Marka

• Build & height: 2.08 m, a huge woman, "broad as a door" (ch. 58), heavy-shouldered, thick-armed, a belly built for laughing. She carries a grown man under one arm without noticing (ch. 3).
• Face: big, weather-beaten, sun-creased at the eyes, a chipped front tooth (ch. 59, 63), and "the biggest grin in the world" (ch. 58). At rest she is already halfway to laughing. Her face on Räva's wall: "frozen in the biggest laugh" (ch. 63).
• Hair: braids with salt in them (ch. 58, 63): many thick braids, dark brown going iron at the temples, pulled back and tied with tarred twine; crusted white with dried spray.
• Eyes: never given in the chapters. Model sheet: warm brown, nearly shut when she laughs.
• Skin & mark: deep sun-brown, freckled across the shoulders, rope-burned palms. No sin-mark is ever drawn.
• Clothing, layer by layer: a sleeveless linen shirt (bare arms, ch. 15) · a broad leather belt · canvas trousers · sea-boots · a battered sea-coat (ch. 58), usually off and slung over the anchor.
• Signature item: the anchor on a chain: an iron fisherman's anchor slung over one shoulder, swung like a flail (ch. 2), the chain wrapped twice round her fist. After her death it is bent, and Drekk sets it upright at the troll camp like a grave-marker (ch. 16).
• Movement: big, loose, generous, from the hips like a hammer-thrower. "You don't throw it. You let it go. The anchor knows where it wants to land." (ch. 13). Her two quiet gestures are the two-finger sailor's salute to the brow and the wink (ch. 15).
• Voice: a big, booming, generous laugh (ch. 56, 58); a sailor's mouth; nicknames for everyone ("big man", "Captain", "crab", "idiot", "little shadow"). She snores "like a landslide" (ch. 4). Balloons: alive, big and round, bursting at the edges. After her death: "a fourth balloon … shaped differently from all the others" (ch. 15), "a rougher, different border" (ch. 28), "the rarest lettering in the series" (ch. 195). Never give that lettering to anyone else.
• Variant looks: Alive (Saga I) · The jaws (ch. 15: arms raised like "a pillar holding up a temple", the anchor jammed crosswise, mouthing GO) · The voice (a balloon from Smurjan's chest; from ch. 198, a faint warm glow in the shape of a laughing face on his chest) · The stolen face (ch. 56–64, on Räva; ch. 63, on the den wall) · Nightmare-Marka (ch. 48, silent) · Inside the maw (ch. 73, silent, saluting) · The Relit Kettle (Saga V, as the burned boat remembers her) · The Ascension (Saga VI).

• What she can do: smash two Sentinels through a tavern wall (ch. 2); throw the anchor so the chain wraps a chimney and climb it like a ladder, then tear an anchor-stake out with her bare hand ("These are nice. Can I keep one?", ch. 5); lift a cart off a troll (ch. 10); haul a ferry rope with three trolls (ch. 12); tear a Cleaner's decree scroll mid-word, so the writ is never heard and fails (ch. 11), and swing through three scrolls in a single arc (ch. 13); hold the left flank all night beside Bakasura against the grey hounds (ch. 14).
• The jaws (ch. 15): she jammed the anchor crosswise in Bakasura's jaws, then held the upper jaw up with her bare arms in Trollmage's silent dawn (MACRO : SILENCE = DAWN), the chain wrapped twice round her fist. One link cracked. Then it snapped. She mouthed GO, winked, and was eaten. "The anchor holds, for a heartbeat."
• Since her death: a voice inside Smurjan, heard at most once per saga. Her voice has restarted a heart (ch. 76) and given a lost word back (ch. 28).
• What it can't do: anything iron can't. It can't touch the Null (the grey hounds were Null-sick meat, not the Null itself). It can't hold Mingus and never needed to: he was the one thing she never had to protect for long ("So he does lions and wings now.", ch. 13).

• Tempo: 8: a strong body that never burned a beat for a power.
• Home tempo: the Kettle's deck; now, inside Smurjan's chest, where sixteen other hearts beat around hers.
• Heartbeat technique: THE ANCHOR BEAT. Whatever is closing (a jaw, a door, a heart that has stopped), she holds open for one heartbeat longer than it should stay open. In life, the jaws: "The anchor holds, for a heartbeat." (ch. 15), the one beat the crew needed to run. In death, Smurjan's heart: in the Rule Five match his chest went still, and her voice came out of it, "Get up, big man.", and he got up (ch. 76). No one else holds a closing thing open from the inside.
• Burn cost: in life, the overflow took the chain first and then her: she held more than an iron chain or a human body could count in one beat. In death, the cost is the ration: her voice can be spent once per saga, and every time it's spent there is no more of her until the next saga.

Her life, paid on purpose (ch. 15). After that, being a voice: she can't be held, can't take the wheel, can't laugh at the fire except once a saga through someone else's mouth. Her face was stolen and worn by another woman at the crew's own fire (ch. 59), and only lives because Räva kept it (ch. 63). Drekk had to choose to leave it there.

• A body. No sin-power, no armour. Filed into a wall-slot by the Archive Warden (ch. 3; Kompis freed her). Puppeted by Orm, who re-tied her loyalty and swung her anchor at Drekk's head (ch. 6; Rougeina swapped the anchor out of her hands). Kali swapped places with her anchor and stood laughing on her shoulders (ch. 9: "HEY!").
• Her heart. She'll always hold the door for someone else.
• How she fell: not beaten. She chose the jaws (ch. 15), with Bakasura Null-sick from eating two dozen grey hounds, so the crew and the troll children could run.

• The anchor and chain: iron, fisherman's, a chain link cracked and then snapped in the jaws; the bent anchor stands at the troll camp as her grave-marker (ch. 16).
• A souvenir anchor-stake from the wardens' roof-fight (ch. 5).
• The battered sea-coat (ch. 58), worn by Räva at the fire.
• The stew pot she tossed whole to Bakasura (ch. 13: "Eat, big man." / "Didn't ask if you needed to.").
• The ship Marka: named by her own request, christened ch. 28, its name painted "in big crooked letters" by Drekk. Since ch. 159, CAMILLA THE SERAPHIM is nailed on a bark plank beside the Kettle's bell at her bow.

The front. She walks in first, swinging, and draws every blow so the small ones can work: Drekk with his frying pan, Ysel in the shadows. She fights wide, the anchor clearing space; she finishes by holding something (a cart, a flank, a jaw) while everyone else gets out. Team combos: Marka + Bakasura (the left flank at the troll camp, ch. 14: "Then they're going to have to come through the big ones.") · Marka + Drekk (she throws him clear; he steers) · Marka + Kali (Kali stands on her shoulders) · Marka + Trollmage (his silenced dawn, her held jaw: the crew's escape, ch. 15).

• Wants: to see the Current, with Drekk, when they're old ("She said we'd go when we were old.", ch. 32). To keep everyone. To laugh.
• Fears: nothing she'll admit. Being left behind; leaving someone behind.
• Contradiction: the loudest woman on the boat was the one who noticed the silent girl and gave her a name.
• Humour: huge and constant. "So he does lions and wings now." · "Ha! Ha! Big man! You ate me! Oh, that's rich—" (from inside the man who ate her). "That man couldn't find the sea if you dropped him in it." (about Drekk; ch. 59, via Räva, and he confirms she always said it).
• Habits: braids people's hair (Ysel's); names things (the girl, the ship); snores like a landslide; tosses food at whoever's hungriest.
• Alone: she wasn't, ever. Now she's in a chest with seventeen others: "It's warm in here. Lots of company. Talkative lot." (ch. 16).

• Drekk: her navigator, her crab, her idiot. "Drekk. Put the knife away. You idiot." (ch. 16, from inside Smurjan, when he went for the man who ate her). She asked him to name the next boat after her; he did.
• Ysel: Lillskugga. Named her, braided her hair, wrapped her in a blanket. Redactor later used Marka's name for her ("Hello, little shadow.", ch. 215); Drekk uses it to call her home ("…Ysel. Lillskugga. Come on.", ch. 207).
• Smurjan: "big man", before and after. "…You died." / "…Snow, big man. It's snow." (ch. 12, the word he lost). "Eat, big man." (ch. 13). From inside him: "Get up, big man." (ch. 76). She gave him back the word "boat" (ch. 28: "That was hers. She gave it to me."). From ch. 195 her face glows on his chest.
• Bakasura: she fed him, fought beside him, scolded him ("Then stop eating them!", ch. 14), and was eaten by him. He wept "a tear the size of a fist" (ch. 15). He still can't meet Drekk's eyes.
• Vigolas: "Captain." "So what now, Captain? She took one of yours." (ch. 4). Kompis saw "fresh golden threads already run from Marka to Vigolas" on day one (ch. 2).
• Kompis: "…So do we keep the spy, Captain?" (ch. 6).
• Mingus: "So he does lions and wings now." (ch. 13).
• Kali: stood on her shoulders, laughing (ch. 9).
• Räva: wore her face for nine years and most of Saga II, and kept it safe. "…HA! Still the worst joke in the Current, fox. Thanks for keeping it warm." (ch. 195).
• Old Stav: laid the keel of the ship that bears her name. "…Thank you for my boat." / "…She floats well. Your boat." (ch. 141).
• Old Torbjörn: the first of the consumed. When she rose to help him hold the salt-fire: "Sit down, lass. It's a one-man boat." (ch. 73).

• "I'm in." (ch. 2)
• "These are nice. Can I keep one?" (ch. 5)
• "See? You don't throw it. You let it go. The anchor knows where it wants to land." (ch. 13)
• GO. (ch. 15, mouthed, with a wink)
• "Ha! Ha! Big man! You ate me! Oh, that's rich—" (ch. 15)
• "Name the next boat after me." (ch. 16)
• "Get up, big man." (ch. 76)