Without the lantern, my eyes adjusted to the dark. Clouds mottled the sky, and the water was flat as a sheet of glass but for the raindrops. I gave two short strokes with the starboard oar to point the bow toward Gallos.
Markos sat forward, drumming his fingers on the thwart. “The part I can’t figure out,” he said, “is what the Margravina’s game is.”
Sweat dampened my neck. “What do you mean?”
“Well, why send you?” He felt me stop rowing, and sighed. “Xanto’s balls, will you keep going? It’s not an insult. I only meant the Margravina might easily have ordered the commander to bring me to Valonikos himself. But clearly she had other priorities.”
“I don’t presume to know,” I panted, “what the Margravina is thinking. Because obviously I’ve never met her.” How he could think about politics, when any minute we might come upon the Black Dogs, was beyond me.
He shifted awkwardly on the seat.
“You’ve met her.” I rolled my eyes. “Of course you have. What does she look like?”
Markos’s lip twitched. “Like an old bat.”
I snorted, and we shared a glance that was almost friendly. “What I don’t understand,” I said, “is how she knew you were in the box.”
He shrugged. “Her spies, probably.”
“She has spies in Akhaia?”
He waved a hand. “Everyone has spies. I think she’s playing both ends against the middle,” he said thoughtfully. “Likely she wants to see if Konto is more favorable to her as Emparch than my father was. So she can decide whose claim to support.” He spat over the side of the boat. “We’ll see how she likes dealing with him. I wish her no joy in it.”
I rowed without speaking for several minutes, lulled by the rhythm of the oars. A cloud moved over the moon, making it more difficult to see the shoreline.
“So you’ve been running guns to rebels.” Markos hesitated. “Didn’t you ever stop to wonder what Peregrine was going to do with them?”
“He’s a philosopher, not a fighter.” I focused on the oars as his reproachful gaze burned into me. It didn’t help. “Perhaps he just wants to defend himself.”
“I don’t really believe you’re that naive,” he said softly. “Words can be weapons too. You’re supporting a dangerous revolutionary.”
“It’s not my place to care what he wants the muskets for. When we run a cargo, it’s just a job,” I lied. “Nothing more.”
“You’re sympathizers.” He was sharper than I’d given him credit for. “That’s why you and your father were smuggling the muskets.” He sounded more wistful than angry. “You hate everything I stand for.”
“Not hate exactly …” I paused, water dripping from the end of the oar blades. “Lord Peregrine was exiled from Akhaia for writing a book about the rights of people like me. Would it really be that strange if I did sympathize?”
It was too dark to read his expression. “If it had been Antidoros Peregrine who murdered my family, instead of Konto Theucinian, I wonder if you’d still be sitting here saying that.”
An uneasy shock rippled through me. The truth was I’d never thought much about the consequences of those muskets. I still believed Markos was wrong about Lord Peregrine, but he was right about the guns—if people had come to harm because of them, I would be partially to blame.
We were coming up on Gallos Bridge. I put a finger over my lips to signal for quiet.
Looming over the dock was the cutter Victorianos, her bundled-up sails stark white against the dark sky. The rainy chill sank into my bones.
Gallos was barely a town, just a cluster of houses around the bridge. The dock was deserted, all the boats closed up with canvas awnings to keep the rainwater out. A lone lantern dangled under the eaves of the dock inspector’s shack.
Silently, I rowed closer. None of this was Victorianos’s fault. Indeed she was a lovely thing, with sleek, graceful lines. As we passed under her bow, I could see she was clinker-built, like Cormorant, out of curved overlapping planks. Her bowsprit loomed over my head, much bigger than it looked from across the water. If three of me lay end to end, we might be the same length as that bowsprit.
A pool of lamplight spilled out of a porthole near her stern. It flickered, disappearing entirely, then burst back to life. Men, I realized, walking up and down in one of Victorianos’s cabins. What interested me was that the window was open, and through it I could hear voices rising and falling.
I turned to Markos. “I’d pay a silver talent to hear what they’re saying.”
We bobbed in the shadow of the dock. I half rose, peering over the other boats at the cutter’s dark hulk.
Markos hauled me down. “If you think you’re just going to waltz down the dock into their hands, I won’t allow it.”
“Not on the dock,” I whispered. “Under it.”
“Isn’t that going to be disgusting?”
“Very.”
“As in, leeches and muck and eels?”
“And spiders,” I said.
He surprised me by removing his oilskin jacket. “Fine. Then I’m going with you.” As he unlaced his boots, he grinned up at me. “Someone’s got to keep you from doing something dangerous and stupid.”
His smile went through me like a flash—I hadn’t been expecting it. Had I unfairly judged him? Certainly growing up in the Emparch’s court, he would’ve learned to conceal his feelings. Maybe the arrogance was a mask he hid behind.
I made the boat fast to a piling. Stripping off my shoes and sweater, I placed them in a heap on the seat, oilskins on top. Then I wrapped my arms around the piling and hoisted myself onto it. Behind me, the dinghy rocked.
My legs curled around the muck-coated post. It was, as Markos said, disgusting. There’s nothing slimier than a wooden piling that’s been in the water for twenty years. And I’d seen spiders the size of my hand under docks. Steeling myself, I dropped silently into the water.
Hand over hand, we felt our way along the dock with only our arms and heads above water. Rain pelted the boards above us, dripping through the cracks to land with a splat on my face. The smell of mud and fish was strong.
I wouldn’t let myself think about thinking about dock spiders.
Presently we found ourselves even with Victorianos’s stern, where her great rudder rose up out of the water. From our vantage point under the dock, I could barely see the bottom of the porthole. Light played on the water as it lapped the pilings.
I tapped Markos on his bare shoulder, gesturing with my chin toward the cutter. We inched closer, treading water under the porthole, just beyond the slanting lamplight. I forced my breathing to slow. The hot pounding of physical exertion faded away, and in the new quiet, I found I could understand their voices.
“She ain’t faster than Victorianos.” I heard the clink of glasses. I bobbed closer, careful to stay in the shadow of the piling.
“’Course she ain’t. One of you asses probably missed her when you were supposed to be on watch.”
“I think you should tell Theucinian to go rot,” drawled the other man. “Let’s head back out to sea. These rivers are slow, and the flies are bloody murder. I vote we go back to Katabata.”