The first blow was struck on the deck of a Colleon freighter riding at anchor in Leucas Bay, two hundred miles from Scona, and none of the men involved in the fighting were from either Scona or Shastel. The freighter’s master, whose name is not recorded, was on his way to Shastel in the hope of hiring his ship to the Foundation as a troop-carrier. So as not to make the journey with an empty hold, he’d taken on a cargo of one hundred and six barrels of prime Colleon raisins, always a profitable commodity in the market at Shastel. The captain of a Leucas coaster happened to overhear him talking in a dockside inn about what he had on board and resolved to help himself to it. In order to justify this action, he decided to take advantage of Leucas’ famous neutrality decree, which stated that the Senate and people absolutely declined to intervene in any military action fought on their land or in their home waters, by declaring himself to be a Scona privateer and running up the ensign of the Loredan Bank, which he had taken the precaution of buying from the Bank’s agent a few hours earlier.
