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.”