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.
He didn’t spare a thought for the book in his hands, he just tucked it under his arm and ran flat-out in the direction of the water, towards the berth of the Horizon Chaser, which had come to occupy the slots in his instinctive thinking that were labeled “safety” and “home”.
It was a fact of life that a boy who looked and acted like Jace normally looked and acted… in the manner of an errand boy, in other words… could walk freely down almost any street in almost any city where movement was not especially restricted. Unlike a garden variety urchin or a ragamuffin, no one wondered what business an errand boy had on a high street or in a business district or among the carefully tended lanes of the well-to-do, instead they wondered on whose business he was there. And if the errand boy was going about that business with a haste that would have otherwise been unseemly, it was assumed that business was simply too important to be conducted at a leisurely pace.
But there was a qualitative difference between an errand boy going about his master’s business at a snappy pace and one fleeing recklessly down a respectable street with an object tucked under his arm, and that difference was readily apparent to the constabulary of Montport, one member of which put himself into the boy’s path.
“Hey, now, watch where you’re going,” the pug-nosed watchman said after Jace bounced off of him and fell back on his seat. “Where are you off to in such a hurry, and what’s that you’ve got there… a book?”
“I… swordswoman…” Jace sputtered, gasping for breath.
“You ain’t no swordswoman I’ve ever seen,” the constable said, pulling Jace up and off his feet by his arm. “Let’s have a look at that,” he said, taking the book with his free hand while still holding him aloft.
“Hey, shove off, mate,” a man said. Jace thought he recognized the gruff voice, and when he looked he saw that it was a stevedore who worked the docks Jace passed by every day. “That’s Kat’s crew you’ve got there, that is. He’s an alright lad.”
“Ka-what?”
“Katryn O’Sheana,” the stevedore said. “That’s her boy, and probably her book, if I know Kat.”
“Well, I don’t know Kat,” the watchman said. “Who is she, then?”
“What? Everyone knows Katryn O’Sheana. You know, the sturdy-hipped sea wench with the magic boat?”
“Everyone? I don’t know that I know any of any Katryn O’Sheana with sturdy hips or a magic boat,” the watchman said. “You’re not spinning a story to get the lad out of trouble, or to waste my time, are you?”
“Magic boat,” the stevedore repeated. “Tight little ship with no sails and no oars, runs against the wind like nothing else.”
“It’s called the Horizon Chaser, sir,” Jace said.
“I don’t pay attention to every little sloop that makes harbor here,” the watchman said. “It’s the streets that are my lookout.” He lowered Jace to the ground, keeping the book. “But let’s say you show me the way to your magic boat, and then we’ll say good day to each other.”
“Yes, sir,” Jace said.
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