The pirates were still in the hold when you bought the ship, and by their code you are their captain now.
You are a shipwright saving your father's yard. You buy a seized ship at the navy auction. That night pirates climb out of her hold. By their code your papers make you captain. Their old captain wants his ship back.
Midnight at Merrow Yard, your family's shipyard. Wet rope burns your palms as you tie up the Patience, the navy ship you bought today with the yard's last coin.
You knock on her side with your mallet. Good wood, dry wood. Then the ship knocks back, and twenty pirates climb out of her hold.
Their captain, Anders, takes off his hat and asks for his ship. Mags, who keeps the crew's rules, reads Article Four: the papers make the captain. Yours do.
A navy patrol is rowing up the river. If it finds pirates aboard, your papers are void, and the ship and the yard go with them.
You build ships at Merrow Yard on the river at Kingsmouth, your family's yard. The last ship that left its dock carried your father, and neither came back.
The Patience's old captain: tall, fair hair tied back, wind-burned pale skin, gray eyes, a scar through his left eyebrow, an old navy coat with every button cut off. He hid in her hold through the whole auction.
Quartermaster of the crew and keeper of its code: short and broad, freckled brown skin, a gray braid, spectacles on a cord, the code book on her belt, a red scarf.
Someone in Kingsmouth pays every bill in exact coin, on the spot. Keep reading.
The navy man who sold you the ship called her a bargain. He did not say she came with a crew. Keep reading.
Someone at the yard whistles through the gap in his teeth when he is worried. Keep reading.
Hot tar and fresh-cut oak on the shore, a half-built ship nobody can pay to finish, and the Patience tied at the dock on a black river.
Whoever holds the ship's papers is captain until the crew votes. A vote needs every hand's mark, and it can be called once a voyage.
Navy auction papers are void if known pirates are found aboard. One inspection can take the ship and the yard.
Your mallet tells good wood from rot through a plank. Wood only, and only in quiet.
The army at your gate flies your family's banner. Relief rides in forty days, if your walls and your people hold that long.
Every monster in the kingdom bows to you. Your guild wants to know why. So do you.
He fights with your secret move. He has the statue's face. He wants to know who broke the vow.
The man who won the last wish hasn't aged a day. That wish drowned your street. Now he wants to hire your boat.
