The harbor master finished scribbling out the contract and blew on the ink to dry it. He offered the sheet of parchment to me. I dragged it across the table.
“Can you write your name?” The commander pressed a pen into my hand.
I glared at him. “Of course I can. I might not be a commander in a very fine coat, but I’m not stupid.”
From the sharp look he gave me, I knew I had annoyed him. He must have been eager indeed to be rid of me though, because he said nothing.
Pa says you should read every word of a contract at least twice, but the language was flowery and included many clauses that went off on endless tangents. I exhaled. Calm. Like the river. I tried to visualize water flowing peacefully among rocks and reeds, but my emotions were as riotous as ocean breakers. The words swam before me like black spiders on the parchment. I gave up and signed “Caroline Oresteia” next to the X at the bottom.
And then it was done.
CHAPTER
THREE
A wherryman, Pa says, follows no man but the river. A wherryman is free.
As I stepped onto the harbor master’s porch, I knew it wasn’t true. The scroll I held clutched in my hand told me that. It weighed me down.
“I shall escort you to the docks, of course,” the commander said. He didn’t look as if he wished to escort me any more than I wished to be escorted by him. I reckon he was itching to be off already with his company, going to their important duties in Akhaia.
“I’m not likely to get far, even if I leave now. The wind was all but dead when we put into Hespera’s Watch.”
He frowned. “Was it?”
A fresh easterly breeze cooled the sweat on my forehead. “That’s funny,” I said. “The wind’s changed. This wind is blowing out of the east, from the sea.”
For a moment I thought I could smell the salt on the air. But that couldn’t be. Hespera’s Watch was far inland.
I lifted my head to look squarely up at the commander. “I’m not leaving without saying good-bye.”
I was sure he would deny me, but he did not. “Your father is in the brig. I’ll expect you to return in five minutes.”
I found Fee outside the brig, squatting with her webbed toes spread in the grass. Her eyes glowed dimly in the dark, two glassy orbs.
“I’m going to Valonikos.” I hardly believed the words myself. “You’ll come with me? Please?”
In the riverlands it’s considered good luck if a frogman takes a fancy to your wherry. Fee was loyal to Cormorant, having sailed with us for many years, but her contract was with Pa, not me. I honestly didn’t know what I would do if she said no. Wherries can be sailed single-handed, but they are designed for a crew of at least two.
She hopped up and nudged me with her shoulder, touching me just above my elbow. The frogmen aren’t a tall people.
“Help,” she said.
“Thanks, Fee,” I told her. “I can’t do it without you.”
The brig was a dank low-ceilinged shanty. I almost bumped my head on the lantern that hung from a beam. The place reeked of sweat and mold, and I doubted the packed straw on the floor was clean. Rusted iron bars split the right side of the room into two cells. The first one was empty. Pa sat on a three-legged stool in the second cell, his coat unbuttoned and trailing around him.
At the sound of the door swinging shut, he looked up. One eye was reddened, but other than that he seemed perfectly at his leisure. Relief rushed through me. I ran to kneel beside his cell, not caring if the damp rotted straw stained my trousers.
“Pa, don’t be mad at me.” The words tumbled out. “I told the commander I’d do it.”
His fists gripped the bars. “Caro, no. No.”
Tears burned my eyes and throat. “They were going to send you to a prison ship. And take Cormorant away …” I explained what had happened. As I finished, my voice trailed off into the silence of the dark room.
Pa rubbed his chin, his face unusually still. I steeled myself for a scolding. I’d been reckless. I was gambling with both our lives, and with Cormorant. But he said nothing.
“You don’t think I’m ready.” I dared to whisper my doubts aloud. “You said when my fate came for me, I’d know.” I lifted my chin. “What if this is it?”
He exchanged glances with Fee. “Oh, Caro. Of course you’re ready.” He looked down at his hands. “Perhaps it’s me that’s not ready.”
“That cutter doesn’t know the riverlands. But I do.” I sniffed. “I reckon almost as well as you do. I know you were trying to protect me, when you told him you wouldn’t run the cargo.” I touched my pocket, where I’d tucked the letter of marque. “But I can do this.”
“It ain’t exactly the easiest run.” Pa sighed. “But I suppose it’s too late now. You already signed the contract?”
I nodded.
“You read it from front to back, I hope?”
I rolled my eyes. “Pa.”
The commander rapped sharply on the door. My five minutes were almost up. I scrubbed my eyes with my sweater, so he wouldn’t see I’d been crying.
Pa glared at the door. “Ayah, let him barge in! I’d like to give him a piece of my mind, I would.” His glance flickered toward Fee then back to me. “Caro, listen. The thing you got to know about gods is, they can be tricksy. Don’t be in a rush for your fate to come a-visiting. It might not be what you expect, is all.”
“What do you mean?”
“A god will do what—” He hesitated. “What he wants. A god won’t be forced, nor hurried.” He sounded as if he wanted to say more, but he just shook his head. “Well, what’s done is done.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of his words.
“No more tears, girlie. You’re an Oresteia.” Pa grabbed my hand through the bars, giving it a shake. The clenched feeling in my chest lightened. “Deliver that crate. Take the river route north, past Doukas. Don’t mess with Iantiporos or the channel. That part of the coast is full of pirates. And don’t tie up in any towns. If you need help,” he added grudgingly, “send to your mother’s people.”
I raised my eyebrows. Pa didn’t always get along with them.
“Well, as a last resort anyhow,” he said. “Listen, that letter of marque? You’re not to use it unless it’s an emergency. Draw as little attention to yourself as possible. Flashing that letter about ain’t going to do nothing but get you dead, no matter what that commander says.”
I kept nodding, though his words streamed over me like rain. Doukas. Hide the letter. No towns. Overcome by the shock of this evening, I could barely take it in.
“You can do it, Caro,” Pa said firmly. “You mark this: I’d rather have Cormorant in your hands than any one of them wherrymen in the Spar and Splice.”
“Even Captain Krantor?”
“Ayah, even him. He ain’t an Oresteia. You are.”
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 Cormoran
t 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.
The common area had a table with a bright checkered tablecloth, built-in benches, and a leaf that could be unfolded to make room for company. On the port side, a tiny sideboard was wedged amid a wall of cabinets. The iron stove squatted there, its pipe traveling up through a hole in the ceiling. She was a simple boat, but she was shipshape.
Two fish, already gutted and filleted, lay on the sideboard. At the sight of them, a bolt of raw emotion shot through me. Pa had caught the fish this afternoon. We should have been eating supper together in the homey lamplight of the cabin.
I melted butter in the frying pan, sprinkled bread crumbs on the fish, and laid the limp strips in a row. The pan hissed.
Cormorant gave a wiggle, as if someone had joggled the arm of the person at the tiller. I gripped the edge of the sideboard. Fee was as good a helmsman as Pa. That wasn’t like her.
A frog chirp sounded from outside. Trouble. I snatched Pa’s extra pistol from the locker and lunged up the steps.
Moonlight shone on Fee’s round eyes. She silently lifted one long finger and pointed.
A ship, laid up alongside the bank on the starboard side. Her ghostly white sails were furled and lashed down for the night. Not a wherry—she was nearly twenty feet longer and her mast was set farther back, in the dead middle of the ship.
A cutter.
“Check,” Fee whispered, slinking forward. She padded around the edge of the cabin and disappeared.
My hand began to sweat on the tiller.
They might be asleep, or drinking and gaming belowdecks, but they would certainly have posted a watchman. Like any wherry traveling at night, we had hoisted a lantern up one of the stays. By a fantastic stroke of luck, our sail blocked it from the cutter’s view. If I changed course and hugged the port side of the river, perhaps the man standing watch wouldn’t notice us. On the other hand, we would look as if we were trying to avoid being seen. Which would give them a reason to chase after us.
I made my choice, angling to port. The overhanging trees cast long shadows on the water. A wherry, with her black sails and low profile, might drift by unnoticed among those shadows. We might sneak past and into Heron Water. It couldn’t be far now.
Fee slipped back along the deck. From her face I already knew what she had seen.
“Them,” she whispered.
I glanced to starboard. We had drawn even with the stern of the resting cutter. The wind gusted, causing our rigging to creak. I held my breath.
For a few long heartb
eats I thought we were going to slip past them. I thought the man on watch hadn’t seen our white nose slicing through the water.
I was wrong.
“Sail, ho!” The shout rang clear across the water. A bell clanged, pealing over and over in the dark. “Wherry coming down! Wherry!”
“You there, up sails!” This voice was rough and commanding. I wondered if it was the notorious Captain Melanos. “To the cannons! Muskets!”
Everything on Cormorant was made of wood, canvas, or rope. If one of those fire rockets hit us, she’d go up like kindling. Just like Jolly Girl. Just like Jenny.
“Fee, take the tiller!” Crouching on the starboard deck, I loaded Pa’s old pistol.
A sharp crack rent the air. The noise rolled over me, and with it a wave of nervous excitement. For several seconds, I knelt in stunned stillness, before I realized they’d missed.
I aimed my pistol amidships and squeezed the trigger. The gun kicked, its backlash reverberating up the bones of my arm. I didn’t think I’d hit anything. All I could see were the wraithlike shapes of the sails as the cutter’s crew worked to raise them.
Now I knew the silliness of Pa’s story about my grandpa. It might have been true or just a fish tale, growing bigger and longer in the telling, but it didn’t matter how bold I was—for fighting pirates, a pistol was far superior to a knife and a frying pan.
“Roll out those gods-blasted cannons and don’t be all night about it!”
Whirling across the cockpit, I took aim at the lantern swinging from Cormorant’s forestay. I shot it out with a bang on my first try. Broken glass tinkled as it hit the deck.
A real pity, that. Had our lives not been in dire danger, I would’ve paused to admire that shot.
The muskets rang out again, three in a row.
My right shoulder stung. “Ow!” I yelped, clapping my hand over the wound.
The wind shifted on my face as we went around a bend, out of sight of the cutter for the moment. I held my shoulder and tried to calculate in my head. How many minutes for them to get their sails raised? How long until they caught up? Blood ran hot and slippery through my fingers.
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