Child of a Hidden Sea (26 page)

“We did not, alas, reach out to the
Estrel
for spiritual reasons. That ship sank in a storm. It was a rescue attempt.”

“Bet it was a sudden storm,” she said. “And maybe a bit localized?”

“Quite sudden, yes.” Maray's teeth clicked. “By the time we arrived, all we could do was pick up the pieces.”

“Survivors?”

“Regrettably, there are none.”

“There wouldn't be, would there?”

Now Tonio put his hand on her arm. “You've been most helpful, Kir Tanta.”

“Tanta's my title, boy,” she said. “Maray's my name.”

“We should go,” he said. “Sophie? The Tanta is a busy woman.”

She shook off his arm. “Were there bodies? The
Estrel
crew, did you recover any bodies?”

“Taken by the sea, Kir, like the ship itself.”

“Sophie…”

“It's okay, Tonio,” she said. “The people who killed…”

Tanta Maray raised an eyebrow. “Careful, Kir.”

“… who killed Gale Feliachild,” she said. “They're keen to get their hands on this Heart of
Temperance
thing. Yacoura.”

“The Heart is lost,” Tonio and the Ualtarite officer said, in virtually the same tone of voice.

She thought again:
Gotta be some kind of spell doing that.

“The Golders don't care if I know they killed Gale, Tonio. And Maray probably doesn't care that I think she ran down the
Estrel
and got one of the crew to give up my name, or witched up the storm that blew us to Tallon.”

“Believing something and making others credit it are two different things.” Tanta Maray smiled and removed the lens over her eye, revealing a web-clouded socket beneath, a nested hole of silk in which small white spiderlings bundled and writhed.

Oh, yuck.
Sophie liked spiders as much as the next biologist, but that didn't keep her from taking a healthy step back.

“I think you may be entirely unfit for Fleet work, child. You have no gift for artifice.”

“You mean lying?”

“Discretion, rather.”

The murderers might think it's better if I know what they're up to, if they think it'll get me looking for the Heart.”

“Among the imperfected, fear can be a powerful call to action.” A spider wobbled over the edge of her eye socket, dangling by a leg.

“So's being angry,” Sophie said. “Captain Dracy and her crew weren't involved in any of this.”

“The innocent come to grief all the time. Is there anything else?”

“No. Thanks for your time,” Sophie said. “Should we see ourselves out?”

“Of course. Thank you for attending our religious service. And you, Kir Hansa—” This was said pointedly, to exclude Tonio. “May return anytime.”

The giant was waiting to escort them off ship.

“Oh no,” she said, as soon as they were back on the docks. “The
Estrel
crew. Poor Captain Dracy.”

“It wasn't your fault,” Tonio said. “Kir Sophie, don't cry.”

“Tell me you have jail here, Tonio. If we prove anything on these guys, will there be consequences for them?”

“It will go to the courts and be there forever, Kir, but in the meantime the guilty parties will probably be confined to a Fleet brig.” They had reached the boardwalk, and as he stepped out of
Ascension
's shadow, he made for a bench and collapsed onto it. “Garland is going to have me horsewhipped.”

“Seriously?” She wiped her cheeks. “He doesn't actually do the evil navy discipline, does he?”

“He may take it up when he hears about this. You mustn't get yourself killed, Sophie—”

“Oh come on, we got away with it. And the thing is, it was worthwhile. I think I get everything, Tonio.”

He smiled weakly. “Then we can go back to
Nightjar
?”

“We have to pick up my shiny new will, remember?” She sat down beside him. “Buck up. I'll buy you a sandwich. There's a vendor coming this way.”

That got her a nervous laugh. “Scare a man to death and then feed him. You've more in common with Kir Gale than you know.”

Was it strange that his words pleased her? She gave him a friendly elbow in the ribs, relaxing on the bench beside him, feeling the satisfaction of a good day's work: hazard survived, progress made.

The vendor was a young woman in a starched outfit and cap that reminded Sophie of old-fashioned nursing uniforms. She was rolling a blue-and-white cart filled with turkey sandwiches: whole grain bread, white meat, hot yellow mustard, and a layer of dill pickles. They were wrapped in flimsy squares of fabric that did double duty as napkins.

They got one and split it, watching the girl as she continued down the cobbled wharfside path, trying her luck with the various ships tied up along the beach. Here at the waterfront, the sails and masts were a forest that all but blocked out the sea. The sound of carpentry—hand saws and hammering—rolled off their decks. Riggers swarmed the masts, sorting ropes and hanging sails. Back the way they'd come, loaders and stevedores moved goods on and off ships like
Ascension.

Everyone was hard at work: The hum of industry seemed to rise from the stones underfoot. She turned, taking in the town, the shopping district that ran along the waterfront and the square blocks of little white houses beyond. Was loafing just not allowed here? She spotted a playground. Half a dozen parents were supervising little kids at play. A lone guy with a missing leg who was sitting on a bench playing a small instrument that looked like a squeezebox and feeding scraps to a dog.

Instead of asking Tonio about the Tallon economy, she said: “There's something I'm wondering about. How is it you're the one who's not welcome back on that Ualtarite ship? You were polite.”

“Whereas you practically accused them of murder.”

“Can I help it if she left Dracy's lantern sitting out on her junk like a smoking gun? What did you do to offend them?”

“I'm especially imperfect,” he said, dabbing the corners of his mouth and then unfurling the scroll the giant had given him, showing her the illustration of the damned.

The pile of bodies, as Sophie looked at it, shimmered a little. “The images are meant to show depravity?”

“Indeed.”

“So there's a dancing girl, representing the concept of slutty womanhood. Typical—they would be prudish sexists, wouldn't they? And the guy bound up in cobwebs who's clutching a purse … that'd be greed.”

“This,” Tonio said, exasperated. He tapped a picture of two men bound up together, oblivious to their doom, kissing. “They gave it to me, because … the word your brother uses is … delightful?”

“Gay,” she said. “You're gay?”

He nodded, rising to his feet. “The law office will close soon, Kir. Sophie, I mean. Are you going to go in and sign that will?”

Changing the subject,
she thought,
deflecting.
It was another thing she hadn't considered about this place … even if some of the three hundred or so nations of Stormwrack were outright liberal, there would be places where the attitudes were medieval.

She said: “So they're murderers, slavers, and homophobes. Cheer up, Tonio. Getting them in trouble with the Fleet will be so very awesome.”

He looked a little wrung out, but he smiled.

“I'm sorry I made you take in their church service. If I'd known, I'd … well, I'd have apologized first. Or brought someone else.”
Like who? Bram?

“You have a good heart, Sophie,” he said.

She went in and signed her will, then arranged to have a copy sent to Annela Gracechild. When she came out, Tonio was staring at
Ascension
.

“Isle of Gold means to carry all the blame for Gale's death,” he said. “It's why John Coine approached you openly.”

“That's what I think too. The Ualtarites didn't think anyone would find out they were involved.”

“They know now—that you know. You told them it was you who saw the Ualtarite. You accused Maray of sinking your salvager friends.”

“I should've played it cool, right?”

“Yes.”

“I'm lousy at mind games.”

“Why would the Ualtarites involve themselves? What possible reason could they have?”

“I've got one whopper of a theory about that,” she said. “Let's hook up with the others and see if there's some way we can test it.”

CHAPTER
17

Nightjar
's galley was a utilitarian space, home to a plain wooden table with benches long enough to seat six on either side and two chairs at either end. With Parrish at one end of the table and Verena at the other, Bram and Sophie ended up across from each other.

Bram was avoiding her gaze, which meant he was still mad. Tonio was the odd fellow out, and he emanated a faint air of misery. Sophie figured he was unhappy that his captain was about to find out he'd “let” Sophie go aboard
Ascension
.

“If Parrish has a proper perspective, he'll be mad at me for taking you among the rabid homophobes,” she had told him on the way back.

“He's perfectly capable of being upset with us both.”

“Maybe we can gloss over that part of our outing,” she said, and that got a weak chuckle. “Besides, how much more uptight could Parrish possibly get?”

The ship's cook had gone for take-out, hitting up the locals for a thick lamb stew and a hearty pull-apart loaf of a bread she would have called challah. Parrish had come back from his visit to Gale's unnamed friends with a basket of produce: fresh carrots with a hint of gold color in them, crisp spinach leaves and a turnip that had been diced fine and soaked in vinegar as a sort of relish for the rest.

It looked like he'd picked them himself; muddy smudges marked the knees of his breeches. “Verena and I checked with Tallon security but they had nothing useful to share,” he said, as they sat. “Our investigation seems stalled.”

“Tonio and I—” Everyone's eyes were on her—everyone's but Bram's. She found her words had dried up.

Oh, this was ridiculous. She knew what was going on, she did; all she had to do was tell them. What was this, stage fright?

The old sense that her idea would fall apart when she explained it, that they'd poke holes in her theory and tell her she'd been silly, guilty of shallow thinking, of not really examining her hypothesis—

Come on, she thought, even as she felt her face flood with heat.
It's just Bram and Verena, and Tonio already knows. And Parrish.

She could almost hear him:
That's an interesting chain of associations, Kir, but what you're proposing is impossible, and you scared Tonio badly in the process.

She looked to Bram for help.

“Come on, Ducks, don't choke now,” he said. “Have you cracked the case or what?”

Don't call me Ducks.
The thread of annoyance helped.

“When I was aboard
Estrel
,” Sophie made herself say, using Fleetspeak but choosing simple words for Bram's sake. “There was a Tiladene man named Lais Dariach. Someone was blackmailing his family horse farm with an inscription; he'd paid a ransom.”

“We know this,” Verena said. “You diverted the ship to help him. It's part of the issue with the inheritance.”

“I'm not bringing it up to rub your nose in it,” Sophie said. “The thing is, so much has happened that I forgot to tell you something. The ransomers tried to kill Lais at the drop-off. The whole thing with the stud horse was pretty much intended to draw him out.”

At least nobody laughed.

“A murder attempt?” Verena said.

“They used a grenade.”

Parrish frowned. “I don't see the significance—”

Sophie's heart sank.

“She's right,” Bram interrupted. “You don't make grenades here, do you? From what I've seen and read, your industrial base isn't much for heavy metals or mining. That anchor chain Sophie fried, you imported it from our world, didn't you?” “And painted it so people wouldn't go “Eww, Iron!”,” Sophie added.

Bram added, “And what gunpowder you have is rationed, right?”

“The Ualtarites attacked Gale in San Francisco,” Sophie said. “And whoever attacked Lais used what you call mummer technology. We know John Coine and the Ualtarite guy traveled to Erstwhile to get Gale. I'm thinking they bought military hardware while they were there. Both murder attempts are tied to home. Unless I'm wrong…” There she faltered, but nobody seemed to notice. “… wrong about how hard it is to get from one world to the other…”

“You're not wrong,” Verena said. “Almost nobody knows about Erstwhile in the first place, and travel's extremely restricted.”

“The grenade connects the attempt to kill Lais to the attack on Gale in San Francisco,” Sophie said. “Come on, Parrish, doesn't that have to be significant?”

“It's definitely a link,” Verena said. “Two separate sets of killers making sneak trips to Erstwhile … the odds on that are tiny.”

With obvious reluctance, Parrish nodded.

“What would Ualtar want with some polyamorous horse breeder? It makes less sense than them wanting Yacoura,” Tonio objected.

“Ualtar has always had considerable friction with Tiladene,” Parrish said. “They're sexually conservative, and Tiladene's disavowal of marriage and monogamy—”

“It's not about sex,” Sophie said. “Lais is a biologist. He's been breeding chindrella … building a better spider.”

Silence fell around the table.

“Holy seas,” Verena said. “The guy's trying to break the Ualtarite cobweb monopoly?”

“Yes! Exactly!” Sophie felt a wave of relief. “The two islands are physically close to each other, aren't they? Similar microclimates? Maybe Lais lifted some samples, or a few Ualtar chindrella ended up on Tiladene. Either way, he's trying to produce the higher-quality silk.”