Song of the Current Read online

  I didn’t know. She was right—we didn’t get down south much.

  Seeing the question in my eyes, she leaned in close. “The Black Dogs.”

  “Black Dogs?” My head shot up. “This far up the river?”

  Everyone knew to steer clear of the Black Dogs, an Akhaian mercenary crew—pirates, really—whose fast ships terrorized the Neck, the long saltwater bay in the southern riverlands. Now I knew why Captain Krantor wasn’t keen on putting together a crew. Standing against the Black Dogs was a good way to get yourself dead.

  “Pirates,” hissed Fee. She dipped a long green finger into her beer and pulled it out again, examining the bubbles on her fingertip. Captain Brixton paid this no mind. Wherry captains were used to the frogmen’s odd mannerisms.

  “There’s something gods-cursedly fishy about this whole business. They didn’t even take nothing.” Captain Brixton took a big pull from her half-empty mug. “First Black Dogs, and now soldiers.”

  “You ought to slow down, is what,” Captain Krantor told her.

  “And you ought to mind your own business, old man.”

  I pushed my beer away, untouched. If pirates had set fire to those wherries, they might attack others. My thoughts leaped to Cormorant, anchored alone and unprotected out there on the river. Those pirates hadn’t been looking to capture prizes or coin. Their purpose was to destroy, and with six cannons they were well equipped to do it.

  “Black Dogs.” My throat was hoarse. “I have to tell Pa.”

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  Only one guard was posted outside the harbor master’s office. Not much older than me, he slouched on a bench on the porch, picking at a hangnail. I strode past him.

  “Hey!” he cried belatedly, leaping to his feet with an armored clatter. “You’re not supposed to—”

  I banged through the screen door. “Pa!” I gasped, out of breath. “It’s the Black Dogs.”

  Pa sat in a spindly-legged chair, arguing with the harbor master across a cluttered desk. “Now look here, Jack—” He broke off, turning at the sound of my voice. “What?”

  Commander Keros stood behind the harbor master, arms folded. The last of the sunset slanted in through the blinds, lighting up dust motes on the air and sparkling on his sword hilt. The office was lined with glass-fronted cabinets stuffed with curios from around the riverlands.

  “I—I heard the news in the tavern,” I stammered, suddenly embarrassed by the weight of the strangers’ eyes on me. “Captain Brixton says the ship belonged to Diric Melanos.”

  Pa’s head snapped up. He recognized the name even if I didn’t.

  The commander’s mouth tightened. “A fish story from a bunch of wherrymen. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  I heard the scuff of heavy boots behind me. Two soldiers stood on either side of the door. Startled, I stepped back, bumping the glass cabinet and causing the articles inside to shift with a rattle.

  “Those wherrymen are my friends.” Pa cut a grand figure with his long red hair and his shirt laid casually open at the collar, exposing the faded tattoos on his chest. “I trust them more than I trust the likes of you.”

  Commander Keros turned to me. “What do you mean barging in here, girl? This is a private meeting.”

  Pa sat up straight. “Whatever it is you have to say to me, my daughter can hear it.”

  “This girl is your daughter?” The commander studied me in a way I was, unfortunately, plenty familiar with. I tried to ignore the prickly feeling as his eyes crawled over me.

  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 mast
er’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 …

  “Put that knife away, Caroline.”

  I stared down at my hands in surprise. I hadn’t realized I’d unsheathed the blade. Everything had happened so fast. My shock was so great, I stepped backward. My legs hit the chair, and I dropped into it.

  A commander of the Margravina’s army. And I’d pulled a knife on him.

  But he didn’t seem as if he was about to hang me. Or arrest me. Indeed he did not seem to regard me as a threat at all. The commander glanced in the glass above the harbor master’s desk, straightening his uniform coat. He looked almost bored by the proceedings.

  Returning the blade to its sheath, I sprang up. “What about my father?”

  “Your father will be conveyed to one of the prison ships in Iantiporos.” He opened the door. “He will be assigned an advocate, as is his right under the law.”

  “This isn’t fair.” I followed him onto the porch. I’d heard gruesome stories of those ships, where hundreds of men lay in chains and filth awaiting trial for crimes against the Margravina. “You had no gods-damned business boarding our wherry without our leave.”

  “Vulgarity doesn’t impress me,” the commander said. “I don’t tolerate it from my young soldiers, and I don’t care for it from you either.”

  Well, I wasn’t one of his soldiers, so he didn’t have a say.

  The men marched Pa around the corner of the building. Fee jumped off the railing and scrambled after them. As soon as they were out of my sight, a pang of uncertainty pierced me.

  The commander was already at the bottom of the porch steps. “What about Cormorant?” I called, anger thickening my voice.

  “Your wherry is under impoundment. It will be confiscated and put under the control of the harbor master.”

  A wherry was a “she,” not an “it.” I burned with resentment. “What about me and Fee? Where are we supposed to go?”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to take that up with your father. It was he who made the choice, not I.”

  “You didn’t give him any choice.” I jogged to keep up with his long strides.

  “I might remind you, Miss Oresteia, that smuggling is a crime in these waters.” He raised his eyebrows. “And since it is perfectly obvious that you and the frogman were complicit, one could say you’re getting off easy.”

  “What if I pay the fine?”

  He stopped. “Very well.” I could tell from his voice that his temper was growing short. “If you can produce sixty silver talents and pay them to the harbor master, you can have your gods-bedamned father and your gods-bedamned boat.”

  He knew I didn’t have that much money. He was toying with me. I swallowed around the bitter lump in my throat.

  The commander smirked down at me, as if I were a clump of dirt under his boot. “Good day.”

  The beginning of an idea is like the wake behind your boat when you first shove off from the dock, nothing but little bubbles twirling in a lazy circle. But then it deepens and picks up speed, until there’s a frothy white wave trailing away from your stern. My idea started like that—a tiny flicker of bravery that grew.

  “Commander Keros!” I ran to catch up. “Wait!”

  “What is it now?” he barked, voice crisp and commanding. I realized he’d been holding back before, but now his patience seemed to have worn through.

  “I’ll deliver your cargo.” There was no way he couldn’t hear my heart pounding. “I know the way to Valonikos like the back of my hand,” I said. “And I know Cormorant. I’ve been sailing her my whole life. I reckon that makes me a better bet than any of those other captains.” In truth, I wasn’t sure of that at all.

  “Well.” The commander’s gaze swept over me. I held my breath. “Then I suppose, Miss Oresteia, we shall need a contract.”

  The harbor master looked up from his account books in surprise as we reentered the office. The carpet was still rumpled near the door where my father had fought back against the soldiers. I dragged my eyes away, settling myself stiffly in the chair. Then I remembered how Pa had sprawled, as if he didn’t care. I forced myself to lean back until my shoulder blades touched wood.

  The commander drew a fancy piece of parchment from his coat pocket, unrolling it flat on the table. “This is a letter of marque, Miss Oresteia. Do you know exactly what that entails?”

  Numbly I shook my head.

  “The Margravina is the ruler of Kynthessa—”

  “I know that,” I snapped. “I’m not an idiot.”

  He went on. “A captain with a letter from the Margravina in her possession cannot be detained or questioned. Anything she does, any action, even murder or an act of piracy, it is understood that she does in the service of the Margravina.” He tapped the parchment. “You’re a privateer now. If anyone gives you trouble, you’re to show them this letter.”

  I thought of the Black Dogs, in that cutter with the four-pound cannons. If I showed them a piece of paper, they’d likely laugh in my face. And then shoot me. But I kept that thought to myself.

  “You’ll deliver the crate to the Akhaian Consulate in Valoni
kos. Upon completion of your contract, you shall be paid ten silver talents.”

  Ten silver talents was an incredible sum of money, far more than a cargo of one crate was worth.

  “And if I do this,” I said carefully, “if I take this shipment to Valonikos, no questions asked, et cetera, whatever. If I do this, you’ll let Pa go free? Drop all charges?”

  “You’re not exactly in a position to bargain here.”

  I heard Pa’s voice in the back of my head. You’re always in a position to bargain. If they think you’re not, all the better. You’ve already got them. I shrugged. “Fine. I guess we don’t have a deal.”

  The commander’s jaw twitched. “This shipment must be on the wherry and out of Hespera’s Watch within the hour, either with you or another captain.”

  I gripped the chair arms. “You wouldn’t dare.” But I knew he would. Deep inside me, a small voice wondered if Cormorant wouldn’t be safer in the hands of Captain Brixton or Captain Krantor.

  “Calm down, Miss Oresteia.” He sighed. “Finding another crew would take time. Attempting to reason with your unreasonable father would, again, take time. Time is what I don’t have.”

  “Why don’t you take the box yourself, if it’s that important?”

  “My men and I are bound across the border for Akhaia,” he said. “There’s … unrest in the capital. We go to look out for the Margravina’s interests there.”

  “The box isn’t one of her interests?”

  “Young lady, we’re soldiers, not carters or wherrymen,” he said dismissively, as if a carter or a wherryman was a person far beneath the commander of a military company. A person of little consequence. He shrugged. “We all do as we must.”

  I understood his meaning. He was telling me our conversation was at a close. Now I must do what I must.

  “The Margravina wants me in Akhaia, not squandering precious hours in this dirty little town,” he said. “Your terms are acceptable. If you deliver the crate to the dock inspector in Valonikos, your father will be a free man. For the time being, he shall remain here in the harbor master’s custody.”