The Almighty Dominance (by Sunshine) novel Chapter 785

The Treasury inquiry took one day.

Two inspectors flew in from the capital on the morning plane, grim men with grey folders, and took statements all day in the harbour office.

"Name?"

"Ivo Brask. Fisherman."

"Did the Comptroller order you not to touch the boats?" the inspector asked.

"He did. Loud. Twice."

"And when the launch began to sink, did he rescind that order?"

"He shouted something," Ivo said. "Nobody had a pen."

The van driver was next. "I read his order out over the loudspeaker," he said. "Twice round the harbour. Prison for anyone who touched a boat. I've got the paper here, sir. He signed it."

"So the order was clear," the senior inspector said to Fennick. "Nobody was to touch a marked boat."

"Very clear," Fennick said. "He said it to a thousand people. He said anyone. He said prison."

"And the launch?"

"Forty years old, sir. The harbour master had condemned her twice."

"I condemned her three times," the harbour master said. "It's in the log. Nobody in the capital ever read the log."

"And how much was she carrying?"

"Everything he could find," Fennick said. "Cash boxes. Ledgers. Personal effects from the residence." He hesitated. "I signed the loading list myself. I'm afraid she was very heavy."

The senior inspector wrote for a long time.

"Is there anything else I should know, Lord Fennick?"

"Only that I should have taken the boat," Fennick said quietly. "And I didn't."

"Nobody did, my lord. That's rather the point of the finding."

"Finding," the senior inspector said at last. "An old vessel, overloaded with seized property, failed along a seam. Three thousand witnesses obeyed the Comptroller's own lawful order. No fault attaches to any resident of Harland." He closed the folder. "Lord Fennick. Your recommendation regarding the boats?"

Fennick sat up straighter than anyone had ever seen him sit.

"End the seizure," he said. "Today."

"On what grounds?"

Fennick thought about it for a long time.

Being slaughtered by three thousand angry citizens seemed a steep price to pay, especially when they would inevitably argue his ghost should have submitted his grievances in writing.

Then, for the first time in his career, he said something brave while it still mattered.

"Inspection complete," he said. "The Crown finds that the boats are fishermen boats."

By noon the clerks were down on the moorings with buckets of turpentine, scrubbing off the red crowns, and the fishermen were cheering them from the wall.

…

The last ferry left at dawn.

Alexander and Felicia stood on the deck with two bags between them, which was everything they owned that wasn't on the inventory of the Crown. The quay was empty. There was no ceremony and no banner.

Then, from inside the harbour wall, an engine started.

Then another. Then ten. Then fifty.

The fishing boats came out after the ferry, every one of them, horns blowing, two hundred hulls in a long ragged line across the green water. Old Tom's Margaret was at the front.

"What are they doing?" a deckhand shouted from the wheelhouse. "Is it a protest?"

"It's an escort," Felicia said. "They're seeing him off."

"Who?"

"The idiot," Felicia said, and laughed, and cried, both at once. Then her voice broke. "Prince. Prince, look."

Tom brought Margaret right up alongside the ferry's stern, close enough to touch, and stood up in her with his stick. He held something up. Felicia leaned over the rail and took it from his hand: a cheap brass compass with a cracked glass.

"For him," Tom shouted over the engines. "So he can find his way back. This island is his home."

Alexander took it from her. He looked down at the old man in the little boat.

"Thank you, Tom."

"Don't thank me." Tom sat down hard. "Idiot."

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