Chapter 7: Something Cracks

Kahina

The Sans Souci clears the limestone cliffs of the harbor mouth, her timber hull slicing through the gray swell of the open Mediterranean. Behind us, the cliffs of Seravalle shrink into the morning haze, the white stone turning to dust against the sky. Nico stands at the wheel. The wind took his shirt hours ago, leaving him stripped to the waist, his shoulders dark with salt-spray. He leaves his social smile in the harbor. His teeth are clamped together as he reads the lift of the bow, and his palms grip the bronze spokes of the wheel. The sea has no courtesy, and his focus is absolute.

I changed out of the damp indigo linen hours ago, choosing a thin white chemise from the cedar trunk in the aft cabin. The wind keeps snapping the hem against my thighs as I walk topside, the linen too light for the chill of the open water. The fabric clings to my hips, drawing cold lines down my thighs. I keep my bare feet flat to the wet teak, balancing against the roll of the deck. Those manifests hold the details I need. Nico bought my freedom. He keeps the contract locked in his teak box, treating our arrangement as a game of card-table turns.

Nico keeps his head turned toward the horizon as I reach the binnacle. The sea spray hits my face, cold and sharp, plastering my black hair to my temples.

"Your captain is heading south-southwest," I say.

Nico adjusts the wheel a handbreadth. The sails overhead snap with a sound like pistol shots. "The wind is out of the north. We take the speed while the water allows it."

"And Felix?" I ask, leaning my hip against the cabin hatch. The wood is rough and damp under my palms. "Did his numbers stay behind in the harbor office?"

"Felix remains in Seravalle to settle the harbor fees," Nico says. His gaze is fixed on the mainsail. "He is staring at the ink."

"He found a name," I say.

"He found a discrepancy," Nico says, his voice flat under the rush of the wind. He looks at me then, his dark hair damp against his forehead. "He likes discrepancies. I prefer a clean run."

"A clean run is a fantasy you buy with Vellier gold," I say. I slide my fingers along the smooth brass of the binnacle. "A secret for a secret, Signor Ferrara. That was the agreement."

He watches my mouth, the dry salt white on his lips. "The agreement was for a touch," he says.

"I will pay the first coin," I say, stepping closer. The deck rises under us, and I balance against the slant. "My father's house sat on the third terrace of the red cliffs, where the sun baked the clay until the walls cracked. We had three tiled courtyards. In the smallest, the pomegranate trees grew so thick they choked the stone fountain. Yasmin and Amina stole the fruit before it was ripe, and we blamed the Barbary macaques nesting in the palms. The gardener knew we lied and kept our theft a secret. He only gave us salt-cake to wash the sour juice from our tongues."

Nico honors the trade. He lets go of the wheel with his right hand, his fingers tracing the black anchor inked on his wrist. "Felix found the ghost-weights in the cargo books. The shipping manifests list saffron and cumin coming out of Tunis under the Vellier mark. Saffron is light. A crate of it weighs less than a child. Yet the ships ride so low the copper sheathing on the hulls disappears beneath the foam."

The water slaps against the hull, a loud, hollow thud.

"They carry copper?" I ask, though the word is dust on my tongue.

"They carry cargo the ledger conceals," Nico says. He grips the wheel again, his knuckles turning white under the strain. "And the payments are worse. Felix tracked the gold solari. Armand's clerks record large sums to southern captains under the name of overland carriage. It dwarfs the cost of a caravan. The money flows straight to the Berber corsairs."

My stomach drops cold. Overland carriage. The clerks dress retainer fees as freight, and the gold goes to the corsairs who clear the lanes, the same corsairs who burned my coast. Nico runs his summer cargo through this trade and does not know it bought the iron collar that closed on my neck. The saffron his ships carried out of Tunis came off my father's harvest, hauled from our storehouses while the city screamed behind us. I came up out of one of those holds myself. I watched the crates walk onto the quay under that black anchor while the nephew of the man who financed our ruin now breathes against my shoulder, warm and easy in the sun. My jaw aches with the work of holding it loose. The play of the game is the only thing keeping my face smooth.

I force my hands to remain steady. I must have the name of the captain who ran the southern route.

"Which captains receive the gold?" I ask.

Nico watches the sail, his profile sharp against the gray horizon. "The price has gone up, Princess."

I step close, the wind wrapping the thin white chemise tight around my thighs. My hand settles over his on the teak wheel. The wood vibrates against my palm, a steady, deep shudder from the rudder below. His hand is hot beneath mine, the hair on the back of it rough under my fingers.

Nico turns his wrist beneath my palm. He slips his fingers between mine, locking our hands together. A swift tug pulls me back against his bare chest. His arm wraps around my waist, pinning my back to his ribs. The damp linen of my chemise carries the heat of him, his chest rising and falling against my shoulder blades with each heavy breath. With his free hand he holds the wheel, his shoulder muscles flexing as he steers. The salt-crusted hair of his chest scrapes my bare shoulder.

He leans down, his mouth brushing the skin below my ear. His breath is warm, smelling of the coffee we drank at dawn.

"Tell me the route," I say, keeping my voice level.

"The routes belong to the company," Nico says. His lips slide along my jaw, stopping a hairbreadth from my mouth.

Behind me, his penis grows thick and hard against my lower back. He nudges his weight against my buttocks, his breath grazing the corner of my lips.

"Give me your mouth, Kahina," he says.

"The captains first," I say.

He presses closer, his thigh sliding between mine, forcing my legs apart. The sea spray hits our faces, and still his skin burns through it. His mouth hovers, the heat of his lips agonizing. A breath away, he waits, his fingers digging into my hip.

I shift my weight. Rolling my hips back against his hardness, slow and deliberate, I let the friction of the linen drag across him. He groans, his grip tightening until it bruises.

"Your mouth," he says, his voice raw. "One taste, and I will give you the name of the ship."

I hold my spine straight. My lips remain closed, my face turned away, denying him. "Name the ship, Nico."

He presses his face into my neck, his teeth catching the skin of my shoulder. He shudders against me.

"The Isabella," he says, the word scraping low against my ear. "The captain is close to the inner circle. He runs the southern weight."

I slip out of his embrace before he catches his breath, sliding my hand down his arm and twisting my waist. The wind hits me bare, instantly cold where his body was.

Nico stands at the wheel, his knuckles white on the teak. His jaw is tight. He stares at the gray horizon, his chest heaving under the cold spray.

Nico

The harbor water is black oil under the stern, reflecting the yellow lanterns climbing the limestone face of Seravalle. The land breeze brings back the city. It carries the scent of fried red mullet and the dry limestone dust of the cliffs. The clean salt of the open sea fades under a drift of expensive Turkish tobacco from the terraces above.

Our dinner is down to two empty plates and a basket of cold olive bread. The silver platter of grilled sea bass is mostly bones now. Kahina sits opposite me, her fingers tracing the rim of her glass. She wears the dark slate-gray linen dress I ordered for her, the fabric catching the yellow light from the cabin hatch. The wind is soft here in the lee of the cliffs, barely lifting the dark curls at the back of her neck.

The salt-crust on my arms has dried to a thin white powder. I rub my thumb against my palm to scrape away the grit of the sea we left behind at the cape. Kahina has eaten little, only picking at the grilled fish and the small heap of wild capers on her plate. The transaction is still here, a shadow between us at the table, but we have turned it into a game. The week is half gone, and the contract Eclaire signed remains under the teak lid of my chart box below. Kahina does not know she is free. She still carries herself with the stiff, defensive pride of a captive determined to make her prison as expensive as possible. I like the performance. I like the sharp edge of her tongue even more when it cuts my own plans to pieces.

"You are quiet tonight, Signor Ferrara," she says.

"I am mourning the sea bass," I say, leaning back against the leather cushions. My skin still stings from the salt spray we ran through this afternoon, the tight, dry heat lingering across my shoulders. "And the bottle is empty."

"You have other things to occupy your thoughts," she says. Her fingers stop on the glass. "The letter under your charts, for instance."

"My father's correspondence is excellent kindling," I say, offering my best, easiest smile.

She tilts her head. "The one from Valderre? The betrothal?"

"The very one. Count Valderre writes with the flowery devotion of a man with three mortgaged vineyards and wants my father's gold to clear them."

She smiles, but her eyes remain cool. "And the daughter? Is she part of the debt?"

"She is the principal," I say. "A lady of high breeding and, I am told, exceptionally straight teeth."

Kahina leans forward, resting her chin on her palm. "You speak of her as if she is a horse. Is that how you choose the women you bring aboard?"

"They simply appear," I say, pouring the last of the white vintage into her glass. "They come aboard when they are running away from something, or when they find the Sans Souci more comfortable than the dry land."

"And their names?" she asks, her voice dropping into that smooth, dangerous register. "Do they disappear when the anchor drops?"

"Usually before," I say. "Names are heavy. They slow the boat."

Her gaze drops to my mouth, to the dried salt crusting my lips.

"You expect me to believe you forget them all," she says, her tone dry.

"The memory is selective, Princess," I say, letting my eyes trace the collar of her slate dress. "For instance, I remember the daughter of the spice merchant from Genoa. She had a small mole below her left hip, and she could only reach her pleasure if I held both her wrists against the cabin bulkhead. Her name was Clara. Or perhaps Clarissa. She had a wonderful laugh when she was naked."

Kahina's glass stops halfway to her lips.

"Then there was the dancer from the upper town," I say, keeping my voice light, conversational. "The one with the throat smelling of almond oil. She had breasts so heavy they spilled over my palms when she lay back, and she spent three days on the forward deck without a stitch of lace. Beatrice, I believe. She was fond of the dried figs. I spent half my cargo on them."

Kahina sets her glass down with a tiny, sharp click against the teak table. "You are disgusting."

"I am a historian," I say. "I record the facts. There was also the little milliner's girl from the harbor with a habit of biting my shoulder until the blood came. I still have the white scar near my collarbone."

"And you kept them all in your ledger?" she asks. Her dark eyes narrow, the gold lights in them sharp under the lanterns. "A neat column of bodies to balance the cost of the voyage?"

I drop the lazy tilt of my head. My voice goes flat.

"And where do I stand on this ledger of yours?" she asks. "Under the column of the weeks you paid Eclaire for?"

I lean forward, putting my elbows on the table, closing the distance between us. The wood is cool under my forearms.

"I keep no ledger for you, Kahina," I say, my voice dropping. "You are busy trying to steal the book."

She holds my gaze.

"And as for the payment," I say, "we both know your presence here has a price. We also know how you respond when I touch you. The deck was warm this afternoon, and your skin was hot under that thin white linen."

The color climbs her throat, a dark flush under her brown skin, but her chin stays high. She holds my gaze.

"Your gold bought a week," she says. "The right to write the ledger remains mine."

"True," I say. "But I bought the time to read it."

She reaches for her glass again, then stops. "Then let us make a new trade. The story of the Valderre betrothal. The real story, Signor Ferrara. Skip the version you tell Felix to make him laugh."

"My stories are expensive," I say. "What is the counter-offer?"

"I will let you brush my hair tonight," she says, her voice steady. "And I will spare your sailing for tomorrow. I will ask no questions about manifests, and I will make no demands for captains. You will have a day of peace on your own boat."

The trade is good. The hair-brushing is a concession she knows I want; the peace from her hunting is something I need if I am going to keep Felix from tearing the Sans Souci apart.

"A fair price," I say.

I look out at the harbor lights. They tremble on the black water, long yellow streaks. "She is a stranger to me. Her name is Giuliana. She is fifteen years younger than the Duke's ambitions. My father wants the alliance to secure the salt tax in the northern provinces. I am the eldest son, useless to him for anything but a marriage contract. My place is on the water, far from his council chambers and his timber shipments."

"So you live on this boat," she says.

"The Sans Souci is comfortable," I say. "And the sea is free of summons."

"You are in love with the escape," she says. "You play the idle boy so they will leave you to your sails."

"It is a very successful performance," I say.

"Except you are still running," she says.

I look at her, at the sharp line of her nose against the dark harbor behind her. "And you? Are you escaping, Princess, or are you hunting?"

She remains silent, her lips parting slightly before closing.

Neither of us speaks. The only sound is the lap of the tide against the rudder. She keeps her answer to herself, and she does not look away.

I reach for the empty bottle, my fingers catching the cold glass of the neck.

"Leave it," she says. "Stay."

I set the bottle back on the table. The desire to go below deck and search for another bottle disappears. I would sit on this deck until the sun climbs over the limestone cliffs. This ease is new. It is a weight I cannot laugh away. I will turn the thought over later, alone, when she is in the cabin, out of sight.