“Because last night we were close-hauled, in foul weather.” And because I was scared, though I would never admit that. I wasn’t comfortable with Victorianos. We were already carrying more canvas than I was used to, even without the topsail. “It wouldn’t have done us any good.”
Nereus grinned, and I realized I’d passed a test. A square sail is no use when tacking. “Now that we’ve the wind behind us,” he said, “there’s no reason not to unfurl that topsail. We might do with a jib too, just for the fun of it. Give her her head.”
I looked at the sky. It was clear except for horsetail clouds high up, which usually meant bad weather would hold off for at least a day or so.
“Let’s do it,” I decided, feeling bold.
“Now listen. This ship is a cutter,” he said. “I mark her a little under seventy feet long on deck, eighty-five if you be counting that bowsprit. Ayah, not much bigger than your wherry, but with three times the sail. You’ll see she carries much of her canvas forrard. Mark where the mast is stepped.”
I glanced sharply at him—I didn’t remember mentioning the wherry.
The cutter’s mast was mounted far back, almost amidships. A wherry carries one large sail on a mast that sits in her bow. This ship carried a mainsail, a square topsail above that, plus a jib and a staysail that fastened to the long bowsprit. There was room for a third sail forward of the mast, a jib topsail of some kind, and maybe even a fourth.
“Ayah, on a fair day, this is the fastest little ship on the Inner Sea,” Nereus said, as if he’d heard my thoughts. “She were built to fly.”
I watched, shading my eyes, as he nimbly scrambled up the mast to unfurl the topsail. We could use someone of his expertise. I’d just have to keep a close eye on him.
With the topsail raised and a second triangular sail billowing out in front of the bowsprit, Victorianos seemed to lift a little. She dove ahead, plowing across the next swell with a wave of white foam. She had “a bone in her teeth,” as the sailormen said.
Something creaked loudly. I jumped, my shoulders betraying my surprise. With four times the number of sails that Cormorant had, this ship certainly made more noise.
“Think of it as her talking to you,” Nereus said, noting my unease.
That ship had dogged me up and down the river, ever since Hespera’s Watch. I didn’t particularly care if it talked to me. It was not the ship I loved.
“Now, you see? Out here in the open sea, the Black Dogs ain’t got a ship what can touch her for speed. Feel how she goes!” Grasping one of the stays, he pulled himself up onto the pin rail. “You wouldn’t want to be missing this.”
It was grand. In the sunlight and sparkle of the spray, in the rightness of how Vix pitched along, I could almost forget about yesterday.
Almost.
I leaned over the rail. The day makes us too eager to forget the horrors of night. In the sunshine the drakon seemed like a dream, but something else tunneled along inches below the water. Something slick and gray and—
“Look!” I cried. “Dolphins!”
One sprang up, sun glinting on its slippery back. Daria clapped her hands. There were more creatures, I realized, than just the dolphins. Fish of many colors popped in and out of the waves as they raced the ship.
“See how the fish leap alongside us.” I pointed. “So many. They must admire how she moves.”
Nereus only laughed. “Is that what you think this is?”
Annoyed, I went back to take the tiller from Kenté so she might catch some sleep. I wished he would stop talking in riddles.
Daria plopped down beside me. “What are we going to do next?”
Her hair was a ratted mess, and the beginning of a sunburn splashed her cheeks. Her cheerfulness worried me. From what Markos had told me of his life in the palace, her mother had likely been a vague, distant figure. I understood her lack of grief on that count. But she clearly believed her big brother could do anything, and now she’d convinced herself of his escape. How much would it crush her when her hope was shattered?
“Now we drink.” Nereus winked, drawing a brown bottle from inside his vest. Kenté was right. It looked as if it had been in a shipwreck, the label water stained and half-gone. He took a chug off the bottle.
I rolled my eyes. “Isn’t it a bit early for that?”
He passed the bottle to Daria, but I snatched it out of his hands. “She’s eight!”
“Ah.” He threw her a nod. “I tried, girlie.” Stowing the rum bottle, he ambled up the deck with the rolling gait of a man long accustomed to being at sea.
Daria fidgeted on the seat, an obstinate expression on her face. Finally I sighed. “Fine. Go with him. Just don’t stray out of my sight.”
Later that afternoon, as we sailed along in the shadow of the barrier island’s cliffs, Kenté slid onto the bench beside me. Her striped dress was still wrinkled, but her face was damp. She looked much refreshed.
“How are you holding up?” she asked.
I told her my hopes about Fee. “Perhaps,” I said, “even now, she’s sailing up the Hanu River on Cormorant.”
“Perhaps.” She pursed her lips, staring into her lap. “Caro …” She hesitated. “What about Markos?”
I squeezed the tiller until my bones hurt. “What about him?”
“You didn’t tell me he kissed you.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You were very handsome in that dress. You know, the one you wore when he danced with you at our house. Do you reckon that’s when he started to like you?”
I was about to say she hadn’t been there when we danced, but then I remembered she could make herself invisible. She was wrong about Markos though. He’d wanted to kiss me long before he ever saw me in a dress.
Secretly I was glad I hadn’t lingered to see him run through with a cutlass or shot full of bullet holes. If that made me a coward, I didn’t care. Images flashed unbidden through my mind. Markos crumpled on the floor. Blood clotted in black curls. Blue eyes staring.
Stop. I pressed my fingers to my temples. Not thinking of him at all was the better way.
But I could not do that, so I focused on the last time I saw him. A boy with two swords, facing a staircase. I closed my eyes and froze him in that moment.
“Anyway,” Kenté went on. “Perhaps it’s as Nereus says. Perhaps there’s a chance.”
I exhaled in a huff. “Oh, not you too.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “It’s just that he says it like he knows something.”
Farther up the deck, Nereus entertained Daria by fashioning things out of a rope end. Pa used to do that when I was little. My eyes blurred.
“Well, he doesn’t,” I said gruffly. “How could he?”
Hope was only going to make it hurt more.
Nereus whistled. “Ship ho!”
The vessel lay anchored off Enantios Isle. Her masts were bare, her square sails stowed away. They must have seen us approach, for a white signal banner unrolled and began to climb the flag halyards.
“White flag.” I squinted at the ship. “Whoever it is, they want to parley with us.”
“What if it’s the Black Dogs?” Kenté cried. “It might be a trick.”
“Look sharp,” said Nereus. The muscles under his mermaid tattoo tightened as he gripped the rail. “And be ready to run.”
The ship was a lovely three-masted bark with good lines. Her paint marked her as the Antelope of Iantiporos. Under the blue and gold of Kynthessa, she flew her own pennant. The wind had wrapped it around a rope, where it flapped halfheartedly. The bark was obviously a merchant ship, although four small cannons were mounted on her deck.
The breeze flipped the pennant over. I gasped.
A cask, crested by three stars.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
I waited alone at the port rail as Antelope’s dinghy rowed across. I wasn’t about to let the Bollards lay eyes on Daria until I was sure they could be trusted.
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sp; When I saw who sat in the boat, rowed by a lone crewman, I almost wished we’d run for it. She wore a drapey gold tunic under a short cape, fastened at the shoulder with a Bollard brooch. Sun glinted on her earrings as she stood, grasping the ladder we’d tossed over the side. Indeed only Ma could maintain such an air of detached authority while ascending a wobbly rope ladder.
“I suppose you have an explanation for how you managed to acquire a cutter of this expense and quality,” she said, climbing over the rail. “Especially as it seems to me this one greatly resembles the ship I heard Diric Melanos was sailing recently.”
Another girl might have embraced her mother. We eyed each other like wary cats circling.
“What are you doing all the way out here?” I blurted.
“As it happens, looking for you,” she said. “I went to visit the Oracle in Iantiporos. She told me we’d meet you here.” She tilted her head, studying me. “The Emparch was with you in Siscema, wasn’t he? It’s why you acted so strangely. He was the courier boy who came to dinner.”
“No.” I took a step backward. My mother had consulted an oracle about me? The expense must have been astronomical.
“Caro. You can tell me.”
“I don’t believe you,” I whispered.
She smiled, showing all her white teeth. “I knew you wouldn’t.”
The crewman finished stowing the oars. I would have recognized him instantly if he hadn’t been wearing a woolen cap pulled down low. I knew his every mannerism. I knew his broad shoulders and the strong grip of his suntanned hands as he climbed the rope ladder.
“Pa!” I flung myself at him the moment he cleared the rail.
“Caro! What’s the meaning of this?” He released me, but kept a hold on my shoulders. “Where’s Fee? Where’s Cormorant?”
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t have the courage to watch his stricken face when he realized what I had done. “I’m so sorry.” I buried myself in his jacket, finally letting the tears flow.
“Caro—” He lifted my chin. “Caro, d’you mean she’s sunk? Where’s Fee?”
“Oh!” I hiccupped. “Not sunk. I had to leave Cormorant in Casteria. The Black Dogs—I couldn’t get back to her. And Fee jumped overboard to save us. I—don’t know what happened to her.”
“I never did sail with a crewman scrappier than Fee,” Pa said, though his eyes remained troubled. “I wouldn’t count her out.”
“I for one would like to know about the cutter,” Ma said. “And the Emparch.”
Pa curled his arm protectively around my shoulders. “Will you just leave off for a minute? Can you not see she’s upset?”
I knew he was distressed too. Fee had crewed with us for years. She and Pa were a team, and Cormorant was our home.
“Look here, Nick, I came all the way out here—”
“The Emparch isn’t here,” I said. They both turned as one. “Not anymore.” My throat tightened. “Markos—the Emparch—he’s dead.”
“No, he’s not.” Ma shook her head. “The Black Dogs are trying to ransom him back to his relations in Valonikos.”
She said something else, but I didn’t hear.
“Oh,” I said stupidly.
Markos. Alive. I couldn’t let myself believe her. It wasn’t as easy as that.
Ma and Pa went on talking, their voices an incomprehensible buzz. I put a hand to my forehead and tried to breathe.
Markos.
“Are you sure?” I finally managed, so much later that they both looked at me, confused. “The last time I saw him, he was fighting off ten pirates.” I swallowed down tears. “He traded his own life for his sister’s.” The rest of the long story spilled out between choked sobs.
Pa pulled me against his rough wool coat. I closed my eyes, relaxing into the familiar homey smell of his clothes. “I might’ve known you’d open that box,” he said. “You’re an Oresteia, all right.”
“She is that,” Ma muttered under her breath. “A Bollard has more sense.”
I lifted my head. “But how do you know about—about Markos?”
“A courier came to our premises in Iantiporos with a letter. He’d ridden all night through that storm,” Ma said. “The letter was to go via fast packet to Valonikos. It bore the name Diric Melanos. They might have put it on a ship straightaway and sent it on, had I not at that very moment walked into our offices.”
“Let me see it.”
She handed it over, and I skimmed the contents. It was as she said. Captain Melanos had sent a ransom note to Markos’s relatives.
I lowered the letter. “But the Black Dogs tried to kill him.”
“People like the Black Dogs sell themselves to the highest bidder.” By the flare of her nostrils, it was easy to see what Ma thought of that. “A man like Melanos is thinking of Valonikos. Of how it’s said that in the Free City, gold flows like the river. He wonders, what sort of family will shelter a deposed Emparch? And how much might they be willing to pay?”
“Konto Theucinian hired them to kill Markos,” I said. “Won’t he be mad when he finds out they didn’t?”
“Likely greed clouds their judgment. Why get paid once when you can get paid twice?” Her mouth twisted. “I know Diric Melanos. That’s what he’ll be thinking.”
“You know him?” This was something I hadn’t heard before.
“We’ve met. I’ll tell you this much, he’ll be sorry he ever dared touch my daughter.”
“Your daughter.” Pa shook his head. “But you were willing to hand the boy right into those Theucinians’ hands.”
“I told you, nothing had been decided yet.” Ma held her jaw stiffly. “We were only discussing our options. As it happens, the dice have fallen the other way. You can afford to have your high-and-mighty principles, Nick. I can’t. Bollard Company must maintain our relationships—”
“With usurpers and murderers,” Pa grumbled.
“Emparchs, kings, and Margravinas rise and fall, but trade goes on. The current carries us all. You know that. I can’t take sides. This Emparch isn’t one of ours.”
“Yes, yes, because you’re either a Bollard or you’re nothing. Don’t I know it.” Pa rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Ayah, I know enough about that anyway.”
I had a horrible thought. “What if this letter is a lie?” My voice wavered. “What if they only mean to cheat Markos’s family?”
Ma rested her hand on my shoulder. “If it’s a trap, we’ll find out soon enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like I said.” The jewel in her nose twinkled as she smiled. “The dice have fallen the other way. We’re going to rescue your Emparch.”
I studied her face. As an accomplished negotiator, she could easily conceal a lie. But Pa seemed to trust her. “In that case,” I said slowly, “there’s someone you should meet.”
Kenté, Nereus, and Daria emerged through the hatch.
“I have the honor of being Lady Daria Andela,” the girl said in a small but formal voice. The ragged hem of her nightgown waved in the wind.
“Your Grace.” Ma bowed.
“Andela?” I asked, surprised. “That’s your name? Is that Markos’s name too?” All at once I remembered the man who’d attacked us in the safe house in Siscema. You have the Andela look about you, to be sure.
“Whyever wouldn’t it be?” Daria narrowed her eyes. “Are you saying you don’t know his name?”
I felt a little sheepish. “He never said.”
“If you don’t even know a boy’s name,” she said with a saucy lift of her chin, “I think you haven’t any business going around ki—”
“Shush,” I said loudly over her, but Pa gave me a suspicious look anyhow.
Ma whistled at Kenté. “Well, your parents will certainly be happy to hear you’re not murdered in a ditch somewhere. Whatever were you thinking, running off like that?” She spotted Nereus, and her voice changed. “Identify yourself at once, sir. For if you figured in my daughter’s story, I do not recall it.”
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“You,” Pa said hoarsely, the color draining from his face.
Nereus flashed him a grin. “Surely you didn’t think she’d be left to fight alone.”
“I—No.” Pa glanced at me, then quickly away. He seemed troubled. “It’s just—You ain’t who I expected.”
“The current carries us all as it will,” Nereus said. “As your folk are wont to say. Ain’t that right?”
I looked back and forth between them, bewildered. So Pa had been responsible for sending Nereus. But how—
Sudden understanding flooded through me. The god at the bottom of the river.
Somehow I knew that was the answer. It explained everything: how Nereus had mysteriously appeared on Vix, his secretive manner, and the cryptic references to being three hundred years old. Nereus had mentioned the Bollards, but thinking back, he’d never actually admitted he knew Ma.
“Pa—” I began, eager to hear the whole story.
Abruptly he shook his head, glancing sideways at my mother. “Not here. Not now.”
To my annoyance, he refused to say anything further. Nereus volunteered to stay and guard Vix while Kenté, Daria, and I rowed across to the Antelope, which meant I was prevented from questioning him about it either. Not that he was capable of giving a straight answer.
We ate dinner in the comfort of the Bollard ship’s well-appointed cabins, where Ma’s cook had prepared pasta and clams in a delicate wine sauce. I practically shoveled it into my mouth.
Ma spread a chart on the captain’s table, pinning it down with a brass paperweight engraved with the Bollard crest.
“That’s it.” I put my finger on the map. “Katabata Island.”
“You’re certain that’s what they said?” Ma’s eyes flickered up at me.
“Positive.” I thought back to that night under the dock. “One of the Black Dogs said he voted to go back to Katabata.”
“I know that island. There’s an abandoned fort with a harbor due north—here.” Antelope’s captain, a solid man with long side whiskers, spoke. “Likely that’s where they’re holed up. It’s only a few hours’ sail from here. We could come upon them in the dark. Surprise them.”
“No,” I said, and they all looked at me. “The shadowman, remember?”
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