I awoke the next morning greatly relieved not to have been murdered in my sleep by the Black Dogs. Casting a glance at the closed curtain to Pa’s cabin, I bound my hair with a red paisley scarf and slipped barefoot onto the deck.
Mist hovered over the riverlands. A dragonfly flitted in the air, its wings a flash of green among the shivering cattails. Fee perched on Cormorant’s bow, a faraway look on her face. Was she talking to the god in the river? As his descendants, all the frogmen had a connection to the god. Whether it was the same language of small things the wherrymen spoke of, or something far older and stranger, I didn’t know. A pang of jealousy stung me.
Squinting at the peak of the mast, I surveyed the mess from last night. Cormorant’s halyards were still tangled in the branches, her deck scattered with twigs and leaves. Pa wouldn’t approve of the way we’d left the sail in a heap. Together Fee and I unwound the ropes and lowered the mast to shake it free of the tree. I winced as sticks rained to the deck around me. We steered the wherry out of the dike and into Heron Water, where we anchored near the bank.
Fee scrambled up from the cargo hold, setting a bucket on the deck. “Paint.” She pressed a brush into my hand.
Reluctantly I eyed Cormorant’s name, spelled out above the cabin door in light blue letters with red flourishes. “I hate to ruin it.”
She shrugged. “Or die.”
“I know, I know.” I swiped the wet brush across the C, blotting it out.
As I put the finishing touches on the paint, Tarquin emerged, blinking in the morning sunlight. He gazed out at the lake in surprise. It had been too dark to see anything last night.
“I didn’t know there were other boats here.” He drew his brocade robe around him.
One vessel was anchored down at the far end of Heron Water, a finger of smoke curling up from her roof. I couldn’t identify her—a houseboat, maybe? The other was a wherry, the Fair Morning. The wherryman’s wife sat on deck in a rocking chair, smoking a long pipe. She and her daughter stared at us. I didn’t know them, but I could tell they were wondering why we hadn’t said hello yet. And what kind of idiots we were to get our mast stuck in the trees.
I set down the paint bucket. “Is that what all the Emparch’s couriers wear?”
“It’s a dressing gown.” He saw my mystified look. “Sleeping clothes.”
“Oh.” My cheeks burned with embarrassment. Well, really. Why would anyone waste such an elegant garment on sleeping?
He rubbed the fabric between his fingers. “I didn’t have time to change before I was forced to flee—”
“Flee?” Again his words caused an alarm bell to go off in the back of my mind. Something wasn’t right about his story.
“I was rushing to get on the road,” he explained hastily. He put his hands in his pockets and looked out at the flat land, the breeze stirring his curls.
The only white sails belonged to a two-masted schooner far away across the yellow-brown marsh. That didn’t mean anything, though, since the River Thrush had many bends and places where lines of trees blotted the horizon. Victorianos was lurking out there somewhere.
The packing crate still sat on deck, its lid askew. I heaved it overboard with a muddy splash.
Tarquin followed me. “What are you doing?”
“The Black Dogs are looking for a wherry carrying this box,” I said over my shoulder. “I’m going to sink it. And you’re going to help me.”
I slung the rope ladder over the edge of the deck and climbed down. At the bottom rung, I jumped off, landing thigh deep in the water. Mud squished between my toes.
He sighed. “You expect me to jump into that muck? There could be leeches. Or snakes.”
I put my hands on my hips, squinting up at him. The crate bobbed in the water beside me. “Of course there are leeches. Most likely snakes too.”
He spent far too much time removing his boots and rolling up the cuffs of his trousers, as I hunted along the shoreline for large rocks. By the time he inched down the ladder, I had piled up a collection.
“I aim to get rid of everything that might make this wherry stand out,” I said. “Starting with this crate. And you.”
“Well, you can’t get rid of me.” He waded ashore, mud sucking at his bare feet.
“But I can make you look more like a wherryman.” This was the part he wasn’t going to like. “Take off that robe and your trousers and put them in the box.”
His nostrils flared, and he stepped toward me splashily. “Now see here—”
“Oh, honestly. I won’t look.” I studied him. “What you should do is cut your hair. And take out that earring.”
“No.”
“What do you care more about, your vanity or your survival?” I countered. “No one in the riverlands dresses like that. The clothes have to go.”
His gaze flickered over me. “Your scarf is unusual for a wherryman’s daughter. Made in Ndanna, I should guess from the pattern, and a particularly fine silk. I suppose we’re not burying that in the mud.”
I touched the scarf knotted around my hair. It had been a present from my cousin Kenté, which was none of his business. “I’m not the one the Black Dogs are trying to kill.”
Tarquin made all manner of unnecessary huffing noises as he pulled off his trousers. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him balancing on one leg like a heron. At a glimpse of white undershorts, my cheeks went hot.
“After I just finished getting all the gods-damned straw out of that robe,” he muttered. Tossing the bundle of fabric into the crate, he raised his eyebrows. “All right?”
His letter from the consulate hadn’t been in his trousers or his robe. He must have stashed it in Pa’s cabin. I filed that information away for later.
I piled my rocks in the box and watched bubbles rise up from the water as it sank. When it was completely submerged, we waded back to Cormorant. I kept my eyes politely slanted downward. Things between Tarquin and me were awkward enough without me seeing him in his underwear.
“Ugh! There’s a leech on my ankle.” He pinched one end and began to lift. Its slimy black body stretched longer, but it didn’t loosen its grip.
“Scrape, don’t pull.” I turned my foot over to find one of the creatures latched onto my big toe. “Like this.” With my fingernail I removed it and flicked it overboard.
Instead of saying thank you, he let out a loud sigh. “I won’t have any further conversation with you while I’m not wearing trousers. It’s ridiculous.”
Fee and I exchanged glances as he stalked up the deck, leaving wet footprints. He might have been a great deal more tolerable if he wasn’t so obsessed with his own dignity.
I rummaged in the cargo hold until I found a sign, brightly painted with the name Octavia. Smaller letters underneath named the city of Doukas as our home port. I hung it above the cabin door, where it almost covered the slick new paint. Someone who inspected us closely would notice, but I figured if any of the Black Dogs were that close, we were already dead.
Tarquin clumped up the cabin steps. “There. Do I look like a wherryman now?” He spat out the word as if it were a curse.
The truth was he didn’t, especially not with that haughty sneer on his face. His forearms were pasty white. I couldn’t see his palms, but I knew they would be as smooth as mine were hard. He looked uncomfortable in Pa’s clothes, and furthermore his boots were all wrong. They were knee-length, crafted from creamy soft leather, and the brass buttons were decorated with lions. I regretted not sinking them too, but we didn’t have any others that would fit him.
“What are we going to do about those pirates?” he asked.
“There are lots of hidey-holes in these parts,” I said. “Dikes and ponds and the like. Places only a wherryman would know about.” Or a smuggler, but I didn’t say that aloud. “Even if they do know, I reckon that cutter can’t fit. Too deep in the draft.”
“Can’t you speak plainly?”
“The draft. A ship like that must be nine feet at least.” He still looked confused. “Her depth. Our keel is only four feet deep.”
“Must be nice,” he said. “I bet they can stand up in their cabin.”
I ignored that dig. “With any luck, we’ll see the Black Dogs before they see us. I can’t outrun them, but I know where to hide. And once we deliver the lumber—”
“What are you talking about? What lumber?”
“You’re not my only cargo.” I struggled to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “There’s a shipment of timber in the cargo hold that’s bound for Siscema.”
“Can’t it wait? My mission is far more important than your logs.”
I glared at him. “After we unload the logs, we’ll go a great deal faster.”
He seemed to accept that, turning to examine the fresh paint on Cormorant’s cabin wall. “Why do you have a sign with another boat’s name on it?”
“Smuggling,” I said. It wasn’t as if he could turn me over to a dock inspector. He needed me. “Sometimes a disguise comes in handy. Of course, anyone who knows her well enough won’t be fooled.”
Tarquin glanced over his shoulder at the Fair Morning, which had raised its big black sail, then back to Cormorant. “They look exactly alike to me.”
I laughed. “Ayah, to you.”
The woman on the other wherry gave us a cutting look as they glided past. No doubt they had heard the gunshots last night and seen me painting out Cormorant’s name, and decided we were scoundrels of the worst sort.
Tarquin pointed to the boat at the far end of the lake. “Is that a wherry too?”
Fee squatted on the cabin roof, her toes splayed out. “Pig man,” she said.
I looked up sharply.
Some said the pig man was a god. If you caught him on a lucky day, he would tell you your fate. On the unlucky days, he sat at his stove on the roof of his rickety houseboat, smoking pork until it fell off the ribs. He went slowly up and down the river selling it, as well as bacon and salt pork, because even wherrymen tire of fish. Pa had purchased provisions from him many times, apparently all on unlucky days, because he’d never said or done anything remotely godlike. He was just old. And strange.
Likely the whole thing was a fish story, but if ever I had needed someone to tell me my fate, this was the day. And even if it wasn’t my lucky day, the pork was delicious.
I climbed down into Cormorant’s dinghy and rowed across.
The pig man sat next to his smoker, his face hidden under a floppy-brimmed hat. It was impossible to tell if he had brown skin like my mother’s family or was simply tanned that color from sitting out in the sun all his long life.
“How be you on this high morning?” the pig man called down as I tied up the dinghy.
“I’m for Valonikos,” I said, heart skittering nervously. “To deliver a shipment.”
“Foolish girl. ’Tis your fate that be pulling you down that river.” He glanced at me. “Your fate … and that boy’s.”
I put my hand on my knife hilt. “What do you know about—” I stopped. Surely it wasn’t wise to say his name. “I mean, what do you know about my fate?”
“Salt pork today? Got a fine batch of salted smoked pork for the buying.” He winked. “I be thinking your fate is far away from here, Captain Oresteia.”
I wished he would stop being mysterious. “I’m not a captain,” I said, passing him a handful of coins. “Cormorant is my father’s boat. You know that as well as I do.”
“You can’t fight it.” He grinned, showing all his white teeth. “Why is it every soul be always thinking he can fight it? Does a fish swim upstream against the tide?”
I wasn’t a man or a fish, and I was beginning to weary of his knowing leer.
“It damn well tries,” I told him. “Salt pork, please.” I hesitated. “Is it true, what they say? That you’re a god? Can you speak to the god in the river?”
He only laughed, bending to measure out the salt pork from his barrel.
I stifled an irritated sigh and glanced over my shoulder at Cormorant, uncomfortably aware of how vulnerable and shabby she looked. She was no match for the Black Dogs. But we couldn’t just hide here forever. Somehow I had to get to Valonikos, or Pa would be stuck in the lockup and—gods forbid—I’d be stuck with Tarquin.
I stared into the murky reeds at the edge of the water. If there really was a god at the bottom, I could use his help right about now.
The pig man watched me with keen black eyes. I had the uncanny feeling he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“She a bigger, deeper god. The one who steers you.” He spat over the side of the boat. “He don’t be fighting her.”
“I steer myself.” The idea of the gods poking and prodding me about, like a piece on a game board, didn’t sit well with me.
He flipped the bacon in his frying pan and cackled. “They all say that too.”
I tried to look dignified as I climbed into the dinghy. “Good day, sir.”
“Current carry you, Captain,” he called after me, sounding just like any old river man again. It was as if our eerie conversation had never happened.
As I rowed back to Cormorant, I tried not to think about the pig man’s unsettling words. I was an Oresteia. We belonged to the river. I didn’t want another god messing around in my business.
Tarquin gave me a hand up from the dinghy. As I clambered onto the stern, I realized I’d been wrong about his hands. They were pale, all right, the hands of a man who had never worked long hours in the sun. But he had rough calluses across the tops of his palms, and he was strong.
Perhaps he wouldn’t be completely useless after all.
As I raised the sail, I noticed him watching me. “What are you staring at?” I demanded, freezing with the halyard in my hand.
He flinched, peeling his gaze off my legs. “In Akhaia the women wear skirts.”
“Well, bully for them.” My cheeks and ears went suddenly warm.
“I wasn’t saying it was a bad thing.” He tapped his own knees in a way that made me think he was embarrassed.
“That’s because you’re staring at my legs.” I bent to tie off the rope, resisting the urge to tug down the hem of my cutoff trousers, which had ridden up. He acted like he’d never seen a girl’s kneecap before. It was nothing exciting. Nothing to stare at.
We got under way, water bubbling under Cormorant’s bow. I steered her down the dike and out to the river, the dinghy trailing behind us like a duckling paddling after its mother. Long after the smoke from the pig man’s boat had disappeared astern, I sat chewing on my lip.
“Traveling by wherry is so slow,” Tarquin complained from the seat opposite me. He rubbed his finger along the strip of wooden trim that edged the deck. I wished he wouldn’t—flecks of paint were coming off. “I’m bored. Let me take a turn steering the boat.”
He’d barely been traveling by wherry for half an hour. Too bad I’d thrown the box overboard, or I might’ve stuffed him back in.
“What direction is the wind coming from?” I asked.
“That way.” He waved a hand, incorrectly, off the starboard bow.
“No, you can’t steer the boat.”
“What did I say wrong?”
“The wind is coming from dead aft.” He stared at me blankly. “Aft is behind us,” I said. A five-year-old child knew more than he did. “Why do you think the boom’s so far out? The boom being that big piece of wood attached to the sail.”
“Which one?” He must have seen the rude face I made, because he added, “I need to know these things, don’t I? To blend in.”
“The bottom one. The other is the gaff. The point is, a ship can’t sail into the wind. The wind has to push the boat. Turn around.”
The breeze ruffled his curls as he shaded his eyes to examine the sail.
“You see? That’s where the wind is coming from.”
Tarquin seemed to absorb this with a thoughtful look. To my relief, he didn’t ask to sail again. Instead he turned to Fee, who sat with her knobbly frog legs dangling over the side, and studied her. “Is it true that frogmen can breathe underwater?” He directed the question at me.
I bit back my annoyance. “You know, you can ask her. She understands you just fine.”
“Oh.” He straightened, addressing Fee this time. “I apologize if I offended you, Miss …?” He paused formally.
“Just Fee,” she croaked, eyes scrunching up at the edges. Her long tongue snapped out to grab a fly.
Tarquin jumped back, startled, while I choked down a laugh.
The river was narrow here, with round hillocks of marsh grass crowding us on both sides. The only sounds were the wind whistling low and mournful through the weeds and the buzzing of insects. Downriver from us, the sails of other wherries floated like black triangles above the fields. The cutter was nowhere in sight.
Off the port side a fish jumped, sunlight flashing on silver scales. Wavelets lapped the shore, and somewhere a bee hummed.
Small things. I yearned to know what secret messages Pa heard in them. No matter how hard I listened, I could not decipher anything.
“What are you thinking about?” Tarquin asked.
“The pig man,” I lied. “They say he’s a god.”
He sighed. “Ask yourself what’s more likely. That an old man who sells meat off a houseboat is a god or that he’s an old man who sells meat off a houseboat.”
I wasn’t convinced the pig man was a god either, but I certainly wasn’t going to sit here and let Tarquin poke fun at him.
“Well, but he knew about—” I hesitated. “Look, it’s just something people whisper, is all. The thing about gods is …”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh yes. A girl who lives on a wherry is going to tell me the thing about gods. I’m full of anticipation.”
“The thing about gods is,” I said, pointedly ignoring him, “they like to be a bit secretive about their business. And for your information, wherrymen are plenty acquainted with gods. There’s one at the bottom of the river. Everyone knows that. All the captains in my family are favored by the river god.”
Except for me. I squeezed the tiller, fervently hoping he wouldn’t think to ask for particulars. I felt Fee’s keen gaze on me, but she said nothing.
“Don’t you think a real god has better things to do than skulk at the bottom of the river like a crocodile?” he persisted. “Or cook bacon, for that matter?”
“No wonder the consulate made you travel in a box,” I snapped. “You’re not very good at diplomacy, are you? I doubt you’ll have a long career as a courier. If you ever make it back.”
He clenched his hands into fists. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s an observation.”
“Well, in Akhaia it’s known that the gods who once walked among us have long since returned to their halls in the sky and under the earth.” He put one boot on the cockpit seat, looking out at the flat land drifting by. “The only people who can speak to them now are the oracles.”
“In words, maybe,” I scoffed.
I’d seen the ostentatious temples in Akhaia, decorated with snarling lion heads made of solid gold. I suspected the Akhaian god was nothing like the river god.
“How else would you speak, other than in words?” Tarquin asked.
“The god at the bottom of the river speaks to us in the language of small things.”
He gave a loud sniff to tell me what he thought of that.
The pig man had said my fate was far from here. I hoped he wasn’t really a god, because that was just nonsense. I was Pa’s first mate on Cormorant, and someday, after he retired, I would become her captain. Perhaps when the pig man had said “you,” he’d meant Tarquin. Your fate … and that boy’s. Those were his exact words.
Or maybe the pig man wasn’t a god at all, but an eccentric old coot who sat on a houseboat and smoked pork.
And yet I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d been too unnerved to say to Tarquin.
He knew about you.