A familiar shortcut takes a courier from a Sable street into a prepared garden court where nobody can receive the intended delivery.
The parcel contained a hearing notice and a copy of the disputed contract. My warrant authorized delivery to the debtor named on the wrapper. It did not authorize arrest, seizure, or an argument with his neighbours, which suited me. I carried papers for the harbour court. I preferred doors that opened when I rang.
The address was on a street I knew. I had delivered there since I was tall enough to reach its bells. The lower road passed through a drain arch and climbed towards the back of the houses, saving a long walk around the upper stair.
Beyond the arch, I found a garden court of pale stone. The slope was wrong. So were the windows. A shallow channel ran beside the path, and the air smelled of wet soil rather than the harbour. I stopped where I could still see the arch behind me.
A machine was clearing leaves from a doorway. It carried them to a collection box, brushed the threshold, and asked which household expected me.
I showed it the seal. It brought a chair.
I asked for the named debtor. It brought a second chair.
I tried explaining that the second chair would not help unless the debtor was sitting in it. The machine asked how many people were expected. I put the parcel back beneath my arm before it decided to prepare a banquet.
There were other houses around the court. Their paths had been swept, their windows cleaned, and their door fittings polished. None had the shopfronts or upper washing rails I expected from that street. Red cord had been tied around a drain gate beneath one garden wall. The seal on it was familiar Sable work, but the pipe disappeared into stonework unlike anything I had seen behind those houses.
I did not go looking for another entrance. The view through the arch had begun to narrow. I could still hear the port bells beyond it, and I followed that sound back with the parcel unopened.
On the harbour side, my boots left damp prints across the dry steps. A woman carrying bread asked why I had brought two sprigs of garden growth through in my coat. They had caught at my sleeve beside the chair. I pulled them free and stood for a moment trying to remember whether I had seen that plant before.
Then I took the upper stair. The parcel still needed delivering, and I wanted a street with doors I could recognize.
