Truth in Blue

There is one map. He drew it in a hand I did not recognise, on paper he did not buy, and he did not sign it, and it is correct.

The passage is where the passage is. The shoal is marked. The whole coast sits nine miles south of every chart in the Admiralty's possession, drawn true, by a man who spent three decades being paid to draw it false.

He left it where he knew I would look. That is the part I have not finished forgiving him for — not the lie, which had reasons, but the certainty that I would come looking, and the decision to let me.