A Daughter of No Nation (19 page)

Eugenia chose two of her own, strumming, and the note became a chord, ringing sweetly to the rafters.

The harps are tuned so they'll play chords, she thought. She chose another string, then a third. Eugenia counterbalanced them, filling the cargo hold with music, a not-quite-tune in no style Sophie could pin down. It had the random quality of improvisational jazz, but the harp's sound was reminiscent of Celtic music, and the flow of the notes was a bit pendular. A dance, perhaps?

Once she had the hang of it, Eugenia fell into a pattern of six notes, over and over, two sets of triplets.
Thrum thrum THRUM, thrum tum TUM.

“Can you sustain this?” she asked.

“One two THREE two two THREE.” Sophie nodded. “No problem.”

Eugenia cut loose, hands flying over the harp's strings, filling the chamber and presumably the whole of the ship with a hearty, soaring melody. It was triumphal, fit for the Queen marching into Westminster Abbey at the head of a conquering army. She threw back her head and let out a high soprano cry, bright wordless notes that raised the hair on the back of Sophie's neck.

One two THREE two two THREE.
She kept her attention focused entirely on the pattern of strings and the rhythm.

It stilled her mind, even as it scoured her—her whirling feelings fell into order. There was the music itself, a feeling, pushing through her, making her bigger, opening her soul. It clarified the terrible realization: Cly was pretty much an alien form of life. She took one steady glance at the possibility of reconciling herself to a Sylvanna that kept slaves and found certainty.

I could never, I will never.

One two three two two three.
As the song wound to a sudden, gentle close, she found herself easing into a sort of chilly sangfroid, a sense of resolution.

Eugenia lay a hand on her shoulder. “I would be very grateful, Sophie, if you told Beatrice how happy I was to see her again.”

She hugged the figurehead, encountering wood instead of flesh, and felt a harrowing loneliness. “That was incredible. Thank you.”

A genial smile. “My timbers are easier now.”

“Mine, too.” It was true.

She helped Eugenia drape the harp under its sheet and then peeked out of the hatch, half-expecting Cly to be out there, waiting to pounce. But the corridor was empty. He wasn't lurking on the passenger deck, either, or in her cabin.

She sat at the writing desk and started with Verena writing:

HE'S A SLAVER??? ZOMG, DEAL'S OFF. COME GET ME.

And then one to Bram.
I'M NOT OKAY, AS IT TURNS OUT. NOT OKAY AT ALL. COMING HOME AS SOON AS I CAN GET VERENA TO FETCH ME. AT LEAST THE PARENTS WON'T HAVE TO STRESS OUT ANYMORE.

 

CHAPTER    
12

She was surprised when Cly stayed out of her way for the remainder of the day, and all of the next one, too. She ate with Zita and and spent her hours in the lab, dissecting a rat that had turned up in the hold, and on the little portside deck, looking for things to film and longing to see
Nightjar
's sail.

Krispos didn't seem to notice anything was amiss—he sat in his accustomed place in her lab, reading and answering questions about more of the bogus sciences, sympathism and alchemy.

To keep her mind occupied, she turned to the turtle migration lawsuit. Cly had brought a number of turtle shells aboard, from the species in question, and they seemed normal enough in terms of their makeup and texture.

By day's end, she'd written out two possible paths to pursue on the turtle case. One would require some research; the other was a reasonable experimental protocol for proving whether what Grimreef alleged was true—that the turtles returned to whatever beach they hatched on.

Zita turned up that second afternoon. “We're a day out from Sylvanna.”

“I'm
not
setting foot—” Sophie checked herself. This wasn't Zita's fault.

The girl lifted the corners of her mouth in a smile that didn't reach her eyes. “His Honor asked me to beg you for an audience.”

“Beg, huh?”

“He's terribly upset,” she said, and now she was the one stopping herself from saying more.

What am I gonna do, avoid him forever?

She went back to her cabin and checked her notes. Bram's reply had been:
SOFE, IT WILL BE OKAY. TELL ME HOW I CAN HELP.

She missed him.

Verena had been less generous:
MOM CAN'T GO HOME IF YOU BREAK CONTRACT.

So that was why Verena had bought in. She'd known Sophie wouldn't go with Cly if she knew the truth about Sylvanna.

Wouldn't I do the same, if it was Mom?

Maybe, but that didn't stop her from replying:
YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE LIED. ARE YOU COMING FOR ME? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE COME GET ME!

Stomach churning, she read her contract again. Then she stomped off across the hall to her so-called lab, where Krispos and Zita were holed up, not exactly hovering. She handed the contract to Krispos, who absorbed all forty pages in about fifteen minutes flat.

He handed it back. “I'm no lawyer, but the language seems clear enough.”

“So if I refuse to get off
Sawtooth
when we dock…”

“His Honor is no longer obliged to perform the unspecified favor mentioned in clauses four, six, and paragraph—”

“Right. He won't let Beatrice have her bail. Are there any loopholes? Penalties I missed?” She felt a surge of remorse as she said it. Basically, she was saying,
Screw Beatrice, what about me?

Beatrice. If she hadn't whisked me off to San Francisco, I might even now own people. I might be
okay
with owning people.

The wave of revulsion was so great her knees buckled. Zita put out a hand to steady her.

“It's a simple pact,” Krispos said.

“Forty pages of simple.”

He waited, no doubt hoping she'd ask an actual question.

“My take on it is the minimum I have to do is spend a couple nights in his house and review this birth registration he's filed. And here: it says, ‘consent to be introduced to first circle of Autumn District.' Do you know what that means?”

He shook his head. “I'm not Sylvanner, Kir.”

“Zita?”

“I think it means meeting his neighbors. Isn't there a festival you're supposed to go to? You'll have to ask His Honor.”

Subtle hint there. She went back into her cabin and glanced at the messageply again.
ARE YOU COMING FOR ME?
remained unanswered.

Come on, Parrish, she thought.

“Fine, I'll talk to Cly.” She went up to the fighting deck to find him.

He was dueling with Captain Beck, the two of them dripping with sweat as they circled and hacked at each other with every appearance of deadly intent. Beck's spectral hand was extended behind her for balance, ungloved, the bones showing through as always, and she was surprisingly light on her feet for someone who seemed so solid, so rooted to the deck of the ship.

The two of them were moving fast, and the clash of magically treated blades made a terrible racket. Each stroke beat against Sophie's nerves, which were already strung tight after a night without sleep.

She turned her back on them, staring out across the sea, willing
Nightjar
to appear. But it didn't work that way, did it? They'd been talking to people from Tibbon's Wash, trying to find out what was up with Corsetta and the bird she'd tamed. Even if Verena was at all tempted to help Sophie out of the jam she'd gotten herself into, they'd be a week away, maybe more.

The fight behind her stopped abruptly. She turned to see Beck with her blade at Cly's throat and an unhappy expression on her face.

“
Hes,
Lena.” He inclined his head, conceding graciously, and the two shook hands. As Beck walked away, she gave Sophie a scowl whose meaning was clear enough:
Stop being a histrionic princess!

When they were alone, or as alone as anyone could be on the busy main deck of a big ship, Cly said, “You didn't know Sylvanna was one of the bonded nations.”

She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.

“If I point out that my nationality is an accident of birth—”

“You're going to make excuses for owning people?”

He favored her with an expression she couldn't read. It wasn't penitent or defensive, merely watchful.

Shallow emotions, Bram had said.

“What would you have me do, Sophie? Sell them?”

“Sell? Oh my—”

“I have been in this trap before,” he said suddenly. “Grappling with someone who could not, would not be pleased, who seemed to imagine I could simply wave my hand and change the world, who otherwise was determined to be miserable and make me so.”

“I'm not out to make you miserable!”

“No?” Bitterness there.

“But slave ownership is pretty much a deal breaker.”

“Pretty much?”

“I'm not going to sail around Stormwrack letting people think I'm okay with owning people.”

He sheathed the sword. “I suppose there's no injustice in the outlands. This paradise you come from…” He mastered himself. “Forgive me—I slept poorly.”

“Cly, I don't want to hurt you. I am sorry. This whole … mess, it's my fault. If I'd learned more about Sylvanna, I'd never have got your hopes up.”

“You're generous to say so. Were you kept from learning more?”

“Even if I was, it's my fault for not trying harder. Parrish encouraged me to notice. I'm supposed to be observant.”

“Fairly spoken. For my part, I should have ensured that you knew.” He gritted the words out. “Will you honor our contract at least?”

No, she thought. “I've got a day to think about it?”

A curt nod. He looked so closed off, so armored against rejection, and she remembered the first time she'd seen him, aglow with delight at the mere fact of her existence. That bright smile, that first hug …

Could this really be him manipulating her? Or was he hurting, as anyone would be? Her heart went out to him.

“What can I do? Tell me, ch—Sophie.”

“Tell me some things.”

“Such as?”

She thought of Parrish, trying to hint at it. He'd kept talking about the two factions within the government: the port side and starboard side. She thought back to her appearance at the Convenor, six months before. “It's half, isn't it? Half the nations. Not some lunatic fringe like Ualtar and the Piracy.”

“Yes, half the nations of the Fleet are bonded.”

“Tell me,” she said, forcing herself to walk over to the table where they'd taken coffee the day before. “I'm ready to listen.”

Over the course of the next hour, she drew a picture of the Fleet's constitutional history from him.

When the Fleet had been a mere dozen ships, chasing bandits around the Nine Seas, he told her, the free nations had been willing to hold their noses and ally with anyone willing to go up against the Piracy. As it got bigger and their leadership started laying the foundation for what eventually became the international government, the issue of slavery had been a sticking point.

By then, Cly said, a number of the smallest and most vulnerable of the free nations had all but beggared themselves to join the peacekeeping force. They'd built ships they could ill afford, contributed sailors who should have been home fishing or farming. Those destitute countries had pushed hard for a compromise. It wasn't merely a matter of losing valuable goods and personnel on the oceans, not for the lesser nations. In many cases, stopping the raids meant their very survival.

Sophie believed him. The first nation she'd seen upon coming to Stormwrack, Stele Island, had consisted of a few little fishing villages clinging to the side of an inhospitable rock. A raid on a place like that could reduce the number of healthy, able fishers below the level where a village could feed itself, dooming the survivors to slow death by starvation.

The first thing they'd told her about themselves had been: “We keep our place in the Fleet.”

After the pirates were cowed, all the seagoing nations had convened and written up a constitution. Article One had stated that every nation was sovereign and could make its own laws on its own soil and within its territorial waters.

Making the transport of slaves outside of those waters illegal had come next. It hadn't been a hard sell. Abducting and transporting people was the backbone of the Piracy's economy. Even the slavers agreed they had to be stopped. So there was a human dignity and right-to-freedom clause.

Finally, each country also got a concession—a single provision of the Fleet Compact that didn't apply to them.

“So the constitution says there's no slavery, but the bonded nations use the territorial sovereignty and their concessions to ignore the right to freedom and dignity?”

Cly nodded. “It was an ingenious suggestion. The free nations were getting a gift, and they knew it. The portside governments had to exclude Article Two, but those to starboard got to pick whatever concession benefited them most. It made the whole Compact easier to swallow. In reference to any given sticking point, negotiators could say: “Don't like it? Let that be your concession.”

They'd built their entire government on a loophole.

No wonder everyone spends so much time bashing things out in court, Sophie thought.

The history discussion sanded the edge off the tension between them, though Sophie continued to watch for
Nightjar.
It was easier than looking at Cly.

By now they were passing ships bound out toward the Fleet and other places from Sylvanna. One came alongside to deliver a bundle of mail. When it was sorted, a cadet sailor approached. “Mail, Kir.” He handed Cly several sealed envelopes.