The Phoenician ship came into the harbour on a grey morning, its sails patched and its hull scarred by weather. It was not a trader by the look of it—or it had been a trader once, before something had happened to it. The crew moved with the hollow efficiency of men who had seen something they were still trying to forget.
Lysander watched it dock from the harbour master's window. The winter light was thin and pale, the sea beyond the barrier pilings a sheet of hammered lead. He had been reviewing the militia supply lists when the harbour bell rang, and he had set them aside without thinking. Something about the way the ship sat in the water, the way the crew avoided each other's eyes, told him this was not a routine arrival.
He went down to the dock.
