A Daughter of No Nation (47 page)

The flipbook was a kid's trick: Sophie had one, back home, that her grandparents had played with as kids. But Cly watched it twice, three times, taking in the animation intently before handing it to Annela.

“A powerful image—”

“They're not petrodragon-whatever tainted mummer images,” she said. “You show this to a judge or jury—do you even have juries? Anyway, it instantly communicates how the Havers have been pulling this off. When the Havers see this, they'll know the game's up.”

“Fine in theory, but what if they don't immediately settle the case?” Cly asked.

Annela was watching the animation. “You know they probably will.”

Cly flicked the “probably” away. “Sophie, you would need to offer me more than just this … assertion. If it came to trial.”

“We have copies of the plans of the turtle. The originals belonged to Weyvan Highfelling, and they're in the keeping of the monks on Issle Morta. Who are unimpeachable, right?”

A slow nod. “Yes.”

“We and they have pieces of Highfelling's mechanism, and we have a whole automaton, plucked out of the Butcher's Baste. If you have Rees Erminne search Turtle Beach quickly, he might find others. It's only been forty-eight hours.”

Cly leaned back in his chair, examining first the documents and then, when Bram produced it, the automaton itself.

“Well?” It was Verena, for once, who couldn't wait out the silence.

“I'll set up a ritual duel with Beatrice immediately. Kir Gracechild?” He set a hand, very deliberately, on the forensic institute charter and slid it across the table toward her. “I believe you'll have to sell your friend Kir Salk at the Watch on this.”

Annela shifted in her chair, eyeing the document, then lifted it as though it were a dirty rag.

“Well?” Verena demanded. “Do we want Mom freed or not?”

“If I agree to certify this, Sophie, you will incur obligations to the Fleet and the Judiciary. Are you prepared to fulfill them?”

“Staying's what I've wanted all along.”

“The question now may be whether you'll be allowed to go home.”

“Wait—” Bram said.

Sophie raised a hand and he fell silent. She opened her mouth to reply to Annela, found her throat and mouth were parched, and made herself take a swallow of water. “We'll work something out. You'll see you can trust me.”

“Understand me, girl. Until I do, you'll stay here and work at this forensic. Sail out of formation and you'll find yourself on the wrong end of the Judiciary,” Annela said. “Please don't assume that because of your father's position that would be an … what's your term? Easy fix?”

“I hardly think you need worry that Sophie expects anything benevolent or easy from me,” Cly said, standing abruptly. “Tell my wife I'll see her on the dueling deck.”

With that parting shot delivered, he bowed and was gone.

 

CHAPTER    
31

It turned out that the Judiciary had one ship full of courtrooms and documents and clerks—real court, as Sophie thought of it—and another just for settling cases via combat.

The dueling deck was aboard
Martial,
the member ship from Haversham. It was a wide-draft ship, almost as big as a container ship from home, propelled not by sail power but by a combination of magic and steam. It had big screws and a tiny boiler, no bigger than Sophie's hands, that burned minuscule amounts of coal dust. This was sifted by a strange old “loader,” a woman in her eighties who kept the boiler in her lap, cradling it almost like a child.

The wide deck of the ship was laid out in fighting rings—boxing rings, fencing rings, wrestling rings—all with seating for court reporters, witnesses, and referees.

About two days after they'd struck their agreement with Annela and Cly, Beatrice was brought aboard and given a sword. She exchanged one token clash of blades with Cly and then surrendered.

After sailing around for a month and a half, trying to help her birth mother with her legal woes, this was the first time Sophie had actually laid eyes on Beatrice.

She was clad in Verdanii robes and her hair had grown. Her skin was tanned.

“Here,” she said, after her surrender. She handed Cly and Sophie each a big Verdanii coin stamped with the image of
Breadbasket.
“Damages paid for harm done.”

“We're finished, then,” Cly said. He appeared to be planning to go back to work as soon as it was over; a minion was hovering, holding out his duelist-advocate's cape and the big ceremonial sword.

“We're not divorced,” Beatrice said.

“How could I forget? I've run our case past Sophie's fellow, Bimisi. My heart stopped in a fight, for a few minutes, nine years ago. He seems to think we might invoke the ‘till death' clause of our vows.”

“You died? That sounds promising.”

“I need to ensure that acknowledging it doesn't damage my legal status elsewhere. I wouldn't want to lose Low Bann. It may be that I have no heir.”

Beatrice nodded. “I don't expect it matters all that much.”

“Perhaps you prefer bigamy, my haughty angel, but I need to get on with my life. Sophie, may I write you?”

Sophie swallowed. “Of course.”

“Fair winds, then.” He bowed, sheathed his sword, and strode off.

“Come on, this way,” Beatrice said to her. “Otherwise I'll have to talk to that frightful reporter, Pyke.”

The dueling deck had preparation rooms for people who were fighting; Beatrice had been assigned one, and now they retreated there. It was small, barely bigger than a dressing room.

Oh, this isn't awkward.
The first time Sophie had approached her birth mother, it had gotten her nothing but a screaming fight—Beatrice had been horrified to see her. And why not? Sophie turning up was what had ultimately gotten her arrested.

Now, she looked relaxed and tan and remarkably fit; her chestnut hair had grown and she'd put on some muscle. She had a tattoo Sophie hadn't seen before: a species of red fox that seemed to be watching the world from under the gauze of a green scarf wrapped around Beatrice's shoulders.

“I suppose I ought to thank you for getting me off the hook,” she said in English, in her typically ungracious manner but, somehow, with less rancor than usual in her voice.

Sophie shrugged. “I got to see more of Stormwrack. Besides, all the international tension over your arrest—my fault, right?”

“I may have to own some of that,” she said. “And don't inflate our importance overmuch. The free nations would never go to war over you and me.”

Sophie looked out a portal at the two lines of ships, separated by a mile, stretching to beyond sight.

“It's posturing, I tell you. They're closer, but I don't think they're quite ready yet.”

“That's a relief.” It was, too. Bad enough to have bumbled around sowing trouble for her relations. Starting some kind of inter-island war.

“The Fleet's tense,” Beatrice said. “Gale told me it was getting worse, but…”

“But?”

“Who ever takes their little sister seriously?” Beatrice said.

Was that a hint about Verena?

“Eugenia Merrin Sawtooth says hi,” Sophie said, to break the silence that followed from that.

Beatrice smiled. “That old ghost was very good to me.”

“I don't understand why she isn't out on the front of the ship.”

“She blabs her full name to anyone she meets. Some kind of curse. Makes her vulnerable to inscription. They'd have scuttled her long ago, but Cly took it into his head to save her.”

“Why?”

“He basks in gratitude?”

“You think he's a sociopath, don't you?”

Her mother drew in a long breath. “High functioning, perhaps. Possibly amended by magic. But … yes. When I got to San Francisco, I found out about sociopathy and serial killers—from a TV thriller, I admit. Even so, I very nearly threw up.”

“He didn't hit you or anything. He says.”

“No.”

“But he's horrible in some way?”

Beatrice pursed her lips, seeming to think. “You've seen Clydon fight. Really fight?”

Crossbow bolt through the throat.
Sophie nodded.

“That's how he used to argue, too. Maliciously. Unmercifully. I hope you never…” She shuddered.

Sophie remembered nearly heaving on the parade float. “Does he sleep with slaves?”

“No!” Beatrice said, seeming genuinely shocked.

Oh, I was wrong, I was wrong, what a relief!
She could feel the tears coming.

They stared at each other, again stuck on what to say. Finally, Beatrice started going through her purse. “I'd kill for a burrito. Have to get Merro to spring for Mexican when I get home.”

“That'll be nice,” Sophie said.

“You going right back?”

“No. Annela seems to think I need to hang around and make this institute legitimate. If she can't keep me from studying Stormwrack, she may try to keep me here.”

“Yes, she dislikes you,” Beatrice said. “Don't take it personally. She's got remarkably little patience for me. The emotional outbursts, you know. Not trademark Verdanii.”

“I thought if I got Sylvanner citizenship it would help with all this residency stuff.”

“Just keep making yourself useful,” Beatrice advised. “Nella can't resist a good tool of statecraft. Besides, if she thinks you might take up resolving Sylvanna's thousand lawsuits as a hobby, she'll find other puzzles to keep you busy.” Her mouth pinched as if she were sucking a lemon. Thinking of Cly again, probably.

“I thought I needed a nation. People were refusing to sell goods to me in the market.”

“You need a
position.
A job in the courts puts you halfway there. Get someone to take you on as crew of their ship. So-and-So of the sailing vessel Whatever is a barely respectable designation.”

“I didn't know that.”

“People don't offer up information here. You have to claw for it.”

“So—a ship. A paycheck, basically?”

“A captain who'll take responsibility for you. That sexy Tiladene still owes you one, doesn't he?” She stood. “I've had it. Someone can send for me when the divorce papers come through. You'll tell 'em?”

“Sure.”

Beatrice drew out a thumbnail-size pocket watch and looked at her cannily. “You wouldn't know what became of Gale's brass watch?”

Sophie's heart sank. “She lost it behind a Dumpster. It's at my house. Um, it's broken.”

“Get it repaired and bring it by sometime. Odds are you can't make it tick. Supposedly, you need the Allmother's blessing. Still…” She spun the watch on its chain. The sounds it made were fine musical plinks. Then she vanished. No poof, just gone.

I have to find out how that works.
She felt heartened.

“Sophie?”

Parrish was tapping on the dressing room door.

He must have been meeting with official types. He was shaved, combed, uniformed, every inch the fancy captain.

On a whim, Sophie curtsied. This got her a mildly bemused look and a bow.

She took his arm like an old-fashioned lady, kissed his cheek, and said, “What's up, beautiful?”

“Well,” he said. “There's an entertainment tonight.”

“Puppets?”

“Music. Would you … prefer puppets?”

“We've done puppets,” she said, mimicking Annela's frosty tone. “Kir.”

A startled laugh. “I beg you, don't ever get caught mocking the Convenor.”

“Understood,” she said, feeling merry. “So … music?”

“Music,” he said.

“Like, dancing music? Or opera?” She imagined a scene out of Jane Austen, young ladies in Regency dresses performing on pianofortes.

“Drummers from Zingoasis,” he said. “How are you?”

“I suddenly appreciate my sane, normal, super-supportive parents.”

A little deflation in him. “You'll go home, then, when Annela says you may?”

“Not permanently. I love—” She faltered. “I need to be here. I can't explain it.”

“Pheromones?”

“For a planet? You really weren't listening when I laid that out for you.” She nudged him, to show she was kidding, and walked on.

Tried to, anyway, but he was as impossible to move as a statue. He turned so they were facing, looking into her eyes so very seriously.

“Pheromones?” he said again.

“Chemistry,” she said, but he didn't smile. He thought she meant, you know,
chemistry.
The science.

“Look, I'm not saying—”

He kissed her, once, long. Let her go and said, “Chemistry?”

It took a second to catch her breath. “Not just chemistry.”

“Powerful pre-programmed biological instincts?”

“Now you're quoting Bram, not me. Besides, what about you and destiny and Gale's fate resting on your—”

He laid a finger on her lips.

“Mmphree movfff—”

“Sophie, if you think the heart can be weighed, measured, paced out, timed like the World Clock—”

She pushed his hand away, taking the opportunity to clasp it. “I don't think that.”

He looked, of all things, suspicious.

“Jeez, Parrish, don't you know I'm nuts about you?”

“Nuts?”

“Just because I don't buy into this whole maudlin love-at-first-sight thing, or big-
D
destiny, or that iron and lodestone twaddle of Corsetta's, two hearts beating as one—”

“Ah. Sophie, perhaps you should—”

But she wasn't going to let him stop her now. “—just because I don't excuse my feelings with superstition doesn't mean I'm not completely, stupidly, annoyingly infatuated with you. I think about you all the bleeping time. It's…”