Cartographers Daughter / Season 1, Episode 7
Eyes on the Water
The skiff rocked hard under Inês’s feet, a splintered plank biting into her palm as she gripped the edge. Salt spray stung her eyes, blurring the dark outline of the Setúbal coast receding behind them, the cliffs now just teeth against a bruised dawn sky. Khari’s hands moved quick on the single sail, sinew tight under his weathered skin, adjusting the canvas to catch the wind’s fickle breath. His voice cut through the slap of waves against wood. “Keep low. They’ve got eyes on the water.” His tone was clipped, not unkind, but heavy with the weight of someone who’d run from worse than da Gama’s men. Inês crouched further, her knees pressing into the damp bilge, the smell of tar and fish guts rising sharp in her throat. The maps, wrapped tight in oiled cloth, dug into her side where she’d tied them beneath her shift. Her father’s astrolabe hung heavier still, a cold lump against her chest, hidden under layers of coarse linen. Fourteen north, thirty west—those numbers pulsed in her mind like a heartbeat, a riddle she couldn’t yet solve, but one she’d die before letting slip. She glanced at Sebastião, slumped near the stern, his smuggler’s swagger gone, face pale as the underbelly of a gutted cod. He clutched his ribs where a fall on the...