Melkarthe
taken down while she talked — tidy later
Several wks among their junior men. Clerks, assessors, factors, underwriters, customs scribes, council aides. Wine shops, courtyards, after-suppers. Nothing broken into, nobody impersonated. She listened and they preened.
Their words, not hers — independent hulls · outer-isles obligations · salvage paper · maritime risk instruments Cove paper ← said quietly. twice. this one.
Never pirate. Never contraband. Not once, from any of them.
→ a trade with that many substitute words is in the habit of not saying something
drunk clerk: “free captains are free only until the note comes due” another: “buying influence over disorder” — hold a dangerous man’s debt and he becomes predictable
Numbers. Copied from an underwriter trying to impress her. Two seasons, high-risk water.
Melkarthene — 2 seizures / 37 voyages
Everyone else — 11 / 42
worked after she left pooled hazard = 1 in 6. They ought to have lost six. Lost two.
Others: a ship every 4 voyages. Them: every 19.
Luck — routes — better guards? all narrow it. none close it.
Settlements also faster, classifications kinder, after a loss. luck does not do that.
→ warned, or spared? Not the same word. That is the whole question.
Dominion ports. Rival haulers, consistent: Melkarthene cargo cleared faster, lower inspection fees, better grain guarantees, less quarantine, credit on terms nobody else is offered.
Their own junior factor: “the price of being useful before one is forced to be obedient.” Would not repeat that sober.
Proof of anything: none. She said so before I could. Correct of her.
Doesn’t matter. Anything that goes through Melkarthe is a window. Lender, hull, underwriter, harbour office, factor — any one of them, on some delay, whether they mean it or not.
And they are far and away my easiest road to Dominion foundry iron.
I had been treating that as a question of price.
ask her: what is Cove paper, who holds it. she has the ear for it, I plainly do not. find another road to the iron.