As we lowered Cormorant’s mast to go under Gallos Bridge, the old man on the toll boat watched us through his foggy cabin window. Wet clouds hovered low over the marsh, spitting out cold raindrops.
“Who’s that?” Markos stared, his eyes hollowed from lack of sleep.
“That’s the man who works the toll boat.”
“What does he do there?”
I shrugged. “Collects the toll. If it’s dark he makes sure the lamps are lit. If it’s a big ship, he gets them to move the bridge.”
“Is that what Victorianos had to do?”
“Yes. They attach a team of horses to the turnstile, and it spins the bridge so the ship can get through.”
He looked up at the bridge with a new appreciation. “It’s too bad our mast comes down. I should’ve liked to see how they do it.”
The toll man came out of his cabin to stand at the rail. Smoke curling from the end of his pipe, he gave me a nod. “There was a cutter come through at morning tide as was looking for a wherry.” He spoke in the rolling tones of an old man who has seen all manner of things come up and down the river and won’t be bothered or hurried by any of them. “A wherry called Cormorant.”
I tried to sound casual, despite my buzzing ears and racing heart. “They said Cormorant? The last I seen of Cormorant was up at Hespera’s Watch.” I stretched over the side, dropping a coin in the toll man’s net. “Must be four days ago.”
“Them brigands been a-roaming the river. They was searching the wherries at the docks. His eyes settled on Markos. “Asking questions about a boy. But I guess you missed all the ruckus.”
Abruptly turning his face away, Markos picked up a rope end and began to coil it around a cleat. I winced. He was doing it all wrong.
The toll man blew out pipe smoke. “I told ’em, I says, ‘I ain’t seen any such boat.’ But I don’t think folk here will look kindly on them Black Dogs if they come back.” He pulled his oilskin coat aside to reveal the pistol tucked in his belt. “We looks after our own in Gallos.”
“Current carry you, sir,” I called.
As we slipped under the bridge, Markos and I exchanged grave glances. The smell of wet moss and muck surrounded us, water droplets falling with little plinks from the stone overhead. Then light poured over us, and I blinked. Cormorant had cleared the bridge.
“Up mast!” I called out. “Up sail!”
When the wind filled the sail again, I snatched the halyard from Markos’s hands. “Don’t touch the ropes.”
“I was only—”
“Making a mess.” He’d wrapped it in big, sloppy circles around the cleat. I sighed. “Look, just don’t—don’t touch anything.”
“Do you think he knew who we were?” Wiping his hands on Pa’s trousers, he nodded at the bridge as it retreated astern.
I looked grimly at Fee. “I know he did.”
“What?” His voice jumped up an octave. “Is that why he showed you the gun? As a threat?”
“That pistol wasn’t for us. He was showing me he knew who we are, and he isn’t going to tell.”
“You’re sure he knew?”
“I’ve been sailing up and down this river since I were the size of a minnow,” I said. “He knows my face and he knows Cormorant, even without her name. And he also knows if Pa isn’t with us, there must be trouble. You heard him.” A lump swelled up in my throat. I looked back, but the toll boat was out of sight. “He said we look after our own.”
It rained the rest of that day and into the night. I didn’t mind—the gray weather echoed my mood. Markos made himself scarce, only coming out of the cabin to pick listlessly at his meals.
I spent most of my time brooding alone on deck. Drops pattered on the water, ringing its surface, and thick fog hung over the riverlands. With the hood of my oilskin jacket pulled down low, I watched Fee squat by the tiller, rain streaming down her slippery face. Occasionally she tilted her head, chirping at the river. Once again I wondered what she heard that I could not.
I curled my hands around my warm coffee mug and stared into the muddy water as if by doing so, it might reveal its secrets to me.
It didn’t.
The day your fate comes for you, you’ll know … But the more I watched and listened, the more my doubts solidified into certainty. Coldness settled in my heart.
The god at the bottom of the river speaks to wherrymen in the language of small things. And to the Oresteia family, always. Every one of them, going back to our blockade-running days.
Except me.
It hurt, like a gaping black hole had opened up in my stomach. There have always been some wherrymen who sail without the favor of the river god, but everything is harder for them. And I knew for a fact that other captains talked about them behind their backs. The river had always been my home. If I didn’t belong here, where else would I ever fit in?
The next day dawned chilly and wet. Inside the cabin, Markos stared blankly out the porthole, eyes bruised and reddened. I didn’t think he’d slept. Through the curtain I’d heard him rolling and sighing all night. Finally he had lit a lamp. I’d turned over to face the wall and tried to ignore it as he flipped the pages of a book until morning.
“It’s cold.” I tossed one of Pa’s pullovers at him. “Here.”
He obviously hadn’t looked at himself in the glass, or he would have seen the white dusting of salt where tears had dried on his face. He had hardly spoken a word all day yesterday. I didn’t mind, because I hadn’t been much inclined to talk either. Something bigger hung over us than the storm clouds.
Markos fingered the sweater in his lap. A minute went by before he spoke. “It wasn’t only because I wanted you to take me to Casteria.”
I gulped a mouthful of coffee, burning my tongue. My eyes watered.
“You know. That night. I didn’t just try to kiss you because I wanted you to change your mind about Casteria. I … misinterpreted the situation.” He halted. “What I mean is, you were standing there in my cabin—” He cleared his throat. “That is, I really did want to—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I snapped.
He spoke loudly over me. “I’m trying to apologize.”
“Oh.” We fell into an awkward silence. He pulled the sweater over his head, mussing up his black hair. If it had been Pa and I sitting in the cabin on a rainy day with the stove going, I might have called it cozy, but with the two of us it was just tense and sad.
I broke the quiet. “How could you think that? I only just met you.”
“Probably because I wasn’t thinking.” He mumbled something.
“What?”
Markos looked away, but not before I saw his cheekbones and the tips of his ears redden. “I said, ‘And I thought you were pretty.’ ” He fiddled with his hands. “I … imagined some things that weren’t there.”
If he had said there was snow falling through the roof of the cabin, I wouldn’t have been more shocked. Pretty. After he’d spent the last three days insinuating that nothing on this wherry was good enough for him, including me.
He went on. “I suppose you might wash more, but there is a certain … rural … charm about you. And you’re very …”
I narrowed my eyes. “You should’ve stopped while you were ahead.”
“I was going to say capable.”
That wasn’t at all what I’d expected. I stared at him. “Who ever tried to kiss a girl because she’s capable?”
He shrugged, giving me a lopsided smile. “My world is full of useless people.”
“Oh.” I was certainly a great conversationalist this morning.
“I jumped to conclusions about who you were,” he went on. “Conclusions that might not have been true and were likely hurtful to you. I did hope to manipulate you. I’ve been thinking about what Lord Peregrine said. A person who holds a position of power ought never to use it to take advantage of others.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
I sensed he wasn’t finished.
“I feel so backward here.” He watched the rain pelt the cabin window. “The only thing I know how to be is an Emparch’s son. I know everything I do seems wrong and stupid to you.”
He had a strange look on his face, as if he hoped I would deny it but was already resigned to the fact that I would not.
I almost felt bad now for dumping the bucket of water on him. But I remembered how he’d put his hands on me, and how angry and ashamed it had made me. And then how ashamed I’d felt for being ashamed, because he was the one in the wrong.
“I reckon we’ll make Siscema by noon,” I said, hoping to steer the conversation in a less embarrassing direction. I was sure he could hear the apprehensive patter of my heart. “You can stay in here if you want. I won’t think less of you if you don’t want to go outside in bad weather.”
“Now there’s a lie. Yes, you will.”
I shrugged. “I was only trying to make you feel better.”
“There’s one more thing I wanted to say.” He squared his shoulders. “Having resided on this boat for several days, I can see now that it’s not a piece of junk. It’s very good at … the things it does.”
I glanced sharply at him. He was clever enough to figure out that complimenting Cormorant was a sure way of getting back into my good graces, but I saw no guile behind his tired eyes. I decided to accept his awkward speech for what it seemed to be—a peace offering.
“Thanks for that, at least.” I paused for a moment. “Where do we go from here?”
He looked into his coffee, as if the solutions to the problems that haunted us were at the bottom of the mug. “I think that’s up to you.”
“On the lightship at the Neck,” I said slowly, “they put out different colored lights to warn ships of the weather. One yellow lamp means the day is fair. A red lamp means conditions on the sea are bad.”
“What are we?”
“Two yellow lamps,” I said. “Sail with caution.”
We made Siscema just after noon. The rain had stopped, but clouds hung low over the land, as well as the smoke from hundreds of chimneys. Siscema was bigger than Hespera’s Watch or Gallos. Lying as it did at the place where the River Thrush and the River Kars joined, it was the most important port in the northern riverlands. The city was a cobblestoned maze of alleys and walled gardens. Its docks were a sprawling hodgepodge, with barrels and crates stacked everywhere. Wagons rolled in and out of the riverside warehouses, and the smell of tar and sawdust lingered.
I steered Cormorant into an empty slip at the lumberyard. Surrounded by the familiar port sounds of clanking cranes, screeching gulls, and creaking rigging, we waited for the dock inspector to unload our cargo. There was no sign of Victorianos.
I had other reasons to keep an eye out. I was known to too many people in the city of Siscema. People I would rather not be seen by.
Markos watched a group of sleek black birds duck and glide among the buoys.
“Cormorants,” I said.
“They ride low in the water, like the boat.”
I was pleased he’d noticed. “She does look a bit like a big black cormorant, don’t she?”
Markos had lost some of the shadows under his eyes. He’d emerged on deck with his hair damp and face pink from fresh scrubbing, looking much more like his usual self.
Of course, his usual self was still annoying. But he seemed more relaxed as he sat with his legs dangling off the cabin roof, the collar of Pa’s shirt stirring in the breeze. Perhaps he and I had come to a wary understanding, or his grief had simply broken him down.
“Will you stop looking over your shoulder? You’re making me twitchy,” he said.
“We might be waiting for hours. What if the Black Dogs show up?” I was reluctant to tell him the Black Dogs were only half of what was on my mind.
“We could just forget about the logs,” Markos suggested.
“We’ll go twice as fast without them.” I chewed on my lower lip, biting off a tiny patch of skin. It was a bad habit, but I was so nervous I couldn’t help it. “Why must the dock inspector be so cursed slow?” I gestured at the other wherries. “I wish we could just skip this line and get out of here.”
“Of course! Caroline, I’ve just had a thought.” He jumped down. “Your lip is bleeding.”
“Yes, thank you. That’s not very helpful.” I sucked the offending lip into my mouth, tasting the metallic tang of blood.
“That wasn’t it. The letter of marque! I only wish we’d thought of it an hour ago.”
“You think that’ll do any good?”
“Do you think a Margravina’s ships wait?” He looked down his nose in scorn. “Because an Emparch’s certainly don’t. Where do you keep it?”
I drew it from the upper pocket of my oilskin coat. The ribbon was crushed and the parchment dog-eared, but it was still a letter of marque.
“You there!” There was an authoritative snap to Markos’s voice as he called to the dock inspector. “We’re on the Margravina’s business.”
Unbelievably, the dock inspector stopped what he was doing and came right over. Perhaps the trick was confidence. Markos assumed people would obey him at once, and so they did.
I supposed I was the exception.
The dock inspector had a grizzled beard and skin darker than my mother’s. He wasn’t anyone I knew. Siscema was a large port, with many wherries coming through every day—and seagoing ships too, up Nemertes Water from Iantiporos.
“I have the honor of being Tarquin Meridios. I am a courier with the Akhaian Consulate,” Markos said, offering the squashed scroll to the dock inspector. “I have a letter of marque.”
I watched the man’s brown eyes skim the contents. “This is for the wherry Cormorant.” He lowered the letter.
“This is the wherry Cormorant.”
“Ain’t what the paint says,” he pointed out, eyes flicking up and down from the paper to the boat. “Says this be the Octavia.”
“Our business requires the utmost secrecy. Captain Oresteia, will you please produce the ship’s papers for this man?”
I ducked into the cabin to grab them from the waterproof box where Pa kept his important things. With unsteady nerves, I passed them to Markos, who in turn handed them to the dock inspector. He wasn’t going to go for this. I just knew it.
“And here’s the contract for the timber,” I spoke up, suspecting Markos wouldn’t know to ask for it. With a bored half-lidded glance at me, Markos extended a hand palm up. I placed the paper in it.
“As you can see,” Markos said, “we are bound for the Free City of Valonikos with all swiftness on the Margravina’s business. We must discharge this cargo immediately and make way.”
The man tilted the paper into the sun. There was a design woven through the parchment that I hadn’t noticed before.
“It bears her mark and seal,” he admitted with a bewildered shake of his head. He was probably wondering why a courier would be aboard a cargo wherry, but was too awed by the letter to ask. He whistled to his men.
As they rolled back the hatch on the cargo hold and brought in the levers and crane, I asked Markos under my breath, “Who is Tarquin Meridios anyway?”
He grinned. “I made him up.”
“I am not saying you have a future as a criminal and scalawag,” I told him, “but that was mightily well done.”
A lone seagull fluttered down from the sky, lighting on a dock post. It tilted its head to one side and squawked at me.
Looking up, I froze. A woman strolled down the dock in the company of a robed man who carried an account book. Two bodyguards shadowed them, men with studded leather armor and swords.
“Gods damn me.” I jerked Pa’s pistol out of its holster.
“Who’s that?”
I seized Markos’s sleeve. “Listen. The Bollards got their fingers in every pie. Goods, money, rumors. Everything. I can’t let them find out who you are. Get down in the cabin and hide. Smuggling compartment on the starboard side. Go!”
“Bollards? Why—”
There was no time to explain. They hadn’t seen us yet, but it was a matter of moments. I stuffed the letter of marque in my pocket and shoved him belowdecks. “Go.”
The woman on the dock wore a gold doublet with puffed slashed sleeves. Above her shrewd brown-skinned face was a red silk turban dotted in a gold pattern. A fine engraved watch and a set of matched brass keys hung from a chatelaine at her waist. The etching on the device depicted a wine cask crowned with three stars.
Most people knew her as Tamaré Bollard, negotiator for the Bollard merchant family. Unfortunately, I knew her by a different name.
I lowered my pistol. “Hello, Ma.”