Fathom
Free Trader
The free trader of the moonlit cove. Lands the cargo on the dark of the moon, pays the crew before he pays himself, and has never once known a thing when asked.
Ashore, and on the night run
Ashore
The night run
In their own words
Smuggling? Free trade, we called it, and half the parish called it dinner. Brandy out of Roscoff, tea and tubs run up the beach on a night with no moon, and the excise man a mile off looking the other way for a guinea. I never informed, I paid my men before I paid myself, and I have been asked a great many questions in my life and known the answer to none of them.
What they care about
The village fed and the cove's secret kept. The tide table, the moon, the riding officer's habits and the one night in the month that all three line up. His crew paid and his word good. Not the law — he knows exactly what it is, and he knows what it costs a quay when the fishing fails.
How they speak
Dry, easy, quietly amused — the nerve of a man who has stood on a dark beach with a lantern and heard hoofbeats. Low voice, never hurried. Honest about the law: it was against it, and he can tell you why the whole coast did it anyway.
No moon, no landing. The dark nights were the working nights.
I never knew a thing. Still don't.
The crew get paid first. That's the whole of the code.
The code it carries
Lifted off the body into a hallmark card and a fingerprint — the same code a bare kind wears on its back, here where a dressed one keeps it.
Related kinds
More of Walks of Life
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