Song of the Current
Page 13
I swept in, skirts swishing around my legs. “I will take him into the dining room, Uncle, if you want to go in there with Ma.”
I seized Markos’s arm. He immediately lifted it, as town men do when they escort a lady. I set my other hand on his jacket sleeve and tried my best to simper up at him. I don’t think I succeeded, because he swallowed down a laugh and stared hard at the floorboards.
“Caro.” My uncle raised his eyebrows. “I thought you were at dinner.”
“I had to fetch something,” I lied. “Anyhow I reckon he’d like to sit with folk his own age. Wouldn’t you?”
Markos looked back and forth between the two of us.
“Only till I get back.” Uncle Bolaji glanced at the door to the Blue Room. “For I would like to press him for news of Akhaia. If you don’t mind, young man. We’ve heard only rumors.”
“I can tell you what I know,” Markos said, “although it won’t be much, I’m afraid. I’ve not been back to Akhaia for weeks. But I too have heard grave news.”
“Well, then. You must join me at my table upon my return. For now I shall entrust you to the girls and be on my way.” He smiled. “I’m sure no young fellow would mind that, eh?” He disappeared into the Blue Room, leaving us alone in the hall.
I dragged Markos through the nearest door. As it turned out, it was a coat closet. The room smelled of cedar and camphor and was barely big enough for the two of us to stand in, squashed as we were between rows of overcoats.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“Ow! Let go of my sleeve.” He jerked his arm away. “I thought you were in trouble when you didn’t come back. When were you going to tell me?”
“About what?”
“You know what.” When I didn’t say anything, he prodded me. “This house? Your mother? You were so angry at me for keeping my identity from you, yet you never mentioned a word about any of this. I had to hear it from Fee.”
I spoke through clenched teeth. “My identity isn’t going to get us killed.”
“Your identity could save us. These people have ships—”
“Markos, you can’t be here,” I cut in. “You shouldn’t have left the boat.”
“Fee’s there. It’ll be safe.”
“I meant you won’t be safe. The Black Dogs are here! Their captain is in this house as we speak. Down the hall, in the sitting room.”
“What do you mean, Black Dogs? That cutter’s nowhere to be seen.”
“Philemon,” I said, watching his eyes widen with recognition. “There’s another ship. A sloop.”
“What’s a sloop?” he asked. I bit my tongue so as not to say something rude. He continued in a whisper, “Might it be a black boat with two sails, a regular one and a front one? There’s one like that across from us. Alektor. It came into port after dark.”
“Ayah? Well, look who knows everything. Did you know it belonged to the Black Dogs?”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely sure,” I said. “It’s like the toll boat man said. They did see Cormorant’s name that night, but they can’t tell one wherry from the next. That’s why they’ve asked for the Bollards’ help. Listen. We’ve got to get out of town now. Ma knows. She knows it’s Cormorant they’re looking for.”
A crease appeared between his eyes. “She didn’t tell them you were here?”
“No.”
“So we’re safe, at least for now.”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Ma won’t let them hurt me. But I don’t know what she’ll do if she finds out who you really are. She won’t allow us to leave this house, that’s for certain. Not until they figure out what to do with you.”
“Xanto’s balls,” he swore. “Who are these people?”
“The Bollards are a great merchant house,” I said defensively. “We didn’t get to be a great merchant house by angering the Emparchs of powerful countries.”
“I’ll be burned before I hear you call that impostor an Emparch!” His voice went up two or three notches.
“Will you shut up?” I hissed.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, leaning on the coat rack. “What are we going to do?”
I opened the door a crack so I could peer through. “You’ll have to sneak back out.”
“By the lion god,” he said, “I wish I’d known all this before I came up here.”
“Ma took me by surprise,” I admitted. “I couldn’t get away. I was just about to give them the slip.”
“You were going to give them the slip, were you?” His eyes gave me a quick up and down. “Not before you took a bath, changed into a nice dress, and ate a perfectly luxurious dinner. At least I expect it must be luxurious, in this house. While I was smashed into a smuggling cupboard, naturally.”
I felt slightly guilty about that. “Did you get something to eat?”
“I was reduced to eating common street food.”
I rolled my eyes, my sympathy evaporating. I liked street food.
“Where’s your hair?” He stared at me by the shaft of light that fell through the crack in the door.
My hair was stuffed into a black lace net, secured with a velvet ribbon. I thought it was very smart, but Markos was looking at me like I’d grown a second head.
“I put it up. Never mind that.” I plucked at the stiff fabric of his jacket. “Wherever did you get this?”
“I purchased it in a shop,” he said, disdain curling around the word, “but it fits well enough in spite of its low origins.”
I wondered where someone would buy clothes if not in a shop. Steeling myself, I asked, “How much did you spend?”
The sum he named, though less than I’d feared, was much more than Pa would’ve allowed me to spend on a single article of clothing. My eyes were drawn to the handsome stripes of white tape and gold lace lining the lapels, crisscrossed by brass buckles. I would have liked a coat like that. It was a man’s coat, but fitting, after all, for a wherry captain.
I shook my head. I didn’t know what had gotten into me—fancying myself a captain. I was Pa’s first mate. If we succeeded in disentangling ourselves from this mess, likely he would sail till he was seventy, as his father and grandfather before him had done.
A pang of hurt stabbed me in the heart. Better that way. The most I could aspire to be was a mediocre wherry captain, now that I was sure the god in the river didn’t want me.
I peeked out the door. “The coast’s clear. Go straight back out the way you came. Quickly.”
“What about you?” Markos asked as we slipped into the entry hall.
There was no way I was leaving Pa’s pistol behind. “I’ve got to get my things. I’ll be right behind you.”
The sitting room door opened and voices spilled out. Before we had time to hide, Ma, Uncle Bolaji, and the Black Dog Philemon were upon us.
When Philemon spied Markos, a keen look crossed his face, like a wolf whose ears have pricked up because it smells prey. “Who is that?” he asked Uncle Bolaji, halting with his hat halfway to his head.
“Oh, that fellow. Courier from the Akhaian Consulate.”
Philemon seemed very much like he wanted to linger, but the butler had already pressed his coat into his hands. He threw one last hard glance over his shoulder, then drew on his overcoat and went out into the mist.
Uncle Bolaji frowned at me. “I thought you were bringing him into the dining room.”
“Oh. Well …” I tried to pick an excuse from the many that tumbled through my head.
“That was my fault, sir.” Markos spoke up behind me. “You see, I have an interest in old maps.” He gestured at the glass curio case. “I told Miss Bollard I wished to inspect your collection. It is a fine one.”
I inhaled sharply. I knew why he’d called me Miss Bollard. It fit with the pretense that we didn’t know each other, and yet something in my very being rebelled against it. I didn’t want to be disloyal to Pa.
“Those are originals.” Uncle Bolaji stroked his beard w
ith pride. “That is the chart on which Jacari Bollard marked out the trade route to Ndanna.” He pointed under the glass. “And there is the chest he used to bring back the tea leaves he presented to the Emparch.”
“Indeed? Do you have many other artifacts from Astarta?” The Southwest Passage was a significant achievement in naval exploration, but it surprised me that Markos knew the name of Captain Bollard’s ship. Lately he was surprising me a lot.
I remained silent as we returned to dinner. When I chanced a look in her direction, Ma’s eyes skewered me. She shook her head, and I understood it was only because of Uncle Bolaji that she wasn’t lighting into me right now.
Markos dropped back. Under the clamor of the dining room, he whispered, “Was that him?” He jerked his head toward the front door. “The man who just left?”
“You’ve never seen him before?” I asked.
“Of course not. Should I have?”
I whispered, “Then why did he look like he recognized you?”
“You’re seeing monsters everywhere, Caro. He’s Akhaian. I’m Akhaian. That’s likely all it was.”
I didn’t think so. I had never met the Margravina, but Pa had a miniature of her in his desk, a souvenir of her golden jubilee. A man from Akhaia would know what his Emparch looked like, and Markos had already told me he resembled his father.
Uncle Bolaji turned. Realizing Markos’s head was bent scandalously close to mine, I stepped away. “Go with my uncle,” I said under my breath.
“How are we getting out of here?”
“I’m working on it,” I muttered.
Perhaps Markos was right. I was seeing monsters and pirates and drakons everywhere. I heard them in the screech of the fiddle as a man took it from a velvet case and tuned it. Panic caught in my throat. The sense of merry warmth and safety in the dining room was an illusion. Outside, danger scratched at the windows of the house.
My cousins’ table was deserted, scattered with empty glasses. I spotted Jacaranda dancing with a young man, but Kenté was nowhere to be seen. At the head table, Uncle Bolaji was deep in conversation with Markos. I could tell Ma was listening, but she twisted the stem of her goblet around in her hands and did not speak. I snagged a glass of port off a servant’s tray and sidestepped closer, pretending to watch the dancers.
Markos leaned over, addressing my uncle. “I should very much like to beg the privilege of a dance with your daughter.”
Uncle Bolaji laughed. “She’s a bit old for the likes of you, isn’t she?” Which was true. His daughter was over thirty.
“Ah. I meant the young lady I met at the door.”
“Oh, you mean Caro? She is a daughter of this house,” Uncle Bolaji said, “although not my daughter.” He nodded at me. “By all means, you may ask her.”
That was smart of Markos, to mistake my identity on purpose. It never occurred to my uncle that we had met before tonight. Plucking the glass from my hand, he bowed politely and led me onto the floor.
I set one hand on the shoulder of his new coat. He was probably the tallest boy I’d ever danced with. As he curved his hand around my waist, above where my skirts billowed out, my breath felt strangled. I reminded myself it was just a dance. Perfectly respectable. Markos waited, counting the beats, then swirled us expertly into the pattern of dancing couples.
“I wish you had told me yourself.” His fingers tightened on mine, but not in a romantic way. In an annoyed way. “You let me believe you were a common wherryman’s daughter, when in truth you belong to a great merchant family.”
“I am a common wherryman’s daughter.” I hurled the words sarcastically back.
He’d never heard the condescending way some of the family spoke to my father. Or how they smiled indulgently at Cormorant’s chipped paint. No matter how much I enjoyed visiting, I wasn’t certain I would ever truly belong in this house.
“The Bollards don’t approve of Pa, you know,” I said under my breath. “Or me.”
“That’s not what I see. Not at all.”
“They like who they want me to be,” I countered. “They like my mother’s daughter, the one who wears dresses and talks proper. But that’s not really me. I’m a smuggler. And a sailor.”
“Our family name is who we are.” His shoulder went rigid under my hand, and I wondered if he was thinking of that jewel in his ear. He swallowed. “It means everything.”
Maybe that was true for him. But he would never know what it was like to be torn between two families. Two futures. I bristled at the speculative way he was looking at me. I guess he’d revised his opinion of me, now that I was descended from someone famous. Good for him. But nothing about me had changed. Not one gods-damned thing.
“I like my pa’s name fine,” I said. “I live with him because that was the agreement they made.”
Easier than admitting my mother had been more interested in shipping contracts than little girls. She was so often out of town, negotiating deals for the family. Ma had pushed for me to be raised at Bollard House, but Pa put his foot down. Despite their differences, you had only to meet my parents for five minutes to know there was a mighty spark between the two of them. They just couldn’t live with each other on a very small wherry.
“What man lets his wife leave his home to go work in trade?” Markos asked.
“This house was built on trade,” I reminded him. Because lashing out any other way would’ve made people stare, I squeezed his fingers until he winced. “Anyway, what makes you think they’re married?”
“Oh.” His cheeks colored.
“For eight generations the Oresteias have plied their trade on these rivers,” I snapped, anger and pride boiling inside me. “They been working wherries since long before anyone ever heard of Jacari Bollard. So you riddle me this: What makes the Bollards great and the Oresteias common?”
Of course I already knew the answer. It was money.
“I’ve upset you. But Caroline,” he said, rolling the r with his accent, “I didn’t mean to insult your father’s family, and you practically bit my head off just now. Don’t you think—perhaps—it’s possible you took it that way because of certain unresolved feelings on your part?”
“Stop it.” I let go of his hand and stepped back, awash with conflicting emotions. It was happening again, as it always did. Bollard House twisted things up. “I didn’t sign on to be picked apart like a beetle under a glass. Not by the likes of you.”
Great-Grandma Oresteia, who once smuggled rum right through the harbor master’s garden, would not have let him needle her like that. But things were so muddled right now. Markos didn’t realize his words had tweaked all my doubts, bringing them to the surface to float around me like laughing ghosts. I had never felt less like an Oresteia. And yet calling myself a Bollard would’ve felt like a betrayal of my father.
Across the room, Uncle Bolaji and Ma were in deep conference with the other people at their table. They weren’t looking at us. “Come on.” I tugged Markos out by the sleeve. “We’re going.”
In the quiet hall, the lamps flickered in their sconces. A lone parlor maid carrying a basket of rags scurried along the carpeted runner. She barely glanced our way.
I fetched Markos’s hat from the rack and shoved it into his hands. “Follow the edge of the house to the left until you come to an alley. At the end of it, you’ll find a garden. Hide there.” I pushed him out the front door. “I’ll meet you just as soon as I can grab my things and get away.”
As the door latched behind him, my distinguished forebear stared down at me with disapproval from his gold-framed portrait. Lamplight glistened off the stroke of black oil paint that formed the curve of his whiskers.
“Oh, shut up,” I growled over my shoulder.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Booted footsteps rang out on the polished floor. It was Ma, in the company of Uncle Bolaji. They were deep in whispered conversation, their faces grave. I flattened myself against the glass curio case to let them pass.
Uncle Bolaji paused. “Where’s that young courier?”
“A messenger boy come from the docks, and he had to leave straightaway,” I said without hesitation. Lying is easy as peas and pie once you become accustomed to it.
“Ah. Pity. I’ve just thought of something else I wanted to ask him about—Never mind, then.” He strode past me. “We should discuss sending an envoy at once, though it turns my stomach to curry favor from the murderers of children. The Emparch’s daughter was eight.”
My heart lurched in my chest, until I remembered Markos hadn’t even wanted me to know his sister was alive. My uncle had likely made the assumption she’d been killed along with the rest of his family, and Markos had not corrected him. Or perhaps he’d even suggested it himself to put the Bollards on the wrong track.
“We might push for a revision of the Agreement of ’86,” Ma said. “The savings from the tolls alone …” Their voices drifted away down the hall.
I remembered what Markos had said about the Margravina—that she was playing both ends against the middle. If I knew Bollard Company, they would do exactly the same.
I crept up the stairs to the fourth floor rooms where the girls slept, under the eaves with slanted ceilings. I scratched on Kenté’s door, then let myself in without waiting.
“Did you find out what you wanted to?” She was seated upon a velvet stool, turning her head back and forth. Her eyes met mine in the mirror.
“I did,” I said.
“We’re going out.” Jacky set one last pin in Kenté’s braided hairstyle and examined her work. “Of course you’ll come with us.”
“Where are you going?”
“To a party. You can borrow a dress from me if you lace your stays in tight enough.” She glanced calculatingly at my midsection. I wasn’t wearing stays, and she knew it.
“I can’t go,” I said. “I’ve got to be on the river by five. I’m going down through Nemertes Water, and you know the tide don’t wait.”
“True enough,” Kenté said. “The current carries us all. Only I thought you said you were going to the Free City.”