The Cartographer's Daughter

14. Battle in the Suez Canal

I have a hard time with this picture of my father. To me he was a man who went to great lengths to build peace in our lives. But now I realize that perhaps that was because he had a great understanding of the upheaval happening outside our little world, that he may have even participated in some of it. I am at once grateful to him for my happy life, but also angry at him for shielding me from the rest of it all. He clearly navigated this renegade world with some surety. Whereas I am so unsure about how to continue.

Bami agrees that Amundi seems like a strange kind of ally. Perhaps it's because we feel like captors but have so far been treated as part of the crew. As the days go by, I'm still in the crow's nest even though my hands have healed. I continue to sing to fend off the seasickness, and have picked up some more upbeat songs that the crew seems to like. Amundi announces to the crew that I've won the award for the least squeamish watch.

Bami, too, seems to be brightening a little, and getting to know the crew on the oar with him. At dinner he points out Jael, a nervous and twitchy sort of fellow. Jael left Spain in a fisherman's false-bottomed rowboat when the local regime mandated that all Jews convert to Catholicism. Jael has a permanent hunch to his shoulders, as though he is still trying to curl them into a tight space.

And our lumbering fig eater—the one who betrayed us on the beach for a bottle of rum—he has a name. Cirocco. He has the outside seat on Bami’s oar, the strong-arm position, and he couldn’t be more different than the mousy Jael. Bami points him out across the room, where he's creating an uproar with some bawdy joke involving wild hand gestures. He very well might have joined the pirate ranks voluntarily.

They tell Bami that the ship is headed east toward the Imperial City. The city itself is untouchable; the ocean is tightly controlled in a wide perimeter around it. Instead, the ship usually makes berth at any tribute city along the way that may need some hell raising. These pirates spend their lives disrupting the tribute system, destroying production for the Imperials and raiding for what they themselves need. As a group, they are not driven by riches but by destruction. So many of them, like Jael, have come to this life by fleeing one that had been strangled by the system. It's because of this that, though we're captives here, Bami and I find plenty of kindred spirits.

On the third day we enter the Suez Canal. It's one strip of water cutting a sharp line across endless orange sand. The sun is making its way toward the tan horizon when I see a black speck creeping along the canal. I shout down to Amundi and he climbs up the crow's nest to see, pulling his sleek brass scope from his military vest and spying through it.

“They're not flying pirate colors, which are the only friendly ones. It's a Transmitter,” Amundi says.

“What's that?”

“They're privateers who profit off the Imperial tributes, shuttling resources around to get the highest yield. Say an ore producer needs wood fuel for smelting, but there are no forests; or a crop needs fertilizer, or a venture needs workers, they'll get it,” he says. I think of Bami. The captors from his youth must have been Transmitters.

“They're also very dangerous,” Amundi continues, “because they're fortified with Imperial weapons. They're the Imperial eyes, reporting back on what's going on in the world outside. They get rich from the Imperial drops, and in return they allow the citizens inside the wall to keep their hands very, very clean.”

“What will happen when they get here?”

“We'll attack. And we'll burn everything we can.”

With all the rage we've carried onto this ship, I think Bami will agree it sounds like a good plan.

The sun sets. The tension of the ship looming closer starts to trickle through the crew. The oarsmen are allowed to rest; they'll need their reserves when the fighting begins. The Dragon Lady has made a rare appearance at the bow of the ship, looking head on at her enemy.