Salt and the Drowned King
Nine days before the great Martinmas tide, Nell Tarrow needs fourteen silver marks or her family's salt pan goes to the factor. Then the fog comes down on the King's Reach, and a drowned king stands on the water of the Black Pool with an offer: carry his crown to the sea, never set it down, never put it on, and his silver is hers. Nell has never lost a bargain. But an old salt-wife's rhyme says the sea is owed something, and the last man who took the job never came home.