A memory swam to the surface. I was seven years old, listening to Pa tell stories as my legs dangled off the cockpit seat. I could feel my hair pulled tightly into two little poufs on either side of my head. We were going up Nemertes Water, the sea wind buffeting my face.
A gull perched on the rail beside me, its feathers fluffed up. With one gleaming black eye, it stared at me.
“Your great-grandma once smuggled four barrels of rum through the Siscema harbor master’s back garden,” Pa had said, his hand draped loosely over the tiller. “Because she was bold enough. My pa faced down a gang of river bandits with naught but a knife and a frying pan and lived to tell the tale, and how?” Pa pointed at me. “He was bold enough. During the war, it were folk like the Oresteias and the Krantors who took their wherries through the blockades. And you know why?”
I’d heard this story many times. “Because the Oresteias were bold enough.”
He poked me, making me giggle. “Ayah, right you are.”
I closed my eyes on the memory, the world whirling around me. I knew how to read a depth chart, how to reef and stow the canvas. I had the skills, but I had never sailed Cormorant without Pa. Was I bold enough?
“The wind’s changed,” Pa said, bringing me back to myself.
I didn’t ask how he knew, stuck inside this tiny cell with only the one closed window. The god at the bottom of the river told him things like that.
Pa relaxed back against the wall, closing his eyes. “And so it comes,” he whispered. “I can’t stop her.”
Before I had time to ask what he meant, Commander Keros loomed in the doorway. “Time to go.”
I stumbled out into the smoky evening, Fee padding along at my left elbow. Her presence was like the calm after a rough storm. At least I wasn’t completely alone.
Outside the Spar and Splice, I saw the silhouettes of several wherrymen gathered in the street. Someone had lit a pipe, its ashes a lone smudge of light, while other men talked in hushed voices. For a moment, I let myself imagine that Captain Krantor or Captain Brixton might intervene. We all had pistols, and there was power in numbers. We could rush the brig. Rescue Pa.
I felt the letter of marque stuffed in my pocket and knew it was a foolish hope. The wherrymen had their own troubles. As for myself, I’d signed a contract. I was going to Valonikos.
The dock inspector had loaded the crate into a dory, along with a basket of provisions. “My wife baked that bread fresh this morning. There’s coffee too, and what little butter I could scrounge.” He pushed off from the stump of the dock, pointing the boat toward Cormorant. The commander sat on the back thwart, looking bored.
Walking back to our dinghy, Fee and I were quiet. She never said much anyway, and I was too busy sifting through all the worries and questions in my head. The dock inspector’s dory was already waiting, bobbing idly in the shadow cast by Cormorant, when we rowed up. I ignored it while I noted the placement of the ropes and equipment on deck, and went below to inspect both cabin and cargo hold. Nothing seemed amiss. Still, the idea that someone had been rummaging aboard our wherry without our leave bothered me.
The men fastened ropes around the crate and hauled it up on deck. It didn’t look like anything special. It was simply a rough wooden packing crate with a canvas tarp draped over the top.
I pretended to bump my hip against the edge of the box. It didn’t shift. Whatever was inside was heavy.
Perhaps it was gold. A crate full of treasure was certainly enough to bring the Black Dogs calling. But I remembered what Thisbe Brixton had said. They didn’t even take nothing. Not gold then.
“You’re not to open it,” the commander said sternly. “In fact, it will be better for you if you never touch it. Do you understand?”
“So I’m not ever to know what it is I’m carrying?”
“Miss Oresteia, you signed a contract.”
Had that been in the contract? I supposed I should have read it more carefully, but it was too late to haggle about that now. The commander bid me a curt farewell and descended into the dory without another word. But the dock inspector paused at the top of the rope ladder.
He grabbed my wrist in a strong grip. I gasped.
“Diric Melanos is a killer,” he said in a low urgent whisper. “And a traitor. You be on the lookout. Victorianos, out of Iantiporos. White sails she has, and blue paint. She were running only the main and one staysail when I saw her.” He let me go. “Current carry you.”
CHAPTER
FOUR
In spite of everything, my heavy mood lifted as the wind filled Cormorant’s sail.
“We’ll make for Heron Water,” I told Fee. “We can stop there for the night.”
Heron Water was a marshy lake several miles downriver. The narrow dike leading to the lake, too shallow to accommodate anything bigger than a wherry, was nearly hidden by trees, making it a popular spot for smugglers to hole up. The pirates on Victorianos mightn’t even know about it—they certainly wouldn’t be able to fit through the entrance.
Glancing over my shoulder, I realized the town of Hespera’s Watch had nearly disappeared astern. I squinted into the dark, searching the rooftops for one last glimpse of the brig. It was six days from here to Valonikos. Maybe more, depending on wind and weather. Pa might be two weeks in the harbor master’s cramped lockup, with nothing but a bed of itchy straw to sleep on.
And that was if nothing went wrong. A moment ago I’d felt almost exhilarated to be captaining Cormorant on my own. Guilt welled up inside me. This cargo run wasn’t supposed to be fun. Our situation was deadly serious.
Night sailing can be dangerous. It is sometimes done, of course, for why else are the noses of wherries painted white? The northern stretches of the River Thrush are perilously narrow, with bends and twists to challenge the best helmsman, but you couldn’t ask for finer weather than tonight. The breeze was steady, and the fast-moving clouds did not block the moonlight. I could see well enough, and Fee even better. Night vision is one of her people’s most prized abilities.
Three hours passed without incident, until finally my stomach growled, and I remembered we’d never had supper. It must be nearly midnight. Flexing my cramped hand, I handed the tiller off to Fee and dropped through the cabin hatch.
Cormorant’s small living area was split into three sections by great beams, curved like the bones of a whale. The two forward cabins had canvas curtains that could be closed for privacy, but we mostly left them open to give the illusion of more space. Pa’s bunk, in the bow cabin, was the largest. My bunk was in the middle section, nestled against the starboard side. Across from it, Fee’s hammock hung from the ceiling.