Chapter 10: The CommissionGather and pilfer beads all day, on streets and markets rolling,
but if you breach the inner walls the watchmen will come calling.
– Sayings of the Scrapplings
Back home in Helanum, Myril’s mother would be harvesting green peas and planting the second crops. Her sister would be learning to tend the gardens, as she had been last year before Myril left for Anamat. Myril missed them, but at least she had some human companionship, even in Anamat. She could bear the loneliness. Sometimes she woke early, though, to be alone, and walked down to the shore to see the sun rise.
She watched as the enormous foreign ship sailed in at dawn under a dragonless cloud. When Myril blinked, the cloud disappeared. She knew that it was a sign, not just an ordinary cloud, but she sh
