A Daughter of No Nation (11 page)

“Flinging curses is poor form,” he told her.

“What do you expect?” Corsetta told him, bitterly. “I'm just a goatherd.”

They caught a ferry to
Gatehouse,
left her there with the Watch, and went on to
Nightjar.

“True love's gonna get you,” Sophie said, making a joke of it.

“Corsetta is very young,” Parrish replied. His expression was closed, guarded.

“Curses like that don't work, do they?”

“As with anything, my name would be required for a curse.”

“She's pretty devious. Maybe she slipped it off
Nightjar.
”

“My middle name is lost—even I don't know it.”

“Oh, I'd forgotten that.”

He frowned. “I didn't know you knew.”

Why does this feel awkward?
“Did you by any chance find Verena?”

“She went to
Breadbasket
to see her mother.” He shook his head. “Your mother, that is.”

Beatrice. Stuck under house arrest, with no idea there was a scheme afoot to bail her. “There's something about this that you aren't telling me, isn't there?”

“My orders are very specific,” he said. “And recently, bracingly, reclarified.”

“Meaning yes.”

“There's nothing you couldn't work out for yourself, if you directed your attention to the matter.”

“Directed my…” She remembered what he'd said at dinner. “Politics, not nature. I will work it out, whatever it is.”

He nodded, agreeing, somehow very sober.

“What happens with you guys while I'm off with Cly?”

“Unknown. Annela is unlikely to offer Verena a proper assignment. We may be at loose ends until there's a package to be taken to Erstwhile.”

“She couldn't interest herself in this whole Tibbon's Wash situation, could she?”

“Verena?” Parrish gave her a considering look.

“Come on. Corsetta talks the big talk about being base to the poet boy's catalyst, but there's a reason she wants to get home before the brother does. She's desperate. Plus, we don't know yet who healed her or why she was aboard that derelict.”

He said, “You don't lend any credence to her feelings?”

“That romantic stuff plays better in stories than in real life, doesn't it? Come on, she's fifteen? Once the hormone rush abates a little, they'll both move on.”

“Is that so?”

“That girl's got bigger ambitions than some crab boat can hold.”

“So if she's ambitious—”

“Ambitious and a liar. Definitely playing us, probably playing the elder brother, possibly even playing her alleged one true love.”

“Then she's incapable of love? Or unworthy?”

“Oh, she can feel whatever she likes. They both can. That doesn't make them pair-bonded for life, whatever they may think now.”

“I see,” he said, words clipped.

She decided to ignore the tone. “Anyway, in what world does a family of fishers care if one of the farmgirls takes a useless young dreamer off their hands?”

“Tibbon's Wash is a stratified kingdom from the port side of the government,” he said. “The Queen's favor allows people to attempt to earn boons from the crown. It builds in a little flexibility.”

“A safety valve,” she said. “I got that much.”

He didn't look as though he knew what that meant. “They've been unfortunately stuck for a number of years. Nobody's been able to bring in a quiescent snow vulture. The appointed quest proved too difficult; there haven't been any boons for over a decade.”

“Bad luck for them. But Gale used to do this, didn't she? Just decide to poke her nose into things? She didn't always wait for Annela to give her orders.”

“I'll suggest to Verena that ‘we poke into it,' as you say,” he said. “Thank you, Sophie. It's kind of you to think of her.”

 

CHAPTER    
6

Some of the biggest ships in the civilian quarter of the Fleet were jammed from bilge to gunwales with law offices, and Mensalom Bimisi had a suite of cabins within one such enormous sailing ship in the civilian quarter.

He was a slow-moving Tiladene man, mushroom pale, with bedroom eyes and an odd, drawling Fleet accent. He laid the terms of the deal out for Sophie in pokey, exhausting detail.

The gist was that Cly would perform an unspecified “personal service” for Sophie (nowhere in the forty pages of “why” and “wherefore” did he admit to having influence over Beatrice's bail process) and Sophie, in return, would accompany him to Sylvanna. She would tour his lowlands estate, register at the birth office, present herself to the head of his family and—apparently this was key—attend some big summer festival at the Spellscrip Institute.

Neither of them was obliged to do anything after that. Cly could, if he wished, make her his heir. Sylvanna would, as a matter of course, automatically issue her a birth certificate.

It seemed crazy that she needed what was practically an international treaty just to go visit her birth father's home. But despite Cly's being a judge, it was obvious the Verdanii side of the family simply didn't trust him.

“At some point in this process, after you're documented Sylvanner, Kir Banning could give you an additional name,” Mensalom said.

“A Sylvanner name?”

“As I understand it, yours has fallen into common knowing. Properly altering your identity would protect you from malicious enchantment.”

“Okay, good.” Her thoughts skipped over the memory of the two men she'd seen being killed by inscription.

Mensalom gave such an impression of overall sleepiness that she was tempted to assume he wasn't all that good at what he did, but she'd seen the looks on both Annela and Cly's faces when he'd been named as her lawyer in the action. At the very least, he had a fearsome reputation.

The lawyer glanced at a timepiece on his desk. “Your father should be here by now. Is there anything you'd like to discuss before I invite him in to review the amendments and sign the documents?”

She shook her head and her birth father swept in, kissed the spot atop her head, threw Mensalom a halfhearted bow, then draped himself in a chair.

“Is this it?” He picked the document off the table and began skimming, just looking for the places where Mensalom had tweaked the original text.

“Did you see you may bring companions?” Cly asked.

Sophie nodded. “I'd ask Bram, but he's you-know-where.”

“Your half-sister?”

“She has business.”
And she'd be obliged to cramp my research style.

“Do you remember that cadet from graduation? She came in second in the Slosh?”

“Zita?”

“You have an excellent memory. She will be aboard
Sawtooth;
she's about your sister's age. Since you're too old for a governess and too well schooled to bother with a tutor, I have also engaged a memorician.”

“I don't know what that is,” Sophie said, and saw Mensalom's eyebrows quirk upward in surprise.

“He reads,” Cly said. “And has perfect recall.”

“A walking library, in other words?” She almost clapped.

“His shelf's a little empty at the moment, but you can stack him.” Cly beamed. “Is there anything else you need? Any possessions you wish transferred to my ship?”

“
Nightjar
's got my diving kit,” she said. “Annela's confiscated my cameras and all our instruments, mine and Bram's. I don't expect you to perform miracles, but—”

“Watch me.” Cly handed over a card embossed with the Judiciary seal. “If you need anything else, charge it to
Sawtooth.
”

“An allowance, huh?”

“Traveling expenses,” Mensalom said. “Provided for in the agreement.”

“Right, right. I did listen, sorry.”

“Sign here,” he said, offering her a pen. “Kir Sophie, all my best. Your Honor, I'll have these read to the contracts registrar this afternoon.”

To her surprise, Lais was lounging in the outer parlor when she and Cly emerged with their respective copies of the signed documents.

The two men exchanged perfunctory bows.

“How's your head?” Cly said. Lais had been badly injured six months ago in an assassination attempt. Like Corsetta, he was alive only because someone had written an inscription to magically restore him.

“Works about as well as it did before,” Lais said. “I only use it to reckon racing odds, in any case.”

“You underrate yourself,” Cly said. “You've done my daughter a service here, in Bimisi.”

“Mensalom? He only takes clients who interest him,” Lais said. “Sophie's merits on that score have nothing to do with me.”

“True enough. Well, I'm sure you have good-byes. Sophie, will you be all right if I leave you?”

“Of course,” she said.

“
Sawtooth
awaits your pleasure.” With that, Cly left.

“How'd you like Mensalom?” Lais asked.

“He's sharp,” she said. “So. Verena and I left you to fend for yourself the other night, when we stormed out.”

“It was all to the good. Convenor Gracechild is a
thoroughly
charming hostess.”

She looked at him askance. “Does that mean what I think it does?”

“Unless you lack imagination. Verdanii matriarchs like a bit of young chaw. Didn't you know? It's one of that nation's more attractive qualities, as far as I'm concerned. Far outweighs the storied merits of their beer.”

“Annela's got to be—”

“She's intelligent, self-aware, powerful.…” He waggled his eyebrows. “Physically fit—”

“Stop. That's way too much info.”

“Now, Sophie, it's not as though she's actually an elder to you. You've met a handful of times. And I know you're not a prude.”

“Still!”

“And you're done with me, aren't you?”

“Totally,” she said, more coldly than she intended.

It was silly to be hurt. They'd hooked up for a week, six months ago, and she'd rejected him last time they were together because … well, she'd begun to think maybe Parrish …

She shook that thought away. At least Lais hadn't slept with Verena.

Yet. That I know of.
“You want my mother's contact information while you're at it?”

“Pish? A married fraud artist? Not my style.”

Now she was hurt and insulted. And embarrassed, somehow, that she cared at all. She tried to laugh, and it stuck in her throat. “Sorry, Lais. I don't mean to freak out. I mean, I was warned that you're from the Island of the Anywhere, Anytime, Anyone.”

“Tsk. We're sluts, true, but none of us is—and certainly I'm not—undiscriminating.”

Okay, now he was offended.

“I just didn't think—”

“You're from a conservative culture.” He bowed. “Perhaps they'll make a Sylvanner of you after all. Fair winds, Sophie.”

“Thanks. And for, you know…” She gestured back at Mensalom's inner door, but Lais was already gone, striding away, offering her one last look at his well-muscled leather-clad backside before disappearing through a hatch on the starboard side of the ship.

Way to go, Sofe.

“Come on,” she muttered. “If nothing else, shouldn't he be bragging about his conquests? I mean, she's a congresswoman.”

In for a penny, in for a pound. She went back to
Nightjar,
seeking out Verena.

Her sister was in the cabin that had once belonged to Gale, pacing it from the look of things, and reading a bunch of dispatches about Tibbon's Wash, snow vultures, and joint ventures at sea. “You about ready for your big adventure?” From her tone, Verena was looking forward to having the ship—or possibly Parrish—to herself again.

“Yeah,” Sophie said, “But I want something.”

“What a surprise.”

“You must have a stash of the magical two-ply message paper—if only so you can keep your father up to date on what's happening to Beatrice.”

Verena tensed but did not deny it.

“I want a few sheets—no, I want ten sheets—and I want their … counterparts?”

“Otherply.”

“I want them sent to Bram.”

Verena pulled at her ponytail, thinking.

“Come on. It'll save you going back and forth just to tell him I haven't drowned. My mom is freaking out every bit as bad as your dad, and presumably he knows what's happening to Beatrice, that she's safe. My parents don't have the slightest idea where I am.”

With a sigh, Verena opened a locked cabinet and drew out a roll of paper. She sliced twelve pages with an obsidian knife. On the first she wrote,
Dad, please send the following pages to:

She added the street address of the Dwarf House. “What's his zip code?”

Sophie recited it. Verena added it to the note, then started numbering blank pages, one through eleven.

“One page for you?” Sophie asked.

“Yes.” Verena handed over page one. “Want to write him a starter message?”

Sophie took the pen and started in the very top corner.
BRAM—ALL OK SO FAR. GOING TO SYLVANNA WITH CB. REPLY BELOW, WRITE SMALL. LOVE SOFE.

“Okay?” Verena said.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Here's a couple sheets from me, so you can stay in touch with
Nightjar.
” She handed them over. “You think there's a conspiracy afoot with Corsetta?”

“Hopefully not another outbreak-of-war conspiracy, but something crimey is up there. She and the cat were aboard that derelict. It doesn't mean she was involved with disappearing its crew, but—”

“You haven't already figured it out? You're not sending me off to keep me busy or gather two last clues on your behalf so you can sweep in with the answer at the end, like Sherlock Holmes?”