Chapter 5

Our race to John’s Son’s Cove turned out to be a meander. Nothing like Mother Nature to stick in a Murphy. No matter ... we had to get it done.

John’s Son’s Cove had the remainder of what could have been a much more populous time. The harbor had the ghosts of rock quays and wharves. The wreck of former warehouses lined the suspicion of the heyday that must have been a substantial industry. The warehouses along the quays were built from the brick and stone taken from those buildings that used to be.

Our knarr, the Mary and Rose, was well known to the inhabitants of the Cove. And we had trade goods. Welcome goods by the throngs waiting the arrival of each load carried off by the crew. Bidding wars drove our profit higher. Every single thing we unloaded was taken from the cave beneath under My house. David acted as the handler at the dock.

That David was the only male was not lost by the men of the Cove. A rather stout and substantial man decided that the women were up for sale and tried to closely examine my person.

I poked him in the eye, but, undeterred, he made a second grab. It’s a long way from the quayside to the stinking water of the Cove.

As he floundered his way to an old and rusty ladder access to the quay he was sputtering and threatening dire consequences for my actions. He stepped on the quay only to be met with a second cross hip throw back in the water. The splash was as large as he.

Once wasn’t funny, although the spectators laughed, the second trip to the garbage laden waters brought promises ... not threats. After the third splash, he came up with knife in hand. Knife? It was finger tip to elbow in length and looked to be as well made as any armorer made weapon, and sharp ... wicked sharp. His last trip to the water left knife and the hand clasping it twitching on the stones. He’d never climb that ladder one handed.

I picked up the knife, pried the fingers from it and kicked the hand in the water. Well ... after I stripped the rings.

He wasn’t dead ... yet ... but from the slime in the water and the distance he had to swim to reach the sand beach, I was reasonably sure he wouldn’t live. I was willing to let it go.

David noticed and said, “Grace, in a fight, what is Rule number one?” He wasn’t quiet about it. Several men quoted me word for word.

As if by rote I said, “Never leave a live enemy behind.”

“Why?”

And everybody said, “They sometimes recover.”

“And?”

“They hold grudges.” It was a whole Chorus.