Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 96 of 150

The mill gate opened for them. Two of Cage's men waved the guards off and took the handles of the chest from the small creatures. Ben let them lift it. He kept his hand on the lid as they set it on the trestle inside the yard. Chilly Willy leaned against the post and closed his eyes. The chest was here. The set was here. And Ben still had no way to tell Cage this was all of it before her people counted the boxes and decided they could take it without paying. Cage came down from the mill door. She wore a plain coat and carried a wooden tankard in one hand. She did not look at Ben first. She looked at the chest, and at the twelve small creatures sitting in a ring around it. One of them, calm and blue-gray with pale markings, sat closest to the lid. It did not move when her men stepped near. "You brought company," Cage said. "They carried it in," Ben said. "They leave with me." Her men waited on her word. Two had hands on knives. One stood behind the trestle with a pry bar. If she nodded, they would open the chest and count. If the count was twelve, she could pay him or kill him. If the count was short, she would kill him for wasting her time. Ben set the marked wooden crate on the trestle beside the chest. The stencil on its side read ONE DOZEN. He tapped it once with two fingers, the way a trader taps a sealed bond. "Twelve in the chest," he said. "Twelve out here. Same count. My mark. Open the chest and the deal is done. Open it before the coin is on the board and you get eleven and a fight." Cage looked at the crate. She looked at the ring of small creatures. The calm one blinked at her once and did not look away. "You're telling me the set is complete," she said. "I'm telling you the count is set. You break it, you own what's broken." She drank from the tankard. She set the tankard on the crate lid, deliberate, and left it there. Her man behind the trestle lowered the pry bar. "Coin first," she said to her steward. "Then the lid." The steward went inside. Cage did not move. Her men did not move. Ben kept his hand on the chest and felt his pulse in his palm. The signal had landed. Cage would pay before she looked. The bead-piece inside would sit under her eye only after the coin was on the board, and by then Ben would be reaching for it. He watched the mill door and counted the seconds until the steward came back with the purse.