These were pirates. This was a pirate city, ruled by cruel mercantilism, existing in the pores of the world, snatching new citizens from their ships, a floating free-town for buying and selling stolen goods, where might made right. The evidence of this was everywhere: in the severity of the citizens, the weapons they wore openly, in the stocks and whipping-posts she saw on the Garwater vessels. Armada, she thought, must be ordered by maritime discipline, the lash.
