A Daughter of No Nation (4 page)

Verena nodded as a rangy-looking guy, fiftyish, with huge eyes and black skin, stepped onto the main deck carrying a wooden keg full of black sand. “Krezzo.”

“An … oddity?” Sophie took a second look. The man didn't appear unusually brawny; there were no overt signs of magic about him. His hands were a little flat—scooplike, she thought.

“A transform. We say ‘transform' if they look like people,” Verena said, voice low. “Oddities have visible characteristics of animals or plants.”

“Okay.” Sophie committed the fact to memory.

“Also, it's insulting.”

“So transforms are regarded as useful members of society, but oddities are kind of freaks?”

“Yeah, but—” Verena broke off, scowling. “Dammit, stop info gathering!”

“Stop me,” Sophie told her. Verena didn't return her grin.

A female sailor called from below, “Kir Feliachild. Do you know where Cap'n means to put Kir Hansa?”

“Maybe she can bunk with Sweet for a day or two?” She looked at Sophie. “Now I suppose you want to know why the shuffle.”

Sophie thought about what she remembered of the layout: crew quarters, guest cabins, and a galley between decks, with the hold for storage below. “If ‘my' cabin is that double room aft … it locks from the outside, doesn't it?”

Verena nodded. “She got coshed on the head and dumped. It's possible there was a reason.”

“She didn't look dangerous.” Sophie felt a weird sense of dislocation. People weren't dangerous at home—well, they were, but not usually to her.

“
Nightjar
doesn't have a brig, and a lot of the bulkheads are mobile. The aft guest cabin has fixed bulkheads and a locking door; it essentially doubles as a holding cell.”

“So maybe the girl is a victim, or maybe she did something to warrant getting tossed off a ship? What could possibly rate that?”

Verena didn't take the bait this time, just shrugged.

Sophie made her way belowdecks, through a hatch, down a ladder to the galley, then aft to the improvised brig. An auburn-haired sailor passed her going the other way, carrying her duffel.

“Hold up,” she said, grabbing an opportunity to snatch out a dry pair of jeans and a shirt.

“I've got drugs in there, too.” She slid into the jeans, managing the awkward transaction of freeing up the plastic bag full of pills and bandages.

The sailor tugged out a small hand towel. “Want me to fetch the medical officer's kit?”

“Definitely. Thanks.” Giving up on the juggling act, she dropped the pills on the floor, toweled off, and switched into the dry T-shirt. “You're Sweet, right? The bosun's assistant?”

“Bosun now.” The woman looked pleased that Sophie had remembered her name. “Of Redcap Island.”

“I hear we're rooming together,” Sophie said. “Sorry about that.”

“You're welcome. Unless you snore?”

“Nobody's complained.” Sophie scooped up the pills again and headed aft. “Nice to see you again.”

The crew had pulled back the bedcovers but laid the girl on the floor leaving her also for Sophie to examine.

No point in putting her abed until she's dry, Sophie thought.

“Okay.” Sophie said. “You're not bleeding, and we've already moved you once. There doesn't seem to be any harm in drying you off and warming you up.”

She didn't have any scissors and found herself forced to untie the belt knotted around the girl's pantaloons and then fight the wet fabric off her legs.

She talked as she worked: “We're going to help you, it'll be okay, nobody's going to hurt you now.”

No response.

The pantaloons were crudely made, of a wool spun from some kind of coarse animal hair. Goat? As Sophie pulled them free, Sweet reappeared and nudged an empty basin at her. She dumped them inside, the better to keep the floor dry.

The girl wore an anklet that looked to have been made of pieces of horn.

“Dry her legs,” Sophie said. The shirt was easily unbuttoned, but working it over the sunburns on her arms was a delicate job. The girl moaned but did not wake.

“She'll be dehydrated as well as cold,” Sweet said.

“Maybe we can get her to swallow some broth?” The two of them lifted her into bed. “Chicken? Fish? Warm but not hot?”

“I'll ask Cook,” Sweet said. “Richler left a burn salve, if you don't have one.”

“Thanks.” She dug in the wooden box for it. It smelled of aloe pulp and maybe a bit of peppermint. She tried a patch of it on a two-inch square of healthy flesh on the girl's shoulder, waiting to see if any kind of allergic reaction manifested. When it didn't, she smeared the rest on the burns on the girl's arms, back, and face. Her inner arms, where she'd been clinging to the piece of driftwood, were less burned. Her hands bore a dense crisscrossing of what looked to be cat scratches. Sophie salved those, too.

Then she looked at the bruise behind her ear. If she probed it, would she be able to tell if the skull was fractured?

No. She wasn't a doctor. At home, she'd have long since called an ambulance so they could zoom the injured girl off to a nice clean hospital for an MRI.

“Anything could have done this. You might have hit your head accidentally. A loose spar, tripping on deck…”

Her mother's words came back:
You haven't been attacked—are you expecting to be?

Was this going to be her life? Longing for a chance to explore Stormwrack whenever she was home in San Francisco but then at hazard and perpetually culture shocked when she was here?

Sweet returned with the broth. They propped the girl's head up, just a bit, and took turns spooning tiny sips into her mouth. She swallowed about half the time; the rest dribbled out.

“I can sit with her, Kir,” said Sweet, once they'd done all they could.

“Okay, thanks.” Sophie's eye fell on a thick envelope sitting on the bedside table. “Was this for me?”

“I meant to move it with the rest of your things.”

“No problem,” she said absently. The envelope had one of those old-fashioned wax seals—though the color was royal blue rather than red or black—and its paper was thick, more board than page.

Sophie cracked the seal and found, folded within the board, three sheets of delicate, onionskin paper, bordered top and bottom by rough edges that hinted they'd been cut with a paper knife. Two were blank. The third was crammed with dense black letters, elegantly formed, that had soaked through the page.

It was from her birth father.

Dearest Sophie,
the letter began,

When I learned of your existence, it was barely spring. Now summer will soon be waning; autumn thrusts her eager face into the Northern Hemisphere, blowing cold winds ahead of her as the Fleet of Nations makes ready for its great annual cruise across Northwater.

I have been much engaged with those in the Convene and the Watch who keep secrets for the government, ensuring them of my discretion and taking many oaths, and so I have been privileged (and astonished!) to learn a certain amount about the outland regime where you spent your youth.

“What is it, Sophie?” Parrish was at the hatch.

“The Convene told Cly about San Francisco. About Earth, I mean.”

“Erstwhile,” Parrish corrected quietly. The few Stormwrackers who had heard of Earth at all seemed to think it was a remote island nation, somewhere the Fleet never sailed—and not a member of its 250 island nations. They thought it was a place someone could reach on a ship.

They tell me it is a place of wonders, unbelievable savagery, demonic entities, and wasteful habits, but that you, my child, were raised in comfort and security. For this, naturally, I am grateful.

But sentiment is not my purpose. In your absence I have not been idle—I have, among other things, successfully documented proof of paternity. I may very nearly call myself your father now. The next step, if you wish to claim me, would be to have you recognized a daughter of my home nation, Sylvanna.

I am on leave from my Judiciary duties; I would suggest a short visit to introduce you to the place, and to acquaint us with each other.

I await your soonest reply and enclose papers to that end. Until then, I remain your eager servant,

The Honorable Clydon Eblis Banning, Duelist-Advocate for the Fleet of Nations.

Sophie refolded the letter. Parrish's eyes were on her.

“He wants me to meet his people,” she said. “Go to Sylvanna, grand tour, all that.”

“As a starboard nation, Sylvanna—” Just then, the castaway moaned and opened her eyes.

Sophie took the girl's hand. The red of her sunburn was more vivid against the starched whiteness of the sheets.

“Where am I?” she managed. Her lips were cracked, her voice almost gone. Her Fleet accent was thick, barely comprehensible.

“Aboard the sailing vessel
Nightjar,
” Parrish told her. “We found you in the water. Do you know how long—”

“Two nights and three days. They're ahead.” An expression of desperation crossed her face.

“What happened?”

“You must make for Tibbon's Wash, Kirs. I beg you.”

“Why?” Sophie said. “What's up?”

“My only—my beloved. His name is Rashad.” She struggled to sit. “Rashad swore that if I did not return from this voyage, he would take his own life.”

“Tibbon's Wash is home?” Sophie asked.

The girl nodded. “I sought the Queen's favor; it's the only way for us to marry. Without permission…”

“Royal permission?” Sophie said. “Because you're in agriculture and Rashad is…”

Parrish gave her a faint, surprised look.

“Rashad is every noble thing you can imagine,” the girl protested. “He is generous,
beautiful
—”

“But forbidden?” Sophie said.

“His parents own a great fishing fleet.” She frowned. “How did you know I was a goatherd?”

“From your stuff.”

“What are you called, Kir?” Parrish interjected.

“Corsetta.”

“How did you end up in the water?” Sophie asked.

“Rashad's brother, Montaro, offered to make a sailor of me. To take me in pursuit of the Queen's favor. Our task was to tame a snow vulture. I'm good with animals. If I could do it, my way would be cleared.”

Sophie asked, “What's in it for Montaro?”

“The vulture,” she said. “We use their eggs in an inscription.”

“And you had no luck?”

“I befriended the bird.” Corsetta sighed. “Montaro's men took it and tossed me overboard.”

Parrish asked, “And the derelict?”

“Nothing to do with me!”

Her reply was hasty; she was hiding something.

Parrish went on: “Someone attacked that ship, that much is obvious. Its crew—”

“I tried to swim to the derelict, to save myself. That's all I know. Please, Kir! Montaro didn't believe me about Rashad's oath. You must help. He'll die!”

Nightjar
corrected suddenly; Corsetta involuntarily gripped the bedsheets, as if she felt about to tumble out of her cot. Parrish seemed unaffected; whatever was up, he trusted Tonio to take care of it.

“We must make for my homeland at full sail,” Corsetta mumbled. She was losing consciousness again.

“We'll do what we can, Corsetta,” Parrish told her. “Rest.”

They left her to sleep.

Nightjar
had been brought alongside the derelict, close enough for boarding; the two ships were very nearly lashed together. Tonio was overseeing a delicate operation; a lifeboat had been lowered to the derelict's deck. Long coils of rope connected it to
Nightjar.
The cannoneer, Krezzo, had set his arsenal aside and was standing ready at the rope.

“What is it?” Parrish asked.

“Another survivor,” Tonio said, and his expression was unmistakably satisfied. He pointed at Verena, who was climbing into the lifeboat, holding a wrapped something in a blanket.

Sophie's breath caught. “Not a baby?”

“No, Kir, nothing like that,” Tonio said.

“It's a cat, isn't it?” Parrish said.

She remembered him, suddenly, sitting on her mother's porch with Muffins, counting the cat's extra toes, looking sexy and sensitive, as though he were posing for a poster slated to go up on a thousand moony girls' bedroom walls.

“There's something I'm missing here.”

Krezzo and the others began hauling the ropes, raising the lifeboat. As it rose alongside, the other members of the crew balanced it so that Verena wasn't bounced against the rail or the sides of the cutter. “I like cats—don't get me wrong. But from the look on all your faces, you'd think we'd found a bag of diamonds.”

Parrish said, “Cats are hunters. They're a danger to birds, fish, small rodents.…”

“Sure, yeah.” Cats transported by sailors had wrought their share of devastation on island ecosystems at home, too. They'd done incredible damage in Australia to the marsupials.

“Their kind is cursed. If a cat leaves the protection of its home isle, it must ever after be aboard a ship. No cat who leaves the protection of a seacraft may live.”

“Huh?”

“If it falls into the sea or sets a paw on an island without cats, it dies,” Verena explained.

By now the lifeboat was up above the rail—the crew guided it down to the deck, between mainmast and foremast. Tonio reached for the bundle and unwrapped an ordinary if emaciated gray tabby with enormous green eyes and a strangely mashed look to its ears. It had a thin orange collar, braided from goat-spun rags.

So much for Corsetta having nothing to do with the derelict.

“Captain,” Tonio said, bowing. “May I present the newest member of our crew?”