Song of the Current

by Sarah Tolcser

  “Ayah? I don’t know about that.” He drew a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket.

  It was a printed leaflet. A tale—highly embellished—about a girl who stole a pirate ship, who folk were calling the Rose of the Coast. I wished I’d done half the things it said I’d done. The caricaturist had drawn me with a feathery plume in my hat. I resolved to get one immediately.

  “But this is mostly nonsense.” I lowered the paper. “I don’t in any way resemble a rose.”

  “Your hair is reddish.”

  “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.” I tossed the pamphlet onto the table. He smoothed it, tucking it back in his pocket.

  I might have questioned him further, had not Tychon Hypatos and another man chosen that moment to invade our corner.

  “Aha! Miss Oresteia. I had quite given up hope of finding you. I have here a man who greatly wishes to meet you.” Hypatos gestured with a flourish. “This is Basil Maki, the Kynthessan Consul. Representative of the Margravina.”

  The man bowed. “Current carry you, as your folk are wont to say.”

  “Oh good,” I said. “Are you the one to talk to about the ten silver talents I was promised?”

  “You don’t waste any words, do you, Miss Oresteia?”

  “Captain Oresteia,” I corrected. “My contract said I was to deliver the box and its contents to Valonikos.”

  “The contents I see,” he said with a smile. “Have you presented them to the dock inspector?”

  “Seems to me that’s a lawyer’s answer.”

  “Alas, I am a lawyer.” He bowed again. “Or I was, before the Margravina elevated me to my position.”

  “I suppose Markos could go present himself to the dock inspector,” I said. “If that would get me ten talents.”

  His eyebrows lifted practically into his hairline, I guess because I’d spoken so familiarly of the true Emparch of Akhaia. “I ought to inform you that the Black Dogs have petitioned me for the return of their property,” he said. “Of course, it is a jurisdictional issue now, since the ship in question is outside the boundaries of Kynthessa.”

  I didn’t understand half his words. “I was a privateer. A letter of marque gives me leave to take a prize. I know my rights.”

  He tilted his goblet toward me. “Nevertheless, the Black Dogs are claiming you stole a cutter from them.”

  I smiled. “I did.”

  “From what I’ve heard, the Margravina isn’t necessarily, ahem, what one might call pleased with the way things were handled.”

  “Then she oughtn’t to have given that kind of power to me.”

  “Miss Oresteia, you should know that overconfidence doesn’t usually impress me in the very young. And you are just a seventeen-year-old girl.” Maki stroked his thin beard. “Nevertheless. Your legal claim to the ship is perfectly valid. I’m rather disinclined to grant the Black Dogs a hearing. But it may not matter.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Captain Diric Melanos, the man who made the petition, has quite vanished from the custody of the law.”

  My hand froze with my glass halfway to my lips. “You mean escaped?”

  “Doubtful, seeing as he left behind a puddle of his own blood.”

  I was about to question him further, when Markos joined us.

  “I have the honor of being Markos Andela,” he said, extending his hand. I stared, for I’d never heard him introduce himself by that name, only by title. I suspected it was Peregrine’s influence.

  He looked—well, he looked wonderful. There was no getting around it, though I wouldn’t dare say so out loud. He already had a big enough opinion of himself. He wore a formal coat with tails, crisp lace falling from the collar and cuffs, and his blue silk cravat had a pattern of lions on it. Had he gotten taller? He’d always been tall. It must be the way he carried himself tonight. He looked like an Emparch from head to toe.

  “That dress is very dashing,” Markos said after the Consul excused himself. “Although I don’t understand your hair.” He examined it dubiously, as if it was a nest of coiled snakes. Which, admittedly, was what it looked like.

  “Kenté did it.”

  “It’s pretty. But it’s not really you. I like your hair when it’s … big. And springy. And red.”

  “It’s always red!” I snapped. None of those other things sounded like compliments.

  “So prickly. I like that.” His lips brushed my ear. “Always know this,” he whispered. “I like a hundred things about you, and only one of them is how you look in a dress.”

  He certainly proved it later that evening when he dragged me into the empty library.

  His lips crashing against mine, he pressed me into a bookshelf. I slid my hand under his collar to feel his hot skin. With the other I gripped his coat, tugging him closer.

  “I miss you,” he said hoarsely, kissing my neck. “You drive me mad. I miss you.”

  “Well? Which is it?”

  He laughed. Our lips met again, slowly this time, tongues tangling. Something inside my chest twisted. He made me want things. And he made me scared of wanting them. I gently smoothed a lock of hair behind his ear.

  He grabbed my hand. “No, don’t—”

  It was the one with the missing earlobe. The scarred new skin was shiny and red.

  “Oh, honestly,” I said. “I saw it when it looked much worse than this.”

  “It’s ugly.” He turned away. “I hate it.”

  “Markos, have you been wearing your hair over your ear all this time we’ve been in Valonikos? So no one will see? You are the vainest, most—” I stopped, recognizing the stormy look on his face. His body had gone rigid.

  I put my hand on his cheek, turning him back. “I already told you, I think you’re the bravest”—I was going to say “boy,” but I sensed somehow that wasn’t right for this moment—“the bravest man I know.” I kissed him. “I like a hundred things about you, and be assured one of them was not that half of your left ear.”

  That finally got him to laugh. Our next kiss was so deep, it made me ache, and not just in the usual places.

  “Caro, this dress has entirely too many buttons.”

  I pried his fingers off my back. “I know. Which is why it’s staying on. Anyhow, I reckon I’m going. I can’t bear another four hours of this party.”

  He knocked his forehead against the bookshelf and moaned. “Stay.”

  “You stay.” I wriggled out of his grasp. “All these people came here to meet you.” I kissed him softly. “I don’t mind. Truly.”

  “Indeed, Peregrine is probably combing the party for me at this very moment,” he admitted.

  “See you later.” I squeezed his hand before I went.

  I had one more thing to do before I sought my bed in the captain’s cabin on Vix.

  My cousin sat in a pool of red silk, her back to Vix’s mast. Her hair was braided in rows and fixed in an intricate knot at the top of her head. I’d hardly gotten a chance to talk to Kenté in Valonikos. I suspected the Bollards were keeping her on a close leash, given her previous disappearing act.

  There was a peace about the harbor at night. I dropped to the deck, resting my elbows on my knees. Absently I pressed one palm flat on the wood, as I used to do on Cormorant. The stored-up warmth from the day seeped into my hand.

  “My parents are coming tomorrow, on a packet from Siscema.” Kenté leaned her head against the mast, closing her eyes. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Yes, you do,” I said. She opened one eye to squint at me. “Of course you do. The way I figure, you can slink back to Siscema with your parents. Or …” I nodded at the ship berthed across from us. “That’s the Olivios. She sails up the Kars on the morning tide. To Doukas and ports beyond. To Trikkaia.”

  She said nothing.

  I pulled a pouch from my pocket and set it on the deck with a clink. “Here.”

  “I don’t need your money.”

  “Ayah, perhaps not under usual circumstances. But p
erhaps you do,” I said softly. “For this.”

  “I can’t.” She took the pouch, turning it over and over in her hands.

  “It’s one thing not to know your fate,” I said. “But you been hiding from yours, and I reckon you know it. You told me we’re all calling out to the world and magic is the world calling back.” My eyes stung, I knew not whether for her or for me. “Well, the world is calling to you.”

  “I’m afraid I’ll never go to the Academy. And I’m afraid I will go. I’m mightily sick of being afraid of everything.” She traced the inlaid cask and stars on her brooch. “But I don’t know how to say good-bye.”

  “So don’t say good-bye. Just go! What if everything that happened to Markos and Pa and me …” My voice broke. “What if that was my fate? What if this—all of it—was only about one thing? Getting me to this place, at this time. Kenté, maybe you’re supposed to be right here. On this dock.” I pointed. “Across from that ship. Tonight. What if this is your fate? What if you miss it? You have to—”

  I turned. The moon still shone down on the Valonikos docks, draping the corners in shadows. The Olivios still creaked quietly at anchor.

  But Kenté was gone.

  “Good luck,” I whispered.

  The next morning I slipped out early, for I had errands to run. First I visited the business district, where the buildings were freshly whitewashed and had pots of pink flowers out front. Then, jingling the coins in my pocket, I wandered toward the docks.

  “Caro!” Markos jogged to catch up.

  I waited. “I thought you’d be spending the day with your admirers.”

  “I needed to get away. Nereus said you’d gone out.” He looked at me and laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Your jacket.” He tapped the gilt trim. “It’s just like mine.”

  I pretended to be offended. “It is not. It’s bottle green. Yours is blue.”

  He fell in beside me, and we walked in companionable silence. I snuck sidelong glances at him. He wore a snowy new shirt, but the cravat he had left dangling. I didn’t think the old Markos would have appeared in public looking so sloppy.

  “Caro, I like this city,” he said, hands in pockets, as we threaded through the bustle of the market. A man jostled his shoulder, but he didn’t snap or demand an apology. Almost, I thought he might have shoved back a little. “I like all the commotion. All the ships. I like that it’s proud of being free.”

  “Markos …” I hesitated, unwilling to spoil his fun. “Should you be walking around the docks like this? Isn’t your cousin Konto likely to send more mercenaries? Or assassins?”

  “I’ll hire bodyguards.” He shrugged. “But for now I like walking around by myself. I’ve never done it before.”

  I shook my head. Just like him to get excited about something silly like that. Spotting a food stand, I tugged his sleeve. “Let’s get some fish in a cone.”

  “Fish in a what?”

  “A cone. There’s a place on this street sells the best fish in a cone on the River Kars.”

  He stared at me blankly.

  I’d forgotten I had to explain the simplest things to him. “Fried in bread crumbs and served in a cone of paper.”

  He looked extremely skeptical, but that went away ten minutes later. We walked up the street, our mouths full of flaking, hot fish.

  Markos licked the grease off his fingers. “You should’ve made it like this on the wherry.”

  “I can’t. They fry it in a vat of boiling fat.”

  He made a face. “Sorry I asked.”

  I halted, noticing a shop on the corner, and wiped my hands on my trousers. The sign read Argyrus & Sons, and underneath in smaller letters, Valonikos–Siscema.

  A bell rang as I pushed through the door. The girl at the front desk looked up from her paperwork.

  “This is Argyrus and Sons?” I asked. “The salvagers?”

  “We are as the sign claims,” she agreed. She wore a blue-and-white-striped shirtwaist tucked into trousers. Her face and arms were tanned golden, and her brown hair twisted into a loose bun at the base of her neck. I liked the look of her, a working girl like me.

  “Is Finion Argyrus here?”

  “He’s in Hespera’s Watch on a job,” she said briskly. “I’m Docia Argyrus. The daughter. How can I be of help to you?”

  “Current carry you,” I said. “I didn’t know there was a daughter.”

  Eyes narrowing, she crossed her arms. “It didn’t fit on the sign.”

  “I’m Caroline Oresteia,” I began, drawing a bag of coin from my pocket.

  “The girl pirate.” She examined me head to toe. “Didn’t think to meet you. Interesting.”

  “Privateer,” I corrected. “I took a prize recently. The cutter Victorianos.”

  “I know her.”

  “In her hold she had a chest of silver talents.” I dropped the bag on the table. “I am given to understand that your firm be overseeing the salvage of Jolly Girl and the other wherries as were lost at Hespera’s Watch. I want to pay.”

  She glanced at Markos. If she guessed who he was, she didn’t say.

  “Additionally,” I said, as she got out a pen to write down my instructions, “can you please include in the letter that in the cases of these four men”—I spelled out the names of the wherrymen who had died at the Black Dogs’ fort—“I wish to pay ten talents to each man’s wife or heir.”

  “On top of the other costs?”

  “Ayah.”

  Her pen paused. “That’s an awful lot of coin.”

  “Basil Maki is representing me in this matter. He’s the Kynthessan Consul. So be sure to go to him if you need more money.”

  After we left the shop, Markos refused to speak to me for three whole blocks. “I told you I wanted to do that,” he said in a growl.

  “You haven’t the coin. I have.” I grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop. “I wouldn’t have Vix if it wasn’t for you. So in a way, it’s your money too.”

  “It isn’t,” he said sourly. “While you stole that ship and rescued my sister, I was unconscious and tied up.”

  “Ayah, well, not everyone can be good at everything.” I grinned. “You know what I mean. If I hadn’t met you, none of this would have happened.”

  “I have been thinking that myself,” he admitted. “About how thankful I am that I was fated to meet you.”

  “It was luck.” Even as I said it, I knew it to be a lie.

  “You still believe that, after all this? Think of everyone who helped save Daria and me. All the people we met along the way. The wherrymen, the Bollards, even Nereus. They all have one thing in common.”

  Me.

  This whole time I’d been thinking I was in Markos’s story, but maybe I’d had it backward. Maybe he was in mine. I heard the heron’s leering whisper in my head. Laughter.

  “Caro.” Markos reached for my hand. “I want you to stay. With me.”

  Panicked, I tugged away. My thoughts raced in confusion as I looked somewhere, everywhere—anywhere but at him.

  “Not like that.” He let me go. “Wait. That didn’t come out right.”

  “You better not have meant it like that.” I strode down the cobblestones, my emotions bubbling and boiling in a way I found distinctly unpleasant.

  “Well, I didn’t. Will you stop?” He chased me down the street. “Caro, I didn’t. If only because if I did, you’d probably slap me. Again.” He took a breath. “Let me finish.”

  “You said when we …” I was too embarrassed to continue. “You said there’d be none of that talk.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “But some things have to be said.”

  I stopped to face him. “I don’t want you to change my life.”

  He squinted down at me in the noon sunlight. “It’s a bit too late for that, isn’t it?”

  I remembered what Pa had said. Sometimes we have to let the past go before we can see our future sitting there in front of us.

 
; The world had changed. We could not go back.

  “But I’ve been thinking, a fast cutter has to be of some use to me. I mean, us. I mean …” Markos gathered his words. “What I mean to say is, since you’re not going back to the river, I wish you would sail out of Valonikos. You can be a privateer. For me. I know I don’t have an army, or a fleet.” He shrugged. “But I have to start somewhere.”

  He extended his hand, as working men do to seal a bargain.

  I took it. His fingers were warm in my grip. Lowering my voice so no one else on the street would hear, I said, “Markos Andela, Emparch of Akhaia. Lord of et cetera, et cetera. I will always be your friend. I will sail for you.” I held up my free hand in warning. “Not for Akhaia. For you.”

  He did not kiss me, opting to stay at handshake’s length. I could tell he felt it too—the moment demanded a certain solemnity.

  “Well.” He cleared his throat. “That’s settled, then.”

  For the longest time we stood in the street, grinning stupidly at each other, the fresh wind off the sea flapping our clothes. I slid my hand out of his and started walking, along the boardwalk that led past the warehouses to the maze of docks. Markos strolled beside me, close enough that his sleeve brushed mine.

  “So, do you have any ideas about what we can do with a cutter?” he asked.

  We rounded the corner of the warehouse. “I don’t—”

  I halted halfway through my sentence. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. It was like being shot with a flintlock pistol all over again. It was like being punched in the heart.

  “What?” Markos said, distantly. But I barely heard him.

  Everything had stopped. I was mesmerized by the crisp edges of her bundled-up sails, standing against the blue sky. Her wood and paint shone. Her rigging and stays were all delicacy and grace. The curve of her hull, the shape of her overlapping planks, seemed to me just about perfect. But it was somehow more than that. I felt her essence.

  A surge of thrilling music went through me. And I smiled.

  Because that’s when I saw Vix.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  When I began writing this story, I had a feeling it was the one. I was right, but nevertheless it’s been a long four years from that first draft to this book. The biggest thanks are due to my agent, Susan Hawk, for her enthusiastic support of this book. Thank you to my editor, Cat Onder, who read this manuscript three days after it was submitted. I like to think that means it went to the editor who loved it most. Also a huge thank-you to all the amazing people at both Bloomsbury and the Bent Agency.