Kharl couldn’t help but frown as Hagen brought the Seastag past the outer breakwater, a long rampart of white stone stacked together, but not mortared or joined. Cut stones, he realized, but stones later broken, then piled to form the breakwater. Or had the breakwater once been a white stone wall against the Eastern Ocean, a wall broken by time-or cannon? Or the remnants of something else piled into the offshore waters?
Tarkyn stepped up beside Kharl. “Good to be in a warmer port. Not so gray and chill here. Not too hot, either, not like Swartheld.”
“Is all of Hamor hot all the time?”
“Some of it’s just warm. Mostly, it’s hot.” Tarkyn snorted. “Atla’s the worst. Like standing between a pair of coal stoves. Happy we’re not going there this voyage.”
Kharl saw four long piers, two without ships tied at them. He didn’t see a pilot boat, but the Seastag continued toward an empty pier. “How does he know which pier? Or does it matter?”
“In Southport? It matters. The Marshal’s Arms’ll make you move your vessel if you’re three rods off center in your berth.” Tarkyn pointed. “See the white banner with the green square? And the flag with the number one? Tells the captain he’s got the first berth on that pier.”
The paddle wheels slowed as the Seastag neared the designated pier, where two line-handlers waited.
“Forward line!” ordered Bemyr. “Aft line.”
Once the lines were secured to the white bollards, the paddle wheels thwupped to a halt, and the deck crew walked the Seastag in toward the pier.
“Double up! Make it lively!” ordered Bemyr.
The Seastag was soon snug against the fenders that cushioned her planks from the pier, a long solid structure entirely of white stone, all of the same shade, but with stones of differing lengths and thicknesses. Kharl could also sense something odd about the way the pier felt, as though it were ancient. He looked to Tarkyn, standing beside him. “What do you know about Southport?”
“It’s just another port.”
Kharl looked at the sections of white stone that comprised the pier. He could sense that deep within the stone there was chaos overlaid and linked with order. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?”
“Your second’s right, Tarkyn,” said Ghart from behind the two carpenters. “Some say it’s the oldest port in Candar. That pier there, the Marshal of Southwind had it built some two centuries back, all out of stone dredged from the harbor bottom. Came up without moss, just like it’d been fresh-quarried. See how sharp the lines are. No one knew how long it had been there, either.”
“Another of your stories.” Tarkyn snorted.
“Ask the captain, if you don’t believe me. Or one of the Marshal’s Arms, if you dare.”
Tarkyn just grunted, not looking at the second mate. Kharl repressed a smile.
“I’ll be giving the in-port deck watch schedule, carpenters,” Ghart added. “Tarkyn, you’ll be having the afternoon watches, and Kharl, you’ll be having the evening watches for the first two days. Then you two will switch. We don’t have that much to off-load here, but we’ll be staying a few days to give the crew a break. That’s what the captain promised.”
“Can I go ashore for a bit after we’re secured?” Kharl asked.
“Don’t see why not, so long as you’re back by the fifth glass past noon.”
“Thank you.” Kharl nodded and slipped down to the carpenter shop, where he reclaimed his staff. Then he made his way back to the main deck, carrying the black staff. He had decided to take it, whether or not it falsely marked him as a blackstaffer. He’d seen enough to realize that Candar was a dangerous place, at least as deadly to the unprepared as…He struggled for a comparison…as Brysta had been for him?
Ghart looked at Kharl-and the staff. “Remember. Back by the fifth glass.”
“I’ll be here,” Kharl promised.
Ghart just nodded.
Kharl walked down the gangway and along the white stone surface of the pier toward the harbor buildings and the city beyond. The stone blocks of the pier had clearly come from different structures, but from what he could see, there were no markings, no letters, and no inscriptions on the stone. Who would have gone to the trouble of cutting so much stone without so much as a single letter or carving? And why, if Ghart had been telling the truth, would the stone have been dumped into the bottom of the harbor?
At the foot of the pier stood two women, each wearing an armless blue tunic over a long-sleeved white undertunic. In one hand, each held a long truncheon. Each also wore two scabbards suspended from their leather belts, holding paired shortswords, one on each side, the kind reputed to have been used by the women of Westwind and the Legend.
The taller woman looked at the staff. “You intending to stay here?”
Kharl had to concentrate. The way the woman spoke was different. After a moment, he shook his head. “I’m the carpenter second on the Seastag.”
“Why the staff?”
“I was given it in Nylan and told to discover who I was. So I signed on as crew. After a while, the captain decided my experience as a cooper fitted me to help the carpenter.”
The patroller-or Marshal’s Arm, if that was what she happened to be-nodded. “Most won’t trouble you.” She paused. “You looking for anything?”
“Just some time on land, maybe something to eat. Have to be back before long.”
“Enjoy yourself. Best taverns are beyond Third Circle.”
“Thank you.” Kharl nodded politely and continued past the two and toward a squarish structure set on the other side of the stone-paved avenue fronting all the piers. Behind him, he could sense the two patrollers talking, but not what they said.
He walked past the square white stone building with the lettered sign on one side. The first line, he could read. It said: Port-Mistress. The lines below were in different languages. One, from the swirls of the letters, he thought was the old tongue, and he suspected the third line was in Hamorian. The fourth-that one he couldn’t even have guessed.
There was actually a signpost on the avenue, proclaiming it as First Circle. That probably meant that all the roads around the harbor were circles. Kharl decided to follow First Circle for at least a few blocks, heading more toward what looked to be the center of Southport.
After he walked past the warehouses west of the port-mistress’s building, Kharl passed a large chandlery, then a cooperage. Both were wooden-framed buildings, painted shades of blue. He continued on, walking past a cotton factor’s. Looking down the avenue, he just saw more shops and warehouses, some of white stone, others of plank and timber, but all in some combination of white and blue.
A number of wagons, most drawn by two horses, passed him, some heading in his direction, others passed him in the direction of the pier holding the Seastag. Some of the teamsters were men, but an equal number were women. The next cross street headed to his right, up a gradual slope, and bore the name Hill Road. Kharl turned onto it, immediately passing a small spice shop and another shop that displayed vials of oils; aromatic oils, he surmised from the scents that wafted into the street.
At the next corner, opposite a café of some sort, he stopped and studied the area, taking in a cabinetmaker’s establishment across from the café, and a potter’s beyond that. Most of the shops and dwellings had front porches with long, overhanging eaves, and rain barrels set at the corners to catch runoff from the tiled roofs.