Quoted By:
The reeve's personal affairs all have one thing in common: they are not your problem. The boats represent an opportunity, one that you have been waiting for since you were old enough to bait a hook. You do not tell the reeve so much, only that you'll take the boats and manage them as best you can. The reeve looks disappointed but not angry. You suppose the other offer had drawbacks as well (having to sharing the profits for one) but it seems the reeve was rather looking forward to prepending "Sir" to his name.
He tells you he will have everything regarding accounts ready on the morrow. In the meantime, he can introduce you to your new crewmen. It is eight men over three boats. Each has been delinquent in their rents and are not happy about having to hand over their means of livelihood, which, for some, has been in the family for generations. Five of the eight are older than you, three of those are older even than your uncle; the rest are mere boys. Only one is any good at the trade, Ragnvald Fisher, a heathen from across the sea and a bosom friend of your cousin's father, once upon a time. He possess some skill in sailing and has learned to use the net, but his heathen manners and speech have scared off the villagers, including those of your new crew, and none will sail or speak with him. He does not seem to mind this, being, like yourself, a silent creature, but it is difficult to make a living in this trade working alone, without even being privy to the fishwives gossip, and he has suffered. Of the eight, he alone seems the least disturbed by the arrangement, on the contrary, he seems intrigued that the reeve (who he appears to hold in high regard) would appoint you as his superior.
Each boat can comfortably hold up to five men, though even just one is sufficient to sail. None are seaworthy and all are in need of some kind of repair or another---though they can limp along without. Ragnvald's ship is the best maintained, in near-perfect condition through and through, and getting him to sail on another will prove difficult. The other two "captains", Lyndon and Harold, manage the boat with their sons and nephews. Lyndon's boat is in the worst shape, he and his three boys know about as much of carpentry as they do of numbers and figures. Harold is a decrepit, half-deaf geezer that speaks in an incoherent ramble understandable only to his son, Haroldson, a man older than your uncle. He is however, one of the most experienced fishermen in the village. The other two members of his crew are Haroldson's cousins, brothers more interested in cheap beer and cheap women than in the honest livelihood necessary to obtain them. They are little better than daytalers.
The reeve gives you free rein to assign the men to the four boats now under your responsibility.
You decide to:
>Leave them as they are
>Put yourself with Ragnvald and delegate the rest of the assignment to your uncle
>Swap your uncle with the cousins, to keep an eye on them
>Write-in
