Islands in the Sky

3.5

Sema walked further, forgetting her hunger, wanting just to see everything the city had to see. She walked, peering at things, interested, almost nosy. It was a busy, complicated place she had suddenly found herself in, a very different place to any other she had known before, one which would take getting used to, but one which she already found fascinating.

She walked a little further, looking the ships and cargos and merchants, and suddenly felt someone brush against her side.

It had happened a few times already as she walked, and she had ignored it, assuming it was accidental, and because there were so many people going past. Now there weren’t so many people, because this part of the dock was less crowded, so surprised, she turned and looked back. She saw a child behind her, apparently looking at her, and as she turned, the child met her eye, and looked guilty, and then suddenly ran away.

Sema was surprised.

She stood there watching, too startled to actually do anything. She watched the child run into an alleyway between two buildings, and disappear.

After a moment she realized what had happened. She had heard stories of cities, and of the things which the village’s traders had encountered in places such as this. Theft was one such thing. Theft by deceit, and theft by pick-pocketing, too.

The child had just tried to rob Sema, and Sema didn’t quite know how to react. She wasn’t quite sure if she ought to be flattered or offended or scared, or something else entirely.

She decided she didn’t mind, especially. She knew nothing had been stolen. She knew, and didn’t need to check. Nothing had been stolen because she had nothing to begin with, only the knife in her sleeve which she could still feel against her arm. The attempt at stealing from her didn’t especially matter, but it was a useful lesson, a reminder. She would need to be careful if she ever did somehow end up carrying valuables.

It was a different kind of place here, she thought, to what she was accustomed to. She had needed that reminder. It was so different that she ought to be being more careful than she probably had been until now, in her excitement.

She kept walking, thinking about that newness, and also about the danger it could bring. She spent a while trying to imagine everything she ought to be worrying about but then decided not to. That was just unsettling.

This was a new place to her, a much bigger place than she was used to, but as she walked, she didn’t feel especially unsafe.

There were guards all about, and that helped. It was reassuring. And it was clear they were guards, from the uniforms and swords and spears and sometimes armour made of metal or leather. Sema started paying more attention to them, now she was thinking about her safety. There were a lot of guards. They stood against walls as Sema had earlier, out of the way of traffic, or they stood at the ends of docks, as Sema’s dock-manager did. Mostly they just stood, watching people pass. Sometimes they said hello to someone they knew.

Sema looked at the guards, and looked at their clothes. Oddly, their uniforms were all different. The styles were slightly different, there was that, as if what made a uniform was the colour and badge rather than the design, but as well, there were guards in half a dozen different colours of cloth standing around, and it seemed they were watching each other as much as they people passing by.

Sema wondered about that. She wondered why so many guards were needed.

She supposed the docks needed to be reasonably safe. If they weren’t, people would trade elsewhere. She supposed it was that, but kept watching anyway, and after a while she noticed that sometimes people went and spoke their trading agreements next to guards, where the guards could hear, and that seemed to make both traders more comfortable with what d been said.

The guards were witnesses, Sema thought. It was actually a very good idea. She thought about her village, and one particular woman, Meag, who had become a little irritable in her old age. Meag was a weaver, and made cloth to order, and she was forever making agreements and then forgetting that she had, so she sold the same cloth twice over, or refused to pay for something later which she had earlier on been given. Other people had often had to step into squabbles and calm her down and ensure she gave over what she had promised. There must be a similar idea here, Sema thought, behind this speaking of the agreements. The guards overhearing agreements made people feel safer, and let trades be made as if people knew one another, when actually they didn’t, and might never see one another again.

She should have done that herself, Sema thought. It was too late now, because she hadn’t known, but she could see how it was very useful. If tomorrow her dock-manager denied she had paid him, and demanded more plastic, then Sema would be stuck. She would have no-one to back her story, and confirm she had already paid. A guard having heard their agreement might discourage such dishonesty and that was a very useful thing.

Sema walked, watching the guards. Once she understood about the spoken agreements, the different clothes, and different kinds of guards, began to make a little more sense. Perhaps they different guards were rivals, she thought. She wasn’t sure. Perhaps each kind of guard would only be witness for certain people’s agreements, or perhaps certain groups were only trusted by particular people, so many different kinds of guard were needed.

Sema wasn’t sure, and couldn’t think of any way to find out but to ask, which she wasn’t ready to do yet. For the moment, the guards seemed to be ignoring her, so after a while she ignored them too, and kept walking, exploring.