Ysbel sympathised with his anger, but hoped that it wouldn’t cause trouble down the line. Even by native standards the bailiff was a short person, about eye-level with her belt buckle, but he was barrel-chested and broad-hipped and had the look of someone who would rather kick a wall down than walk around it. The pelt that capped his head was oiled into short spikes; his eyes, set in a stripe of black fur under his heavy brow, brimmed with truculent suspicion.

‘The first thing we must settle is the disposition of the bodies,’ he said. ‘Mercy and Clemency must be given into the care of their family before nightfall, so that they can be properly prepared for return to the Mother.’

It took Ysbel a moment to realise that Mercy and Clemency were the two fisherfolk who had died in the accident, if that’s what it had been, and she assured Goodwill that she had no intention of interfering with custom and law.

‘They were brothers,’ Goodwill said. ‘Mercy and Clemency Sandhill. Mercy was sixteen, with two young sons. Clemency was just twelve, a lively lad, well-liked in town and honest as daylight.’

‘I hope we can do the right thing by them,’ Ysbel said, realising that he wanted her to think of them as the people they’d been, not as inconvenient victims.

‘I have to trust that you will,’ Goodwill said, ‘given that your people are protected by the treaty.’

Ysbel hoped that this was the ingrained cynicism of an experienced lawkeeper rather than mistrust and mislike of humans. Cynicism she could work with; prejudice, not so much.

‘I came here to find out what happened, what part Trina Mersdaughter played in it, and report the facts of the case to our authorities,’ she said. ‘I understand the speedboat that hit the fisherfolks’ skiff was piloted by a native. Was Trina a passenger?’

‘She was piloting another boat, but shares responsibility for what happened,’ Goodwill said. ‘She and Joyous Hightower were in a race, and it was her idea.’

He had interviewed Solomon Firststar and his guests, and everyone had told him more or less the same story. Joyous Hightower and Trina Mersdaughter had been competing against each other in the afternoon. Speedboat time trials out to buoys and back. Trina had beaten Joyous two times out of three, and he’d been less than pleased to have been outraced by a human person, especially as she was also a woman. Later, at supper, Trina had challenged him to a race around the island, and he had accepted at once.