The 3 Seas

“Blast you to perdition!” Iskondra shouted, flinging herself to the side to get away from the slashing claws of the assassin Tauri.
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Once the boy she’d sought to protect and the all-important book she had foolishly thrust into his hands disappeared from the scene, Iskondra Devalion had no reason to continue to stand her ground against Tauri Quick-Claw. However, despite many repeated and lengthy claims about her ability to end the fight quickly and decisively in her favor, she continued to fight defensively while urging the assassin to disengage.
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“So, we’re looking for the capital of the old empire?” Jace guessed.
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“I don’t know anything about any empires except Elakebassis,” Jace said, though if he were to be perfectly honest, he’d have to admit that he didn’t know much about that one.
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Katryn directed Jace to stay below again while she stood up on deck. Horizon Chaser required no pilot except for Loki, and had no mechanism for any to use, but she’d found it saved other people an awful lot of shouting if they could see someone standing over the rudder looking purposeful as her little ship maneuvered its way around theirs.
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Katryn handed the book to Jace and told him to take it below and “out of the damaging sunlight”. She herself remained on deck and maintained a fixed smile until the constable was out of sight, then leaped down the hatch, very nearly landing on Jace.
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“So that’s a magic boat, then?” the watchman said when presented with the Horizon Chaser, sitting at anchor in the shade of a dock. “It doesn’t look very magical.”
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Jace, of course, had taken off running as soon as the two combatants’ respective attentions were fully occupied by each other. Despite Iskondra’s declared intention to protect him and Tauri’s original proclamation that he had no intention of harming him, Jace did not really feel either of them would be safe to be around.
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Tauri advanced on Iskondra, who waved her blade in two quick passes at his outreached hands, forcing him to jerk them back.
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“Do not bother to seek within for the slow-witted scribe,” Iskondra Devalion herself said, stepping through the curtain with a single long stride, her blade in her hand. “I’m afraid the stubborn fool has wisely absented himself from the premises, by way of a staircase in back of his living quarters.” She held up a book in her left hand. “Fortunately, not before he had all but finished the work I required of him… under considerable protest, of course, but I was able to make myself quite persuasive.”

“Should have joined him,” Tauri said.

“Oh, believe me when I say to you that I strongly considered it,” she said. “I was in the process of weighing the benefits of exercising the better part of valor myself when you took the decision out of my hands by involving the boy. I want you to understand the difference between yourself and me… well, one key difference among the many, which include but are hardly limited to our comparative levels of education, breeding, skill at elocution and general deportment, hygiene… that would be quite a large one and all the more unfortunate as unlike most of your defects it is something that would be entirely within your own power to redress…”

“No lists!” Tauri growled.

“Well, to be very brief, then,” Iskondra said, “the key difference with which I am concerned for the moment is that while I may have fallen into desperate circumstances, I am still essentially a woman possessed of her honor, while you are nothing more than a common criminal.”

“Criminal?” Tauri repeated. “Broke no laws yet in pursuit of goal. Not run out on debts. Not steal tomes. Not extort work from shopkeepers. ”

“Yes, I may have been forced into a position where it was not possible for me to meet my lawful obligations, and yes, I may have taken one or two morally ambiguous shortcuts in pursuit of my ultimate goal, but as that goal is itself the redress of the original error–in which I am essentially blameless–then I think I can fairly say that my conduct is ultimately lawful, whereas your ultimate goal in reference to me is most decidedly contrary to law,” Iskondra said.

“Montport law, maybe,” Tauri said. “Try not to involve self in jurisdictional quibbles, mostly.”

“Murder is not simply a jurisdictional quibble… particularly the murder of a child,” Iskondra said. “Even in the absence of codified statues expressly prohibiting it, such an act is against natural law.”

“Think so? Must not spend much time with nature,” Tauri said. “No soft spot for children in nature. Except maybe top of head, when very young.”

“I had no intention of confronting you, Tauri Quick-Claw,” she said. “I still harbor no intention to kill you… though if you press me to the point I can assure you that I will not hesitate to press mine to you. Let the boy go unharmed and we can avoid much in the way of regrettable violence.”

“Not interested in harming boy,” Tauri said. “Only look for connection. Unnecessary, it seems. Go, boy.”

Jace and started turned to run.

“You may have just saved your own life, honorless scoundrel,” Iskondra said. “Because I have no interest in staying to fight you once he is no longer in peril.”

Tauri’s tail shot out behind him, knocking into Jace’s ankles and sweeping him off his feet.

“Changed mind,” Tauri said. “Stay, boy.”

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As the bookbinder’s red ink substitution had been accepted by Katryn the first time around, Jace returned to the same shop where he had purchased it in order to buy more. Once again, he heard the evidence of a heated conversation from within.
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It turned out that Jace did not have even the smallest difficulty wrangling the position of cook for himself. He was not all hampered in his attempts to sample the better of the foodstuffs that were brought aboard the Chaser. He was not thanked for his efforts, either in preparing the food or for having procured it in the first place.
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