"Yes, that would be safe enough... If you carried a weapon on you. Doing what you ask isn't going to be easy. Would you want someone coming into your house asking where you kept your valuables and asking to see your security? Too many thieves to get them to trust us."
He liked the neighborhood watch idea, but he thought asking who was watching out for others and who had it in for someone would be ripe for abuse. What thieve wouldn't want to guard to put pressure on their rival?
"A secure building with chains and stocks would work. Using the stocks near the shore would be inhuman in the winter," the Captain said. "Maybe it could function as lodging and offices for the watch?"
"Selling it to them might be the best," she said, "That would be legal if not a little the nicest thing." She paused to think for a moment.
"Master Bork, you look a bit hungry. Could I buy you a bowl of stew and some bread?" she offered giving him a wink.
Putting down the quill after wiping the tip. Unlike the cat lady, her robes and dress concealed her femininity as she stretched her back and legs. Time was talking a toll on her body too. But she tried to hide it. Sitting for hours was getting harder, as was the cold.
When they got far enough away from the captain who was left with the task of recording names, occupation, parentage, and residency for a little bit, she said, "I am wondering if we know someone who might be willing to make that deal for us? Someone who doesn't realize that we can hear the conversations he has in his room and would deal with thieves and pirates. Someone who thinks he needs to sneak off to a meeting tonight and is having a private conversation with the Harbor Master."
She didn't want to say they should run a scam using Andrew, but she did think his romantic view of being a thief might be useful unless the fool really tried to stick himself in the middle of this.
She also pulled out of her pocket a note with the names of two farmers who would be willing to help and have their boys help build a low stone wall. They even have a couple large piles of field stones, in return they would like help with a barn that is starting to shift and fall over and designing something for storing hay and grain.
A second name on the note was that of a young boy, who she thought might make a good runner and page for the Engineer. The boy earlier in the day had been lifting a bull in a sling with a block-and-tackle.
The scribe had taken on two girls. One seemed a little strange with large clear blue eyes and long black hair. She was in a hand me down dress and was barefooted. She was now sitting in a chair swinging her legs back and forth on a bench. She was very young, maybe four or five years in age. In her lap sat a back cat that was adoring the attention she was giving it. The second was a red headed with green eyes who was well on the way to becoming a woman with a pale complexion. She was dressed in rough but nicer clothes. When she opened her mouth though she swore like a dwarf about be given a bath at sea.
When the Engineer headed back over to the captain, and the Scribe had headed off to freshen up. "The Captain looked at him. I'd like you to take the Scribe and the Abbot out to the mine early in the morning. If there is to be a confrontation among the thieves, I need them some place safe because I don't have enough guards to maintain order and keep them safe," he said. It was clear he was including the Bork in the them.
He nodded to the red head and said, "She was to be sold into prostitution when the ship came in. Her family was going to get her so drunk she wouldn't know what happened till afterwards. Her free beer was going to be the start of that. Brom paid for her out of her own pocket and is going to make a maid and cook out of her. You should put the Scribe on the list of people out to get her father."
He laughed, "Be prepared for some burnt food for a while and let me know if anything goes missing."
Nodding at the other one, "I can't figure out why she took on the little girl?"
When the scribe came back she gently told the girls to go get food and find an out of the way spot to eat. The older gave the younger a little push as a get away from me message. The younger looked shocked but kept the cat safe. The Captain excused himself and walked over to the redhead and gently put his hand on her back, leaned down to look at her eye to eye and said something. The look he got was pure defiance. He gently rubbed her arm and returned to the table.
"I have six sisters," he said to Bork as if that explained everything.
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