Fable (Fable #1)(22)
Only a few beams of waning sunlight cast down from the quarterdeck above, hitting the cases and cylinder drums that lined the walls. The room was full of them, stamped with different seals I recognized, identifying the ports that were scattered along the inlets of the Narrows. From the looks of their inventory, the Marigold did well for themselves. And with only five purses between them, profits had to be good.
What was less clear was how they’d been able to establish trade in this many ports as a new crew, especially a young one. Everyone on the ship couldn’t be much older than me, and although it wasn’t unusual to see young people crewing trading ships, it was strange not to see a single seasoned sailor among them.
Nets and lengths of newly made rope were piled beside sheets of neatly folded canvas and baskets of green tomatoes. But there were always goods on a ship a coin master didn’t want anyone to see. I’d learned that as a child, snooping through the cargo of the Lark.
I turned in a circle, studying the stacks around me carefully. Every ship had its hiding places, and this one was no different.
Except that it was.
Something about the Marigold and its crew was off. I could guess what happened to their dredger, but why were they running only five crew on a ship that really needed twelve? What was West doing at the coral islands and what in Dern had them rattled?
I hung the lantern on the hook and lifted myself up onto my tiptoes, fitting my hands into the grooves of the beams overhead. My fingers followed each one down the length of the hull, moving slowly until they hit the smooth, cool glass of a bottle wedged between the wood. I worked it free and held it to the light, where the amber liquid was turned green by the color of the blue glass. I uncorked it, giving it a sniff.
Rye.
A sly grin pulled at the cut on my lip before I tipped my head back, taking a long drink. The rye burned in my chest until I coughed, swallowing with my eyes pinched closed. A hundred candlelit memories flashed in my mind as the sharp, sweet scent of the rye exploded in my nose, and I immediately stoppered the bottle, tucking it back into its hiding place, as if the visions might disappear with it.
I jumped down and checked the boards in the walls next, taking the knife from my belt and knocking the ends of each plank until one loosened. It swung up, and I reached inside, my hand finding a cinched linen pouch. The pale yellow gems spilled out into my palm and I tilted my hand toward the hazy light. At first glance, they looked like citrine. But my mother had taught me better than that.
The facets that gathered the faint hue at their crests gave them away—yellow feldspar.
They were good pieces, the light scattering evenly on their faces. It wouldn’t be the only gems they had hidden, but they would be easily missed if I took even one. I needed something else. Something less conspicuous.
I dropped the pouch back into its hiding place and lifted the lids of barrel after barrel until one of them held something that shined in the darkness. Brass buckles. I sighed with relief and shoved two of them into the purse at my belt, securing the lid back down and twisting it closed. The last of the dimming light spilled through the slats from the quarterdeck and my eyes lifted, studying the break in the darkness. On the starboard side, there was no light.
The helmsman’s quarters.
I climbed the crates of cabbage in the corner and reached up, fitting the tip of my knife between the end of one of the slats and the beam. I pulled the handle down carefully, prying up with my weight until the nail popped. Once both ends were free, I lifted the plank and set it on the stack of ropes beside me. Above, the shutters on the windows in West’s quarters were closed.
My knife slid easily beneath the other planks and a few minutes later, I had an opening big enough to fit through. I went back for the lantern before I wedged myself into the narrow opening, my feet dangling over the open hold before I pulled them inside.
A small shadow swung beside my foot as I stood in the middle of the room, and I took a step toward the shuttered window, where a string of adder stones swayed in the bit of wind slipping through the cracks.
I smiled to myself, reaching up to take one of the smooth pebbles between my fingers. In the center, a perfect hole made it look like an eye. Legend said that adder stones brought good luck. They were collected on beaches and strung up as talismans to hide the helmsman from the eye of sea demons. My father had them hanging in the window of his quarters too, but that hadn’t kept the Lark from sinking.
Behind me, West’s desk was bolted to the floor, a pile of unrolled maps and charts covering its surface. I stepped closer so that I could press my hands to the soft, worn parchment. Its curling edges framed in the precise, delicate ink that mapped the islands, coves, and underwater trenches of the Narrows. Depth notations and landmarks and the geometrical web of straight lines filled the margins in slanted, clumsy handwriting and I wondered if it was West’s or Paj’s. I went to the next one, studying. At the top edge, Jeval sat like a buoy in the middle of nowhere.
A shining, brass compass unlike any I’d ever seen sat in the very center. I picked it up, setting it into my hand and examining the strange face in the lantern light so that the needle danced in a wavering line.
A white, rough stone sat beside it, the size of my palm.
But it was the hatch I’d made in the floor that pulled at my attention, appearing in the shadowed corner of my vision. I walked back to the opening, looking down into the cargo hold, where one of the planks I’d lifted from the floor stared up at me. On one end, black paint was brushed onto the lacquered surface where it had been tucked beneath the rug.