The Chronicle of the Worthy Son

Blueport

Able smiled in apology before wading back into the crowd. He found himself smiling a different way as he sidled towards the dark corner where he could listen to the tales, and complaints, and perhaps even news—

"You Careful Houser's boy?" croaked an older fellow's voice just behind him.

Able swallowed a groan as his guts tumbled. So much for avoiding his family this evening. Could he pretend he hadn't heard and carry on? The hairy mass of a man in front of him wasn't budging.

"Houser?"

Able sighed before turning to an old man leaning back in his chair with a nearly empty mug in one hand and an unlit pipe in the other. The orange sunlight from the windows was too similar to the lantern light hanging from the ceiling, but by squinting Able found the man's face familiar. "Yes, Able Houser."

"That's a relief! You're pale enough you could've been his ghost."

Able forced a smile. The fisherfolk of Blueport were proudly as dark as their teak boats when freshly oiled, but after a decade of indoor life, Able appeared more like a long-neglected deck. "Brave Salter, if I remember right?"

"That I am. You must be the younger one—saw your brother not two weeks back at the Eastone Wharf. Said your mum's in good health, bless her soul. It's lucky she's still got the two of you to look after her now." Not as lucky as they were that the neighbors hadn't loudly wondered how Pa had managed to vanish the one time he left his sons ashore.

"We're doing all right," Able steered the conversation back into safer waters. "Hope you can say the same."

"Oh, I got complaints aplenty! Join an old man for a drink?"

The corner still sat, empty and inviting. "Oh, I'm just—I'm really tired from work."

"At the university, your brother said?" Salter raised one straggly eyebrow and shook his head. "What kind of work is that?"

Able fought his mouth to keep from clenching his teeth. Perhaps Salter didn't mean that like it sounded. "Well, right now we're preparing Professor Woodbrook's empirical to go to press, and it represents over twenty years of botanical research he's conducted himself as well as compiling—"

"You know," Salter interrupted, "Longsight has been having a hard time with his back and could use an extra set of hands on his ketch."

Able didn't even try to stop his teeth from grinding this time. "I'm sorry about his back. I'll mention it if I meet someone looking for a job."

"Why aren't you?" Salter looked honestly perplexed. "Yeah, your ma didn't want you to get drafted, and mind, I don't judge any boy who managed to avoid it. Ugly business, the whole thing. But that time's over now. Even the soldiers have come home."

No, hardly any of them had come home. Not alive. Which was upsetting enough without Salter's fresh invasion.

Fortunately, before Able could compose an ill-advised retort that would surely get back to his family, an outburst rolled over the sea of voices. "Wait, the Bors' Rebellion? No, no—you're telling it wrong!"

Able whipped around. What rebellion? Was something happening in Borealund? Since the end of the war, not much news had come out of the woodland territory where it had been fought. And no news of Pa since he'd set sail for it.

Near the center of the room, several people rescued their mugs as a wiry man clambered up to commandeer their table, which wobbled as he found his feet. This was no fault of the table's, no, the man already had two sheets to the wind and was working on loosening his third by the looks of the mug in his hand. He was also the sort commonly described as a salt-encrusted barnacle, pulled off a ship in from the North with any luck.