by T L Greylock
“You know that’s not true,” Perrin said, opening his eyes. A false smile brightened his face and he swung his feet to the deck. Rising up, he slung his arm around Manon. “She’s very rich. Very beautiful. And very busy with a horde of men asking for her attentions and her father’s consent. Better face it, Manon, I’m not going to be able to marry my way out of our family’s trouble. But,” he went on as Manon began to speak, “I do wish you would tell me why this place of all places is so crucial. Why the race to Toridium? What lies beneath the dirt that is so important we must vie against the might of Firenzia Company for it?”
Manon felt her face tighten. It was not the first time he had asked, and Manon was running out of ways to keep him from understanding she didn’t have an answer. “I don’t know,” she admitted. He’d find out soon enough—the moment, in fact, she directed the crew to start digging. “But my source tells me it’s a complicated contract, and anything tangled that deeply in the courts must be valuable. Especially anything Firenzia wants. ” She didn’t go on to say what she knew they were both thinking: a significant discovery could be the life raft the fading Barca fortunes needed. Manon could not count the number of times she had prayed to gods she did not believe in that her gamble would pay off.
The look on Perrin’s face, that hint of hope brightening his features, reminded Manon of Perrin’s youth, of all the dreams he had once had, and it only strengthened her intent. She had to save him from the dark future smothering their family. At all costs.
“We ought to see the towers soon,” Manon said, shrugging out from under Perrin’s arm.
Her brother sighed and stepped away, that look of casual boredom he had crafted and perfected in such a short amount of time returning to his features.
“Are there any plums in the icebox?”
“Pears, I think,” Manon murmured, straining her eyes to catch sight of something that wasn’t yet there.
Perrin flashed a smile and took the stairs down to the ship’s main deck, the sailors around him going about their business. As he disappeared below deck, Manon let out a sigh of relief, temporary though she knew it would be.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
Manon turned so sharply she nearly lost her balance. The man who had spoken leaned against the far rail, sleeves rolled to the elbow, his sun-browned arms crossed over his chest, dark eyes burrowing into Manon.
Manon drew herself up, filling out the tall frame she so often disguised. “What is between my brother and I is none of your business. You will not speak of it again. Do you understand?”
The man was unperturbed. “The name of de Caraval is one not to be lightly crossed. You know who her parents are. Are you sure you want the full might of the Vice-Chancelier of Arconia bearing down on you?”
Manon crossed the deck until she was face to face with the first mate. He smelled faintly of soap, just as he had in her bed the night before—and more than once before that. The stubble on his cheeks was longer, and showed the merest hint of silver beneath his bottom lip. She regretted the moment of weakness that made her confide in this man and tell him of her fears. “What Perrin deserves is a life filled with every good thing the world has to offer. I intend to see that he has that.”
“And what will you sacrifice in the hope of that?”
Manon’s voice turned fierce and cold. “You presume too much, sir. You are nothing more than a pair of clean hands capable of stringing four or five words together. When we return from this journey, you will no longer have a place on this ship.”
The first mate held Manon’s gaze. “If we return in chains, none of us will have a place on this ship.”
Manon waited, content to be still, to let the silence and the power of time bend the man to her will. At last he dropped his gaze, but he did not leave. Instead, those dark eyes fell on the shore and Manon did not have to look to know the daunting sea cliffs were shrinking, that soon the deep Toridium harbor would split the coast, that in moments the tallest of the five towers of that city would rise into view, its golden cap blazing. She didn’t look ahead; instead, Manon glanced behind, sure she would see the Firenzia ship flying across the waves—but there were only gulls swooping low for fish and the foaming wake of the Carribe. She let herself smile ever so slightly as her heart began to beat a little faster in her chest.
“No, you may not have my pear.”
Manon turned to catch sight of Perrin snatching his hand away from an overeager gull, pear protectively shielded. The bird hovered, white wings flapping at Perrin, who flapped back just as aggressively with his free arm. At last the bird went in search of easier targets, leaving Perrin to triumphantly brandish his unscathed fruit in its direction. He turned to Manon and grinned. She smiled back, though her mind raced with the notion that he might have overheard some portion of her conversation with the first mate.
“There, Manon, the towers of Toridium.” Perrin pointed over her shoulder and Manon turned as the city glided into view. He joined her at the starboard rail, knife slicing deftly through the juicy pear. “Victor told me once the harbor has no bottom.” His gaze dropped to the deep blue of the sea. “Threatened to drop me overboard, as I recall, the first time we came here.”
Manon shivered at the mention of their older brother, unwilling to peel back that particular veil—at least not then, in that moment when she had a taste of victory, however small, over Eska de Caraval and Firenzia Company. It was the first good thing to happen to the Barcas in, well, in far longer than Manon cared to contemplate.
“I know,” she said. “He wanted me to help him, but I told him you were too good at earning extra cakes.”
Perrin scowled. “I’d hardly say extra. You and Victor always snatched them out of my reach before I ever got any. I had to go shed a tear in front of Olla to get my fair share.”
The Carribe, under oar power by then, sails safely stored, began to turn into the narrow harbor mouth. Manon frowned as a small ship, approaching from the city, neglected to deviate from its path, choosing instead to hold the middle of the channel, oars flashing a steady pattern of forward and back, forward and back, to maintain position against the current.
“Manon…,” Perrin said, voice drifting away.
Manon looked deeper into the harbor to see five other ships cruising forward to join the first, their bright red hulls—the Toridua had always been ostentatious—forming an ominous blockade.
“What are they doing?” Perrin asked. The gulls were the only ones to give answer.
Afterwards, Manon could not have said which came first, the thought flashing into her mind to order Captain Ivano not to halt the Carribe or the first mate’s heavy hand on her arm, restraining her. If the latter, well, then the man knew her better than she liked. She looked over her shoulder, meeting his gaze, chest constricting, the spark that lived within her ribcage flaring, asking to be let loose so it might end the man’s presumption in a manner that would sear, quite literally, the memory of his error into him forever. But in the end, it didn’t matter which came first, because the words never left her mouth. Instead, Captain Ivano gave the order for the Carribe to slow, the oars grinding the ship to a hesitant stop. And Manon quelled the spark, turning it to ash, forcing herself to look away from the mate’s eyes.
It was a foolish idea. Of course it was. The Carribe was large enough to damage the harbor patrol, but only at great cost to her own hull. Besides the fact that smashing through the blockade would result in her imprisonment—a rough guess told her that sinking ships and killing sailors was worth the rest of the years of her life—Manon could not risk losing the Carribe; it was the only asset left to Barca Company. But Manon had never been one to tolerate inaction.
A rowboat, neatly and efficiently lowered from one of the patrol ships, sliced through the gentle swell of the waves. Manon joined Captain Ivano at the rail.
“Captain?” Manon asked quietly.
The man shook his head, his grey eyes narrowed to slits as he
watched the rowboat’s approach. “They have no cause for this. None that I can name.”
It was as Manon expected. The Carribe carried no illicit cargo. The sailors were all familiar to Manon—no criminals, no fugitives from the law. The Barca ship had as much right to be in the harbor of Toridium as any other.
“Perhaps it is something going on in the city, and nothing to do with us,” Manon murmured, entirely unconvinced by her own words. Eska de Caraval was at the heart of this. Manon did not know how, but of that she was certain.
The rowboat came alongside the Carribe and Captain Ivano answered the hail from below, granting permission for a pair of harbor officers to climb up to the deck.
Like their red-hulled ships, the officers were clad in long crimson coats trimmed with black braid, buttons gleaming all the way to their chins. Each wore a sword at the hip, and the constellation of stars on the man’s sleeve told Manon he knew how to use it, but it was the woman, tall and broad, who caught her attention.
The spark in Manon’s chest came alive again, recognizing a cousin, though they shared no blood. Not a cousin of fire, no. Manon could not have explained how she knew, but she did. Water, perhaps. Fitting considering the woman’s position.
The other Carrier met Manon’s gaze, but if she, too, felt their shared connection, she gave no indication.
“The harbor is closed,” the woman said. “No ships may enter.”
“Why?” It was Perrin who asked and Manon watched the woman’s sharp gaze flicker to her brother.
“Government business. That is all you need to know.”
“And when will it be opened? We have urgent business of our own,” Manon said.
The woman looked back to Manon, the sharp angles of her cheekbones and the length of her nose giving her every impression of an eagle contemplating an inferior opponent. “When it pleases the Vismarch to do so.”
Manon drifted away, letting Captain Ivano and the harbor officers deal with the necessary exchange of information. She watched as the man took down the ship’s name and purpose in Toridium—a purpose composed of bits of truth and glossed over with a rather large lie. The female officer glanced over at Manon when Captain Ivano named her as the owner of the Carribe. Manon met the woman’s gaze but couldn’t tell if the officer was merely curious or if the name of Barca was familiar to her.
“The Vismarch can go stew his own balls in wine,” Perrin muttered. Manon shot him a warning glance, but her brother was prudent enough to have spoken so only Manon might hear. “What do we do now?”
Manon sighed. “We wait. We do as we are told.” She turned away from the view of the harbor, suddenly very weary of the sight of Toridium. “Victor would have done something, he would not have allowed this delay,” she said, only aware the thought had been spoken aloud when Perrin stepped close, his gaze lit with an anger she was not used to seeing.
“And in doing so, Victor would have gotten every last person on this ship killed,” Perrin whispered fiercely. The anger fled in an instant, replaced so quickly by studied nonchalance Manon could hardly fathom the change. “Do you think the famous Toridium olives are in season? I should very much like to have some while we’re here.”
It was not a question Manon was meant to answer and as she turned her attention to the departing harbor officers, she found herself wishing, for the first time in four years, her father were there to take control—and then hating herself for that wish, that weakness. Julian Barca could never help her again, nor did she want him to.
***
The ships came with the dusk. A pair of them slipping along the coast, sleek and dark in the dying light.
“The Archduke’s flag,” the first mate said. He had stood watch with Manon, to her irritation, apparently having no duties to attend to. Whether he did so out of some misplaced sense of affection or because he wished to see her humbled after her harsh words to him, Manon did not know nor care, and she would have ordered him away but for the fact that doing so would leave her alone with Perrin and with her own thoughts, neither of which she wanted the sole burden of entertaining.
“That explains it then, an official delegation. Surely not the Archduke himself?” There was no lingering trace of Perrin’s anger, a fact that was nearly as disconcerting as its appearance had been in the first place. “Nothing to do with us, at any rate.”
“No,” Manon said, for her gaze had shifted to the second ship, slightly smaller but no less impressive. “Everything to do with us.” She gestured to the ships. “It might pretend to be a ducal delegation, but it’s Firenzia. See that second flag? That bitch is using her family name to ensure she gains entry into Toridium before we do.”
“Can she do that?” Perrin sounded more confused than irritated.
“She can’t. But she has. The delegation would be expected. She knew it was her only chance. But she’s mistaken if she thinks she’ll get away with it. The Vismarch won’t like knowing she flew the Archduke’s colors for her own gain.” Manon smiled. “If they discover it soon enough, they may not even let her into the city—or worse.”
“You’re wrong there.” The first mate’s words sent Manaon’s lips into a curl. “It’s no ruse.” He handed her a looking glass. “Look more closely at the first ship.”
Manon put the glass to her eye and scanned the approaching ship. Huffing her impatience, she removed the glass. “What am I looking for?”
“If I’m not mistaken, the woman on the aft deck is the Ambassador-Superior herself. It’s a delegation all right, a real one. They’ll be in the city before full dark and we’ll still be floating out here at the Vismarch’s pleasure.”
Manon lifted the glass once more and adjusted it until she could see the woman clearly. She would have liked to have proven the first mate wrong, but she had seen the Ambassador-Superior from a distance often enough to accept that the tall woman, her dark-hair pulled back from her face in a regal style, her heavy cloak sculpting her into some sort of sea goddess of old, was in fact Sorina de Caraval. Manon swung the glass to the second ship, looking for the ambassador’s daughter.
There. At the prow, leaning over the rail, pointing to the porpoises that had come to welcome the ships to the harbor—of course there were porpoises to announce her arrival. She was laughing with delight, oblivious to the Carribe and the harbor blockade, which was moving aside to allow them passage.
But then Eska de Caraval looked up.
She could not have seen Manon, not in the dying light and at that distance. But Manon would have sworn on the memory of her dead brother that Eska was looking straight at her, the laughter gone from her face, leaving behind a steady gaze—was that a smirk?—interrupted only by the strands of hair blowing across her features.
It was the steadiness that did it, Manon decided later, that look of composure, of knowing full well that she had won, that she was superior.
Manon threw down the looking glass and scrambled for the small leather case belted around her torso, her fingers fumbling for the clasps. She withdrew the copper device, the metal cold against her skin, and the silver vial, her hands shaking as she unscrewed the device’s lower chamber.
“Manon! No!”
Perrin’s voice broke through, but Manon did not dare look at him, did not dare contemplate the consequences of revealing her secret to the crew. Taking a deep breath, she steadied herself and unstoppered the vial, taking care not to breathe in the toxic fumes. She ought to be wearing gloves. She ought to be holding the device on a steady, even surface, not cradling it to her chest against the whims of the sea. Manon tilted the vial, inhaling sharply as the Carribe rocked and it nearly slipped from her grasp. She felt the sting of the fumes burn her nostrils and a small part of her wondered if she had inhaled enough to kill her. But at last her hands were steady as she poured the contents of the vial into the chamber, the particles, gleaming like ivory, whispering against the copper. Casting aside the empty vial, Manon stood, ignoring the warning shouts of the men around her. The ships wer
e beyond them now, driving onward past the harbor patrol. Manon caught sight of Eska’s figure at the rail once again, blurring into something shapeless as the toxic substance went to work on Manon’s senses. She could feel the telltale tingling in her ears and the heat in her gums. Closing her eyes, Manon took the deepest breath she could manage, summoning the fire that lingered in her ribcage, willing it to occupy the air inside the chamber, to ignite the particles. A hand fell on her wrist, Perrin’s or the first mate’s, she did not know. She shrugged it aside.
Manon opened her eyes, aimed, released.
And missed.
Black smoke billowed in the air, but all that was left of the contents of the vial was a sizzle on the waves and a faint spray of salt water. The Firenzia ship sailed on, unscathed.
Someone was shouting. Not Perrin. The harbor patrol ships were closing on them, churning over the waves. Manon swayed, no longer able to focus.
“That’s all,” she heard herself murmur. “Could only afford…one vial.” Manon sought Perrin’s face at last, a blurry mask of distaste and sorrow greeting her there, and then she felt her knees give out. Her mouth was on fire, her limbs trembled wildly as she sagged against the rail. More shouting. A hand reaching for her. The ship rocked violently, her own convulsions, she realized distantly. And then she was overboard, the sea claiming her.
Interlude 2
Excerpt from Corin and Bravi’s Genuine & Noble Bulletin
BARCA BANKRUPT!
In the wake of the Abrupt and Mysterious sentencing of Notorious fortune hunter Julian Barca—may he rot for one Thousand years—Scandal and Justice continue to descend on the Barca family. Barca Company, that foul bed of Corruption and Villainy, has been declared Bankrupt, having violated all Laws of Good & Honest business.
