24.

The Route They Cut

Requiem City, AGH 74

“Leave that one here,” Raymond Chadbourne said.

The hands with the bale stopped at the foot of the gangway. One had the weight against a knee; the other was trying to get a better hold on the binding. Ray pointed to the clear boards beside them, and they lowered it there.

The forewoman came down from the vessel.

“Are we taking the others off?”

“Not yet. Nothing more goes on.”

She looked at the three bales already aboard, then at the crates waiting on the landing. The first sling had been laid out for those crates. Someone had chalked the order on their ends, putting the heaviest first.

“I need that space for the next load,” she said.

“We'll have an answer before then.”

“When?”

He had meant to go through the account upstairs before making the stop public. From the office window he had seen the fourth bale moving and come down without his coat.

“Before noon.”

“And the call?”

“The morning's paid.”

“I know. I'm asking whether you want the afternoon.”

“No. Not unless I come and book it with you.”

She turned back to the hands. One of them had started to loosen the bale's outer wrapping, perhaps expecting it to be opened. She told him to leave it bound and bring the loose cover from beside the office steps. The goods would stay where they could be moved either way.

The customer had been standing beyond the crates with his loading list. Now he came around them.

“What's happened?”

“The last two freight accounts haven't been paid.”

“You have my letter.”

“Yes.”

“Then you know the money's coming.”

Ray had the letter too clearly in mind. It gave a date for a payment the customer expected from his own buyers. The date had been yesterday. Ray had waited until this morning before going to the landing, and the office had received another message asking for another day.

“Has it come?”

“It will. That's why I asked you to wait.”

“I have waited. I can't put this load out on the same terms.”

The customer glanced at the vessel as if something might already have been done there to make Ray's answer impractical. The three bales sat just inside the open hold. A crew member was shifting a loose length of timber away from them, clearing access to the ladder.

“Those were meant to go this morning.”

“I know.”

“I've told people they'll have them.”

Ray moved out of the way of the cover being carried between them. The forewoman took one corner and drew it over the crates, leaving their markings visible. She did not ask either man to help.

The customer followed Ray into the cleared space.

“My buyers don't pay me until they've sold. You know the arrangement. We've used it for years.”

“And we've already carried two loads while you wait for them.”

“You can't stop the third and expect the money to arrive any faster.”

“Sending it won't pay for this morning.”

The customer folded his list along an old crease. He began to unfold it again, then stopped.

“Is Brilith in?”

“At home.”

“I'll speak to them.”

Ray almost said that he had been directing the business for five years. He could hear how it would sound on the landing, with people working around a departure he had just stopped. Instead he said, “I'll be in the office.”

The customer went past the steps and along the river toward Brilith's house.

For a while Ray stayed below. A loose corner of the cover kept lifting; a hand set a short plank across it. The forewoman checked the lashings on the bales in the hold. She had the morning to leave everything safe, and there was no advantage in doing the same work twice.

“If it doesn't go,” she said, coming back up, “tell me before you tell him to bring carts down here. We can't unload into that pile.”

“I will.”

“And no one rolls those crates on their sides. He's packed them to stand.”

Ray looked at the arrows on the crate ends. He had seen the sailing date and the order of loading. He had not noticed the arrows.

Upstairs, he laid the customer's two accounts beside the letter. Both covered work completed. Neither sum had become less due while he stood on the landing. He drew the proposed voyage sheet toward him and began separating the commitments they had already made from the ones they could still stop.

Near noon he went down again. The forewoman listened to his answer without calling the hands together for an explanation. She finished securing the load, brought them to the office for their morning pay, and released them. The covered crates remained beside the gangway. The vessel's crew had other work to do aboard.

Ray ate late, standing at his desk. When the message came from Brilith, there were crumbs in the fold of the voyage sheet.

*   *   *

Brilith's window was open to the river noise. They had a book beside their cup and kept one finger between its leaves while Ray took the chair opposite.

“He says you stopped the loading with his goods hanging in the air.”

“At the foot of the gangway.”

“That will comfort him.”

“I told the hands to put the bale down.”

Brilith looked at him for a moment, then set the book aside. Ray wished he had not answered the first thing quite so exactly.

The old tiefling had lived at this landing for most of the city's new life. Ray had come into senior work in 56, with a shipping accountant's confidence in finding what other people had missed. There were still customers who asked for Brilith when he gave an unwelcome answer. Some did it from habit. Some understood the distinction between Brilith's house and the company office very well.

“He's had a bad month,” Brilith said.

“More than one.”

“Yes. So have we.”

“That's why I'm stopping the credit.”

Brilith pushed the pot toward him. There was enough tea left for a cup. He poured it while they continued.

“When we couldn't clear his shed, he let our goods stay. Do you remember that?”

“I handled the collection.”

“Then you'll remember he had somewhere else he could have put paying goods.”

Ray did remember. The customer had kept a covered space for them while their vessel was delayed, and had not made its use another difficulty. Ray had been grateful. He had written that into the letter accompanying their payment.

“We haven't charged him for being late now,” he said.

“You won't bring his goods.”

“Those are different things.”

“They are. He needs the second one.”

Outside, somebody called for the end of a rope. The reply came from farther away, and both of them waited for it to finish before speaking. Brilith's household had never been quiet enough to mistake a working landing for a view.

Ray put down his cup.

“What do you want me to send?”

“The goods he's waiting for.”

“All of them? On the same credit?”

“I want you to look at whether losing him costs us more.”

Ray drew the folded voyage sheet from his pocket. He had brought it because he did not want to spend the visit trading recollections. Now he kept it closed in his hand.

“If we take every load while the last one waits for payment, I have to find the money somewhere else. I've already put off maintenance on one vessel. I won't use the next crew payment.”

“I didn't ask you to.”

“That's what another full run would take.”

Brilith leaned forward and held out a hand for the sheet. Ray opened it on the table instead, turning it so they could read. The empty space beside the later departure was what had kept him at his desk after he finished eating.

“This vessel has paid work in three days,” he said. “There may be room for a call at his landing before it. A smaller load. No regular return laid on for him.”

“How much smaller?”

“Not the crates. Some of the bales. I need the master to look at the time for the call.”

“Can he use just the cloth?”

“I don't know.”

“Then ask him.”

“He'd have to pay for that part before loading. It would still mean an extra stop and handling there. I can't give him a smaller version of the same unpaid journey.”

“Write down what you can offer.”

Ray reached for the pencil beside Brilith's book. They picked up the book first and moved it out of his way. He set down the possible load, the departure and the condition of payment. There was an interval he needed to confirm. He left it open instead of choosing the most favorable figure.

Brilith read the short proposal.

“He won't like leaving the crates.”

“No.”

“And his people will have to collect at a different time.”

“Yes.”

“But they would have something.”

Ray looked again at what he had written. He wanted the vessel to take it. A firm that only ceased doing things would not become the business he had intended to direct.

“If he can pay for the call,” he said, “we can try to fit it.”

Brilith brought a fresh sheet from the desk behind them. They wrote to the customer, asking him to come back, then held out the unfinished note.

“When do you need his answer?”

“Tomorrow, before noon. I have to settle the load.”

They added it.

“Get the master to look at your gap.”

There was an instruction in that, and Ray was about to answer it. Brilith was already reading the proposal again, testing the place where he had left the interval blank. He let it pass.

When he returned to the vessel, the master made him wait until a length of damaged line had been brought out and put aside. They walked the proposed call through from the river to the landing and back to the vessel's other work. The space could be found. So could the time, with the smaller load, provided nothing was added at the last moment.

Ray went upstairs and completed the offer. For the first time that day he could write a departure rather than a postponement.

*   *   *

The customer came early the following morning. He had Brilith's note with him, folded inside another paper.

Ray cleared a place on the desk. Beyond the window the covered crates were still where the hands had left them. The next load would need that part of the landing soon.

“The cloth will do,” the customer said. “For now. I'll come back for the crates.”

Ray took up the completed offer.

“The master has agreed to the call. This is the amount for it.”

“Yes. Brilith showed me.”

He put the other paper on the desk. It was an acknowledgment from one of his buyers. Ray recognized the signature from earlier correspondence. He read the amount, then the promised date.

“This is payable to you.”

“He owes more than the cost of your stop.”

“Has he paid it?”

“He was meant to pay yesterday.”

Ray sat back. The customer kept a hand on the edge of the paper.

“I saw him this morning. He hasn't had his own money in yet. It's coming.”

“From another buyer?”

“From people who have always paid.”

The customer's hand shifted onto the written amount, hiding its last figure. He moved it away again.

Ray turned the paper back to him.

“I can't use it for the call.”

“You could collect from him directly.”

“Has he got anything to give me today?”

The customer did not answer at once. He looked out of the window. A cart had stopped short of the covered crates, and its driver was waiting for someone to tell him where to go.

“Not today.”

Ray let him take back the acknowledgment. The smaller offer lay between them with the amount written clearly. Yesterday he had imagined them settling it quickly, then going down together to choose which bales would go.

“What can you put toward it now?”

“I've just told you where my money is.”

“I mean here.”

“I know what you mean.”

The man pushed his chair back until it met the wall, then sat with his knees turned toward the window.

“If I take the goods back, I have to put them somewhere. If I put them somewhere, I have to pay for that. I've bought them. My people are waiting for them. You're talking as if I could put the whole thing down and come back when everyone has finished paying everyone else.”

Ray had been looking at the amount for the smaller call. He looked at the customer instead.

“I don't think you can.”

“Then send them.”

There it was again, without any misunderstanding left in it. Ray could authorize the load. The master would make the call and the company would pay the extra work from money already needed elsewhere. They might eventually collect. He had made that choice before; it had brought them to two unpaid freight accounts and this new offer on the desk.

He picked up the offer and folded it once.

“I won't send another load on credit.”

The customer stood. He gathered Brilith's note and the acknowledgment, but left the folded offer where Ray had put it.

“Keep that, then.”

“You'll need to tell us what you want done with the goods.”

“I'll tell you.”

He went out. Through the window Ray saw him pause beside the waiting cart and speak to its driver. The driver pointed at the load already on his cart, shook his head, and moved off when the way cleared.

Ray remained at the desk until the forewoman came up the stairs.

“Have you settled it?” she asked.

“The smaller call isn't paid for.”

“Is it going to be?”

“Not in time.”

“Then I have to answer the other offer.”

He had not known she had one. It must have shown, because she said, “I asked about it before this. They're taking extra hands next week. I can take some of mine.”

“Regular work?”

“When their loads come in.”

“Do you know how often?”

“No. That's why I asked you first.”

He had no better date to offer her.

“Don't hold yourself for this run,” he said.

She looked at him. “Is it this departure, or the run?”

“I think it has to be the run.”

“Next month as well?”

“Yes.”

She drew one finger down the side of the door, catching a splinter before it caught her sleeve. Ray waited while she pulled it free.

“If you want those bales off,” she said, “book it. I can finish the work here before I start there.”

“I'll know tomorrow.”

“Send word before the evening. I have to find the hands.”

She left without taking the splinter off her fingertip. On the stairs she flicked it away.

Ray unfolded the smaller offer. He put it with the two unpaid accounts rather than tearing it up. Then he called for the master.

*   *   *

“I've given him more time,” Brilith said.

Ray had scarcely sat down. The following morning's light reached farther into the room, across the same table where they had worked out the reduced call. Brilith placed a letter in front of him.

“It won't change the departure,” he said.

“Read it.”

He read. The customer owed Brilith a separate payment at the end of the week. Brilith had moved that date by three months.

Ray went back to the first line, where the debt was identified. It was theirs personally. He had heard the offer as another instruction about the firm before he had looked at it.

“I've already sent his copy,” Brilith said. “That one's mine.”

“He came to ask?”

“Yes.”

The customer would not have to find that payment as well as the freight money this week. Brilith would not receive what they had expected to collect.

“I'm glad you could do it,” he said.

Brilith took the copy back.

“You could have read it first.”

“I thought you wanted the vessel sent.”

“I do want it sent.”

Neither spoke for a moment. Brilith put the letter into a folder and closed it. The landing noise came through the window. Somebody was dragging something that should have been lifted.

“But you haven't found him the money for it,” Ray said.

“No.”

“Would you...” he began.

Brilith waited.

He could ask them to put more of their own money into the company. That would need a proposal and terms they could accept or reject. He had almost asked without any of that, hoping for a refusal. He wanted Brilith to be the one saying no for a change.

“I'm closing the regular run,” he said. “The notice goes today. The goods will come off tomorrow.”

Brilith moved their cup away from the folder, though it had not been touching it.

“What did the forewoman say?”

“She's found another engagement.”

“That was fortunate.”

The flatness of it made Ray go on.

“It isn't regular. She doesn't know how many days she'll have.”

“And the others?”

“She can take some of them.”

Brilith looked toward the open window. The dragging stopped. A voice below told someone to wait for a second pair of hands.

Ray said, “The work already called will be paid. We're booking the unloading separately. The customer will collect or tell us where to hold the goods. The master can take the other load without the extra stop.”

“I asked about the people who aren't going with her.”

“I don't know where they'll go.”

He disliked saying it. It was also the end of what he had to tell them.

Brilith kept looking toward the window. Ray waited until they turned back and asked which other commitments the company could keep. He answered that question. They followed the answer closely, challenging one date and making him check another. Familiar work resumed between them for a little while.

When he stood to leave, Brilith said, “I still think you're giving up something we'll want back.”

“We may.”

“Don't say that as though it costs you nothing.”

He took his coat from the back of the chair. Brilith did not rise with him or offer an easier parting. At the door he turned to say goodbye, and they answered him.

*   *   *

The customer brought carts before the vessel's new load arrived. He had arranged covered storage for the goods at his own expense. Ray checked the instruction, then went down to the landing while the forewoman arranged the space.

She had brought fewer of the old hands than Ray expected. One had taken a day elsewhere; another could not be found in time. A person Ray did not know was setting out the ropes. The forewoman showed them the crate markings and had them turn the first cart so it would be ready for the bales coming back off the vessel.

“Crates first,” the customer said. “They were last on.”

“They're not on,” she said. “They're in the way of what has to come off.”

He looked from the covered pile to the vessel. The cloth bales had been waiting in the hold since the morning Ray stopped the loading.

“Then put the crates on that cart.”

“That cart needs to come forward for the bales. We'll move the crates into the space it leaves.”

The customer started to explain what he wanted at the storage end. She listened, then changed the order of the two carts. That gave him the load he wanted without filling the only clear approach to the gangway.

Ray stood back beside the office steps. He had imagined unloading as the reverse of loading. It was taking longer to get everyone into place than the three bales had taken to go aboard.

The first came up out of the hold with a corner of its wrapping folded underneath. A hand smoothed it clear before the bale was lowered. The customer checked the cord and the canvas, then put his mark on the return list. It was the same loading list he had carried on the first morning, with a new column down its margin.

They brought the bale down slowly. The forewoman stayed below the gangway, watching the gap between the boards and the cart. She asked for a stop, shifted the cart a little, and let them continue. No one spoke about the accounts while they were taking the weight.

When the bale was settled, Ray moved forward to take the loose cover out of the way.

“Leave that,” the forewoman said. “It's going with the cloth.”

He put it back. She pointed to the plank used to hold the cover down. That could go beside the steps. He carried it there.

The next paid load began arriving while they were still dealing with the crates. It had to wait farther along the landing. Its driver wanted to know how long; the customer, sweating through the work of turning one heavy crate, gave an answer the driver disliked. The forewoman sent one of her hands to bring the empty cart forward before either of them could improve on it.

Ray went upstairs to arrange the extra handling time. The morning call would not cover all of it. He returned with the amount confirmed and found the customer standing beside the last crate, rubbing dust from the chalk marks with his thumb.

“You could still take some of it,” the man said. “You've got the room.”

“Yes.”

“But you won't.”

“No.”

The customer looked at him, then bent to lift his end when the forewoman told him the cart was ready. Ray went to the opposite corner. They needed one more person to steady the crate as it came up, and for several awkward steps all three had to move at the speed of the one who was backing toward the cart.

Afterward Ray's hand hurt where the edge had pressed into it. The customer inspected the crate once it was set down. He did not look at Ray again until the return list was ready.

The goods were accounted for. The customer took his copy, folded it over Brilith's letter, and put both into an inside pocket.

He climbed onto the last cart. Ray had an impulse to give him an ordinary farewell, but the driver was already asking whether the way was clear, and the man was answering. The cart moved out. Its rear wheel passed close to the covered edge of the new load. A hand caught the cover before it dragged.

There was room now.

The forewoman finished the new arrangement she had been hired to make, then brought the hands upstairs. Ray set out the pay for the booked work and the extra interval. She checked the time against the marks in her small book. One of the hands had been sent for later than the others; she pointed that out before Ray counted the same amount twice.

He corrected it and paid each of them. They went down the stairs in no particular order. Some waited for her at the foot. Another walked straight across the landing to speak to a person on a different vessel.

“Do you start there tomorrow?” Ray asked.

“Next week. I have to go back today and find out which days.”

He nodded. She put the book away and collected the short rope she had left on the stair rail.

“Goodbye, Ray.”

“Goodbye.”

She went toward the other landing with two of the hands. He watched until the carts on the road hid them, then went aboard to speak to the master.

By the time the vessel was ready, the cloth and crates were gone from the quay and the other load was secure in the hold. Ray came ashore. A crew member lifted the line from its cleat and drew it in. The stern moved out first. Someone aboard called to the person at the bow, and a second line came free.

Ray was relieved. The vessel had paid work to do, and it was leaving to do it. He stayed while the master got it clear of the boats beside the landing. Then he went upstairs, where the canceled run was still on the wall schedule, and took it down.

*   *   *

AGH 78

Ray had captured the bishop while Brilith was asking about a maintenance bill.

They took the answer, looked at the board and said, “You needn't be so pleased with that.”

“I wasn't.”

“You put it down very carefully.”

He set the black bishop with the other captured pieces beside their cup. The company update lay on the far side of the table, held flat by Brilith's book. There were fewer regular routes on it than there had been four years earlier. The firm was still shipping. Its high-risk work now waited for money to arrive before a load was accepted.

At fifty, Ray had become used to visiting this house with decisions already made. He still brought the figures. Brilith still found things in them he had hoped to get past quickly.

They moved a pawn and asked after the forewoman from the closed run.

“I saw her last month,” he said. “She was loading at the lower landing.”

“Still with the same people?”

“Some of them.”

“Enough work?”

“She'd had a good month. She didn't know about the next.”

“Did you ask?”

“She told me. We were both waiting for a cart to move.”

Brilith studied the board. Ray waited, then saw it was his turn and moved his knight. He had been watching their hand without attending to the last move.

“And the customer?” they asked.

“I haven't seen him lately.”

“No.”

Ray looked up. Brilith was considering a rook. He could have asked whether they had news, but they moved the piece before he did, one square down the board, into reach of his knight.

He checked the diagonal. The square that should have held the defending bishop was empty. The bishop itself lay beside Brilith's cup where he had put it.

Ray took the rook.

Brilith reached toward the far side of the board, stopped, and looked beside the cup.

“Oh.”

He waited for them to take their hand away before putting the rook with the captured pieces. It was a good position. He could see the next move he wanted and the answer that would leave Brilith fewer choices.

They leaned back in their chair.

“I was still using that bishop.”

“You'd already lost it.”

“I can see that.”

Ray began, “You were planning around something that wasn't there, and I think that sometimes when we talk about the firm...”

“No.”

He stopped.

Brilith gathered the captured bishop and rook.

“I've lost a game. I'm not listening to a speech about it. Give me the white pieces.”

He passed them over. They set their pawns out while he returned the black king to its place. One pawn had rolled under the edge of the company update; Ray lifted the paper and retrieved it.

Brilith moved a pawn two squares and reached for their cup.