A Daughter of No Nation (31 page)

Most of the ships—the ones not propelled by magic, that is—had all but one sail reefed and tightly bound.

It was a minute or so before Parrish followed her.

“I'm sorry,” Sophie said, before he could speak. “Everything that happened on Sylvanna, it's left me a little raw. Ignore me.”

“Never.” He reached out, carefully, and laid a hand on her arm. “Sophie, I—” Then he frowned over her shoulder.

“What?”

“Tonio's raised a signal cone.” He indicated a triangle, rising against the sail, hung point down. “It means there's a—what's your word?—situation aboard
Nightjar.
”

“Do we need to go back?” He'd had a hand on her shoulder; she'd turned to look at the ship, and his arm had curved around her. His skin was distractingly warm.

“Not if it's just one; it means it's under control. It's an alert.”

“He's giving you a heads-up.”

He nodded.

“Just what we needed. A situation.”

They watched for another minute, in case a second cone rose up on the sail. But none did, and then the shipboard bell rang.

“Lunchtime,” Parrish said, pulling free. “Shall we?”

It was obvious at a glance that the old court clerk was another transform—he smelled oniony and was covered in what looked like onionskin paper. Toothless, with knobby joints, he had two steaming mugs on the go. One was full of beery-smelling tea; the other of a thick creamed soup, orange in color.

He set himself up at a table for three in the corner of the dining room and took obvious pleasure in ordering them a full spread, a meal that could be chewed. Beetroot salad, roasted cuttlefish, a dark rye bread. He insisted on pouring them each a cup of his tea, too—it smelled darkly of barley and old boot, but the flavor was nutty and distinctly bracing.

“So you're the new Sturma, are you?” he said, when he'd had a delicate sip of his soup and they'd tucked in. He spoke slowly; without teeth, his diction was a little soft, but he was comprehensible enough.

“I'm who?”

“Kir Hansa is Sturma Feliachild's niece,” Parrish inserted, before Sophie could tell the guy no, she wasn't planning to grow up to be a superspy at sea. “She is also the natural child of His Honor the Duelist-Advocate.”

“Little Kir's all the news,” he said. He pinched her chin, squinting. “Ye don't dress as a Sylvanner.”

“Thank heaven for small mercies,” Sophie grunted. “I grew up abroad.”

“Outlander, then?”

“We're interested in His Honor's early days in the Judiciary,” Parrish continued.

A keen-eyed glance. “Scandal-mongering? You?”

“Not at all,” Parrish said.

“Totally,” Sophie said. “Lay on the dirt.”

The old fellow laughed. Leaning back in his chair, he rolled up a sleeve, exposing a pale, fibrous, multilayered arm. He pressed his soup spoon against the forearm, a gesture disturbingly reminiscent of drawing a blade down his wrist. As he pushed, though, text flashed to the surface, dense black handwritten letters, layered one over the other, as if he were made of rolls of superthin paper. The text moved and shifted, now visible, now not, all too fast to make out words. But eventually he grunted, “Thought so,” and pinched himself. A winding strip of paper-skin came up, tearing off neatly, leaving moist glistening paper and an onion stench in its wake.

He set the torn-off strip on the center of the table.

Hamish Cordero. Born Junnaio 4, y. 32 of the Cessation. Died Fusto 33, y. 474
.

“I'm not saying this is the chink in His Honor's armor. Honestly, girl, that'd be you. But it's the only time in his career he veered toward scandal.”

“Who was Cordero?”

“Someone your father killed, long ago.”

Killed. And as a kid he set fires.

“Tell us,” Parrish said.

“Eat, eat and I will.”

Sophie put a beet in her mouth, chewing woodenly.

“Clydon Banning came to the Fleet already something of an oddity. The Sylvanner kids who join us are married, always married. They have peculiar ideas regarding maturity there.”

“Do they ever!” Sophie agreed.

“He got top marks as a cadet, in book learning and martial prowess, wrote the law specialization as soon as he was allowed to declare, and graduated tops. He won the Slosh at his graduation. Like you, Parrish.”

“Winners all round,” Sophie muttered.

“There was no question but that he'd go to the Judiciary. He sued for custody of
Sawtooth.
There was a bit of a fluff over that—her masthead is a fright who babbles her full name to anyone who'll listen, so there were plenty wanted her sunk—but he got her and began training. He passed his writtens early, and then it was all fighting—he was waiting for his first official duel.

“The duelist-advocate in those days was a constipated old cod from Haversham, Fae Marks by name, and having to mentor a rising star from Sylvanna … oh, it jammed up her egg tubes. She set young Cly on the dueling roster obscenely early, hoping, it's thought, he'd misstep. Or, better yet, get himself wounded.”

“No joy?”

“Soils don't stick to Cly Banning,” the oldster said cannily. “You'll want to remember that when you go digging.”

“What happened?”

“Marks had miscalculated: Banning won every fight she threw at him—some just by his scruff, but still. Every debate, too. And then one of her middle-ranked judges got herself fatally speared by a ringer the pirates slipped in on a duel. Ol' Fae was suddenly looking at having to promote a twenty-year-old child up the ladder.

“Oh, the politics were thick as that chowder! Since their two nations don't get on, Marks couldn't just pass him over without looking very bad indeed. She tried the ‘he's not an adult at home' angle, and that's when he pulled Beatrice Feliachild out of his pocket.

“Up until then, all this had been a wee brewpot of a problem within the Judiciary, no matter for gossip. But then the marriage! Sylvanner and a Verdanii, and a Feliachild at that! A future matriarch of one of the nine families, high in the line to be Allmother, and they said she wanted to study magic at Sylvanna's institute. Suddenly this was no quiet little power wrangle over whether Clydon Banning had a future on the dueling deck. Everyone in Fleet was watching. Poor little BeeBee Feliachild had never had so much attention.”

“And?” Parrish said.

“Marks contrived a last round of hurdles for young Banning to jump—a series of fights. It was a final attempt to wound him so badly he'd end up battling a desk.”

“Trying to clip his wings, we'd say,” Sophie said.

“Yes indeed. She set her chief dueling trainer on him.”

“Hamish Cordero?” Parrish was leaning forward, caught up in the story despite himself.

A nod. “Hamish was Havershamite, too, like Fae; he and Her Honor Marks were close as littermates. And he'd got into trouble—gossip had it he was involved in some scheme against the Sylvanner Spellscrip Institute.

“Those two islands, they scrap back and forth. Well, you know…”

“Right,” Sophie said. Cly had told her some of this, hadn't he? “Is this about the throttlevine? It keeps coming back to the throttlevine. He said it was why he joined the Judiciary.”

Or did his family just send him to Fleet because he set fires and liked to fight? Were they afraid of what he'd become if he stayed home?

“Did he indeed?” The old man was checking the densely printed text on the back of his hand. “Cordero challenged the moment the case was filed. Before he could be compelled to answer questions or swear his innocence, you understand. It would be a real fight. Most people who challenge the Court, they lose. And Cordero was the Court.”

“But he lost?” That was Parrish. It wasn't really a question.

“His Honor—the current His Honor—gave him plenty of chances to surrender. Wounded him in three places, never fatally. It was quite the risk to take. Even hurt, Cordero was a lethally dangerous man. Unbeaten, and big as a battleship.” Letters glimmered on the old bureaucrat's onionskin flesh.

“You saw the fight?”

“Everyone went.
Martial
's viewing deck was jammed so tight the crowd was just about knocking each other pregnant. We were standing in their blood. Cordero was cut a-wrist, a deep one in the leg, and there was a delicate little slash above his eye. Banning had just missed having his throat cut—his shirt was in tatters—and he'd got his guts pricked. They were both so fine and terrible. It's what war must have been like.”

“Yeah, 'cause war's so romantic and fabulous,” Sophie said.

Parrish put a hand on hers, a not-so-subtle cue to shut up. Their lunch companion cackled, and Parrish pulled away abruptly.

“Cordero was weakening. He was elder and had bled more, and by then he knew he was the slower. Banning, unbelievable as it seems, had kept a rug thrown over how very talented he was at swordplay. All those fights he'd barely won—he'd been toying with his food. Her Honor the Duelist-Advocate had underestimated him.

“So Cordero threw himself at Banning. His sword was a blur. He couldn't see out of the bloodied eye, and he was roaring.

“‘Dirty lickspittle slaver!' I can hear him bellowing it even now.” The onionskin man's expression said he was far away. “He was a huge fellow, a bull to Banning's stallion, and he'd clearly decided to put all the
viva
he had left into overbearing him, hammering through his defenses, making him afraid and then chopping through his sword, and cloth and skin, to his bone. Live or die, Cordero wouldn't concede.”

“He backed Banning to the very edge of the dueling deck. I saw your father consider—I think he truly regretted it. But live or die? He had to choose. He stepped sideways, fast, so fast—and sliced his blade across Cordero's neck.

“The old bull died right there. The thud, as he hit the deck … he was just meat. Already gone.”

The old clerk took a long, delicate sip of his pureed soup and dabbed his lips.

“Why was any of this scandalous?” Sophie asked.

“Court etiquette. Banning should have refused to fight. The disagreement touched upon his family lands.”

“It's why he came to the Judiciary,” Sophie repeated. “The throttlevine case. He said it brought him into the law.”

“Well, Her Honor Fae Marks had dropped anchor on herself. She assigned the fight. Banning should have recused, but when he didn't, she declined to disqualify him. Responsibility gravitates upwards.”

“It was obvious she'd hoped he'd die?” Parrish asked.

“Everyone wanted that troublesome little Sylvanner dead: the duelists, his Verdanii in-laws, maybe even his own kin on Low Bann. Instead he hopped about three rungs up the Judiciary promotion ladder. Four, really, after Marks retired in disgrace.”

“Did Cordero have family?” Parrish asked.

“Wife and son, yes. They're aboard
Blister
. Now—” His eyes brightened. “Coin for coin, Kirs. You're the Verdanii's niece, but … not of the Allmother, I understand?”

Sophie entertained him for the remainder of the meal with an edited version of what had happened when she'd first come to Stormwrack. The old man was a bit bloodthirsty, for all he was made of paper—he grilled her extensively for every detail of the inscription deaths of the two pirates who'd attacked her six months ago, and then about the mezmer attack on Gale. She was acutely conscious of Parrish at her side as she answered the clerk's questions about Parrish's good friend's murder.

He sipped barley tea and acted perfectly calm … at least, he did until the old man said, “Sturma's murder was always foretold, was it not so?”

“Foretold? Are you kidding?” She couldn't quite keep from snorting.

Parrish had overslurped and burned himself. “Yes,” he said, with obvious reluctance. “Gale's eventual death by homicide was predicted on the day of her birth.”

“Why would anyone do that?” Sophie said.

“You'd have to ask the Allmother,” Parrish said, and she could feel, suddenly, an ache blowing off him like a strong wind.

The bureaucrat cackled. “She's as odd as they say, then? You've met her?”

“Excuse me.” Parrish got up, bowed, and walked away. His face had locked into grief: she remembered the expression from just after Gale died.

Sophie shrugged apologetically. “They were close.”

“Lost a few of those myself. All you do, you get this old, is lose friends. It's all right, girl. Go after your man. Visit me some other time. I'm due another nap anyway.”

“He's not my—” But the old fellow was creaking to his feet, taking both his tea and his soup cup with him as he shuffled off.

Left alone at the table, Sophie took a second to gather her thoughts.

Predestination. Is there anything they don't believe here?

Was it possible? Was she going to have to give credence to every crazy fairy tale thing she'd ever heard?

No.
She brightened.
They believe in aetherism and astrology and phrenology and voodoo, too. So Gale's murder was foretold. It's just a coincidence that it came true. Or self-fulfilling prophecy—what if they planned for her to be a spy from day one?

Buoyed by this idea, she set about getting back to
Nightjar
.

 

CHAPTER    
20

The rising weather wasn't a storm yet, just a patch of choppy sea, heavy winds, and miserable, chilly rain. They were silent on the ferry ride back to
Nightjar,
Parrish locked in his own thoughts or maybe just freshly grieving Gale, with the scab ripped off.

Sophie had all but forgotten that Tonio had hung a “situation” signal from the topsail.