Saltline: three islands and a lagoon full of moored carriers (Chapter III).
Members
The twelve Portreeves and their delegations
Votes
45: one for each port, plus one for each million citizens (Saltline 6, Glasswater 4, Tern Harbour 4, Reefhold 3, Sunderlee 3, Farbourne 3, Ambergate 3, Morrowport 2, Driftmark 2, Scarrow 1, Oarsend 1, Sundown Key 1)
Meets
At Saltline, at every double spring tide, when no ship can leave the lagoon anyway
Chair
The Portreeve of the Line, chosen from the Portreeves for five years. Nilufar Oakes-Tamaru of Glasswater since 2310.
Powers
The Line's one Assembly seat; common quarantine and water standards; the Armistice Commission's hosting; treaties with the powers; disputes between ports
Cannot
Tax a port, command a harbour guard, or keep a ship of war
The factions, AL 2314:
Faction
Votes
Stands for
Open Water
24
Neutrality as it has always been. Own nothing worth fighting over; sell to everyone; let the powers keep their own peace. The old owners' party, strongest in Saltline, Driftmark and the eastern chain.
The Harbour Guard
15
Armed neutrality. Born at Driftmark in 2286. A Line patrol fleet able to keep either power off a reef, which means repealing the Neutral Law. Strongest in the western chain, nearest the Imperium: Tern Harbour, Scarrow, Oarsend and Sundown Key; also three of Reefhold's four votes.
Uncommitted
6
Glasswater's five delegates and one of Reefhold's, who hold the balance
The Stilt is not a Congress faction but the Common Halls' movement: water prices, rents, and raising the lower streets against the rising sea.
Each port's courts apply its own law, much of it merchant law older than the Crown's written codes.
The Tide Court at Saltline hears disputes between ports, and between foreigners who choose it. Half of Kethra's cross-border contracts name the Tide Court as their court.
Testimony follows Line usage: "He crossed the Line, by eye" is testimony; "by word" is rumour (Chapter IV).
No death penalty in any port since 1911. The worst sentence is expulsion from the Line, and every port honours every other port's expulsions.
Customs, rescue, pirates, quarantine. Unarmed against ships (the Neutral Law). The largest are Saltline's, Tern Harbour's and Reefhold's.
The Assembly
-
The ports' real defence is that every power needs them
The Rovessa
-
Empty Roads would close any attacker's trade
Defence spending: about Cr 6 billion a year, almost all of it on the harbour guards.
The argument of AL 2314. The Harbour Guard party wants twelve patrol ships: enough to keep a landing party off a reef, not enough to threaten anyone. That means repealing the Neutral Law of 1242. Open Water says that the moment the Line owns a ship of war, the powers will want to know whose side it is on. The ports' fear in the Who's Who is "being forced to choose a side", and each faction thinks the other's plan is how that happens.
The corridor question. The Armistice "left the corridor question open" (the Vardane almanac). Both powers press the ports to recognise their rights in the Line sea-corridors. The ports answer, every year, that the sea belongs to no one, and the Armistice Commission writes it down.
Deep lagoons at Saltline, Tern Harbour and Glasswater; stilt-quays everywhere
Air
Saltline: 4 hours from Aletheia (Chapter III)
Space
Saltline Launch (2046) and the Tether Yard in orbit
Water
"Rain cisterns on every roof, plus desalination in the large ports" (Chapter III)
Energy
Ocean-thermal and tidal power, solar, and thorium fission bought under Ilyr licence
Building
Reefstone lime, "white and brilliant" (Chapter III); stilt-towns on blackreed; storm shutters for Girdle storms (Chapter III)
The Lift
A 40-year plan to raise Saltline's lower streets and quays 2 m against the rising sea. Cost: about Cr 90 billion. The Common Halls want it faster; the Councils want someone else to pay.
The Line style: "brilliant white reefstone-lime houses on stilts, with lagoon walkways. It is borrowed from everywhere and belongs to no one" (Chapter III).
The Wall of Flags in the Saltline Exchange: every flag on Kethra, in the order their owners' ships first called.
Tide songs in Linecant and Landspeech.
Literature:
The Salt Rising, the ports' founding chronicle;
Grey Pennants, Salt Fever in letters from Saltline (1420s–1430s);
By Eye, By Word, a novel of the Tide Court (AL 2266);
