Sasser

She was a suspicion before she was a person. Aldo raised the idea of a second guard on the Loshev docks in Dan’s pocket, first to unsettle a prisoner and then in earnest with the Constable, and called her Cissy, or Sally. There was something in it. Pressed, Tariq allowed that he had noticed a dock-guard being friendly with Dan and had nothing on her worth acting on.

Her name was Sasser, and Khed walked her down to the cells the night Dan was arrested. She came in perplexed, took in the man locked behind the bars, and got as far as sir before Dan pointed at her and told the room she had masterminded the whole of it and put him up to it. Koa’s read was that being accused by Dan came close to a character reference.

Tariq said they would discuss it upstairs, and said it in the voice he meant for the prisoner behind him, and Khed took her by the crook of the elbow and steered her to the stairs. She went from shocked to angry at being handled that way, and everyone in the room saw it.

What he asked her upstairs was why she had requested the late dock shift every shift for weeks running. She told him. The dock-workers passed her a few pennies here and there to look past what came in off the boats, and she did not know exactly what she was looking past, though she was fairly sure it was Keif, and sometimes she took the Keif instead of the pennies. He made her take off the top of her armor and show him her arms, and there was nothing on either of them.

Petty graft and no lash. She gave up her sword and her post, and Tariq put her off the guard with a warning and let her go.