Page 5 of Saint
She was a schooner with two masts and a hull that would hold more than enough cargo for us to get our trade off the ground. Most important, she was ours. Or she would be once I handed this purse of coin over.
The last time we’d seen her, the masts hadn’t been standing. Now they reached up into the rafters that arched over our heads, where a few silver-feathered pigeons were perched in crumbling straw nests. The ship was set onto braces that stretched out over the open black water below. In a few weeks, she would be lowered into the sea for the first time and we’d be raising the sails.
I met Clove’s eyes. There was the faint shadow of a smirk on his lips. He was thinking the same thing. Somehow, we’d pulled this thing off. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure how.
“Thought I heard coin jingling,” Rosamund’s raspingvoice called out from the deck above. She peered down at us over the railing of the starboard side before climbing down to the platform.
Nash crossed his arms over his chest, still sneering. “You sure you can handle a ship like this one? I’d hate to see it sail away just to hear it’s sunk a week later.”
“We do the building, not the sailing, Nash,” Rosamund said, jumping down from the ladder with a grunt. “What do you care, as long as you get paid?”
She pulled the straps of her heavy tool belt from her shoulders and loosened the buckle at her waist. When she was free of it, she reached up, kneading the tight muscles at the back of her neck. Rosamund wasn’t a slight woman, but the bulky shipwright’s gear made her look it.
“All right. Get on with it.” She wasn’t a gentle woman either.
I reached into my jacket and pulled the purse free, setting it into her open hand. She felt its weight before she passed it to Nash, and he found a seat at the small table against the wall to begin counting right away.
“How many days?” I asked, watching him carefully as he opened the purse.
Rosamund turned the merchant’s ring on her finger, thinking. The silver was dinged and bent up from the work she did, but the stone at its center marked her as an approved merchant by the Shipwrights Guild. If Nash was lucky, one day he’d wear one too.
“I’d say we’ll have her sea ready by the next full moon, give or take a few days.”
Clove took a step toward the edge of the platform and reached up, running a hand over the smooth wood planks that stretched to the bow. There was a rare tenderness in the touch. He’d waited a long time for this. We both had.
“But I gotta say,” Ros sighed, “those fools up at the tavern are gettin’ more curious by the day.”
Clove’s gaze slid to meet mine. That was a problem. We weren’t the only ones trying to establish a Narrows-born trading operation, and there was no shortage of helmsmen who’d see this ship burn before they let us get ahead of them in that line. We’d managed to keep theAstera secret while it was being built, but if people in Dern found out Rosamund was building a ship for us, that would catch attention. And not just from the helmsmen of the Narrows who stopped here. The Saltbloods didn’t want to lose their hold on trade, and one more ship sailing wouldn’t do them any favors. We didn’t need anyone sniffing around and finding out just how close we were.
Rosamund set her hands on her hips impatiently. “How’re we lookin’, Nash?”
“So far so good,” he grunted, taking his time with each stack of coin.
When I realized he was only halfway through the purse, I pulled the watch from my pocket to check the time again. It was nearly half past the hour, and I knew what happened when I was late. My next appointment wouldn’t wait for me, no matter how long we’d been doing business.
“Go.” Clove jerked a chin toward the door. “I’ll finish up here and meet you at the tavern for the count.”
I nodded, snapping the watch closed and dropping it back into my jacket. I pulled my cap on and started toward the door, but I looked back once more before I pushed out into the rain.
TheAsterglowed in the lantern light, the gleaming wood as smooth as the morning sea. She wasn’t just a ship. She was an idea. She was the thing I’d risked my neck for a hundred times over the last two years and my chance at a trade license, along with a crest of my own. But theAsterwasn’t just going to change things for me and Clove. She was going to change things for the Narrows.
2SAINT
Three chimneys rose from the mist over the only tavern in Dern, smoke billowing from their narrow, blackened mouths.
In the two years I’d been stopping in the village, I’d never seen the tavern empty. There was no merchant’s house here, even though there was a growing trade, and that meant the tavern was the place of business for anyone stopping through, including me.
The roar of voices came tumbling out onto the street as I opened the doors, and the humid warmth of the fire in the stone fireplace at the back hit me like a wall. I was never on dry land long enough to rid my bones of the chill or fully dry the damp from my clothes, but the smell of burning wood reminded me of the days before I’d given my life to the sea.
The door closed behind me and I instinctively rolled myshoulders. I didn’t like being closed in by four walls and I didn’t like the feeling of solid earth beneath my feet. I preferred the openness of the water, where you could at least see what was coming for you on the horizon.
The barkeeper gave me a nod in greeting when he spotted me, immediately turning toward the wall of bottles behind him and reaching for the one that quite literally had my name on it. Barkeepers made a nice side profit on pouring watered-down rye for patrons once they were a few drinks in, pocketing the excess coin. The first time I’d caught him filling my glass with it, I’d drawn my knife from my belt so quickly that he didn’t even have time to stopper it.
I could see that look—the one that flashed in the eyes of the people who’d heard the stories about the helmsman of theRiven.In those tales, I’d made a pact with sea demons to spare my ship from storms and offered my own crew as sacrifices to the sea. I was mad. Reckless. Just asking to meet my death out on the water.
The barkeeper hadn’t tried cutting my rye again, and I doubted he would since I kept him stocked with Sowan’s best bottle. I couldn’t blame him for trying, but Clove and I weren’t just two kids from a fishing village who’d washed up in the harbor. And I counted on him to make sure I didn’t look cheap in front of my guest.
I leaned on the counter with both hands, waiting as he pulled the bottle from its place on the wall. He set it down, followed by two small green glasses.
