4135.126 · May 6, 1815 AD
Sheffield Steel
The Saturday marketplace has become William's refuge—a glimpse of ordinary commerce, transactions conducted in daylight, untainted by shadow ledgers and midnight shipments. He pauses at a tool merchant's stall, examining chisels of fine English steel, and feels the prickling sensation of being watched. The man who approaches is his own age, well-dressed, with auburn hair and eyes that seem to take in everything they observe. He knows William's name before William offers it. He has a proposal.
I recognise something in you, Silas Croft says, settled into a corner table at the Crown and Anchor whilst the afternoon light fades through grimy windows. Something I haven't seen in the men I usually deal with.
He speaks of broken men and ruthless men—the two categories that populate this colony, he claims. The broken have surrendered; the ruthless would sell their mothers for advantage. But William is neither. He's still wrestling with something. Still becoming.
It's an unsettling observation from a stranger. More unsettling still is how accurate it feels.
Croft admits his own history: arriving at twenty-four with more confidence than wisdom, nearly losing everything, making choices he cannot justify to the person he was when he stepped off the ship. That's the nature of success in this place, he says. It rarely arrives with clean hands.
Two lonely men, reaching across the vast distance that separates every soul from every other. One of them has been watching far longer than he admits. One of them wants so desperately to believe that he doesn't ask the questions he should.
They shake hands across the table.
Saturdays. After the market closes. A standing arrangement.
William cannot know what this friendship will cost him. Or what it will save.
