My mother resembled a classical bronze statue, tall and stern.She gave me her brown skin and long, slender neck, but the freckles and the auburn shade of my tightly coiled curls came from my father. In the coastal cities, it’s common to see folk with mixed heritage. But in the inner riverlands, especially here, near the Akhaian border, my appearance stuck out. The commander looked back and forth between the two of us, like we were a puzzle to be figured out.
Pa ignored him. “Melanos and the Black Dogs, this far north?” He shook his head. “It don’t make sense.”
Drawing a rolled-up parchment from inside his coat, the commander tapped it in his palm. “As I was saying, Captain Oresteia, there is a certain … shipment … resting in the warehouse. We want you to deliver it to Valonikos.”
The Free City of Valonikos, an independent city-state to the northeast, was a week’s journey by wherry. I was familiar with the run, which traversed two different rivers, but it wasn’t one we made very often. Pa preferred to work the route between Trikkaia and Iantiporos. The money was better.
“That’s the pitch?” Pa’s eyes flashed with anger. “That’s all you got to say? Looks to me like eleven friends of mine got burned out because the Black Dogs were looking for this shipment of yours. Didn’t expect me to put two and two together and make four, did you now?”
It was the harbor master who spoke. “Run the shipment to Valonikos, and the smuggling charges go away. It’s the best deal I’m prepared to—”
“What charges?” I interrupted. “What’s going on?”
The harbor master narrowed his eyes. “Don’t bother playing innocent. That crate you’re hauling is filled with muskets and enough shot to make trouble.”
Smuggling was a time-honored tradition in the riverlands. We dabbled in it, as did plenty of other wherries. Certain men would pay good coin to have an undocumented cargo transported across the border, no questions asked. It wasn’t as if those muskets were going into the hands of criminals—their destination was a group of Akhaian rebels, exiled from their country for printing a pamphlet the Emparch hadn’t liked. Pa had a soft spot for them, and often smuggled them supplies and packets of letters from their homeland.
“How do you know about—” Cheeks flaming, I balled my hands into fists.
Of course. While Fee and I were in the Spar and Splice, the commander’s men had been stomping their muddy boots all over Cormorant. They had no right to board our wherry without permission.
Pa’s face was tight around the jaw. “Maybe I broke some rules with those crates, Jack,” he said. “But you be breaking some yourself with that search and seizure.”
I stepped forward. “This is blackmail.”
Commander Keros ignored me. “Captain Oresteia, I’m prepared to give you a letter of marque,” he said. “Authorizing you to use any and all force necessary to get that shipment up to Valonikos.”
“A letter of marque?” Pa’s voice curled up.
“Ahem.” The harbor master turned red around the edges. “The fact is, you are the only ship in Hespera’s Watch that wasn’t destroyed by the fire.”
“Begging your pardon, Jack, but Cormorant is a wherry. We’re equipped to haul cargo. How d’you want me to stay clear of the Black Dogs? Outrun ’em? Such an endeavor would require more speed than we have. Not wishing to be impolite, of course. But you catch my meaning.”
“I think I know what a wherry is, thanks, Nick.”
My curiosity getting the better of me, I turned to the harbor master. “What’s the cargo?”
It had to be something important. Something dangerous. Why else would the Black Dogs leave their territory in the southern waters to come all the way up here? And why would the commander go to all this trouble, searching our wherry and trying to intimidate us with soldiers?
The harbor master shuffled his sheaf of papers. “I can’t say.”
“Then I can’t run it to Valonikos. Caro’s right.” Pa flicked the papers. “You ain’t meaning for us to have a choice, are you? It’s bad of you, Jack.” He looked at the harbor master. “How long you been knowing my father?”
“Your father would never have touched them smuggled guns, an’ you know it.”
Pa laughed. “I know my father was very good at what he did. I’ll say no more than that.”
I bit back a smile. My grandpa had been a notorious smuggler, but of course the harbor master had never caught him.
The harbor master’s lips pulled to one side. I could see Pa hadn’t exactly endeared himself with that comment. “You’ll take this crate to Valonikos.”
Pa could handle old Jack. It was the commander I was worried about. He had the air of a man not used to being denied.
“I’ve already got a cargo,” Pa said evenly. “Got a full load of timber for Siscema. Or have you confiscated that as well? You won’t, for you haven’t got the crane and levers to unload it, not with the docks in ashes. Nor have you the right. The paperwork on that timber is in perfect order.” He tapped the table. “As for this crate of yours, maybe a few years ago. Not now. I got my daughter with me, Jack.”
I bristled at that. Pa always talked about the Oresteias’ proud history as smugglers and cannon dodgers and scalawags. We were the perfect wherry for the commander’s cargo run. A tiny thread of indignation twisted in my chest. I couldn’t hear the god at the bottom of the river yet, but I reckoned I could throw a knife as well as anyone. I wasn’t a child.
“Pa, I think—”
He quelled me with a stern look. “’Fraid it’s a no go. I don’t deliver cargo unless I know what it is, especially something that brings danger to me and my crew. You want someone who’ll take your coin in the blink of an eye with no questions, you ought to talk to Bollard Company.”
The Bollards were a powerful merchant family with a reputation for being somewhat ruthless. I reckoned they could afford to take on a contract like this—they had buckets of money and owned dozens of ships. More importantly, they had cannons.
Pa’s grip tightened on the arms of the chair. “I’m a free wherryman,” he said, and I knew he was preparing to stand up and leave. “I don’t have to run your errands for you.”
The commander smiled. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
The soldiers seized Pa’s arms, dragging him up out of the chair, which toppled with a bang. He kicked the shortest man, attempting to sweep his legs out from under him. But he might as well have been trying to knock over a tree.
“Pa!” I lunged forward, my hand hovering over the hilt of my knife.
My father jerked in the hold of the soldiers, his muscles straining. He blew strands of hair out of his reddened face. “Caro! Stay out of it!”
The commander waved to his men.
“It’s too bad we couldn’t come to an arrangement,” he said calmly as they shoved Pa out the door. “But fortunately there are eleven wherrymen in the Spar and Splice who currently find themselves without wherries. One of them will agree.”
“No!” My voice cracked. The idea of someone besides us sailing Cormorant made me sick. She was our home. “You can’t! She’s ours.” My mind raced with all the things that could go wrong. The Black Dogs might sink her. I might never see her again.
The commander turned to me. “What’s your name, girl?”
“Caroline.” I glared fire at him. If he called me “girl” one more time …