care for a wager, Miss Tythencroft? My money’s on a flotilla of Dalcian mercenaries, hired by the Protectorate to augment the Northern Fleet.”
“I leave the financial speculation to my father, sir. However, I doubt the Protectorate could find many Dalcians willing to take their scrip after the Emergency.”
“Varestians then. In the pre-Colonial era they’d fight for anyone if the price was right.”
Just then the harbour doors reached their full elevation, as signalled by the chorus of steam-whistles that sounded from the top of the wall. A short while later the dark, slow-moving shape of a vessel appeared in the central entry-point to Sanorah harbour. I immediately recognised it as a small steam-ferry, the type normally employed in carrying passengers around coastal regions. However, from its appearance it seemed to have been at sea for many days. The vessel’s paint-work was besmirched with soot and her paddles were missing some blades, making only partial purchase on the water as she moved sluggishly to one of the near by jetties.
Mr. Talwick and I quickly made our way to the jetty as lines were thrown between ship and shore. I could see a large crowd of people on the ferry’s fore-deck, mostly women and children and all possessed of the kind of grey-faced silence that comes from prolonged privation. As we drew nearer I could see many weeping, either in relief or sorrow. I couldn’t tell.
“A fleet to be sure,” Talwick commented, jerking his chin at the opened portals through which several more similarly bedraggled vessels were making their way. “But composed of refugees, not mercenaries.”
We were close enough to make out the lettering on the ferry’s hulclass="underline" IRV Communicant—Rg’d Feros Harbour, 03/06/177. “Sailed all the way from the Tyrell Islands in a thirty-year-old coast runner,” Talwick said with a note of admiration.
A gangway had been manoeuvred into place and people were disembarking the ferry, most moving with a stooped, unsteady gait that bespoke near exhaustion. Some of the older passengers were being aided by their younger compatriots, and many were still weeping. As they began to congregate on the quayside my gaze was drawn to a particular figure who stood straighter than the rest. She was a tall woman of South Mandinorian colouring and, from the way the other refugees responded to her, seemed to enjoy some form of authority.
“Joya,” she called to a slender girl who, along with a pale-skinned woman wearing oddly garish face-paint, was helping a man with bandaged eyes navigate his way down the gang-plank. “Bring him here. We need to keep all the patients together. Molly, when you’ve settled Mr. Adderman get y’self back aboard and retrieve all the medicines you can find. Ain’t rightly sure how generous our hosts are gonna be.”
“Good day, madam.” Talwick, always possessed of a keen eye for the best source of information, walked up and greeted the tall woman with a bow. “Sigmend Talwick, chief correspondent of the Sanorah Intelligencer. Might I enquire as to your name?”
“Surely,” the woman replied, moving away. “It’s Mrs. Mind Your Own Seer-damn Business.”
Talwick straightened with an aggrieved sniff but, never one to be distracted in his quest for a story, immediately began questioning the other refugees. I, however, felt there was more to be had from Mrs. Mind Your Own Seer-damn Business, and pursued her through the crowd for several minutes until she consented to notice my presence.
“You another correspondent?” she asked, glancing up from inspecting a wound on a child’s arm. The infant seemed to have lost the energy to cry, merely sitting quietly in her mother’s lap and gazing at the stitched red-and-blue mark in her flesh with wide, incurious eyes.
“Of a sort,” I replied. “I represent the Voters Rights Alliance.” I looked around at the growing throng of beggared people, finding I had to cough away the sudden catch in my throat. “I assure you I only want to help.”
“Good.” She tied a fresh bandage around the girl’s arm, then tweaked her small chin. The girl merely blinked and settled deeper into her mother’s arms. “These people need medical care,” the woman went on, rising and turning to me. “And those on the other ships will need places to live and food to eat. Can your Alliance help with that?”
“Yes,” I said, possessed of a sudden conviction. “I’ll return forthwith to our offices and start organising a relief effort.” I extended my hand. “Miss Lewella Tythencroft.”
“Mrs. Fredabel Torcreek.” We shook and a faint, grim smile played on her lips, presumably as she read the feelings evident in my features. “Guess this is a new sight for you, hun?”
“Yes.” I coughed again, standing straighter. “Please, before I go. You were at Feros, yes?”
“That’s right. And it’s gone. Drake and Spoiled came out of the sea and sky and took it, doing a whole lotta killing in the process. Us former Carvenporters and a few others managed to get away, but we left a good many folks behind.”