Song of the Current

by Sarah Tolcser

  I curled my hands around my warm coffee mug and stared into the muddy water as if by doing so, it might reveal its secrets to me.

  It didn’t.

  The day your fate comes for you, you’ll know … But the more I watched and listened, the more my doubts solidified into certainty. Coldness settled in my heart.

  The god at the bottom of the river speaks to wherrymen in the language of small things. And to the Oresteia family, always. Every one of them, going back to our blockade-running days.

  Except me.

  It hurt, like a gaping black hole had opened up in my stomach. There have always been some wherrymen who sail without the favor of the river god, but everything is harder for them. And I knew for a fact that other captains talked about them behind their backs. The river had always been my home. If I didn’t belong here, where else would I ever fit in?

  The next day dawned chilly and wet. Inside the cabin, Markos stared blankly out the porthole, eyes bruised and reddened. I didn’t think he’d slept. Through the curtain I’d heard him rolling and sighing all night. Finally he had lit a lamp. I’d turned over to face the wall and tried to ignore it as he flipped the pages of a book until morning.

  “It’s cold.” I tossed one of Pa’s pullovers at him. “Here.”

  He obviously hadn’t looked at himself in the glass, or he would have seen the white dusting of salt where tears had dried on his face. He had hardly spoken a word all day yesterday. I didn’t mind, because I hadn’t been much inclined to talk either. Something bigger hung over us than the storm clouds.

  Markos fingered the sweater in his lap. A minute went by before he spoke. “It wasn’t only because I wanted you to take me to Casteria.”

  I gulped a mouthful of coffee, burning my tongue. My eyes watered.

  “You know. That night. I didn’t just try to kiss you because I wanted you to change your mind about Casteria. I … misinterpreted the situation.” He halted. “What I mean is, you were standing there in my cabin—” He cleared his throat. “That is, I really did want to—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I snapped.

  He spoke loudly over me. “I’m trying to apologize.”

  “Oh.” We fell into an awkward silence. He pulled the sweater over his head, mussing up his black hair. If it had been Pa and I sitting in the cabin on a rainy day with the stove going, I might have called it cozy, but with the two of us it was just tense and sad.

  I broke the quiet. “How could you think that? I only just met you.”

  “Probably because I wasn’t thinking.” He mumbled something.

  “What?”

  Markos looked away, but not before I saw his cheekbones and the tips of his ears redden. “I said, ‘And I thought you were pretty.’ ” He fiddled with his hands. “I … imagined some things that weren’t there.”

  If he had said there was snow falling through the roof of the cabin, I wouldn’t have been more shocked. Pretty. After he’d spent the last three days insinuating that nothing on this wherry was good enough for him, including me.

  He went on. “I suppose you might wash more, but there is a certain … rural … charm about you. And you’re very …”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You should’ve stopped while you were ahead.”

  “I was going to say capable.”

  That wasn’t at all what I’d expected. I stared at him. “Who ever tried to kiss a girl because she’s capable?”

  He shrugged, giving me a lopsided smile. “My world is full of useless people.”

  “Oh.” I was certainly a great conversationalist this morning.

  “I jumped to conclusions about who you were,” he went on. “Conclusions that might not have been true and were likely hurtful to you. I did hope to manipulate you. I’ve been thinking about what Lord Peregrine said. A person who holds a position of power ought never to use it to take advantage of others.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

  I sensed he wasn’t finished.

  “I feel so backward here.” He watched the rain pelt the cabin window. “The only thing I know how to be is an Emparch’s son. I know everything I do seems wrong and stupid to you.”

  He had a strange look on his face, as if he hoped I would deny it but was already resigned to the fact that I would not.

  I almost felt bad now for dumping the bucket of water on him. But I remembered how he’d put his hands on me, and how angry and ashamed it had made me. And then how ashamed I’d felt for being ashamed, because he was the one in the wrong.

  “I reckon we’ll make Siscema by noon,” I said, hoping to steer the conversation in a less embarrassing direction. I was sure he could hear the apprehensive patter of my heart. “You can stay in here if you want. I won’t think less of you if you don’t want to go outside in bad weather.”

  “Now there’s a lie. Yes, you will.”

  I shrugged. “I was only trying to make you feel better.”

  “There’s one more thing I wanted to say.” He squared his shoulders. “Having resided on this boat for several days, I can see now that it’s not a piece of junk. It’s very good at … the things it does.”

  I glanced sharply at him. He was clever enough to figure out that complimenting Cormorant was a sure way of getting back into my good graces, but I saw no guile behind his tired eyes. I decided to accept his awkward speech for what it seemed to be—a peace offering.

  “Thanks for that, at least.” I paused for a moment. “Where do we go from here?”

  He looked into his coffee, as if the solutions to the problems that haunted us were at the bottom of the mug. “I think that’s up to you.”

  “On the lightship at the Neck,” I said slowly, “they put out different colored lights to warn ships of the weather. One yellow lamp means the day is fair. A red lamp means conditions on the sea are bad.”

  “What are we?”

  “Two yellow lamps,” I said. “Sail with caution.”

  We made Siscema just after noon. The rain had stopped, but clouds hung low over the land, as well as the smoke from hundreds of chimneys. Siscema was bigger than Hespera’s Watch or Gallos. Lying as it did at the place where the River Thrush and the River Kars joined, it was the most important port in the northern riverlands. The city was a cobblestoned maze of alleys and walled gardens. Its docks were a sprawling hodgepodge, with barrels and crates stacked everywhere. Wagons rolled in and out of the riverside warehouses, and the smell of tar and sawdust lingered.

  I steered Cormorant into an empty slip at the lumberyard. Surrounded by the familiar port sounds of clanking cranes, screeching gulls, and creaking rigging, we waited for the dock inspector to unload our cargo. There was no sign of Victorianos.

  I had other reasons to keep an eye out. I was known to too many people in the city of Siscema. People I would rather not be seen by.

  Markos watched a group of sleek black birds duck and glide among the buoys.

  “Cormorants,” I said.

  “They ride low in the water, like the boat.”

  I was pleased he’d noticed. “She does look a bit like a big black cormorant, don’t she?”

  Markos had lost some of the shadows under his eyes. He’d emerged on deck with his hair damp and face pink from fresh scrubbing, looking much more like his usual self.

  Of course, his usual self was still annoying. But he seemed more relaxed as he sat with his legs dangling off the cabin roof, the collar of Pa’s shirt stirring in the breeze. Perhaps he and I had come to a wary understanding, or his grief had simply broken him down.

  “Will you stop looking over your shoulder? You’re making me twitchy,” he said.

  “We might be waiting for hours. What if the Black Dogs show up?” I was reluctant to tell him the Black Dogs were only half of what was on my mind.

  “We could just forget about the logs,” Markos suggested.

  “We’ll go twice as fast without them.” I chewed on my lower lip, biting off a tiny patch of skin. It was a bad habit, but I was s
o nervous I couldn’t help it. “Why must the dock inspector be so cursed slow?” I gestured at the other wherries. “I wish we could just skip this line and get out of here.”

  “Of course! Caroline, I’ve just had a thought.” He jumped down. “Your lip is bleeding.”

  “Yes, thank you. That’s not very helpful.” I sucked the offending lip into my mouth, tasting the metallic tang of blood.

  “That wasn’t it. The letter of marque! I only wish we’d thought of it an hour ago.”

  “You think that’ll do any good?”

  “Do you think a Margravina’s ships wait?” He looked down his nose in scorn. “Because an Emparch’s certainly don’t. Where do you keep it?”

  I drew it from the upper pocket of my oilskin coat. The ribbon was crushed and the parchment dog-eared, but it was still a letter of marque.

  “You there!” There was an authoritative snap to Markos’s voice as he called to the dock inspector. “We’re on the Margravina’s business.”

  Unbelievably, the dock inspector stopped what he was doing and came right over. Perhaps the trick was confidence. Markos assumed people would obey him at once, and so they did.

  I supposed I was the exception.

  The dock inspector had a grizzled beard and skin darker than my mother’s. He wasn’t anyone I knew. Siscema was a large port, with many wherries coming through every day—and seagoing ships too, up Nemertes Water from Iantiporos.

  “I have the honor of being Tarquin Meridios. I am a courier with the Akhaian Consulate,” Markos said, offering the squashed scroll to the dock inspector. “I have a letter of marque.”

  I watched the man’s brown eyes skim the contents. “This is for the wherry Cormorant.” He lowered the letter.

  “This is the wherry Cormorant.”

  “Ain’t what the paint says,” he pointed out, eyes flicking up and down from the paper to the boat. “Says this be the Octavia.”

  “Our business requires the utmost secrecy. Captain Oresteia, will you please produce the ship’s papers for this man?”

  I ducked into the cabin to grab them from the waterproof box where Pa kept his important things. With unsteady nerves, I passed them to Markos, who in turn handed them to the dock inspector. He wasn’t going to go for this. I just knew it.

  “And here’s the contract for the timber,” I spoke up, suspecting Markos wouldn’t know to ask for it. With a bored half-lidded glance at me, Markos extended a hand palm up. I placed the paper in it.

  “As you can see,” Markos said, “we are bound for the Free City of Valonikos with all swiftness on the Margravina’s business. We must discharge this cargo immediately and make way.”

  The man tilted the paper into the sun. There was a design woven through the parchment that I hadn’t noticed before.

  “It bears her mark and seal,” he admitted with a bewildered shake of his head. He was probably wondering why a courier would be aboard a cargo wherry, but was too awed by the letter to ask. He whistled to his men.

  As they rolled back the hatch on the cargo hold and brought in the levers and crane, I asked Markos under my breath, “Who is Tarquin Meridios anyway?”

  He grinned. “I made him up.”

  “I am not saying you have a future as a criminal and scalawag,” I told him, “but that was mightily well done.”

  A lone seagull fluttered down from the sky, lighting on a dock post. It tilted its head to one side and squawked at me.

  Looking up, I froze. A woman strolled down the dock in the company of a robed man who carried an account book. Two bodyguards shadowed them, men with studded leather armor and swords.

  “Gods damn me.” I jerked Pa’s pistol out of its holster.

  “Who’s that?”

  I seized Markos’s sleeve. “Listen. The Bollards got their fingers in every pie. Goods, money, rumors. Everything. I can’t let them find out who you are. Get down in the cabin and hide. Smuggling compartment on the starboard side. Go!”

  “Bollards? Why—”

  There was no time to explain. They hadn’t seen us yet, but it was a matter of moments. I stuffed the letter of marque in my pocket and shoved him belowdecks. “Go.”

  The woman on the dock wore a gold doublet with puffed slashed sleeves. Above her shrewd brown-skinned face was a red silk turban dotted in a gold pattern. A fine engraved watch and a set of matched brass keys hung from a chatelaine at her waist. The etching on the device depicted a wine cask crowned with three stars.

  Most people knew her as Tamaré Bollard, negotiator for the Bollard merchant family. Unfortunately, I knew her by a different name.

  I lowered my pistol. “Hello, Ma.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  “Caro? Why’ve you painted out Cormorant’s name?” was the first thing she wanted to know. “Your pa in trouble for smuggling again?”

  Pa always says the closer a lie is to the truth, the better, so I seized on the opportunity she’d handed me.

  “Ayah,” I said. “When is he not? He reckoned he’d lay low for a spell. It’s just me and Fee. I’m bound for Valonikos to pick him up.”

  I realized she was staring at my hand, where I still clutched the pistol. I slid it casually into my belt. “There were a man hanging round before,” I said by way of explanation, my neck prickling with chilly nerves. “I didn’t like the looks of him.”

  “You come down from Hespera’s Watch?” Ma leaned against a dock post. “We’ve been hearing strange rumors. Of trouble in Akhaia and … other things. Don’t know what to make of them.”

  I admired the row of earrings running all the way up her lobe. She also wore a sparkling stud in the left side of her nose. I didn’t doubt they were real gold.

  “No,” I said, cool as a trout’s belly. “I mean, we were in Hespera’s Watch. But that was days ago. I heard pirates burned them out. The man at the toll boat at Gallos Bridge said so, but I thought he was pulling my leg.”

  Ma looked troubled. “I don’t think he was.”

  “Is something the matter?” I was glad I’d hidden the letter of marque. There was no easy way of explaining that to my mother.

  “Couldn’t rightly say.” She shook off her worries. “But of course you’ll come up to the house for dinner.”

  “I … uh … I need to catch the tide up to Doukas,” I lied. I wasn’t going north toward Doukas but south, through Nemertes Water.

  “Avoiding your ma, now, are you?”

  I tried not to squirm like a bug being prodded with a stick. “It’s my first run without Pa. I wanted to be fast.”

  “You can catch the morning tide and be there by noon, Caro. As you well know.” She jumped down onto Cormorant’s deck, waving a hand to dismiss her attendants. “Now cast off and go to the third dock. We’ve a berth open. You shan’t have to pay the docking fee.”

  Just like that, I was trapped.

  As we guided the wherry to the Bollard dock, Ma crossed her legs, reclining on the cockpit seat. Fee glanced apprehensively across at me but said nothing. Myself, I tried to avoid looking at the cabin hatch. I hoped Markos had the good sense to heed my instructions and hide, but with Ma’s eagle eye on me, I dared not check. After we finished stowing everything, I joined my mother on the dock, leaving Fee to stand watch.

  Ma stuck tight by my side as we strode up the busy street. I knew there was no dodging her. She was sharper than a knife—and right now, just as dangerous.

  The Bollards commanded a vast trading empire, that much was true. But like I’d told Markos, they had their fingers in many pies. Officially the family preferred to remain neutral when it came to politics, but I knew we traded in secrets as well as cargo. Markos’s identity was a particularly priceless morsel of information.

  “I don’t like the idea of Nick letting you go off on your own,” Ma said, ducking around a wagon full of barrels.

  “Ma, I’m seventeen. Someday it’ll be my wherry.”

  She pursed her lips to show what she thought of that. �
��Yes, well. Nothing’s decided. You’re still young. What was the trouble?”

  I hesitated. “It don’t seem like the kind of thing he would want you knowing about.” That was the truth. Sort of. “No offense, of course,” I added, realizing how fortunate it was that she didn’t know Pa had been smuggling muskets to Lord Peregrine’s rebels. She would’ve pitched a fit.

  She snorted. “Of course.”

  But she seemed more annoyed at Pa than me, which suited my purposes just fine. “How is business?” I asked as a diversionary tactic.

  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.