Demesne 338 - The Streets of Covehold (Patreon)

When I'd first arrived in Covehold, fresh from a very long sea voyage in a tightly packed ship with food I'd rather not try to remember, the ship had come to rest on a solid stone dock that had been built along one of the encircling stone arms around the cove—the left one from the perspective of the cove entrance, to be more specific. The dock had been made of Whispered stone, something I'd only properly recognized the second time I'd come to the city by the sea, having become familiar with the appearance of the material from Lori's extensive building projects.

Wide wooden piers had extended out into the water supported by pillars of stone to accommodate the people and, more importantly, the cargo that would unloaded and loaded to and from the ships that crossed the ocean from the old continent to this one. Facing the docks were rows of solidly built warehouses, at least one of which I knew was used to temporarily house new arrivals for three days after their arrival so they can be checked over by local Deadspeakers to make sure there was no one with a contagious disease.

Now, however, there seemed to be a second set of docks at the opposite arm of the bay. These docks were not made with Whispered stone, with wood featuring as the primary building material. Even from all the way from the entrance of the bay I could seeseveral of those wooden piers swaying with the waves in a way that was very distressing. I was relieved to realize that some of that seemed to be from how the piers weren't solid, but rather on floating platforms that probably went up and down with the tides. The wooden docks were far more extensive than the stone one on the opposite side of the bay, seeming to extend some ways up the river that fed into the bay, though it was hard for me to tell for sure given the distance.

Fronting the new docks, however, were structures—some made of wood, some that were probably made of rough stone given their colors, and others made from both—that could be politely described as rough and crude, and impolitely described as 'slum-like'. While Covehold had seemed to have a minor problem with overcrowding last time I'd been here, their preferred solution had been to push people beyond the town's walls and subtly encourage them to be the problem of either the farms beyond the walls or the other demesne beyond their borders.

The fact that a… uh, let's call it a 'low-income district'… had arisen implied a new means of making beads—er, earning beads, unless someone had managed to make Lori's discovery as well—had been found, enough to let the people who had set up there afford building materials and people skilled enough to turn those building materials into structures.

I glance behind me at all the boats that hadn't been out there when I'd last visited.

Yeah… that would do it. Even if the rice of salt had been bottomed out due to greater supply… although, perhaps not? There was nothing to say wherethe people on the boats were from, and there were a lot of demesne that had been raised along the river for the fresh water. if many of those in the boats were from those demesne... they might be harvesting salt for themselves and selling surplus to other demesne that were closer to them than to Covehold. Which would still probably lower the prices of the local salt market, but from slightly reduced demand than greater supply, and maybe to stay competitive against those hypothetical demesne. It would depend on whether Covehold was imposing anything on those passing through their territory, from tariffs to toll fees…

I shook my head. While the situation would likely affect how much we could get for our barrels of salt, I already had a seller in mind, as I did for our skins. Hopefully they remembered me… and that they hadn't moved since then. The latter was unlikely, but the former…

Well, hopefully they remembered me.

"All right me, we'll land the same way we did last time," I said, putting a smile on my face to reassure them. "I'll signal you when you need to come in a pick us up. Check for us around late afternoon. In the meantime, go wait outside the bay and don't let any strangers onto the boat, all right? Even if they say they have booze to share." I paused for a moment to set up the line. "Especially if they have booze to share. Someone who brought booze with them when they should have been working, especially on a boat, is probably all sorts of trouble waiting to happen."

There were nods and barely restrained smiles at the admonition. I knew they weren't the sort of let that happen—everyone probably remembered one or two bad experiences from being too trusting or negligent when they'd been in Covehold, heard a story from someone, or seen it happen—but everyone seemed to like the joke in any case.

"All right," I said. "Multaw, Cyuw, empty your belt pouches and leave your valuables here. Leave the pouches too if you're worried about losing them, but grab two micans each for lunch, since we won't have be able to stop anywhere for food. I need to get changed."

After all, wearing you belt pouch on the inside of your pants, under your shirt, is the sort of thing you've got to do carefully, or else you'll end up with an obvious bump.

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Covehold probably hadn't started right up against the water. Its core had been established some distance inland, most likely at some point of what had these days become the grounds of what is now the Covehold Dungeon. The dungeon was far enough away on foot, through slightly meandering streets. I recognized them as the far future descendent of what the well-worn paths though Lorian and River's Fork would be in a few decades. A part of me wondered what landmarks the paths had meandered between in the old days, and if anyone still remembered, or if they had not considered such silly things worth remembering?

…

Well, anyway! Covehold had obvious grown over the years, and now the ton reached all the way to the water's edge, well beyond the point where a beach would have been naturally. Facing the entrance to the bay was a stone wall, no doubt meant to block the worst of waves and storms and storm waves. Atop it, though set some ways back, was a mid-sized thoroughfare that ran the length of the wall, stretching from the foot of the old dock on one end all the way to the bridge over the river from further inland and the new docks and slovenly area on the other side.

At low tide, the top of the stone wall was well above the waterline, looking like a wall in truth. At high tide, the waterline was half a pace below the top at best, and sometimes particularly energetic waves would lap over the top of the stone, spreading across the stone and dripping down into whatever flood controls the town had.

At the moment, the waterline was a pace and a half below the top, the waters themselves more than deep enough for the Coldhold, letting it come close to the wall.

From the wooden walkway between one of the side outriggers and the boat, I waited until the distance was just right, then took a running jump, pushing off from the end of the outrigger and managed to grab the lip of the wall. My feet flailed against the stone, my boots sliding on the wall but giving me just enough leverage to let me pull myself up with my arms. Once I had an elbow over the wall, I was able to pull myself up the rest of the way.

I smiled at the passersby looking at me as they walked along. “Hello!” I said cheerfully. “Wonderful weather we’re having, isn’t it? Wish it wasn’t so hot though.”

Some started walking faster, while others slowed down to watch. Once people realized two other men were going to try to make the jump, they gave us a small open space just to see us fail, and were astonished when Multaw and Cyuw didn't. Having someone with the leverage to help full them up really helped when doing this. It was far cheaper than getting a slot at the pier… and given the changes I could see, I wasn't really sure we'd be allowed onto the pier we'd docked at last time. Or that we'd be able to afford it if we could. I wanted to get a feel for things first before we inevitably had to part with our beads for whatever new berthing fees they'd come up with.

As soon as the three of us were up the wall, Yhorj, who was acting as steersman again, signaled Cottsy—“Driver to third!” “Driver to third!”—and the Coldhold started moving as the latter activated the driver all the way up. The Coldhold shot forward, a white bubbling wake trailing behind it as it accelerated to a speed that was clearly fast than a boat can be rowed, and then even faster, moving back towards the entrance of the cove.

“Come on men, we’ve only got a few hours, and I’m not sure if I remember where we’re supposed to be going,” I said, turning to smile at the people milling about. “Hope you have a good day, everyone. We have somewhere we need to be. Colors, it’s hot.”

At the reminder of the heat, many seemed to think we weren’t as interesting as we’d been before, and resumed walking towards wherever they’d been heading previously. A few kept glancing back, as if still expecting us to do something more.

I didn’t wait for them, leading the way towards the street across the way that led deeper into the town, glancing over my shoulder to make sure Multaw and Cyuw were with me. Fortunately, after the few steps the two men fell in behind me, a lifetime of living in what passed for law and order on the edges of demesne easily coming back to them. The two normally pleasant men had expressions that were at best neutral and in a bad light could have looked stern, maybe even challenging. That was all I saw, because not looking where I was going wasn’t a good idea, so I turned my eyes back in front.

Fortunately, I still remembered where I needed to go, and it seemed like the passing of the recent dragon hadn’t damaged the demesne’s buildings so much that extensive changes had to be made. But then, since our own demesne hadn’t needed to replace roofs again, that made sense.

People walked purposefully along the road, with none of the idle, meandering pace of someone with nothing to do or someone looking for a mark, though I couldn’t really be sure of that. While many wore undyed trousers, and shirt or blouses, just as many were wearing clothes that had been dyed yellow, red, brown, orange or green. It was probably a sign of relative wealth. After a year of living in a demesne where everyone was basically as poor as everyone else, all wore clothes made of the same material, ate the same food, and lived in all-but-the-same houses—my house was the only one with a stone roof, at the expense of being the smallest house in the demesne—it had actually taken me a while to recall that such disparity was something that happened.

It also reminded me that I really needed to ask Lori what the almanac said about plants and bugs that could be used for dyes.

Still, the three of us stuck together, because even if no one nearby looked like they were planning to rob us, that just meant they were probably good at it. I kept my face forward, looking around with only my eyes as I kept an eye out, and hoped Multaw and Cyuw did the same. I noticed many people doing the same, and a few gazes even lingered on the three of us. I made sure to establish eye-contact, smile and nod when this happened. Many people looked away, but a few actually smiled back.

I choose to view that as a positive, with these people simply being friendly to a stranger, and not that they saw me as someone naïve to rob.

Many of the buildings in Covehold were wooden, their surfaces dark from exposure to the elements. My eyes could occasionally pick it the shapes that showed were the planks and beams had been secured by pegs and other forms of joinery. Some of the bigger or more prosperous-looking buildings seemed to have been reinforced with Deadspeaking, the wooden parts fused together for added sturdiness. Most windows had shutters of some sort, whether on the inside or the outside, but all had wooden placed vertically or as a crosspiece to presumably keep people from using them as entrances.

There were no stone buildings, although there were stone chimneys, and sometimes the buildings would be on a raised stone foundation. The closest the buildings had to stone walls was having the lower pace of the wall being made of the material, with the rest of the building above being made of wood. From the way some of that stone was cracked and chipping, on a few buildings the stone was simply an external façade.

The street was about three paces wide on average, and had plenty of room for people walking along it. Occasionally, there would be someone pushing a wheelbarrow, or carrying jars that hung on the ends of a pole balanced between their shoulders. While there weren’t any on the street, I knew that some in the city employed Deadspeakers to operate undead beasts for use in hauling wagons.

A shadow passed over me, and I looked up to see someone running on the roof of the building we were passing. No, not on the roof. There were running on a beam that was raised up slightly above the roof, resting on the building’s support columns. The running woman stayed on the beam, easily transitioning to the beam on the next building, then leaping up to the beam of the building after that. She didn’t even slow, one hand holding the brim of the hat on her head to keep it from flying off, the other holding a satchel tight against her side.

I lost sight of the probably-a-Mentalist as they turned to head down another street that intersected with ours. We kept following the road until we came to what was clearly a major intersection, one I remembered. Somewhere between two or three times as wise as the street wed been following, the width of the road was hard to tell because of all the wagon traffic on it. It was a road I was familiar with from my last trip to Covehold Demesne, as it was one of the major highways the crossed from one side of the town to the other, hence why all the wagons.

Looking both ways to judge where along the thoroughfare we were, I turned right, making sure Multaw and Cyuw were still with me. The place I knew was nearby. Hopefully I’d be able to make a preliminary deal for our salt and skins today so I can devote my time to the issue of selling Lori’s beads sooner.

She wasn’t the only one who wanted her to have a monopoly on this!