started my inquiries the day after the wedding, nursing the kind of hangover where being trampled by a herd of tembu would be a blessing. It wasn't the best way to begin an investigation, but I didn't know how long the Probity would be around. Also, leaving my home was the only way to stop the room from rocking back and forth. The reason for that, of course, is that I live on a battered old sampan in the heart of the sprawling cluster of boats known locally as Thievestown - a slur on us honest citizens who just don't relish the idea of paying exorbitant rent to some grasping landlord. The downsides are that it is cramped, the security is abysmal and in winter you wake up to ice cold condensation dripping from the ceiling. The advantages are that you can move house if people are trying to find you, and that you don't need to cook thanks to the plentiful food sellers who ply the narrow waterways between boats in little skiffs, steaming pans of savouries balanced precariously on dangerous looking stoves.

After breakfasting on something wiggly (noodles I think, but I'd swear some of them were still moving), fried by a toothless old biddy who spoke no comprehensible word of Low Imperial, I clambered over the ever shifting network of decks and gangways to shore. This may seem another downside to Thievestown - you get reprobate tramping a short-cut through your house - but life is like that in most tenement blocks too. The fried wiggly stuff was managing to beat down my hangover, although the two heavyweights fighting it out in my system did make me feel a little like the proverbial grass when proverbial elephants are fighting.

The harbourmistress was known to me - when I worked for the League a lot of what I did involved tracking dubious cargoes that came through the port. She was a wide woman of formidable frontage and one eye, of a rough and ready character that came from a nautical background far more exciting than the desk job she now occupied. Her offices were on the upper floor of a two storey square building. Harbour Street ran past it downhill to the waterfront, and from here there was a commanding view of the commercial docks.

"Rishta! You look like tembu turd," was the greeting I got as I strolled into her cramped, cluttered office. If there was filing system beyond leaving stuff where it fell, I couldn't tell. I'd interrupted her poring over columns of figures in a bulky ledger, and she looked like she welcomed the intrusion.

"Good Morning to you too, Jansha," I drawled in response. "I've been drinking in a tree all night."

I was hoping to wrong-foot her with this, but she knew me too well. "Hanging out with Dhalooth, eh?"

"A relative of his was getting hitched. Jansha, I need information about the Probity."

"Aah." Jansha beckoned me out onto the balcony and pointed out into the harbour. "That's her at anchor out in the estuary. Beauty isn't she?"

I could see why Probity couldn't berth at the docks proper - she was a six-mast monster with freeboard the height of a small house, probably sporting at least five or six decks, with more in the fore- and aftcastles. Her sides were painted a deep maroon, and her gunwhales black and gold. Her monumental sails were all furled and she flew no flag that I could see. "Gods! What a monster. Who owns her?"

Jansha didn't even need to check the records. "Turif Clan. There was a sister ship too - the Solvency - but she sank two years ago coming back from Fon. Pity." Jansha was in danger of getting misty-eyed, but with her it would be the ship she mourned, not the crew.

"What's this one's itinerary?" This time there was rifling through the 'filing'.

"Come up from Corapeti, via Oksa. She's due to return to Oksa in two days time. According to the cargo manifest she's offloaded some vugs, gold, silver, spices, several hundredweight of beans."

I grunted. "That's a long way for beans."

"Probably making up volume. You're not going to fill the hold on that giant with luxuries like gold and spices."

"I didn't think the Turifim went in for luxuries?" The Turif Clan were one of the richest of the Llaza based Merchant Clans, and one of the few who still warranted the name in truth - most of their upper ranks were filled from within the family, whereas what normally passed for a 'clan' these days were loose syndicates and business partnerships. Due to sizable holdings in Fnoi Province the Turifim had a strong hold on iron ore production, and a practical monopoly on supplying the League armed forces with weapons. Another line was foodstuffs, and it was said that the Turifim armed and fed every soldier in the League. It was very nearly true.

"They dabble sometimes. As I recall, the Solvency was bringing back a load of sickle root when she sank. Still," Jansha shrugged, "no other point in going to Fon."

"Could it have been an insurance fraud?" League families of sufficient standing can be called upon to underwrite ventures for other Merchant Clans, but it was not unknown for "accidents" to happen in order to financially ruin the underwriters and thus neatly hamstring a trade competitor.

"Don't ask me, I just log 'em and watch for contraband. If they sink before they get here, it's not my concern. Accounts say she sank somewhere off Kam Ultdour, though, so who could say what may have scuppered her?"

I shuddered. If there was a place in the world where magic was utterly out of control, it was Kam Ultdour, home of mad wizards and people who wouldn't know how many heads they were going to wake up with each morning. Mind you, I could have done with an extra head today, one that wasn't hurting so much.

"It's probably not important to my investigation." Maybe Mathoos had learned something he shouldn't have about the sinking of Solvency. Maybe he had been silenced for the good of the clan. Then again, maybe not. "This Probity, what's she taking to Oksa?"

"Cargo manifest says mainly Kronlordan fabrics - military issue blankets for the League troops stationed in Turuk. Plus ceramics, tea..." she read the rest of the list. "Looks like a supply run."

So far there was nothing overtly suspicious about the Probity, except that long haul to Corapeti for items that could be got more cheaply locally. Jansha had put down her manifest and was looking at me.

"Last thing I heard you'd gone independent, Rishta. Is this League business again?"

I looked her in the eye. "Jansha, by the Ten Thousand Immortals and all the Great Sages, I hope not."