Child of a Hidden Sea (20 page)

“I bet there isn't anything to learn. Terzo conniving with a bunch of clerics … doesn't seem right,” said Verena.

“No. Then again, the Isle of Gold, working with Ualtarites…” That uneasiness Sophie had noticed before seemed to surface. “It's almost fantastical.”

“John Coine didn't want me to see them together,” Sophie said. “And he all but bragged about attacking Gale back home. I have video you can look at.”

“This hints at a bigger plot.”

“You'll have to explain the politics to me and Bram. If we did leave, how long would it take us to get to … Ualtar?”

“Six days if winds are fair,” Parrish said. “They're quite a closemouthed culture—they don't like outsiders. It will be hard to learn anything from them.”

“Especially if we're there on official business,” Tonio put in.

“Are they good neighbors?” Sophie asked.

“Pardon?”

“Is there anyone nearby who might know what they're up to? Someone who might gossip?”

The captain looked at her with more respect. “We could visit a few of the nearby islands, I suppose.”

“Sumpter,” Tonio said. “Or Tiladene.”

“I know a guy from Tiladene,” Sophie said. The memory of Lais, their brief affair on
Estrel
, and his spider breeding project, brought a smile to her face.

“Lucky you,” said Tonio.

He sounded sincere; she grinned, even more certain that she liked him.

Restlessness caught her, like wind lifting a kite. The prospect of going, rather than sitting, awakened a hunger within her. “Bram should be in on this discussion,” she said. “Let's go up, deliver Verena's protest from the Verdanii, and tighten up the plan. How soon could we sail out, hypothetically?”

Parrish looked to Tonio. “We've restocked?”

“Job's half done. The rest of the provisions are loading this afternoon.”

“Then we'll go after sunset.” Parrish looked to Tonio. “Ready the ship, but be discreet. Leave up the mourning sails until the last minute; there's no sense in announcing our departure.”

“Done, Kir. Don't forget to send my mother that cask of wine.” With one of those tight Erinthian bows, Tonio strode off.

Verena blushed. “You've got to stop betting on me, Parrish,” she said, but she seemed pleased.

They hiked up through the market, Verena accepting shouted, good-natured congratulations on her honorable loss to Incindio, Parrish apparently deep in thought. Sophie paused at one stall in the market; the vendor was selling plated, fused shells, much like tortoise shell but with a deeper arch to them; their shape was almost as curvy as Parrish's bicorne captain's hat.

Hump-backed turtles,
she thought, imagining the creature they must have come from. The shells had been converted to baskets and filled with an arrangement of dried flowers and beetle carapaces, a macabre display of dried biological samples.

“Get it,” Parrish advised. “The price is reasonable, and buying things earns you goodwill with the people.”

“She won't be needing goodwill,” Verena said, her own evaporating. “Her position here is temporary, remember?”

“I don't have any money,” Sophie said, attempting to defuse the sudden spark of resentment.

“
Nightjar
does.” Parrish gestured and the vendor handed some over.

That put paid to any conversation until they were up in their rooms again.

Dear Miss Manners
, Sophie thought.
The obnoxious but cute boy my half sister likes just bought me a tortoise shell full of dead flowers. Now she's all hosed at me. What do I do?

Their suite at the palazzo was crammed to bursting with open books. Bram had opened a library's worth on the floors of every room, and was scrawling notes on the terrain, maps, histories, and a few carved reliefs. He was going over it all with the exhausted scribe, the two communicating in a mishmash of romance language words and broken Fleetspeak.

“Bram,” Sophie said. “Let the guy catch some sleep, okay? We need to talk.”

He peered up at her, as if from a distance.

“Come on, come back to the here and now,” she said, briskly, clearing the books from the couches.

“That's just it,” he said. “We don't really know where here and now are.”

“I know—cool, huh? Make any progress?”

“Grigo found me an ancient, end-of-the-world myth that reads a bit like Noah's ark.” He unfolded himself from the floor, where he'd been sitting crosslegged among the papers. “Here, let me. It'll make it easier when I pick this up later. How about you? Catch your murderer, by any chance?”

“On video, no less,” she said.

“Seriously?”

By now they'd made a hole big enough for them all to cram together on on the couch. She pulled up a small table, propped up the video camera atop the stack of books so that its little screen was resting dead center, and sat in front of it, working its controls. Bram plopped down on her left. Verena perched on the armrest, near Bram. After a moment, Parrish took the only remaining spot, next to Sophie.

“Okay, look.” She brought up the video of her conversation with the pirate, John Coine, and cranked up the audio. She'd forgotten about the threat he'd made, until the little tinny speaker played his words again: “Your name is Sophie Opal Hansa, is it not?”

Both Parrish and Verena straightened in their seats at that.

Bram hit pause. “What's the deal?”

“They can enchant her, if they want,” Verena said.

“They'll turn her into one of those things?” Bram demanded. “Mezmers?”

“Unlikely. He obviously wants Sophie to find the heart,” Parrish said. “Coine is trying to frighten her.”

Sophie started the file playing again. “How can he be so upfront about it?”

“Golden tradition. You show yourself to your enemies before you clash, if you can.”

Enemies.
She didn't like the sound of that. “He's practically bragging about killing Gale.”

“He didn't know you had captured his words. But if it came to a trial, his defense would probably be justification. Isle of Gold has always claimed the right to pursue the Heart,” Parrish said. “It's the involvement of the other gentleman that concerns me.”

“Other guy?” Bram said.

“Just watch,” Sophie said, resuming the vid. On the little screen, Coine was sauntering away. He spotted the broken-nosed Ualtarite heading his way, and waved him off. The man peered in Sophie's direction, seeming not to recognize her as she zoomed in, bringing his face closer.

“Could Tonio be wrong about his being Ualtarite?” Verena asked.

“Doubtful. Tonio's feelings about Ualtar are…” Parrish ran aground there. “I don't know the Anglay word.”

“Tonio really dislikes Ualtarites,” Sophie said. “That much was screamingly apparent.”

“How could Coine have learned your middle name? Who knew it?” Verena asked. “Here on Stormwrack, I mean.”

“Just the guy who did the inscription that taught me Fleetspeak, and a few people from the crew of that salvage ship,
Estrel.
Lais from Tiladene saw the conch shell, too.”

Verena and Parrish exchanged a look.

“Yes, I was careless,” said Sophie. “How was I to know it mattered?”

“It's obviously a big deal, Sofe,” Bram said.

“And believe me, I have added it to the long list of things to be freaked out over. So, Parrish, if we were gonna ship out of here tonight and check out Ualtar, what would we need to do to get going?”

“The palazzo staff have most of the actual packing in hand.” Parrish looked at one of the guards who'd been quietly attending them all day, and switched back to Fleetspeak. “Would you ask the Conto to make inquiries after Lais Dariach and after the salvage ship
Estrel,
Captain name of … Sophie?”

“Her name's Dracy,” Sophie said. “Do you think something's happened to them?”

“I couldn't speculate.” He looked at the guard.

“It will be done, Kir, of course.”

“The Conto can send whatever he learns to us.”

“You do! You think someone on
Estrel
told them my name.”

He nodded.

She swallowed, fighting a rush of emotion: anxiety, guilt, and fear.

“If we're going, I better deliver that protest,” Verena said, springing up so suddenly the servant had to rush to open the door for her.

“Hand me that protocol book again,” Sophie said. Bram opened it across both their laps, and she paged to the end, looking for Ualtar, reading aloud. “The brotherhood of Ualtar believes in a doctrine it calls Perfectibility of Man: believes everyone must rise to an ever-increasing state of grace, and that those who fail to strive are inferior. I bet that means they mistreat their livestock and keep slaves.”

“Yes.” Parrish bent close to her, and she caught a whiff of soap and something like cloves. He ran his finger down, past the text to a column of statistics: land area, the name of the ship that represented them within the Fleet, and finally down to an entry marked “Economy.” It was followed by a “(B).”

“B for bonded,” he explained. “The free nations are indicated with an F.”

“F for free. Very discreet. F or B, no discussion?”

“It is a sensitive subject,” he said. “The people who compiled this particular volume wished it to be complete. For that they required cooperation from all the nations. I can find you any number of treatises that discuss and condemn the practice of bondage, and an equal number that praise it to the skies.”

“How many countries of each side?” Bram's grammar was off, his accent was terrible, but he had followed the conversation—they'd slipped into Fleetspeak when she was reading it off the page—and replied in kind. Parrish looked frankly amazed.

Ah, yes, behold the wunderkid,
Sophie thought.

“Over half of the nations are free,” he said. “Ualtar is unique among the bonded nations in that their perfectibility doctrine allows for the possibility that a person may not only rise from bondage to freedom but that, if one performs the correct rites, they may become a full citizen.”

“So that makes them odd one out among the slaveholders?”

“To some extent, yes. They are regarded as unpredictable, or unreliable, perhaps. Ualtar has always done exactly as it pleased,” Parrish said. “They have never—there have been attempts, during the past century, to break the Charter and return the nations to a state of war. The Temple has never been involved, so far as I know. They have an unnecessarily large navy, but even so they're considered a lesser nation.”

“Did you get that?” Sophie asked.

“About half,” Bram said.

She repeated the main points, dragging the conversation back into English. Then she returned her attention to the book. “Didn't Gale have a copy of this back at her apartment?”

“She did,” Parrish said. “I can have it sent to
Nightjar
if you like.”

“It'd help.”
Maybe we can scan the whole thing,
she thought. “So … in the meantime, all this inheritance mess sort of happened because I blundered around helping people on Stele Island and
Estrel.
What can I do to not make it worse?”

He gave her a small, approving smile. “It would be better if Verena was seen to be in charge aboard
Nightjar.
If she had Gale's cabin, for example, and you and Bram were guests.”

“Of course I'm not taking the master bedroom!”

“That said, we are honor-bound to take orders from you.”

“I'll keep my bossiness discreet.”

“Ha,” Bram said.

She gave his ankle a halfhearted kick, looking down at the book again: “Ualtar lies in the southwest equatorial region, and some of its economy rests on exports of sugar cane and banana. The island also enjoys a monopoly on the silk strands used in inscriptions for ship rigging.”

“This would be why they can do as they please. The spidersilk monopoly—” Parrish was interrupted by Verena's return.

“Okay, protest's delivered, Conto's briefed, the servants will be sent after dark to pack us up. He asked about the stuff at Gale's apartment, Parrish—what should happen there?”

“I think perhaps
all
of Gale's books should be sent to
Nightjar
,” he said, looking at the progress Bram had made through the royal library. “As for the rest … perhaps it could go to the glaziers' widows and widowers? Gale wanted you to have her Dotty Aunt coat, and the jewelry, so that's aboard ship already.”

Verena's cheeks blotched suddenly. Redzone, Bram called it—the mottling of the face that meant tears were close.
Poor kid,
Sophie thought, and amazement bloomed within her. This was her sister: They were related, they had the same DNA. She herself went redzone, just like this.

They looked at each other for a second, Parrish and Verena, practically radiating grief.

“Okay,” was all Verena said.

Waiting to go and not having anything to do to help with the preparations was going to make her restless. Sophie made herself run through one of the meditation exercises again, and then, when she felt calmer, sat down with one of the natural history books and started flipping.

CHAPTER
15

By nightfall they were packed up and gathered on the dock, waiting to meet the rowboat that would take them to the ship. Some of the men and women at the oars looked familiar to Sophie; after a moment, she realized two of them had been pallbearers for Gale.

They rowed out across the acrid-smelling water of the Erinthian bay to
Nightjar.

She was a small cutter, maybe seventy feet long, built for speed and maneuverability—to run, Sophie thought, but not so much to fight. Her crew complement was twenty-five. Sophie was half expecting them to pipe Parrish aboard, but this wasn't the Royal Navy, despite all the Age of Sail flourishes. Instead, Tonio met them on deck with a friendly “Welcome!” in Fleetspeak. The crew was packing away the black bunting and untying the sails.