I wish I could stay and watch, but the cart clatters onward.
When we reach the dock, dozens of men mill about in puddles of light emanating from lanterns hung from tall poles. Some men aren’t wearing shoes or shirts while others wear only simple vests to cover their chests. They look up as the cart shudders to a stop before the gangplank.
Gravel threatens to poke through my thin slippers when I hop off, doing so before the driver can panic about having to help me down.
Aris’s ship is smaller than I expected. Much smaller than any ship in the Royal Armada. Barnacles creep their way up the waterline of the ship, and the figurehead at the front doesn’t make me feel any better. It’s a wooden swan with its wings stretching back in flight. Several of the feathers have broken off, making the swan look uneven.
I scan the crowd looking for Aris, but what I see instead is a man in a blue coat leaning on the railing of the upper deck. The wind tugs his disheveled blond hair away from his face, and I notice he’s roughly my age.
He’s rubbing something small, a coin maybe, between his fingers. Lantern light glints off it. A flash of gold. I stiffen. It was just a reflection, I tell myself. It’s probably nothing more than a copper coin or even a button.
As his fingers continue their slow circles, he does nothing to conceal the fact he’s watching me. It’s an odd feeling. Most people see me and quickly look away in horror, but my cloak must work better than expected.
After a few moments, he tucks whatever he was holding in his pocket and pushes off the railing, disappearing from view. I continue to stare at the spot until a voice sounds behind me.
“Look what we got here,” a man says. He wipes his brow with his thin arm and drops a large sack of flour onto a pile of similar bags.
Another man whistles.
I turn to find two identical men looking at me.
“I saw her first,” the man by the bags says.
“Doesn’t mean she’ll like you better,” the second one replies.
The men are skinny and aren’t much taller than I am, but they have several years on me. Both have ears that stick a little too far out from their heads and dark hair that spikes up at impossible angles. When they smile, their wide grins seem to balance out their faces.
I’m not used to so much attention. My first instinct is to curl inward, but I don’t. These men aren’t making fun of me. They don’t even know who I am. I hope.
“Are you going to be joining us?” the man by the pile asks. He saunters closer and smiles. I pull my hood farther down.
“It’s bad luck to have a woman aboard,” another man says as he spits at my feet. I step back, disgusted. His nearly bald head reflects the morning sun as he turns away from me. The small tufts of hair forming a semicircle around the bottom half of his scalp are gray around the edges, but even though he’s older, his arms still bulge with muscles earned from heaving barrels and supplies around the ship.
“Quiet, Brus,” the second twin says.
“Yeah, quiet,” the first twin repeats, turning back to face me. He tries to catch a glimpse under my hood. I duck my face to the side in a motion I pray he’ll mistake as shyness. “Brus doesn’t mean any disrespect. It’s just the last time we had a woman on board, well . . .” He trails off. He smiles and leans closer. One tooth is missing from the bottom row of his teeth and his breath reeks of alcohol. “I’m Phipps.”
He holds out a calloused hand.
I drop a quick curtsy instead of offering my hand in return. “Nice to meet you,” I say, hoping he doesn’t notice I haven’t given my name. I keep my head bowed until he speaks again.
“The pleasure is mine.”
I risk a glance upward.
One gold hoop earring dangles from his earlobe.
Sweat trickles down my spine. I’ve forgotten how many places gold can hide. Shoe buckles, rings, and even teeth become potential hazards.
I start to back away. A hand comes down on my shoulder, and I jump.
“I don’t blame you for trying to get away. He’s always smelled bad,” the second twin says. “I’m Thipps, his better half.”
“That’s not true at all,” Phipps complains.
Thipps ignores his brother and smiles, and from my close proximity I spot one gold tooth right under his large front ones.
I try to scramble away from his grip. He looks hurt when I duck away.
“Ha,” Phipps laughs. “Seems you don’t smell any better.”
“Meeting the crew, I see,” Aris says, coming up behind me.
Despite the gold all around, I relax at the sound of his voice and turn to face him. He’s silhouetted against the sky, and sunrays break over his head like a crown. It’s obvious that a real crown would sit just as nicely.
Today he’s wearing a green jacket adorned with thick silver appliques, which makes him stand out among the drab and dirty clothes worn by the sailors. Looking at my own dress, I realize we match.
“I was beginning to think you’d changed your mind,” he adds, his tone light. “Welcome to the Swanflight.” He gestures wide toward the rest of the main deck.
“Swanflight?” I fight against the image of stone swans spewing out water, of my father coming toward me.
“It’s the name of the ship,” he clarifies. “But don’t worry. I’ve made sure there aren’t any one-legged swans onboard.” He winks, and just like that, my anxiety is gone. My stomach still feels jittery, just not for the reason it had been before.
“Don’t let Phipps and Thipps bother you.” He waves his hand dismissively at each twin as he names them. “They’re harmless.” He leans down and whispers, “The only way to tell them apart is by looking at their teeth. One’s got a gold tooth and one doesn’t. The problem is, I can never remember which one has the tooth.”
“I heard that,” one of the twins shouts. “You can tell us apart because I tie ropes better than Phipps. And I raise a sail faster too.”
“That’s not true,” Phipps cuts in.
Aris laughs and shakes his head. He bends close to me. “Just never enter into any bets with those two. They’ll win every time. I can’t count how much I’ve lost to them over the years.” He says it like he doesn’t care. I guess when you have as much money as he does, it really doesn’t matter. “One time I had to climb up to the crow’s nest naked and sing an ode to Poseidon after losing at a game of Drown the Cup.”
I blush at his words.
He holds his hands up defensively. “I’ve always been a man of my word, so I had to go through with it. It’s a good thing I’ve got a good voice, though,” he adds. “Otherwise, I’m sure Poseidon would’ve sunk us right there.”
I can’t help but laugh as he draws me aboard, and I don’t look back as my feet leave the dock.
Ropes coil around tall poles and pegs along the deck while gathered sails hang like curtains from the masts. Various sized crates are strapped down along the outer edge of the deck. I run my gloved fingers over the ropes holding them in place. I can’t believe I’m actually on a real ship.
Farther down the deck, stairs lead up to another deck, which contains the helm. Below it is a door leading deeper into the ship. The whole place smells of fish.
I want to run along naming every part of the ship I know, explore the lower decks, and stand at the helm and pretend I’m leading the ship out of the harbor.
Aris clasps sailors on their shoulders and cheerily greets them as we pass.
“This is our fine captain, Royce Denes.” Aris gestures to an approaching man.
“You’re not the captain?” I ask Aris.
“No, I leave all the navigating to him. I’m just the financier.”
When the captain reaches us, I realize he’s the man in the blue coat I saw watching me. I should’ve realized that most captains wear blue as a sign of their rank. Even the captains in the Armada do.
He’s as tall as Aris, but not as muscular. Up close, his hair is even wilder. Loose strands hang over his forehead, fall
ing just short of covering his eyebrows. It’s the haircut of a man who’d been a long time at sea.
Royce’s name sounds vaguely familiar, and I wonder if he is the son of a lesser nobleman. There are far too many families to know them all by name. Or more precisely, if I’d been a proper princess, I would’ve been trained to recite them. But I am not a proper princess. Not by a long stretch.
“Royce, this is Kora.” Aris keeps his voice low, so none of the other sailors will hear. But he doesn’t tell the captain I’m a princess, for which I’m relieved.
I worry my name will be a dead giveaway, but Royce doesn’t react. I guess there must’ve been enough parents who named their daughters after me before I was cursed for it not to raise his suspicions.
But I worry I won’t be able to keep my secret for long, that if the captain knew who I was before we left port, he would leave me and my curse behind.
“A pleasure to meet you, my lady.” Royce bows, but the motion is forced, and I can immediately tell he has none of Aris’s charm. His gaze is directed at me, but it’s like he’s looking through me to monitor his crew on the docks below. Unlike most of the men we passed, he doesn’t squint to see what’s concealed beneath my hood. I notice his eyes are a deep blue, so deep that I might be looking through them to the ocean beyond.
But it’s not his eyes I fixate on. It’s his blue captain’s jacket. Gold buttons run in two lines down the front. Golden threads weave a wide web of loops over his shoulders. Even his cufflinks are gold.
The sight of it overwhelms me, and I take a few jagged steps backward toward the gangplank before my legs go rigid. I never realized until now how much Pheus has done to protect me from gold by keeping it out of the castle.
Aris might understand my having some sort of mental connection to the cursed gold, but how would he react if he found out what I could do?
I glance down the gangplank, wondering if it isn’t too late to flee, but Phipps or Thipps is rolling a barrel up and complaining under his breath how this one is so much heavier than all the rest.
I’m trapped. It’s like I can feel a golden noose tightening around my throat, cutting off my air supply. I shift my gaze toward the sea. I’ve always loved looking at the ocean from my balcony. It reminds me of my mother.
Tension drains from my body as I watch the even waves. Thoughts of the gold recede slightly, at least enough for me to remember why I can’t turn back.
“Aren’t you awfully young to be a captain?” I ask Royce, hoping he doesn’t take offense.
Royce clears his throat, but Aris answers, “He might be young, but he’s better than any older captain who lived through the Orfland Wars.”
“Not many captains did live through the Wars,” Royce says quietly.
“I see,” I say, not knowing what else I can add. I eye Royce, careful to keep my eyes from drifting to the gold. He must be very lucky if he survived. “When do we set sail, Captain?” I ask.
“We’re loading the last of the supplies now,” Royce says, and this time, he doesn’t add a my lady. He’s nothing like the dashing, romantic captains I’ve read about. I bet that even if he found out I was royalty, he’d still treat me with the same curtness. It’s a sobering reminder that I have no authority at sea.
“The captain has been good enough to give up his quarters for you to use,” Aris says to make conversation, since Royce certainly isn’t going to. “I wanted you to have the best cabin. It won’t be like anything you’re used to, but I’ve already taken all the necessary actions to ensure that it is as comfortable as possible.”
“Thank you,” I say. As I do, there’s a great scraping noise as the gangplank is pulled onto the ship.
“Excuse me,” Royce says. He moves toward where Phipps and Thipps are dragging up the gangplank and begins shouting that if they scrape the deck, they’ll be made cabin boys for the voyage.
“Perhaps you’d like to watch us cast off with me?” Aris offers me his arm.
We head toward the rear of the ship and lean against the wood railing. When the ship pulls slowly away from the dock, several ropes slither off the dock and into the water. Sailors pull them up, winding them around various pegs.
As we leave the harbor, I watch the palace fade into the distance. It doesn’t look like I thought it would–the walls don’t lean inward as they seem to do when I’m trapped inside.
“Are you going to miss it?” Aris says.
I tear my eyes away from the retreating town. Only the palace towers are visible now as the foggy morning swallows the town.
“I guess I will.” I’ve never been far enough away to miss anything.
The sea stretches out around us, fading from gentle blues to deeper, darker colors. A light breeze sprays us with a salty mist and lifts aloft the birds that fly in and out of crevices on the cliffs that border the harbor. Their shrill calls fill the air as some swoop toward us, rising and dipping in time with the ship.
I turn toward the bow, where the sun has started to peek above the sea. Sunrise has always been my favorite time of day, and past the horizon, the rising sun nestles in a cloudy haze of oranges and pinks.
There’s an old saying that a pink sky in the morning means rough seas ahead, but for the first time in my life, with Aris at my side, I actually feel ready to face whatever dangers come my way.
CHAPTER 6
Aris leans over the railing as a pod of dolphins appears in our wake. “Some people say Triton sends dolphins as a sign of a good journey ahead.”
I can’t help the smile that slides across my face. I’ve never heard that before, and I’m fairly certain Aris made it up in an attempt to calm my nerves. I keep tugging at my sleeves and gloves. I cast a glance over my shoulder every few seconds to make sure Royce and his gold buttons haven’t moved any closer.
“I hope you’re right,” I say. We’ll need a smooth journey. And a fast one. Will my father last a week? A month? Two?
Aris must sense my apprehension because his voice takes on the jovialness it held when I first saw him. He switches position so that his back leans against the railing and his elbows are propped out on either side. He flicks hair away from his eyes. “Did I ever tell you about the time I used nothing more than a conch shell to fight off four men who accused me of cheating at cards?”
I give him a skeptical look.
“Really,” he says. “We were on one of the small Rolliginian Islands, I can’t even remember which one. It was in the island’s only tavern, and every table had these ridiculously large conch shells as centerpieces.” He stretches his hands out in front of his stomach to show how large the conch was.
Before he can continue the story, another voice cuts between us.
“We’re clear of the harbor,” Royce says.
I turn to find him standing with his arms clasped behind his back.
“Let’s discuss what direction we need to head.” Royce motions for us to follow him and then sets off without waiting to see if we do.
But I don’t want to. Not when it means being so close to gold again and having to tell someone else how I can find it. Sadly, I have no choice.
Royce leads us to a room right under the helm. The air is stale, but at least it doesn’t smell like fish. A small desk occupies one portion of the room, and across from it are two chairs with worn leather cushions. Several shelves run the length of the room and are laden with books and journals whose tattered covers are too worn to read from this distance. Thin wood beams run across the bookshelves, preventing the books from falling while the ship is in motion. At the far end of the room is a large window looking out the back of the ship. Underneath it is a rumpled bed with my trunk shoved against the foot. So I guess this is my new room.
Beneath one set of shelves opposite the bed is a mirror. I haven’t kept one of those in my room since being turned back. It’s bolted into the wall, so there’s no chance I can take it down.
I turn and catch my reflection as I move farther into the room. One flash of
gold. I look away.
Royce shuts the door. “We’re about to hit open water, and I need to know which direction to take.” he says. “Aris tells me you have the map for this voyage.” He waits.
My throat is dry. I’ve never trusted men who wear gold. A few had tried after it was banned from the palace, and even after they were forced to take it off, I felt uneasy around them. They always seemed to be looking to confirm their own importance, to show how important wealth was to them. And I’ve seen firsthand what a want for wealth could do to a man.
But if Aris trusts Royce, I suppose I must.
I try to think of what to say, of how to explain how I know where we’re going without sounding crazy. Something tells me he won’t simply accept me pointing in a direction and telling him to go that way.
“May I see the map?” The annoyance in his voice is clear.
Seconds tick away.
“There is no map,” I finally blurt out.
“What?” Royce turns toward Aris. “What’s going on here? If you’re leading me on another one of your wild goose chases, then I’m heading back to the dock right now. Last time we didn’t have a map, we ended up in the Straits of Temperance, and I’m sure you remember what happened then.”
“She’s the map.” Aris points to me.
“I can find the gold,” I say with as much authority as I can muster.
“Gold?” He turns to Aris, clearly confused.
“Come on, it’ll be just like old times. Remember the time we sailed out to that little island in the middle of your lake looking for treasure and swung from vines and found that snake . . .”
“We’re not kids anymore. I don’t have time to sail off searching for treasure that doesn’t exist,” Royce snaps.
“So it’s a little more complicated than I made it seem,” Aris says with a shrug. “It’s nothing you can’t handle.”
“You said it would be a simple journey, a journey to find some girl’s father on a merchant ship because his wife is dying. You didn’t say anything about gold.”
A Touch of Gold Page 5