The Vondish Ambassador

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A stiff east wind was blowing, bearing the scent of salt and decay from the beaches beyond the city wall. Such a breeze was chilly and uncomfortable, but it could bring ships into port quickly, cutting travel time, and that might mean happy merchants looking for laborers to unload their cargo. Captains and owners pleased by a quick passage tended to pay well, so Emmis of Shiphaven trotted up New Canal Street with an eye on the sea, watching for any inbound vessel, rather than following his usual morning routine of a stroll up Twixt Street to Shiphaven Market. If that unseasonable wind dropped, leaving ships becalmed in the bay, any hope of being overpaid by cheerful merchants would drop with it.

The richest cargoes were usually landed at either the Spice Wharves or the Tea Wharves, across the canal in Spicetown, but the Spicetown dockworkers had their own little bands and brotherhoods, and Emmis was not particularly welcome there. The Shipping Docks and Long Wharf in Shiphaven were more informal, if only because the work wasn’t as steady; nobody there would mind an extra pair of hands.

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