It worked. “In fact, Bollard Company has come into a number of lucrative arrangements recently.” Ma veered off into a long and dull explanation of shipping contracts.
The Bollards love to talk about themselves. They think they’re the best thing since bread and jam. It was why they didn’t understand Pa. They couldn’t see why a man would want to work the river as an independent wherryman, when he might ally himself with a powerful merchant house instead.
The Bollards owned and managed many ships, both on the river and at sea, but they hired other people to sail them. They fancied themselves a cut above a mere wherryman.
Perhaps they were. It was a Bollard discovered the sea route to Ndanna and first circumnavigated that great continent. Becoming useful to the family was not a choice—it was expected. My mother wanted me in school, learning rhetoric or navigation or something. She thought I could do better than a shabby old wherry like Cormorant. It was a source of constant friction between us.
Obligingly, every summer since I could remember, Pa had packed a knapsack and dropped me off at the Siscema docks to spend a month with my mother. But she invariably found herself occupied with family business, so I just ended up getting into trouble with my cousins instead. There were two close to my age—Kenté and Jacaranda. That was part of why I’d wanted to avoid going up to Bollard House. I’d be sorely tempted to spill everything to my cousins, but I couldn’t.
The stately Bollard town house was situated in a row of identical, connected four-story houses. Folks in town called it the Captain’s House, for it had belonged to Jacari Bollard himself. It was larger on the inside than it appeared from the outside. It went on and on, ending in a garden and a mews and a cellar with its own loading dock. Over the front door was mounted the family crest: a wine cask with three stars in an arc above it.
In the entry hall, presiding over visitors with his stern brow and tall hat, was a painting of the great explorer Jacari Bollard. He peered down at me as I wiped my muddy boots on the mat, doubtless wondering how one of his descendants came to be captaining a lowly wherry. He looked exceedingly upright and noble—no smuggling for Captain Bollard, no sir.
Under the portrait sat a polished case full of curios. The original charter for Bollard Company was kept there under glass, along with a sextant and several maps in the classic style, with monsters and serpents scrawled around the edges.
An old warning of danger. Here be drakons.
Ma signaled to a servant to take my oilskin jacket. “Of course you’ll want a hot bath. I’ll send up a maid.”
This was my fate laughing at me. The captain of a wherry doesn’t expect to be whisked up to the bath like a naughty child, not after I’d been shot at by pirates and set a tavern on fire. I hoped Markos didn’t take it into his head to do something stupid while I was gone.
After the maid left, I piled my hair on top of my head so it wouldn’t get wet and sank into the steaming copper tub. As I sculpted handfuls of bubbles into lopsided towers, I could almost pretend everything was as it should be. I wondered if my infamous ancestors—the blockade-running Oresteias or the intrepid Captain Bollard—had ever paused in the middle of their adventures for a long bath. Likely not.
But my life was suddenly a cursed mess. I rested my head on the rim of the tub, trying not to think about Pa, or Markos, or the Black Dogs. I did not succeed.
The dress the servants carried in was made from stiff blue brocade with a starched panel in front. It was cut low and topped with a jacket in a lighter blue that belted at the waist, puffing out over my skirts. The jacket sleeves were gathered with ribbon bows and a spill of lace. I would’ve liked to find a place in that sea of fabric to stash my pistol, but the servants annoyingly refused to turn their backs for more than a few seconds. I was forced to leave it behind.
So it was that I found myself herded down to dinner. The Bollard dining room was a wood-paneled hall with many tables. My mother and the elder members of the family sat at the head table, raised on a platform. The room was full of wine, olives, and loud talk. Silk curtains wove in and out of the rafters, creating a billowing ceiling.
The paintings were all of ships, each with a brass nameplate at the base of the frame. There was the Magistros, our flagship of the last century, a three-masted bark. And the Nikanor, lost at sea off the Tea Islands long ago, and in the most ornate frame of all, Astarta, which had been Captain Jacari Bollard’s own ship.
All that history staring down at me, and who was I? Just a wherryman in a heap of trouble.
Ma’s eyes skimmed over my town dress, lingering on my hair, which was pulled neatly back. “Much better,” she said.
Which was pretty rich of her, if you ask me, because she hadn’t bothered to change into skirts. She was still in the same doublet and turban she had worn on the docks. Ma was a woman who had made many unconventional choices in her life. I’d never understood why she was forever insisting that I dress properly and act more ladylike.
My uncle Bolaji was seated beside her. He was the head officer of Bollard Company, a broad man with a reddish-brown complexion who wore his black beard in three twists.
“The Black Dogs are not a respectable crew. I don’t like to bargain with such men,” he grumbled. Then he saw me. “Hello, Caroline. I trust your father is well.”
I stiffened at his words. “He—he is, thank you,” I managed to stammer. Black Dogs, at Bollard House?
“And yet they say a wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.” Ma raised her eyebrows at Uncle Bolaji, downing the last of her wine.
He sighed. “You were correct not to turn them away. It is also said that a sailor must know the direction of the wind before he can set his sails.” They exchanged significant glances. “If the rumors we’ve heard are true, the wind has changed. Find out what you can.”
Ma stood. “I’m sure you’ll want to sit with your cousins, Caro. I have business.”
As a little girl, I had always resented those words. Tonight, as I watched Ma leave the dining room, they stirred a powerful curiosity. What business did she have with the Black Dogs? Was Victorianos even now sitting in the harbor? Captain Melanos’s men might be searching the docks.
I headed to the lower tables, weaving a path through the laden servants. Spotting my cousins Kenté and Jacaranda, I stopped and broke into a grin.