Page 86 of Saint
Clove, Isolde, and I sat on the edge of the slip, our feet dangling out over the water where theAsterhad been anchored only a few days ago. Now, it was on its way to Ceros with Burke at the helm. Clove had gone up to the ridge that looked over the harbor to watch them sail it away, but I hadn’t had it in me. My blood was nailed into the hull of that ship. My bones had built it. There was a version of myself that would live in its skeleton for as long as it sailed the Narrows. And when it found its end in the deep, it would take that part of me with it.
Clove lifted the rye, refilling our glasses. We’d swiped one of the good bottles from the barkeeper and our only plan between now and morning was to finish it, with the exception of the meeting I had scheduled at the tavern.
“How much?” Clove asked, swallowing the rye down.
He and Isolde had been at it for hours—working out the plans that needed to come together in order for us to start dredging the Snare. Equipment, coin, schedules.
“Another hundred or so,” she answered.
Clove hissed, pouring yet another glass.
When I first told Clove about Isolde’s idea to dredge Tempest Snare, he’d looked like he was going to be sick. The fishermen from Cragsmouth didn’t sail those waters because there were too many dead souls in them. Narrow waterways flowed around half-submerged masts and toothlike coral where a vast stretch of reef had eaten up scores of ships, blown into shallows by erratic, angry storms. There was no telling what kind of hauls were sunk there, and anyone who’d been foolish enough to go looking hadn’t come out.
It wouldn’t just make us rich. It would fund the first fleet of the Narrows to take on the Saltblood bastards who sucked the blood from its veins.
“Lines and hauling crates aren’t free, Clove. And we can’t dive without them,” she continued.
“Then we’ll have the cost of the turnover.”
“Not much.” She let herself lie back on the wooden planks between us, staring at the rafters overhead. “Most of what we find down there will be in the hulls of sunken ships. Those stones and metals will be clean and cut for the most part.”
I hadn’t thought of that.
Clove gave me an approving look over her head. We were learning by the day just how much she knew about trade and merchants and the inner workings of the guilds. That was worth tenfold what she could do with the gems.
“When will the map be finished?” Isolde turned her head to look at me.
“Another month. Maybe two.”
“There isn’t a helmsman or a merchant in the Narrows who won’t pay for one.”
She was right about that too. “Best not to make it known where it came from. I know a forger in Sowan who can make the copies and sell them.”
“A forger?”
Clove tossed the bit of frayed rope he’d been winding around his finger into the water. “They do more than copy contracts and signatures. He’s set up for it.”
“So, what? You take a cut?”
“Cuts are the safest way to make coin in these waters,” I said. I’d learned that the hard way. The minute people could trace a fortune to you, you were a dead man. “Cuts of the maps, cuts of Henrik’s hauls, cuts of the rye… that’s how we’ll fund the dives.”
They both looked satisfied with that. The plan was a solid one, built in levels that couldn’t cave in on one another. That was the only way to build the kind of trade we were undertaking.
“We’ll be swimming in copper in ten years’ time,” Clove murmured.
“But that won’t be enough,” I said absently. “Not as long as it’s gems that run the trade.”
Isolde sat back up, shifting to turn and face me. “What do you mean?”
I shook my head. “You were right. Gems aren’t the answer. There are more gem merchants in the Unnamed Sea than ships in the Narrows. More reefs to dredge. More guild members. We’ll never beat them at it,” I thought aloud. “But maybe we don’t have to.”
Clove was listening now, his eyes sharpening. “What are you thinking?”
I took the bottle from his hand, turning it over so that the label faced me. “What’s the one thing you can sell at any port, no matter its size?”
I handed the bottle to Isolde and she set down her glass, taking it from me. “Rye?”
“We’re already trading rye,” Clove said, still not catching on.
