the island. Now that he was on his way to his room, he felt an urge to sit down with the man and spin yarns of the old days. But the stories of the wanderings of retired or discharged veterans usually proved sad or unremarkable. He could imagine the fate of such a soldier outside the Bridgeburner squads: no posting would have been desirable. Even the role of marine would have been confining and frustrating. Direct dismissal from service was preferable. And following that, aimless drifting and befuddlement at civilian life.
Temper could sympathize: when his own place in the ranks had been taken from him he’d experienced something much the same. He’d even presented himself with false papers to the local garrison in order to return to the only life he’d ever felt was his own.
Yet there was more to this puzzle than just the one man. Passing the kitchens, Temper waved to Sallil, the cook, who nodded back, then returned to fanning himself at the rear door’s steep steps that led up into the alley. In the dark of the stairwell, Temper felt his way to the upper rooms, some rented by Anji and a few of her friends for occasional whoring, and one occupied by Coop himself. In the narrow hall it occurred to him that once before he’d seen a ragged gang of men such as the crowd below. They’d disembarked from a galley hailing from the island’s other settlement, Jakata, that had berthed overnight at the public wharves.
Outside his door, he paused, the puzzle solved. Jakatan-registered vessels enjoyed one of the rare charters that allowed ‘interception’ of non-Imperial shipping off the coasts of Quon Tali. In short, the long tradition of piracy survived in Jakata. This man, an ex-Bridgeburner, would find himself quite at home among such a lawless bunch.
They must have put in for the coming storm; no wonder they had posted two men to keep an eye out. There were probably merchant cartels represented here whose shipping had been liberated by these very same men.
Temper took out the keys he kept on a leather thong around his neck. He was reasonably sure he’d threaded together the how and why of the crowd downstairs. Now he could drink his wine and pay them no further mind. What remained to be seen was whether anything would come of this Shadow Moon nonsense.
CHAPTER TWO
ASSIGNATIONS
T
HE FISHERMAN SET DOWN THE RIND OF BREAD AND LEFT his bowl of soup steaming on the table. He went to the window where a rag of cloth fluttered in a frigid south wind. From beside the fire, his wife turned towards him. ‘What is it, Toben?’
He pushed aside the rag, stared to the south for a moment. When he turned back to her, his eyes were downcast. ‘I’ve got to go out, love.’
‘Now?’ She lowered the sweater she was mending to her lap.
‘Aye.’
‘There’s no fish to be caught by the light of this moon.’
‘True enough – it draws other things.’
‘You’ve never had to go out any of the other times.’
‘No.’ He came to her, gently drew the sweater from her hands. ‘Things aren’t as they were before. They’re all out of balance.’
She raised a hand; he took it and she grasped tightly. ‘Don’t go out,’ she whispered, fierce. ‘Please don’t. I dread it.’
He bowed to kiss her eyes, each sightless, each staring. ‘Sorry, my chick. I must.’
’Then you know you go with my love.’
‘Yes, dear one.’
The fisherman drew on the sweater. He shovelled embers from the hearth into a brazier, then filled a short clay pipe and lit it with an ember from the fire.
‘Good-night, love.’ He smiled. ‘Sing for me, won’t you?’
She raised a hand. ‘You know I do. Come back quickly.’
‘I will. Soon as I can.’
She turned her head to listen to the door, heard the wind moaning through the rocks, the ocean heaving itself against the shore with slow, insistent pressure. The door latched shut. She lowered her head and folded her hands in her lap.
The wind blew steady and chill. Clouds raced overhead – the leading banners of a solid front filling the entire south horizon. Beneath the silver eye of the newly risen moon nothing moved among the shacks perched on the barren southern shore of Malaz Isle except the fisherman picking his way down to the wave-pounded shingle. In the lashing wind his brazier flamed like a beacon. For a moment he stopped to listen; he thought he heard the hint of a hound’s bay caught on