The dispute had been going on for eleven days before Voss decided he had given it long enough to resolve itself.
It had not resolved itself. Disputes between ship cities rarely did, which was why he existed. The two cities in question were Ashkeel and Grimtide, both in his extended sphere of influence, both mid-sized, both run by men who had been competent enough to keep their cities operational and ambitious enough to make that a problem the moment their interests overlapped. The overlap in question was a fishing route in the channel between them, rich enough that both cities wanted exclusive rights to it and neither was willing to split the yield the way reasonable people split yields.
Reasonable people did not, as a rule, run ship cities.
The matter had started as a trading dispute,
