Chapter 18: The Toll-Keeper

Mei had closed the ferry for the morning of the fourteenth, which had cost her one copper and therefore had better lead to a confession, an arrest, or at least the recovery of two coppers. The copper had gone to Auntie Tang for writing Closed on a board. Mei had objected that one character should cost less than a pot of tea. Auntie Tang had counted the six strokes aloud and invited her to write them herself. Now the board hung at the north landing while Mei poled toward the narrows with no passengers and no income. "That sign has to earn back its copper," she said. Fish stood in the bow, watching the chain ahead. "By being closed?" "By helping me catch a cheat." "I begin to understand mortal accounts." "No, you don't." The chain stretched between two iron posts, two hundred paces of rusted links sagging under the…