Soundings

Master Halden liked his apprentices silent and his tea scalding, and Nerin brought him both every morning at seven. He was the oldest of the five masters, the only one who still went to sea, and the only one whose praise she had ever wanted. It made what she was about to do feel like theft.

"The Anselm copy is finished," she said, setting down the tray. "I had a question about the northern reach."

"Sixty fathoms and dull as ditchwater." He did not look up from his correspondence. "What about it?"

"The Corvis chart shows land there."

The pen stopped. It was a small thing, the pen stopping — a heartbeat of stillness in an old man's hand — and if she had not been watching for it she would have missed it. Then the nib moved again, finishing the sentence, and Halden said, mildly, "Corvis drew mermaids in the margins, girl. He put an island wherever his patron's money ran out."

"There are three charts that show it. The Corvis, the Aldenmarsh survey, and an unsigned sheet in the—"

"You have been in the deep vault." Still mild. That was the worst of it — the mildness — because Halden shouted about spilled ink and crooked rhumb lines, and this had earned less noise than a blotted signature.

"The vault register shows you what you may copy," he said. "Copy it. There is no island, Apprentice Voss. There is no question about the northern reach. And the next time you handle the Aldenmarsh sheet without gloves, I will know that too."

She had worn gloves. She always wore gloves. Which meant he hadn't caught her by the evidence of her hands — he had been told, and told fast, and had chosen to let her know she was being watched rather than pretend that she wasn't.

Nerin bowed, took the tray, and left. Her heart was going like a halyard in a gale, but her feet were steady, and somewhere between the study and the stairs she stopped being frightened and started being angry. He hadn't laughed at her. That was the thing. If the island were nothing, he would have laughed.