Brothers in Circumstance

"Information is currency in colonial commerce, often more valuable than gold. But friendship—genuine friendship—that's something no ledger can quantify."— Silas Croft

The weeks took on a rhythm that William had not expected to find in this distant corner of the world.

Each Saturday, when the offices closed at noon and the bustle of Hartley's enterprise gave way to the quieter pace of the weekend, he would make his way through the muddy streets to the Crown and Anchor. The route had become familiar—past the chandler's shop with its perpetual smell of tar and hemp, around the corner where the baker's wife sold day-old bread at half price, across the small square where farmers gathered on market days. He knew which boards creaked on the public house's threshold, knew the particular squeak of the door on its iron hinges, knew without looking that Silas would be waiting at the corner table with two tankards already poured.

It was the last Saturday of May, and winter had begun to show its teeth. The afternoon light came thin and grey through the Crown and Anchor's grimy windows, and a fire crackled in the stone hearth, drawing the regulars into a loose semicircle of warmth and conversation. William hung his coat on the peg by the door—the good coat, the one Eliza had insisted he have made before leaving Sydney—and crossed to where Silas sat.

"You're late," Silas observed, though his smile robbed the words of any reproach. "I was beginning to think Blackwood had finally worked you to death."

"Nearly." William settled into the chair across from his friend, feeling the tension in his shoulders begin to ease. "There was a shipment from Sydney that arrived with half its manifest missing and the captain swearing blind that the discrepancy was our problem, not his. Blackwood had me going through the original orders line by line until I could prove otherwise."

"And could you?"

"Eventually. The captain had been skimming—selling cargo in smaller ports along the coast and pocketing the difference. Once I found the pattern, it was obvious. But it took three hours to assemble the evidence in a way that couldn't be disputed."

Silas leaned back in his chair, his eyes thoughtful. The firelight caught the auburn in his hair, lending it a warmth that seemed at odds with the chill seeping through the walls. "And what happened to the captain?"

"Blackwood dismissed him on the spot. No references, no final payment. Told him he was lucky not to be reported to the harbourmaster." William took a long pull from his tankard, tasting the bitter edge of the ale. "The man had a family, I think. Children. But Blackwood didn't hesitate."

"Would you have?"

The question hung between them, heavier than it should have been. William considered it carefully before answering. "I don't know. The man was a thief—that's not in dispute. He stole from Hartley's, which means he stole from all of us who depend on the enterprise for our livelihoods. But..." He shook his head slowly. "There's something in the way Blackwood did it. No anger, no disappointment. Just... efficiency. As though he were removing a faulty cog from a machine."

"That's what troubles you? Not the dismissal itself, but the manner of it?"

"I suppose it does." William set down his tankard, trying to articulate something he had been struggling to understand all afternoon. "When I was a convict, I saw men punished for far lesser crimes. Flogged, sent to the chain gangs, worked until they broke. And always, there was something human in it—cruelty, yes, but cruelty that came from somewhere. Anger, or fear, or even just the petty satisfaction of power over the helpless. It was monstrous, but it was recognisably human."

He paused, aware that Silas was listening with the focused attention he had come to value in these conversations—the sense that every word was being weighed and considered, not merely heard.

"Blackwood isn't like that," William continued. "There's no cruelty in him, not really. But there's no mercy either. No recognition that the captain was a person with a history and a family and reasons—however poor—for what he did. In Blackwood's world, people are either useful or they're not. And once you've proven yourself not useful..." He made a dismissive gesture. "You simply cease to exist."

Silas was quiet for a long moment, his fingers tracing the rim of his tankard. When he spoke, his voice was thoughtful. "You're describing someone who's lost the ability to see others as fully real. Or perhaps someone who never had it to begin with."

"Is there a difference?"

"Possibly not. In terms of how they treat the people around them, probably not at all." Silas lifted his tankard but didn't drink, holding it suspended as though weighing the ale against some internal measure. "I've known men like that in Bristol. Successful men, many of them. My own uncle has a touch of it—that ability to look at a person and see only their usefulness, their place in some larger calculation. It makes them effective. It makes them wealthy. It also makes them—" He searched for the right word. "Hollow."

"You said before that the Blackwoods have connections beyond Van Diemen's Land. Sydney, London, perhaps elsewhere."

"I did." Silas's expression shifted, becoming more guarded. "And I meant it. But I should be careful about speculating too freely on matters I don't fully understand." He met William's eyes directly. "What I can tell you is this: the Blackwood family has a reputation in certain circles. Not a scandalous one—nothing you could point to and say, 'There, that's evidence of wrongdoing.' More a sense that they operate according to rules the rest of us don't quite see. That they're always three steps ahead because they're playing a different game entirely."

"And Ezekiel?"

"Ezekiel is young—younger than either of us, I'd wager—but he's been groomed for whatever role his family has planned for him. Sent to the colonies to learn the trade, perhaps. Or to establish connections that will prove useful later." Silas finally took his drink, a long swallow that seemed to fortify him for what came next. "I don't know what the Blackwoods want, William. But I'm increasingly certain that Ezekiel's presence in Hobart Town is not coincidental, and that his interest in Hartley's enterprise—and in you—is part of something larger."

William absorbed this, adding it to the catalogue of observations and suspicions he had been compiling since his arrival. It confirmed what he had sensed but not fully articulated: that Blackwood's education was not merely practical instruction in commerce, but preparation for something he could not yet see.

"Why tell me this?" he asked. "If the Blackwoods are as connected as you suggest, there must be risk in speaking against them."

Silas's smile returned, but it was tempered now with something more serious. "Because you asked. And because I'd rather you walk into whatever's coming with your eyes open than stumble into it blind." He set down his tankard and leaned forward, his voice dropping though there was no one nearby to overhear. "I like you, William. That's not a thing I say lightly—I've learned to be cautious with my trust since coming here. But there's something in you that I recognise. Something that hasn't been... broken yet. I'd hate to see Blackwood be the one to break it."

The words landed with unexpected weight. William had grown accustomed to being useful, to being valued for what he could do rather than who he was. To hear someone express concern for his essential self—for the part of him that lay beneath his skills and competencies—stirred something he had thought long buried.

"I'm not sure there's as much left to break as you might think," he said quietly.

"There's always more than we think. That's both the tragedy and the hope of it." Silas raised his tankard in a small salute. "To whatever remains unbroken in us both."

William lifted his own tankard to meet it. "To whatever remains."

They drank together as the fire crackled and the afternoon light faded toward evening, and something in the silence between them felt like the beginning of an understanding too large for words.

The following Saturday brought clear skies and a sharp wind from the south, the kind of cold that cut through wool and settled into bone. William arrived at the Crown and Anchor to find Silas already waiting, but standing rather than seated, his coat buttoned and a scarf wound around his throat.

"I thought we might walk today," Silas said by way of greeting. "If you're willing. I've been cooped up in offices and warehouses all week, and I find myself craving open air."

William was surprised by the suggestion—their meetings had always taken place within the Crown and Anchor's familiar walls—but he found himself nodding agreement. "Where did you have in mind?"

"Along the waterfront, perhaps. Then up into the hills if we're feeling ambitious." Silas grinned, and there was something boyish in it, a glimpse of the young man beneath the merchant's careful composure. "I used to walk for miles when I first arrived here. Before the business consumed every waking hour. I miss it."

They set out together, leaving the close warmth of the public house for the biting clarity of the winter afternoon. The waterfront was quieter than on weekdays, the usual bustle of commerce reduced to a handful of sailors conducting maintenance on their vessels and a few hardy fishermen checking their lines. Gulls wheeled overhead, their cries sharp against the grey sky.

"Tell me about Bristol," William said as they walked. "You've mentioned your family, your uncle's investment, but I've never asked what you left behind."

Silas was quiet for several paces, his breath misting in the cold air. When he spoke, his voice had taken on a reflective quality. "Bristol is... complicated. For me, at least. It's where I grew up, where I learned everything I know about trade and commerce. My father died when I was young—I barely remember him—and my mother remarried a man who had no particular interest in raising another man's son. So I was sent to live with my uncle Edmund when I was seven."

"That must have been difficult. Being sent away so young."

"It was." Silas's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "I spent the first year crying myself to sleep most nights, convinced I'd done something wrong to deserve the banishment. Children think that way, don't they? Everything that happens to them must be their fault somehow." He shook his head, as though clearing away an old cobweb. "Eventually I stopped crying and started learning. My uncle was not a warm man, but he was fair, and he recognised that I had aptitude for the work. By the time I was fourteen, I knew more about the import-export trade than many men twice my age."

"And you came here at twenty-four."

"Twenty-four, yes. Full of confidence and absolutely certain I was ready to conquer the colonial market." Silas laughed, but there was an edge to it. "God, I was arrogant. My uncle gave me capital and contacts, and I sailed off thinking I'd return in three years with a fortune and a reputation. Instead, I nearly lost everything within the first twelve months."

They had reached the end of the waterfront proper, where the wharves gave way to a rocky shoreline scattered with tide pools and the skeletal remains of boats too damaged to repair. Silas paused, looking out at the harbour where ships rode at anchor, their masts swaying gently with the swell.

"What happened?" William asked.

"Everything that could go wrong did." Silas picked up a stone and turned it in his fingers, feeling its weight. "A shipment of goods that was supposed to be the foundation of my inventory arrived waterlogged and ruined. A partnership I'd negotiated in good faith turned out to be with a man who vanished three months later with half my remaining capital. A fire destroyed my first warehouse, and with it, what little stock I'd managed to accumulate." He threw the stone into the water, watching the splash. "By the end of that first year, I was facing the very real possibility of returning to Bristol as a failure."

"But you didn't."

"No. I didn't." Silas turned to face William, and there was something in his expression—a vulnerability he had not shown before—that made the moment feel significant. "I made choices, William. Choices that kept me here, that allowed me to rebuild, that eventually led to the success I have now. But they weren't choices I'm entirely proud of. Some of them still keep me awake at night, wondering whether the man I've become is worth the price I paid to become him."

William understood. He understood in a way that went beyond words, that lived in the weight of his own compromises and the silence of letters never sent. "We all pay prices," he said quietly. "The question is whether we're honest with ourselves about what we've bought."

"And are you? Honest with yourself?"

"I try to be." William looked out at the harbour, at the ships that had carried him across oceans to this strange place at the edge of the world. "Some days I succeed. Others..." He shrugged. "Others I tell myself stories to make the reflection in the mirror more bearable."

Silas was quiet for a moment. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed—a genuine sound, warm despite the cold wind. "Good God, listen to us. Two young men with everything before them, standing in the cold and philosophising about regret like a pair of ancient monks."

The absurdity of it struck William too, and he found himself smiling despite the heaviness of the conversation. "Perhaps we should blame the weather. I've heard cold air makes men maudlin."

"Then let's walk and warm ourselves, and see if we can't find something more cheerful to discuss." Silas clapped him on the shoulder—the first time he had touched William beyond the formality of a handshake—and the gesture felt natural, as though they had known each other far longer than the few weeks their acquaintance actually spanned. "Come. There's a path up into the hills that gives you a view of the whole harbour. I'll show you."

They walked on together, leaving the waterfront behind, and as the town receded below them, William felt something he had not felt in a very long time: the simple pleasure of companionship, of being in the presence of someone who expected nothing from him except his company. It was such a small thing, so ordinary, and yet it felt precious beyond measure.

The path wound upward through scrubland dotted with eucalyptus, the distinctive smell of the trees mixing with the salt air from the harbour below. They walked in companionable silence for a while, breath coming harder as the grade steepened, until they reached a flat outcropping of rock that offered a panoramic view of Hobart Town and the waterway beyond.

"There," Silas said, slightly breathless but clearly pleased. "This is what I wanted you to see."

William stood at the edge of the outcropping and looked down at the settlement that had become, however improbably, his home. From this height, Hobart Town looked almost orderly—the streets forming a rough grid, the buildings clustered around the harbour like chicks around a hen, the ships at anchor creating a forest of masts against the grey water. Mount Wellington rose behind them, its peak lost in cloud, watching over the colony with ancient indifference.

"It's beautiful," he said, and was surprised to realise he meant it. "I hadn't thought of it that way before."

"It's easy to miss, when you're down in the mud and the noise of it." Silas settled onto a rock beside him, tucking his hands into his coat pockets against the cold. "I come up here when I need to remember why I stayed. Why any of us stayed, I suppose. There's something about seeing it all laid out like this that makes the struggles feel... smaller. More manageable. As though they're just details in a larger picture that's actually quite remarkable."

"You truly love this place."

"I didn't at first. God, I hated it that first year. The isolation, the roughness, the constant sense of being at the very edge of civilisation with nothing but ocean between here and Antarctica." Silas smiled, his eyes still on the view. "But somewhere along the way, it got under my skin. I started seeing possibilities instead of limitations. Started feeling like maybe this was a place where a man could build something that mattered, something that would outlast him." He glanced at William. "Do you know what I mean?"

William thought about it before answering. "I think I'm beginning to. When I arrived, I saw this place as a destination—the end of a journey I never chose to take. But now..." He searched for words to capture the shift that had been occurring slowly, almost imperceptibly, over the past weeks. "Now I'm starting to see it as a beginning. A place where the past doesn't have to define the future."

"That's exactly it." Silas's voice was warm with recognition. "The past doesn't have to define the future. In England, I would always have been Edmund Croft's nephew, the boy sent away by his mother, the young man who hadn't quite earned his place. Here..." He spread his hands, encompassing the view before them. "Here I'm simply Silas Croft, merchant. What I build is mine. What I become is my own doing."

"For better or worse."

"For better or worse," Silas agreed. "But at least it's mine to determine. That's worth something, don't you think? The freedom to succeed or fail on your own terms, rather than someone else's?"

William nodded slowly. It was worth something. It was worth a great deal. Whatever compromises this colony demanded, whatever prices it extracted, at least here he was not merely a number in a ledger of transported convicts, not merely a body to be worked and discarded. Here he could be, as Silas said, simply William Jeffries, merchant. The man he became would be of his own making.

They sat together on the cold rock, watching the afternoon light soften toward evening, and spoke of smaller things—of books they had read and places they had seen, of the peculiar customs of colonial society and the characters they encountered in their daily work. The conversation flowed easily, punctuated by laughter that came more readily as the afternoon wore on, and by the time they descended back toward the town, the sun was touching the western hills and the first lamps were being lit in the windows below.

"Same time next week?" Silas asked as they reached the point where their paths would diverge.

"I'd like that."

"Good." Silas extended his hand, and when William took it, the grip held a moment longer than mere courtesy required. "I'm glad we did this, William. The walking, I mean. There are things that can be said in open air that somehow get stuck in the throat indoors."

"I know what you mean."

"I thought you might." Silas released his hand and stepped back, his smile visible even in the gathering dusk. "Until Saturday, then."

"Until Saturday."

William watched him go, the tall figure disappearing around a corner, and then turned toward his own lodgings with a lightness in his step that he had not felt in longer than he could remember.

The Saturdays accumulated like coins in a miser's purse, each one adding to a treasury that William had not known he was building.

By the second week of June, the walks had become as much a part of their routine as the drinks at the Crown and Anchor. They explored the hills above Hobart Town, followed the river upstream through farmland that was slowly being carved from the wilderness, traced the coastline where the land met the cold waters of the Derwent estuary. Each walk revealed new territory—not just in the physical landscape, but in the terrain of their growing friendship.

William learned that Silas had a dry wit that emerged only when he was comfortable, that he read voraciously and had opinions about everything from the poetry of William Blake to the proper way to store whale oil. He learned that Silas had a weakness for sweet pastries that he tried to hide, believing it somehow undignified for a serious merchant to be seen lingering at the baker's window. He learned that beneath the confident exterior was a man who still carried the wounds of a childhood spent feeling unwanted, who had built his self-assurance brick by brick through years of proving himself to people who had expected him to fail.

In return, William found himself sharing things he had not spoken of to anyone since leaving Sydney. He told Silas about Old Tom, about the friendship that had sustained him through the darkest years of his sentence, about the grief that had nearly undone him when the older man died in the Castle Hill quarries. He described the years at Parramatta, the backbreaking labour and the petty cruelties, the way he had learned to make himself small and useful to avoid the worst of the overseers' attention.

He did not speak of Eliza. Not yet. That wound was still too fresh, too tender to expose to even the gentlest scrutiny. But he felt the shape of that silence between them, and he sensed that Silas felt it too—that there was a door William had not yet opened, and that his friend would wait until he was ready.

It was on the third Saturday in June, as they climbed a ridge that Silas had promised offered the finest view of the Derwent valley, that the conversation turned to the subject they had both been circling.

The day had started grey but cleared as morning wore into afternoon, and by the time they reached the ridgeline, the sun had emerged to cast the landscape in tones of gold and green and silver-blue. The river wound below them like a ribbon of hammered metal, and the farmland on either bank formed a patchwork of cleared fields and remnant forest. In the distance, smoke rose from a dozen homesteads, marking the presence of settlers who had pushed further into the interior than anyone would have thought possible a decade before.

"There was a woman," Silas said without preamble, settling onto a fallen log and looking out at the view. "In Bristol. Before I came here."

William sat beside him, leaving a careful distance between them. He said nothing, recognising that Silas needed space to find his own way into the story.

"Her name was Catherine Harding." Silas spoke the name carefully, as though handling something fragile. "She was the daughter of a merchant my uncle did business with—a respectable family, well-connected, everything my own family was and aspired to be. We met at a dinner when I was nineteen and she was seventeen, and I fell in love with her so quickly and so completely that it felt like a kind of illness."

He paused, picking up a twig and stripping its bark with restless fingers. "I'd never felt anything like it before. Growing up as I did, shuffled from mother to uncle, always aware that I was a burden someone else was obligated to carry—I'd learned not to want things too badly. Wanting led to disappointment, and disappointment led to pain. So I kept my desires small, achievable. A good meal. A warm bed. The satisfaction of work well done."

"But Catherine was different."

"Catherine was different." Silas's voice softened. "She saw me, William. Not Edmund Croft's nephew, not the boy who'd been sent away, not the young man trying to prove himself. Just... me. Silas. She made me feel like that was enough." He threw the stripped twig away, watching it arc through the air and disappear into the scrub below. "For two years, I believed I'd found my future. We talked of marriage, of the life we'd build together, of the children we'd raise. My uncle approved of the match—the Hardings were good for business. Her parents were willing. Everything was aligned."

"What happened?"

Silas was silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice had flattened, as though he were recounting events that had happened to someone else. "My uncle decided I should come to Van Diemen's Land. Establish a trading post, prove myself capable of managing an enterprise at a distance, demonstrate that the Croft name could extend beyond Bristol. It was an opportunity—I knew that. The kind of opportunity that doesn't come twice. But it would mean leaving Catherine. Leaving her for years, perhaps. Long enough that she might not wait."

"And you chose the opportunity."

"I chose the opportunity." The words came out flat, heavy with a guilt that three years had done nothing to diminish. "I told myself I was being practical. That Catherine would understand, that we could maintain our attachment across the distance, that I would return successful and we would marry and all would be well. But the truth—the truth I didn't want to admit even to myself—was that I was afraid. Afraid that if I didn't seize this chance, I would spend my whole life as Edmund's nephew, forever dependent on someone else's goodwill. I was afraid of being small."

He turned to look at William, and there was a rawness in his eyes that William had never seen before. "So I left. And Catherine... Catherine waited for a year, writing letters that grew shorter and less frequent, until finally she wrote to tell me she had accepted a proposal from someone else. A man who would stay. A man who would be there."

"I'm sorry." The words felt inadequate, but William meant them.

"Don't be. It was my choice, and I made it with my eyes open. I can't pretend otherwise." Silas looked back out at the view, his profile sharp against the sky. "But I think about her sometimes. I think about the life I might have had if I'd chosen differently. And I wonder whether the success I've built here—whether any success, anywhere—is worth the cost of that particular road not taken."

The silence that followed was not uncomfortable, but it was weighted with expectation. William understood that Silas had offered something precious—a piece of himself that he did not share lightly—and that a response was required. Not comfort or advice, but reciprocity. A matching vulnerability.

"There was someone for me, too," he said finally. "In Sydney."

Silas turned, giving William his full attention without speaking.

"Her name is Eliza." Even saying the name aloud felt like touching an open wound, but William pressed on. "Eliza Donnelly. Her father was the merchant who gave me the letters of introduction that brought me here—Reginald Donnelly, who deals in timber and wool and has connections throughout the colony."

"A merchant's daughter." Silas's voice was gentle. "Like Catherine."

"Like Catherine. Though where Catherine seems to have been steady and patient, Eliza was... fire." William smiled despite the ache the memory brought. "She was fierce and passionate and completely certain of what she wanted. When she decided she wanted me, it felt like being caught in a storm—terrifying and exhilarating and utterly beyond my control."

"You loved her."

"I love her still." The present tense slipped out before William could stop it, and he did not try to correct it. "I've never stopped, despite everything. Despite knowing that there's no future in it, that the distance between us is more than just miles. Despite knowing that she was right to send me away."

"She sent you away?"

"She did. The morning… the same morning that I sailed for Van Diemen's Land." William closed his eyes, letting the memory wash over him—the Domain in the summer darkness, Eliza's face pale and determined, her voice steady even as tears tracked down her cheeks. "She told me that our love could only ever be a memory, that if I held onto it too tightly, it would become an anchor dragging me down rather than a wind filling my sails. She made me promise not to write, not to look back, to throw myself into my new life with everything I had."

"And have you? Kept the promise, I mean?"

William opened his eyes and looked out at the river below, silver-bright in the afternoon sun. "I've tried. I haven't written—that much I've honoured. But the not looking back..." He shook his head slowly. "She gave me a gift, that last morning. A pocket watch. She said it was to remind me that time moves forward, that the future is where I should be looking. But I wear it against my heart every day, and every time I feel it tick, I think of her."

He reached into his shirt and withdrew the watch, holding it in his palm for Silas to see. The silver case caught the light, the inscription hidden but its presence felt nonetheless. "I know it's foolish. I know she wanted me to let go. But I can't quite bring myself to do it. It's as though if I released her completely, I would lose some essential part of myself—the part that believed I could be worthy of being loved like that."

Silas leaned forward to look at the watch, his expression thoughtful. "May I?" he asked, and when William nodded, he took the watch carefully, turning it in his hands. He found the catch, opened the case, and read the inscription on the inside. His lips moved silently, forming the words, and when he looked up, his eyes were bright with something that might have been tears.

"'May your future be as bright as our love,'" he read aloud. "Forever yours, E.D."

"Yes."

Silas closed the watch gently and handed it back. "She sounds remarkable, your Eliza. To love someone enough to let them go, to give them a gift that carries both the memory and the blessing..." He shook his head slowly. "Catherine never gave me anything like that. When she broke off our attachment, her letter was brief and formal—more business correspondence than farewell. I don't blame her for it. She had every right to be angry. But I've often wished I had something to hold onto. Some tangible reminder that what we had was real, even if it couldn't last."

William returned the watch to its place against his chest, feeling its familiar weight settle. "I don't know whether it's a blessing or a curse, honestly. Most days it feels like both. A reminder of what I had and what I lost, all bound up together."

"Perhaps that's exactly what it should be." Silas's voice was soft. "Perhaps the things that matter most are always both blessing and curse. The love that transforms us is the same love that wounds us. The ambition that drives us forward is the same ambition that costs us the things we might have had. Maybe the trick isn't to choose one or the other, but to hold both together and find a way to live with the contradiction."

They sat together in silence as the sun continued its descent, painting the clouds in shades of gold and rose. The wind had died down, and the afternoon held a stillness that felt almost sacred—as though the world itself were holding its breath, witnessing something significant.

"We're a fine pair," William said at last, and there was no irony in it, only a weary recognition of their shared condition. "Two men who traded love for ambition and have spent every day since wondering if we got the better end of the bargain."

"Two fools," Silas agreed, but he was smiling. "Two ambitious fools who gave up everything for success and can't quite remember why it seemed like a good idea at the time."

"At least we're fools together." The words came without thought, rising from some place deeper than William's conscious mind, and as soon as he spoke them, he knew they were true in a way that transcended their surface meaning.

Silas turned to look at him, and something shifted in his expression—a softening, a release of tension William had not even realised was there. "Yes," he said quietly. "At least we're fools together. That has to count for something."

It counted for everything. In that moment, on that ridge overlooking the Derwent valley, William understood that he was no longer alone. Not in the way he had been alone during his years of servitude, when companionship was merely proximity and trust was a luxury no convict could afford. Not in the way he had been alone since Eliza had sent him away, carrying a grief too large to share. Here, with this man he had known for barely a month, he had found something he had thought lost forever: a kindred spirit, a fellow traveller on the difficult road of becoming.

"Come on," Silas said, rising and offering William a hand. "It's getting cold, and I believe we've earned a drink after all that confession. My treat—I know a place that serves a passable whisky, which I suspect we both need right about now."

William took the offered hand and let himself be pulled to his feet. "Lead the way."

They made their way down from the ridge as the last light faded from the sky, two figures descending through the gathering dusk, their conversation turning to lighter matters as they went. But something had been established that afternoon that would not be undone—a foundation laid, a bond formed, a brotherhood begun.

The whisky was more than passable—it was excellent, imported from Scotland by way of Sydney and sold at prices that made William wince when he saw the bill. But Silas waved away his protests with the airy confidence of a man who had learned that certain moments deserved to be honoured, whatever the cost.

"Consider it an investment in our partnership," he said, pouring two generous measures into glasses that the tavern keeper had produced with obvious reluctance, clearly preferring to reserve his finest spirits for less muddy customers. "A man can't build an empire on ale alone. Sometimes he needs something with fire in it."

They sat in a private booth at the back of the establishment—a different place from the Crown and Anchor, smaller and darker, catering to a clientele that valued discretion over comfort. The whisky glowed amber in the lamplight, and when William raised his glass to drink, the first sip burned a trail of warmth from his throat to his stomach.

"Partnership," he repeated, testing the word. "Is that what this is?"

"It's what I hope it's becoming." Silas set down his glass and leaned forward, his blue eyes intent. "I haven't been entirely honest with you, William. About my reasons for seeking you out, I mean. That first day at the marketplace—I didn't approach you by accident. I'd heard about you from people in the trade. The new man at Hartley's who was making a name for himself. I wanted to see for myself what manner of man could rise so quickly from such unpromising circumstances."

William should have felt betrayed by the admission, should have felt the familiar chill of manipulation that he had learned to guard against. Instead, he felt only a kind of weary recognition. Of course Silas had approached him deliberately. Of course there had been calculation beneath the apparent spontaneity. This was Van Diemen's Land; nothing happened by accident.

"I suspected as much," he said. "You knew too much about Hartley's circumstances, about Blackwood, about the whole enterprise. That kind of knowledge doesn't come from idle curiosity."

"No, it doesn't." Silas had the grace to look slightly abashed. "I make it my business to know things, William. Information is currency in colonial commerce, often more valuable than gold. I'd been watching Hartley's operation for months, waiting to see how the situation would develop. When you arrived—when I heard about the former convict who was handling Blackwood's negotiations with remarkable skill—I knew I needed to meet you."

"To assess my usefulness?"

"Initially, yes. I won't pretend otherwise." Silas picked up his glass again, swirling the whisky but not drinking. "I thought you might be valuable. A connection to Blackwood's network, perhaps. Someone who could provide information about Hartley's operations as they declined. I had plans, William—schemes and calculations, all very practical and businesslike."

"And now?"

Silas was quiet for a moment, his expression shifting through emotions William could not quite read. When he spoke again, his voice had lost its businesslike edge. "Now I find that the calculations no longer seem to matter very much. I came looking for a useful contact, and I found..." He gestured vaguely, as though the right word eluded him. "I found someone I actually like. Someone whose company I value for its own sake, not for what it might gain me. Do you have any idea how rare that is, in a place like this? How long it's been since I could simply enjoy talking to someone without constantly assessing what they wanted from me and what I might extract in return?"

"I might have some idea," William said quietly.

"I expect you do." Silas finally took his drink, a long swallow that seemed to fortify him for what came next. "So I'm asking you directly, William, because I don't want there to be any misunderstanding between us. Do you want to continue this—whatever this is? The Saturdays, the walks, the conversations? Knowing that I approached you initially out of calculation, knowing that I'm a man who schemes and plans and is always thinking three steps ahead? Or would you rather we shake hands and part as pleasant acquaintances, no hard feelings?"

It was, William realised, a genuine offer. Silas was giving him an exit, acknowledging that the foundation of their friendship was not entirely clean and offering him the chance to walk away before they went any further. It was, in its strange way, the most honest thing anyone had said to him since arriving in Van Diemen's Land.

He thought about the weeks they had spent together, the conversations that had ranged from commerce to philosophy to the private griefs they carried. He thought about the afternoon on the ridge, the stories they had shared, the understanding that had grown between them without either of them quite intending it. He thought about the weight of Eliza's watch against his chest and the loneliness that had been his constant companion for so long.

"I'm not a fool," he said finally. "I knew from the beginning that you had reasons for approaching me beyond simple friendliness. Everyone in this colony has reasons. The question isn't whether someone has ulterior motives—everyone does. The question is whether what they offer is worth what they're looking to gain."

"And? Is it worth it?"

William raised his glass and held it toward Silas. "You told me today about Catherine. About the choices you made and the prices you paid. I told you about Eliza—about the love I carry and the promises I struggle to keep. We stood on that ridge and admitted to each other that we're both damaged, both compromised, both far from the men we imagined we would become." He paused, letting the moment crystallise. "If that was calculation, it was the strangest calculation I've ever encountered. And if it was genuine—which I believe it was—then yes, Silas. It's worth it. Whatever schemes brought us together, what we've found is worth continuing."

Silas's face broke into a smile—not the careful, measured expression William had come to know, but something more unguarded, almost boyish. He raised his own glass to meet William's.

"To brothers in circumstance, then," he said. "Two fools who found each other despite themselves."

"To brothers in circumstance."

The glasses touched with a clear, bright sound, and they drank together as the night deepened outside and the lamp flames flickered in their sconces. The conversation that followed was lighter, unburdened by the weight of confession, filled with the kind of easy laughter that comes when two people have decided to trust each other and found the decision good.

They talked until the tavern keeper began making pointed noises about closing, then walked together through the quiet streets until they reached the corner where their paths diverged. The moon had risen, casting the town in silver and shadow, and their breath made small clouds in the cold air.

"Thank you," William said. "For today. For the honesty. For..." He struggled to find words adequate to what he meant. "For being the kind of fool I needed to meet."

Silas laughed softly. "The same to you, William. The same to you." He extended his hand, and when William took it, the grip was warm despite the cold, firm despite the whisky they had consumed. "Same time next Saturday?"

"I wouldn't miss it."

"Neither would I." Silas released his hand and stepped back, his smile visible even in the moonlight. "Sleep well, brother. We have empires to build in the morning."

"Sleep well, Silas."

William watched him go, the tall figure disappearing into the silver-dark streets, and then turned toward his own lodgings. The cold bit at his face as he walked, but he barely felt it. The whisky had left a pleasant warmth in his chest, and something else burned there too—something he had not felt in longer than he could remember.

Anticipation.

Not the grim determination that had carried him through seven years of servitude. Not the desperate hope that had flickered briefly in Sydney before being extinguished. This was different—a sense of possibility that had nothing to do with survival and everything to do with becoming. For the first time since setting foot on Van Diemen's Land, William found himself looking forward to something beyond the next transaction, the next ledger entry, the next small victory in the endless campaign of colonial commerce.

He had a brother now. A partner. Someone who would be waiting at the Crown and Anchor next Saturday, and the Saturday after that, and all the Saturdays to come. Someone who had seen the worst of his calculations and chosen to befriend him anyway. Someone who understood ambition because he shared it, who understood compromise because he had made the same ones.

The moon hung low over Hobart Town, painting the muddy streets in shades of silver and shadow. William walked quickly, his breath misting in the cold air, his mind already racing ahead to the weeks and months that lay before him. There was work to be done—Hartley's enterprise would not manage itself, and Blackwood's education continued whether William welcomed it or not. But now that work had a different texture, a different weight. He was no longer labouring alone toward some distant, uncertain goal. He was building something, and he was building it with someone who believed it could be built.

Empires to build in the morning, Silas had said.

William smiled as he climbed the stairs to his lodgings, a genuine smile that felt unfamiliar on his face. Let the morning come. He was ready for it.