Child of a Hidden Sea (39 page)

“The leg's not broken. And my birth father found me, and the reason everyone's been freaking out and trying to send us home is basically that Beatrice having a baby violated her prenup, if you can believe it. Breach of contract, which is apparently more important here than keeping your flesh and blood.”

He spent a second absorbing that. “So it's not some big fate thing after all? The trouble you were supposed to cause by coming back?”

“No. And hurrah to that.”

“Free will triumphs,” he said. “Details later?”

“As many as you want. Your turn.”

He opened and closed the hand. “They wanted my middle name.”

“You give it to them?”

He shook his head. “They don't ask, the first day. ‘The first sting's for nothing,' is how Coine put it.”

“Because they mark their property.”

“They're all about tradition. So he did this, to the thumb. And yes, it did hurt, all the way up to the elbow. Couldn't use the hand all day, couldn't move the arm. ‘We'll do the other thumb tomorrow,' said Coine, ‘Less you give us your name.' They do one a day, under the nail, until you talk. It's like a game.” He ran a hand through his hair and let out a shaky laugh. “Almost a religious ritual.”

“I've decided we need to get our parents to adopt another kid.” She fought to keep her tone light. “One with an interest in anthropology or sociology—”

“Well, Verena's into soft science,” he said. “What's she studying? International relations? Sofe, stop crying, will you? I'm here; everything's trending back to optimal.”

She wiped at her face. “I'm just relieved. But—your hand, Bram.”

“Apparently there's one person in all the world who resisted until the Golden had done all ten fingers—then he broke when they did the big toe. I was out of my mind scared, I won't pretend. Then all of a sudden morning came and instead of more…”

“Abuse? Torture?”

“Instead of
more
, they packed me up and sent me off to the penitent monks.”

“That was my father,” she said. “He made them—oh! There's his sail!”

“What?”

She pointed toward the horizon. “
Sawtooth
's coming. And—damn, three points off her stern—I think that's
Ascension.
”

She was right. Once she'd used her camera to bring it into focus, the
Y
-shaped mast with its spiderweb sail was as unmistakeable as it was improbable.

“Come on,” Bram said. “Let's get you off that leg and we can tell each other everything.”

A bit of prowling revealed that
Constitution
had a mess aft, a fancy dining lounge. They ate toasted muffins and poached heron eggs off china, and watched from cushy chairs as Cly's sail got bigger and bigger. The ship had a flag out to signal for a ride—as soon as they were close, three of the little ferries started zooming toward them, racing one other for the fare.

Sophie said. “Let's see if Beatrice and Cly managed to sail to Tiladene and warn Lais Dariach without killing each other.”

Using the telephoto on her camera, she could see her mother and Verena catching the ferry, making for
Constitution
at full sail.
Sawtooth
went on to take a position among an array of vessels all flying the Judiciary flag.
Ascension
, since she wasn't a Rep ship, sailed to a rendezvous farther back, midway through the Fleet.

Annela and Parrish turned up on the elevator platform at about the same time as Sophie and Bram. Beatrice spilled out first, more or less collapsing into Annela's arms with a wail.

“What kept you?” Annela said, over her shoulder, as she patted her … cousin? “Sophie said you set out for the Fleet days ago.”

“Tiladene is under blockade,” Verena said. “They wounded that friend of Sophie's.”

“Lais?”

“We smuggled him aboard
Sawtooth
and then Cly bullied his way past an Ualtarite ship's captain who tried to stop us—”

“Is the Tiladene badly hurt?” Annela asked.

“Yeah. Cly has an amazing doctor aboard his yacht, because of the dueling. But he says it'll take magic to save him.”

“Oh, dry your eyes, Beatrice—it's unseemly.”

“You pack away the stiff upper lip bull, Annie,” Beatrice said. “Or I will howl down this deck.”

Annela sighed. “All of you, follow me.”

She led them down to the lower decks, to a black-painted hallway and an unmarked door. Before opening it, she added, in a whisper to Sophie, “Don't babble at him, child. It'll confuse matters.”

Sophie stared at her, rattled. “Babble? I don't think ‘babble' is fair—”

“Answer yes or no if you're spoken to, and otherwise let me do the talking,” she snapped.

“Let her be,” Beatrice said. “You're not the Allmother yet.”

Annela straightened to her full, regal height and swept into a room so simple that, after the dramatics in the corridor, it seemed a bit of a letdown. The room resembled a Puritan one-room schoolhouse, or maybe a prison lecture hall: hard wooden chairs facing a lectern, no ornamentation at all. A single individual sat at a long desk. He had Asian features, long black hair, a black robe, and a grim expression that seemed at one with the decor.

“What trouble have you brought the Watch now, Convenor Gracechild?” He droned the words.

Annela gestured at the hard chairs and, when everyone was seated, approached the lectern. “I bring the courier from Erstwhile and various members and servants of my family, Kir, to report on a situation that endangers the Cessation.”

“What a relief,” he said. “I thought you'd merely come to squabble beyond my door.”

Sophie couldn't help it; she chortled. The man harpooned her with a look.

“Go ahead, Convenor.”

Speaking quickly, Annela filled him in on everything, the attack on Gale, the storms, the threats on Erinth, the events on Tallon and after.

The black-garbed man made notes and didn't quite yawn, and when Annela finished he said, “Matters affecting the Cessation of Hostilities require a hearing before a section of the Convene. I shall prepare summons. Can anyone vouch for the honor of the two outlanders?”

Parrish rose. “Both of the Kirs Hansa can be trusted to tell the truth.”

A snort. “A recommendation from you, Parrish, can hardly be acceptable. Does nobody know them better?”

Silence.

Bram elbowed Verena, but she looked away.

The man let out a wet, congested snort, as if this was a conspiracy, drummed up to add to the pile on his desk. “Do the outlanders at least comprehend that no mention of Erstwhile will be tolerated in Committee?”

Parrish looked at Sophie, who nodded. Bram followed her lead. “They do, Kir.”

He fixed them with a hostile gaze. “If you are asked about any matter touching upon your homeland, your response is to be ‘I cannot say.'”

“One other thing,” Annela said.

“Yes, Convenor?”

“It's my understanding that the girl's full name is known to people of the nations so accused. And Kir Bramwell Hansa was in the hands of the Golden for a time.”

“So you say.”

“You better not say he's lying,” Sophie said, grabbing Bram's hand and holding it up, to show off the pearl embedded under his thumb.

This earned another snort. “You're speaking out of turn, girl.”

She opened her mouth to tell him how much she cared about that, but Annela thundered: “Sit down now, Sophie!”

Bram pulled his hand loose and gave her a tug. She wobbled back into her seat.

Annela continued: “I want a writ saying that should any contributing witness to these events suffer critical harm or be rendered speechless, their assertions will be read into the record as fact, unchallenged.”

“Agreed. I'll inform the requisite parties when I make up the summons.” His tone made it clear they were dismissed.

“Gee, thanks for sticking up for us,” Bram said to Verena as the hatch slammed shut behind them.

“Couldn't,” she said. “If he'd grilled me about how I knew I could trust Sophie, or how I got to know her at all, I'd have had to tell him about Gale's purse and the inheritance mess. It'd make her look worse—dishonorable, you know.”

That damned purse. Sophie fought an urge to point out, again, that she hadn't known the thing would imprint on her like some kind of gosling. “So what happens now?”

“They'll summon a handful of Convenors,” Annela said. “The group of you must convince them that there's a tie between the Golden and the Ualtarites, that the Ualtarites put this scheme together and are probably in possession of Yacoura.”

“Won't that essentially accomplish what the Ualtarites want?” Sophie said. “They want the Fleet to know they've got the Heart—they want to threaten to break it, and
Temperance,
so they can roll over the Tiladenes.”

“They need deniability,” Annela said. “It's a tangle of law and honor, and I don't expect you to understand.”

“Yeah. Complicated stuff like that is just beyond me.” Having Bram back, knowing that Verena was safe, had made the threat of war seem vastly less important.

Annela ignored her remark. “Isle of Gold has a claim of sorts on the Heart, because of the sinking of
Lucre
. They've pursued it openly for many years. They can argue that their search for it is a matter of honor. Ualtar has no such claim; if they sought Yacoura, their only reason could be to break the peace, and…”

“And that just makes them look bad?”

“Don't act superior. Beatrice tells me that public opinion drives policy in the outlands, too,” Annela said.

“The two nations need each other, but they won't want to admit it,” Bram said. “Like a secret marriage.”

“Yes,” Annela said. “The Golden also won't wish to concede that they needed help to get the Heart … We might use their pride against them.”

“So how many people are we going to be addressing?” Sophie said.

“The minimum for an emergency Convene is twelve representatives. According to tradition, we need equal representation from the port and starboard sides of the government,” Annela said.

Twelve people. That didn't sound so bad. Sophie stepped out onto the maindeck of
Constitution
, taking in a deep breath of the clean, cold air. “We can do that.”

Annela gave her a look that bespoke grave doubts.

“It's session break.” Beatrice spoke for the first time. “Won't they be hard put to scrape up a dozen Convenors?”

“Normally, yes. But it's graduation.”

“Is it?” Something complicated passed over Parrish's face. Unhappiness?

Ten or twelve people.

It's time I got over the weird stage fright,
Sophie told herself.
If I can do this, going home and defending my thesis should be easy.

Bram squeezed her hand, as if he knew what she was thinking.

“I'll do what I can to prepare you,” Annela said. “But first, I've got to see who I can find for a session. Stay on
Constitution
. Parrish, keep them in order, will you?”

With that, she vanished back down into the bowels of the ship, leaving Sophie with Bram, Parrish, Beatrice, and Verena.

Verena elbowed their mother, who gritted her teeth.

Then she asked: “Sophie. Why are you limping?”

“I had some trouble retrieving the Heart. And … your octopus died. I'm sorry.” She fumbled in her things, coming up with the flute, offering it back.

Beatrice took it, looking it over with a fond eye. “I expect if I called, we'd rustle up another one.”

“Is that what'll happen, if we get Yacoura back? You'll call another octopus and it'll make off with it again?”

“No, probably not. The Legend about its disappearance came to a natural close when you retrieved it. The Fleet will take custody.”

Sophie bit her lip. “Listen, I'm sorry about the … about the whole legal mess.”

“About my being arrested?” A bitter half-smile. “Verena's been trying to convince me I made my own bed there. She says you're fundamentally softhearted, that if I'd told you my neck was on the line instead of ‘screeching like a banshee…'—that is how you put it?”

Verena stared at the floor, clearly embarrassed at being quoted.

“She says you'd have left well enough alone.”

“Uh…” She was at once grateful for Verena's support and unsure that it was true that she could have been dissuaded so easily from looking into her background. “I don't suppose there's any chance you and Cly talked out your issues?”

At the mention of Cly's name, Beatrice stiffened.

“I'll take that as a no.”

“How would you have felt,” Beatrice asked, “if you'd found your parents in … back in the outlands, and your father had turned out to be the guy who pushes the button in the gas chamber?”

“I—”
He's a lawyer. A judge,
Sophie thought, but she remembered again, his voice:
Do you fight?
And there was what he'd said to the pirate, too:
I'm reckoned by some ill-tempered.

What did you say to that?

Beatrice continued: “What if his title was Lord High Executioner, rather than Duelist-Adjudicator? Wouldn't that bring you up short? Give you a bit of a chill?”

“This is … a different place,” Sophie said. “I don't know if that's a fair comparison.”

“The Dueling Deck is where the Fleet shunts its—” Beatrice broke off abruptly, her gaze drawn over Sophie's shoulder.

Cly was there, standing in a shaft of moonlight, beaming at Sophie.

Its what? Its fighters? Its killers?

Beatrice turned away.