I went to the fair and I sold my cow

For five pounds in silver and a guinea in gold

Should I drink all the money and sleep in the cold

Give me my peace to let me do so

Some say I'm a scoundrel or down on my luck

No goods or fine clothing, no stock or no store

My entire soul worth not one coin more

But, ah, they do not count coins at the gate

- Unknown singer at the Crossroads Tavern

He didn't expect Alez to kick away the chair with a loud clatter, the servants scrambling away as he stalked over to where Jori stood. Well, Jori was not one to shy away from a confrontation. So he stood up and waited with baited breath to see what fire Alez was capable of breathing.

"You promised!" Alez hissed.

Now this was a nice change, there was a healthy flush to Alez's cheeks and his eyes looked alive. Perhaps it was good that Alez didn't wear a sword or arm himself with a gun, no doubt if he had, Jori would find himself facing one. It made his heart thump wildly and Jori had to bite back the grin. This was not the Alez that said his sentences in questions, this was a very different man altogether and Jori liked what he saw.

"I do not lie to friends on principle," he said, and leaning in closer, so close he could see the freckles on Alez's nose where the powder didn't quite conceal it. There was no need to cover that, and he decided he ought to confiscate Giersa's powders.

"Friend," Alez said, baffled, before the anger returned to his gaze and voice. "Friend." He took a deep breath, nostrils flaring before spinning around to look at his sister. "Thank you so much for hosting us, Marget. I will take your advice into consideration. But Wyne is the largest fish in such a small pool, who will you marry me to next?" His lips curled even as his voice was nothing but politeness. "You do not have such a large net as you used to, Marget, not for me." A shadow fell across his face at that, and as Marget herself stood up to sneer at this statement he repeated, "I will take your advice into mind."

The two siblings were staring at each other and maybe it was some guilt he saw in Marget's expression before she forcibly shoved it away and threw away the key. "I thought you cared for numbers not dreams and superstition."

This made Alez smile, a forceful and broken one, a grimace that Jori recognized on his own face when he realized half of his heritage. It was why he, out of all the sailors in his crew, could recognize Olysa's artifacts for what they were truly, and perhaps why he never directed the Plucky into a storm even though Jori never trained as a ship's captain.

"I had neither with Edmund. Good-bye Marget." Alez made to walk to the door, but as Marget was closer to it that both of them she managed to block the way.

"The shriveled crone never said you will find happiness at sea," she said softly. But then the warmth was gone from her voice as she continued, all ice and hail. "But fine, fly away little Alez. Have it your way. You could have been great you know, and you've chosen your lot in life."

There was a look on Marget's face that he remembered. Maybe it was like how Madam Zhao would have looked at him when he left, which was why he ran out in the middle of the night instead of staying and waiting to hear whatever sweet words she had to say. Would it work on Alez? He glanced at the man and waited for Alez to say that Marget was right, that she knew better, that Alez would stay in Byhill and do whatever it was that she asked of him.

Instead, he took in a breath, and had to stop himself from smiling as he saw the other man clenched his hand into fists and said, "So have you, sister. She who once wished to sail the world now sits at the corner of it, ruler of the world's smallest isle. Have things gone as you wanted?" Alez reached for the doorknob, pushing Marget aside when she refused to budge for them and walked out.

Marget did not look at Jori as he went pass the woman, and all the servants made themselves scarce as Jori followed Alez. He made to grab his borrowed coat and Giersa's umbrella from the hallway as they both left. There was a pounding in his heart that he could not attribute to either the heist. Though of course, the heist! He did not check. But it would be suspicious, wouldn't it, to crane his neck to look now. Alez's sister could be looking out the window. So he strode after Alez, who was walking at such a speed he thought impossible for the shorter man.

"Wait, Alez!"

The gravel of the pathway crunched under Alez's fancy little buckle shoes, and Jori might as well be the stones Alez kicked out of his way. He had an odd feeling in his stomach at that but he shrugged it away to rush after Alez.

"Alez," he said, pushing himself to a jog. "Wait."

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

The man at the gate, looking very surprised, let them through. Jori could see his gaze on their backs. He had caught up with Alez now, but his repeated calls of the other man's name was met with a stony silence. Jori scowled, he had no time to understand why Alez was angry if what he was giving the other man was truths. But he could not just leave the man in Byhill with his elder sister who seemed more fond of weaving webs than family.

"You're going the wrong way," he pointed out, when Alez made to go to the pub.

That garnered a reaction from the other man, who spun around to face Jori in a flurry of velvet and silk. "What makes you think I want to board the Plucky?"

"It's night time," Jori pointed out. "Do you really want to go into the pub at this hour?" Byhill was a nice settlement, all things considered, but Alez, dressed in his borrowed finery would not have a pleasant time.

"You sound like my sister."

"She wouldn't have let you gone this far," Jori hazarded a guess. He did not care for the jab, Alez was angry at something, not a Jori and if he wanted to lash out at the only person who could understand then Jori would let him do so.

Jori expected venom, but instead Alez sounded resigned when he next spoke. "No, no she wouldn't."

"If you want to drink, I'll see if there's something on board," he offered.

Again, he expected anger but the street lights did not illuminate such an emotion on Alez's face. "Is that what you would do for a friend?"

Now Alez was speaking in riddles. "I let you cook in my kitchen," he said flatly. "Did you see me allow any of the sailors to join me?"

"I thought Giersa—"

"I'm the captain, they don't tell me what to do." Jori said, to Alez's incredulous guffaw.

It surprised the both of them, and Jori had to smile, "I didn't mean to say that. I suppose it was not... gentlemanly. But I don't like seeing anyone just sitting there and taking—" abuse, he thought but settled on, "nonsense. You are good with numbers, she implied you were, which is a blatant falsehood."

"That's very gentlemanly of you," Alez said. He had kept his distance away from Jori but at that he stopped walking and spun around to step a hand's breadth away from Jori. "I thought you didn't like genteel behavior."

"How she treated you wasn't genteel, so it's only fair she got what she deserved," Jori said. In the silence, he offered, "I met someone like her you know. I don't have an older sister but she was much older than Marget and wanted me to stay with her and her ships." Wanted was a light word, threatened with imprisonment was the term, but he continued on, "She would have said the same words Marget said to you. But I didn't say anything to her face. I left in the middle of the night, because well, I wasn't as brave as you."

"I was brave?"

For once he did not find the question to be irritating. Jori reached forward to clasp Alez's hands in his, with complete honesty, answered, "Yes, you were brave."

"Oh."

The street lights were making his eyes hurt, Jori thought. He stood there frozen, wondering if he should take a step forward or backward. Alez just stood there, expectantly. What did he want? But before Jori could question this peculiar behavior or bid his legs to walk the silence was broken by an odd rattling noise nearby.

"Best get going," Jori said, too quickly. "Come on, I think we're too well dressed for this hour of the night.

He took the lead this time to the docks, so he couldn't have to look at Alez's face to wonder what the man was thinking or why the man had stopped in the first place. The Plucky was silent when he and Alez boarded. This was on purpose, it was good not to draw any eyes on them. But as they entered below deck, they were greeted by cheers and clinking glasses. Jori looked from one happy and cheery face to another, curious at why they wanted to celebrate. Sure, they had a heist, but Jori never celebrated heists, he toasted when such an item was dealt with. He glanced at Giersa, who simply shrugged and motioned for the elderly Hari to step forward.

"Captain Jori and Alez," said Hari leading the toast.

"To Jori and Alez!" the crew cheered.

There were many thuds of mismatched mugs and goblets, all except for Giersa who toasted the two of them with the stolen pipe. Jori glanced to Alez who similarly looked confused.

Jori scowled. "What the blazes are we celebrating?" He said this too late as his indignation was lost in the din of the cheers.

Alez broke away from Jori to push towards Giersa. "I want to take you up on your offer Giersa," Alez said, ignoring everyone and their curious looks.

"Which one?" Giersa said, with both seriousness and cheer. There were little rings coming out of their pipe and Giersa waved a hand in front of their face to blow the smoke away from Alez.

"Find me a new name," Alez said. His lips curled into a sort of half-snarl before it smoothed over. "Alez is to genteel for my liking."

"Sure," Giersa said, and to the crew, shouted. "Who wants to help our new sailor brother in this noble endeavor?"

"Johny's a classic," Pierre suggested. He raised his eyebrow at Jori in a silent question and Jori refused to deemed that with a response.

"Jore," said Ralphye, because he had a death wish.

But it was Alez that glared angrily at Ralphye for that. "No. I am my own man."

"Then we'll have a drink and think about it," Giersa said, draping an arm around Alez and gesturing furiously in the direction of the captain's cabin.

It was the first time he'd ever been ordered to do anything by any sailor, or his second-in-command but he was all too happy to let Giersa figure out what ailed Alez. He did not even know why it had been Giersa that Alez approached with this question. For all the time Jori had known Giersa, that had been their name. Unlike everyone else on the ship who had at least one name change, or in the case of Perre, a complete change of name, Giersa had always been Giersa.

But he desperately wanted to know if the planned heist had gone on well, so he made his way to his father's cabin and walked in. The door had been unlocked and placed upon his father's writing desk was the horn that he had written about. There was no moon to shine a light on whatever it was the horn originally looked like. He took it in his hands and looked over the symbols carved over it. This was nothing he could read, though he could recognize them as something the Viribyr would carve upon their ships. This was like one of their drinking horns as well, for their ceremonies honoring fallen warriors, young men coming of age and their weddings. Perhaps it was time to pay Olkvardr Stigeson a visit, and ask his peculiar seer how it was that they knew his mother had taken up her selkie skin.

He lit a candle and sat at the desk, rolling the horn over and over in his hand. Maybe he could hazard a guess at what it said. There were only three possible options after all. If it was a marriage, then there would be the bride and groom carved with their hands entwined in a hand fasting ceremony, but he saw nothing of the sort. Neither did he see the an engraving declaring it a coming of age ceremony, as there were no engraving of a young boy and his father, nor of a girl and her father. Maybe this was the funeral horn of a well known warrior, but it was not it either. He looked into the horn where such an honored name would be carved and saw nothing but the rings of a horn.

The more he gazed at it though, the more unnerved he felt. It depicted several ships, and not Viribyr, which was unusual for a horn that had Viribyr markings. It had the galleys of King Hamund, and several others, though he could not make out their flags. Where you would hold the horn up to drink from it was carved two figures, their faces faded with time or age or deliberate erasure, he could not say. One of them was blowing a war horn, and the other had something draped over their arms like a cloak. A very furry cloak, he thought, but then again, they had very cold winters. It could mean nothing. Or it could mean everything.