Hearts in Zenith (Four Husbands and a Lover)

12. The Naiad

Being foreign means being a loner. The locals assume they know everything there is to know about you from reputation, and they don't ask questions beyond confirming what they already believe. Does it really take a full day to walk from one end of Char-Kermen to another? You don't say! Are there obelisks made of a single crystal in the Far South? Do cedars grow twice as tall in the Safic Isles as they do on the mainland? Truly?

Since I knew what everyone else in Palmyr knew about people from the Safic Isles—pirates, traders, mercenaries and wanderers by turns, depending on the shadowy internal affairs of their fog-cloaked archipelago—I knew how to pass for one.

I also looked the part after plucking all my hair. The clothes Kozima gave me were simpler than my former acolyte's garb. My bald head shone like the Lodestar. My compact, muscular physique would easily pass for that of a sailor used to climbing ropes and pulling oars all day.

I should have sounded more confident when I accosted the first fisher I met in the docks.

"I heard that Lydia's captain is looking for help—"

"What's the ship's name?"

"Ah. Just heard Lydia—"

He ignored me and hurried away. Same with the second fisherman. And the third... My heart caught when an old woman nodded towards a boat without lifting her eyes from the nets she was menting. "There it is, the Naiad."

"Thank you kindly, Mistress!" Now I just needed Divine Mansoora to grant me a little more luck. If Naiad's captain was willing to hire, then I'd be killing two birds with one stone. I would earn my livelihood and get closer to the woman courting my Kozima.

"You must be desperate, Safic, to go work for Lydia and Sharim. Bad luck innit. Cursed luck." After this encouraging send off, my interlocutor bent her head a fraction lower over her work.

She wasn't wrong about my current condition and she took me for a Safic. that's how I wanted to appear at the docks. Just another foreigner down on her luck. So, I ran out of reasons to provide her with shade from the rising sun. I murmured my thanks and headed for the Naiad.

It didn't look any different from the rest of the haphazard flotilla. Not run down or anything. Maybe on the smaller side, and with only a single triangular sail. But so what? To Divine Mansoora, all ships in Palmyr's harbor from the proud ladies-of-war with the rows of oars and many sails to the coconut shells bobbing on the waves of Their waters were the same.

I took my cue from Them, not from the grumpy old woman. The Naiad was a boat like any other. Made of wood with the help of nails and tarred till its body was slick and black. Being Lydia's boat, the crew of five visible on the Naiad's deck must have been the pearl divers rather than fishers.

There my expertise ran out. Not much for someone who pretended to be born on the high seas, but I was confident I could wing it.

I pulled in a chest-full of air and shouted, "Ahoy! On the Naiad!"

A woman in a faded leather vest, canvas pants and a blue bandana holding back a mop of corkscrew curls frowned. "Get lost! I sail wherever I want. If the chicken-shits can't watch their backsides, it ain't my fault."

"Don't let me stop you, Captain Sharim." I stuck my thumbs behind my belt. "I heard there's a job on your Naiad."

Sharim—who else would be yelling with so much authority aboard a boat but the Captain?— looked me up and down. "You're Safic?"

"Yup. Got into a fight over a man, was put off the ship for it. I'm now waiting for another Safic merchant to turn into the port. But a woman has to eat..."