A Fence's Chit

aka the Redhook chit, the sold cargo

A creased chit tucked in the counting-room accounts: a tally of caravan goods the keep could not ransom, moved out through Vera Redhook's crew for coin — proof the chain and the hideaway do business, and that they cheat each other doing it.

Not in the clerk's careful hand — a rougher one, and torn where it was folded too often. "To V.R., against the last three carts: Bolt-cloth, 40 ell — moved, short by six; the Redhook crew says six, I counted none short loading. They always say six. Two casks salt-fish — moved. A reliquary box, small, sealed — HELD. Coldhand will not fence the Temple's things. Bad for the road, he says. Sell nothing that prays. Coin back from the hideaway, less their cut, less the six ell that were never short. We feud with them and we deal with them in the same week. That is the road now: everyone who broke the same oath, robbing each other politely." A line at the bottom, pressed hard: "If the captain saw I keep these, he'd hang me for it. I keep them anyway. Someone should be able to read what was done here."

This world ships in Valenfeld. Play the game →