“What things?” I pretended interest in a book that gave me a reason to turn slightly in her direction.
“That some captains are looking for a different kind of cargo these days,” Lucy replied. “Apparently there are men in other parts of Cel-Romano who want to buy unspoiled goods.” She returned the first book to the cart and picked up another. “Starr asked my father if I was unspoiled goods. He asked if you were. And he wasn’t just asking about girls.”
My stomach rolled.
“There are cities around the Mediterran that are filled with supplies and hard-to-find goods that can be had just for the asking, but... things... are hunting in those cities now, so most people who go in to find the goods don’t get out alive,” Lucy said.
“Nimble orphan boys might be able to get in and out. A couple of times anyway.”
She nodded. “That’s a possibility. But girls like us...” She shuddered.
It wasn’t likely that Captain Starr was acting as a marriage broker.
“I’ll buy this one so no one thinks to say anything about me standing here so long.” Lucy held up the book. “I hope I like it.”
She went into the shop to purchase the book. I hurried away and finished the errands for Mara.
That night I sat at the open window clutching the silver coins.Fear of what might happen the next time Captain Starr’s ship was spotted on the horizon filled me, leaving room for nothing else. I tried to convince myself that, at worst, it wasn’t any different than Mara wanting to sell me for an alley hump, but itwasdifferent. What I couldn’t sense was how it was different or why it felt dangerous.
I looked at the coins in my hand. One transaction with theterra indigene. One chance.
What did I truly want? To get away from Pyetra? Oh, yes, I wanted that. But what about Lucy? What about the orphans the villagers would justify selling to Starr as cargo?
As I sat at my window, the wind brought the smell of the sea—and I had a feeling that it wasn’t yet time to ask for the thing I wanted.
A week after Captain Starr’s ship left Pyetra, other merchant vessels docked at the wharf or dropped anchor in the harbor. As the crews from those ships came ashore, so did the stories.
The dark ship had been sighted several times. Given that some of the ships had been sailing to Pyetra from the eastern side of the Mediterran while others had sailed from the west, I wondered if there was more than one dark ship. It seemed likely, but I was interested in only one.
Stories spoken quietly, fearfully, of spotting another ship that was suddenly engulfed in an unnatural fog. Seeing the flames as the ship burned. Hearing the screams of the men.
Or seeing a ship sail out of a bank of fog that dissipated in minutes. Finding what was left of the bodies of the crew—some drained of blood, some torn apart by a shark, and some with that queer round hole in their chests that looked similar to the mark alamprey left on fish but so much bigger and so much worse when that mark was left on a man.
Or a wave rising out of nowhere, topping a ship’s masts before the ship rolled, broke apart, and sank.
Or a whirlpool appearing in front of a ship, pulling it down—and men swearing they saw a giant steed galloping round and round the edge of the whirlpool until it, and the whirlpool, vanished.
They whispered about their own ships suddenly becalmed, leaving them helpless as a dark ship, its black sails full with an unnatural wind, caught up to them, drew up alongside—and then sailed past. And how the wind that had disappeared when the dark ship appeared on the horizon suddenly filled the sails again, allowing them to reach the next port.
Stories spoken quietly, fearfully, by men who’d had to sail past slaughter—and who wondered what cargo had provoked that kind of rage.
We found out what kind of cargo when Captain Starr returned to Pyetra.
I’d barely had an hour’s sleep when Mara shook me awake.
“Get up,” she said in a fierce whisper. “Get dressed and come downstairs. And be quick about it.”
“But...”
“Be quick or you’ll have nothing but your nighty.”
The thought of wearing nothing but my nighty and being downstairs with men who had been to sea for a few weeks was enough to wake me up. My fingers shook as I pulled on my underwear and buttoned my shirt and skirt, put on my socks and half boots. I’d made a little pouch from a scrap of cloth in order to hidethe silver coins and keep them with me—and hidden from Mara. I pinned the pouch to the back of the skirt’s pocket, then slipped my folding knife into the pocket.
As I reached for the shawl I’d folded over the back of my chair, the door opened again.
“You won’t need that.” Mara grabbed my arm and dragged me down the stairs with such haste we came close to falling.
As she pulled me into the tavern’s main room, I saw Captain Starr—and I knew.
