← The Gilded Shore

Chapter 17

Chapter 17: Saverno

Kahina

The harbor basin at Saverno smells of boiling pitch and the wet timber of the shipbuilding slips. Stacked houses of rose and peeling ochre climb the steep hillside, and their green shutters are pinned open to the salt wind. Strings of laundry stretch between the windows, and the white sheets snap against the colored plaster. A church bell tolls from the piazza above, and the three heavy, copper strokes vibrate in the soles of my shoes.

Théo Beaumont hops from the gunwale of the Sans Souci to the stone quay, and his boots click loud on the damp flags. He has a laughing girl on each arm, and their silk skirts are bunched in his hands to keep them clear of the bilge water. They still carry the sweet, yeasty scent of the champagne he opened at dawn, and their chatter is a loud, bright noise against the quiet of the cove.

“To the taverns,” Théo says, waving his hat toward the low timber roofs near the shipbuilding yard. “The wine there does not taste of bilge, and we will meet you at the carriage station before the gates close.”

The girls wave and their laughter trails behind them as they drag him toward the smell of roasting meat. Nico stands with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his linen trousers, and his mouth is curved in a lazy, familiar line.

“He will lose his purse before sunset,” Nico says, turning to look at me. “And I will be the one explaining to the harbor master why we have a horse in the galley.”

“A horse would be an improvement,” I say. I step off the gangway and refuse his offered arm. The stone beneath my slippers is solid, but my knees still brace for the long, slow roll of the swells. The ground is too stiff and too permanent under my thin soles after four days of open water.

This morning I left the silk Nico had cut for me folded in the cabin, and I chose the gray linen instead, plain enough for a port that does not know my face. The hem is already catching the dust of the wharf, and no one in Saverno knows the perfume of Madame Eclaire's house. The balconies hold no faces watching to see if the Duke's son has brought his cargo ashore, and no eyes track the line of my throat to weigh what I am worth.

I reach up and unpin my mother's veil.

I have worn the indigo in every room since the night they marched us off the ship, and the sheer cloth was the one thing I kept back from the men who bought the rest of me. Here there is no one to keep it from. I fold the veil over my hand, the silk gone soft with weeks of my own breath, and the salt wind off the gulf reaches my bare face in daylight where anyone might look. No one looks, and I am simply a woman standing next to a man. The wind moves over my forehead and my uncovered mouth, and I let it.

Nico has stopped beside me, one hand still in his pocket, and the lazy line is gone out of his mouth. He looks at my bare face and he does not look away.

Then he crouches down on the wet flags in front of me, there on the open quay, and he takes my left foot in his hands.

I hold still. The iron has been locked on that ankle since my second day at Madame Eclaire's, and I stopped hearing the weight of the metal weeks ago. He turns my foot in his palm, and from his pocket he draws a small dark key, plain and cheap. I know the shape of it before he fits it to the lock, because I have spent weeks wondering whose pocket it rode in.

"You have had this the whole time," I say. My voice comes out level, and it costs me to keep it there.

"Since Seravalle." He does not look up. "I bought you out of Eclaire's outright the week I told you it was only another week. Not a rental. Yours, freed, the papers locked in the box under my charts. I kept the key and I kept my mouth shut, because I was afraid the morning you knew you were free would be the morning you left." The key turns, and the lock gives with a small dead click. "You have been free for weeks, Kahina. I am sorry it took me this long to be brave enough to hand it to you."

The band comes away from my ankle. He sets the metal on the stone, and the air finds the chafed skin beneath it, cold and clean after months of darkness.

I do not thank him, and I cannot find the shape of the words. He lied to me for the whole length of our acquaintance and kept me on a tether I could not see, but he is also kneeling on a wet quay handing me back my own foot. Both of those things are true, and I cannot hold them in one hand yet. I say nothing to fill the space, and I set my weight down onto both feet. The left foot is light and unstable, and the absence is louder than the iron ever was.

Then the level breaks.

“Weeks,” I say. “Do you understand what I did, believing I was owned? I knelt. I bound you and edged you to keep a thread of leverage I thought was the only one I had. I lay in Théo's bed and let him put his hands on me for a captain's name, spread open and breathing on those sheets, and I called it the price of my sisters. I did every inch of it free. You watched me do every inch of it, free, and you said nothing.” My voice is not level now, and I let it go. “You let me debase myself for a key that was already in your pocket.”

He stays on his knees, and he does not reach for me. “Yes,” he says. “That is the true shape of it, and I have no defense.”

“You held me with a thing I could not see,” I say, and the cold of it settles all at once. “I could feel the iron band, but I could not feel the lie, and you managed me the entire length of it while I believed I was the one playing the game.”

The snag beneath the anger will not let me hate him cleanly. Armand kept me and the law sold me, but this man broke the lock in secret before I had given him one honest thing. Nico has no stomach for ownership, and he has no pride to guard against me. His reason is a coward's reason, but it is also the only honest thing anyone has put in front of me since the coast burned. He was afraid that the morning I knew I was free was the morning I left, and I cannot make it cruelty no matter how I turn it in my hands.

I do not forgive him here, and I do not forgive him all at once. I let the anger stand where it is because it is owed, and I do not pretend it is smaller than it is.

The iron is off, and that is the fact beneath all the others. The band is gone and the ground is wrong under my light left foot, but the open sea is one quay away with a fast boat tied to it. I could walk away. Staying is no longer survival, and it is a choice I make for myself.

I look at him kneeling on the wet stone with the whole of my anger on his shoulders, and I do not walk.

“Get up,” I say. “You will be a long time earning this, and you can start by getting up.”

He gets up. My foot floats and my anger holds, but I stay where I am, owing him nothing, and I am kept here by nothing but my own will.

We leave the docks, climbing a steep lane between the high stone walls. My left foot keeps setting down lighter than I mean it to, and I reach for a weight that is no longer there. The scent of frying anchovies and hot focaccia dimpled with oil rises from the alleys. An old woman sits on a three-legged stool in the shadow of a doorway, and her dark fingers peel broad beans into a wooden bowl. The green hulls pop under her thumbs with a wet, steady click.

She speaks to us as we pass, and her voice is fast and gravelly in her Ligurian dialect. None of the three tongues I speak are of any use here, and I let the words wash over me without trying to translate. It is a luxury I have not had since the day the red sails cleared the point of my father's harbor and the market square became a place of shouting and iron.

Nico responds to her with a short, easy phrase, and his accent is rough but fluent enough to make the woman laugh. She shakes her head, pointing a bean-stained finger at me, and then she says something like an instruction.

“What did she say?” I ask, keeping my eyes on the uneven stones.

“She says you look like you have been living on ship's biscuit,” Nico says. “She thinks I should buy you some bread before you blow off the cliff.”

“A wise woman,” I say.

“She is a merchant,” he says, and his sleeve brushes mine as we turn a corner. “They are always wise when they have something to sell.”

He stops at a wooden counter built into the limestone wall. A baker with broad, scarred shoulders is lifting a massive iron pan from the charcoal embers, and the focaccia inside is golden. He cuts a square with a wide, two-handled blade, and the crust crackles under the metal.

Nico tosses a copper solari onto the wood. The baker wraps the square in coarse gray paper and hands it over, and steam rises from the edges.

“Eat,” Nico says.

The crust is too hot to hold. I tear a piece, and the grease slicks my fingers as it runs down my wrist in a warm, yellow line. It tastes of green olives and the clean burn of woodsmoke, and I lick the grease from my wrist. My tongue catches the salt on my own skin.

Nico eats his standing up, and his back is pressed against the plaster wall of the bakery. The polished ease he wears in the Seravallian salons is gone, and his linen collar is unbuttoned. His dark hair is messy from the wind, but he ignores the few passersby who look at his manners. He eats with his fingers, and his thumb catches a crumb at the corner of his mouth.

The baker reaches into a wooden bucket filled with well water, and he pulls out a condensation-beaded terracotta jug. He pours pale, green-tinted wine into two thick glasses, and we drink it standing in the lane. A mule with wicker baskets of green grapes pushes past us, and the bells on its leather collar chime against the stone walls.

I look at the grease on my fingers, and then I look at the gray paper wrapping the crust. Since the red sails came, every day has been a negotiation with the guards. My nights were spent mapping the faces of my captors, and my days were spent measuring the distance between the pier and the open water. I have smiled at men I wanted to kill, and I have memorized the names of cargo manifests while pretending to sleep. Today, the only task is to finish the bread before it goes cold, and the clench under my sternum never comes.

“You are quiet, Mademoiselle,” Nico says, and he sets his empty glass on the counter.

“I am busy,” I say, taking another bite. The salt crunches between my teeth.

“Naturally.” He pulls a clean linen handkerchief from his pocket and offers it. He holds it out with steady fingers, and I take the cloth. It smells of the cedar chest in his cabin, and it carries the dry lavender he uses to keep the moths out of his coats.

“You look like you are planning to buy the bakery,” he says.

“The bread is better than the food on your boat,” I say, and I wipe my fingers.

“The cook has a delicate constitution,” Nico says, and his mouth twitches. “He does not like the smell of garlic, and he says it ruins his eye for the rigging.”

We walk further up the lane, and the stones are hot under my thin soles. The town climbs higher, and the sound of the shipyard below rises with us in the dull thump of wooden mallets and the ring of caulking irons. Through the gap between two stacked rose houses, I can see the slips. A ship sits on the stocks, and her timber frame is pale and unpainted under the sun.

Nico stops, and his arm rests on a low stone wall that overlooks the harbor. He looks at the unfinished hull, and the lazy look leaves his eyes. His shoulders tighten under the linen.

“A brigantine,” I say, standing next to him.

Nico shakes his head. “A barque. Eighty feet on the deck, and she will carry three masts when she is done.”

“A trading ship.”

“A ship without the Vellier anchor,” he says, and his voice is quiet. “She will need no charter from the Duke's clerk to leave the bay.”

I look at the pale ribs of the vessel, and I search for a mark on the wood. No brand of a black anchor marks the timber.

“And when does she sail?” I ask.

“When she has a name,” he says, and his fingers tap a slow beat against the stone.

“And what name will you give her?”

“I have not decided,” he says, looking at me. “Names are difficult, and once you write them on the bow, everyone knows where you are going.”

“Some people like to be known,” I say.

“Only the ones who have never had to run,” he says. He turns his back to the harbor, and he leans against the stone wall. “My father is waiting for us in Valderre. He has three coaches and a betrothal contract with the Count's daughter, and she is a woman I have never met. We have three days before the harbor master sends the bill for the Sans Souci's mooring.”

We reach the small piazza at the top of the hill. A fountain carved with three dolphins sits in the center, and the stone tails are green with moss. A girl in a blue headscarf fills a copper water jar from the spout, and the splash of the water is loud in the hot afternoon. Two old men sit on a wooden bench under the church porch, and their eyes are closed against the glare.

Nico reaches out, and his fingers catch a loose strand of my hair that has escaped from my pins. He tucks it behind my ear, and his knuckles are cool against my temple. It is a simple touch, but his hand lingers, and the pad of his thumb is dry against my jaw.

“You have salt on your forehead,” he says.

“The wind was strong this morning,” I say.

“It was,” he says. His hand stays against my cheek, and his thumb moves in a slow line. “The sails were full of it, and I thought we would have to drop the mainsail before we cleared the point.”

I look at the water spilling from the dolphins' mouths. The sun is hot on my neck, and the wind off the gulf is cool with the smell of the pine trees. I want to stay here on this stone bench, and I want to watch the water until the sun goes down. I want to forget the name Malik, and I want to forget the ships that carry my family's spices under another man's mark.

“We should go back to the harbor,” I say, but I do not move.

“The coach is not until tomorrow,” Nico says. He drops his hand, and his fingers brush my shoulder before he turns. “The bread is still warm.”

He walks toward the fountain, and his stride is easy and unhurried. The gray linen handkerchief is still clutched in my fist.

Nico

The yard of Master Shipwright Vianello smells of damp oak sawdust and the sour grease of the pit saws. A half-framed merchantman stands near the entrance, her green timber ribs curved upward, exposing her dry belly to the harbor wind. Caulking mallets ring from the dock below, a flat iron beat.

I lead Kahina past the stacks of seasoning pine, my hand light on the small of her back. Her linen skirt sweeps the sawdust, leaving a clean track in the yellow shavings. I keep my stride slow, pretending this is a casual stroll through a working yard, the way I pretend most things. The performance is thin. My shirt is damp under the armpits, and my tongue is dry.

Vianello’s family has raised blue-water hulls on this slipway since the Genoese republic ran the trade routes. The men here know the weight of the swells. They shape vessels meant to cross the sea, heavy oak hulls that hold against the north gale. In Seravalle, the shipwrights turn out gilded pleasure boats for casino barons, thin-skinned yachts rotting if they stay out past the cap. The money went here, sent through three separate clerks in Genoa to keep the Duke's agents from looking at the bills.

We reach the high stocks at the far end of the yard, where the limestone cliff shelters the slipway from the harbor wind. The hull rises above us, a long wall of dark, oiled oak. She is eighty feet on the deck, her bow sharp and high, shaped to cut the swells. The timber is clean, smelling of resin and vinegar. The transom is bare wood, the name boards empty.

“Vianello,” I say, tapping the thick oak stem with my knuckles. The wood is solid, returning a dull, dry thump.

Kahina looks up at the bow, her eyes narrowing as she tracks the run of the planks. She does not ask who owns it. At the stern, her hand runs along the lower sweep of the keel.

“She is deep,” Kahina says. Her voice is clear against the shriek of the pit saw across the yard. “More draft than the Sans Souci.”

“Six feet more,” I say. I climb the rough wooden ladder leaning against the hull, my boots creaking on the rungs. “She will carry thirty tons of cargo in the lower hold and still sit high enough to clear the sandbars at the river mouths.”

She follows me up the ladder, her grip firm on the pine rails. We stand on the unfinished deck, the beams open below us, showing the deep belly of the hold. Pine shavings litter the boards.

“A trading ship,” she says.

“A trading ship,” I say. I walk to the center line, pointing to the thick oak block of the mainmast step. “She is rigged for square sails on the fore and main, with a fore-and-aft sail on the mizzen. The plan is meant for open water, where the wind stays behind you for three weeks at a time.”

She steps close to the open hatch, her gray linen dress brushing my leg. The line of her neck, the small black curls escaping her pins. A princess has no place on these rough deck boards, yet she plants her feet on them and reads the run of the planks like a chart.

“The southern route,” she says.

“The one Armand told my father to close two years ago,” I say, my voice dropping. The Genoa accounts shut, three letters sent before I knew why. Armand called it too crowded for a duke's son.”

Down in the hold the frames run dark into the depths, no sound coming up from them.

“I have three thousand solari left in the Milan bank,” I say. “Enough to pay Vianello for the rigging and the sails. She will be ready to launch before the winter gales start.”

“And the crew?”

“Theo will find the men,” I say. “The ones willing to sail without a duke’s flag on the mast.”

Kahina touches the bare planking of the bulwark, her fingers tracking a knot in the pine. She looks at me, her dark eyes clear and quiet.

“You have wanted this for a long time,” she says.

“I like the water,” I say. “The Sans Souci is a carriage with sails. This is a ship.”

She turns back to the harbor, her hands resting on the unpainted rail. Below us, the yard is a mess of iron and wood, the men working in the heat.

“A ship without a name,” she says.

“I am waiting,” I say.

“For what?”

“A good word,” I say. I step next to her, the wind lifting her hair, blowing a dark strand across my cheek. The hair smells of the sea and the oil from the bread in the lane. “The shipwright wants to paint the bow tomorrow.”

She does not answer. She looks out at the bay, her chin lifted, her profile sharp against the blue water. The wind catches her gray skirt, wrapping the linen tight against her thighs.

“We should go down,” she says.

I lead the way down the ladder, my hand steadying the pine rungs as she descends. Her foot misses the bottom step, her shoulder hitting my chest for a second. She is warm and solid under the gray linen. I catch her waist to steady her, my fingers sinking into the fabric. She pulls away after a beat, her face composed, her gaze fixed past my shoulder toward the yard gates.

Vianello stands by the timber pile, his leather apron stiff with pitch. He nods to us, his dark face lined with grease.

“Tomorrow, Monsieur,” he says.

“Tomorrow, Master Vianello,” I say.

We walk out of the yard, the shriek of the saw fading behind the high stone walls. The lane is quiet now, the shadows of the ochre houses stretching long and blue across the stones.