Child of a Hidden Sea (18 page)

Oh. He had that so-very-annoying
Sophie-is-overreacting
face on, the one that filled her with the urge to slap him. “Okay, yes, it's suboptimal.”

“By which you mean gross and horrifying?”

“Did you think there'd be nothing about this place that would upset you?”

“You think you can minimize this? Bram, if you're telling me you're not—”

“Of course I'm appalled, but—”

“Really? That's appalled? Because you're giving me Spock face. What if that scribe we've been bossing around is a slave?”

“He's not.” That was Parrish, standing at the door with a bunch of rolled-up papers and a wicked case of hat hair. “Erinth is one of the free nations.”

There was an awkward pause. Finally, Parrish added, in an oddly cautious tone: “Which of the bonded countries are you studying?”

“Sophie thinks one of the guys who attacked Gale in San Francisco might be from Isle of Gold,” said Bram. He was only too happy to change the subject.

Of course he is. Wouldn't want me to go on a rant, would we?

There was that anger again. She was starting to recognize it: It was fallout from all the fights and murder attempts.

Breathe.
She looked over at an arrangement of dried flowers, making herself take in their physical details.

Parrish unfurled one of the sheets of paper. “The men who attacked Gale, Kir. You're sure you heard them say Yacoura
Temperanza
?”

“Repeatedly,” she said, knowing her tone was frosty, knowing too she couldn't help it. “And it's Sophie, I told you.”

“Isle of Gold would make sense,” Parrish said: “The Piracy has a century-old honor grudge against
Temperance
.”

“Why would anyone have a grudge against a ship?”

“
Temperance
has been the flagship of the Fleet since the Fleet was a half dozen ships hunting pirates in the Stringent Sea,” he said. “Her master can sink any vessel simply by speaking her name. There are a few decades of history and warfare involved in the tale, but essentially it was
Temperance
who broke the Piracy. The threat she continues to represent, to anyone who—”

“Gets out of line?” Sophie snapped.

From behind Parrish's line of sight, Bram pulled a face that meant “Don't be offensive.”

“If you like,” Parrish said, untroubled. “
Temperance
is considered an essential component of the Cessation.”

“A deterrent,” Bram said. “Anyone gets combative, they can still be sunk. Anytime, any place.”

“Precisely.”

“So the Fleet's not all one big happy family?”

“As with your homeland,” Parrish said, his diction clipped, “There is a certain amount of factionalism and squabbling.”

Oh, that's kind of sweet! He gets all formal when he's on the defensive.
Sophie shook that thought away. He wasn't sweet. He was aggravating. “You sink a ship by saying its name, and you ensorcel someone by writing their name. Names mean a lot here.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

She added this to her long mental list of questions about magic, things to learn about the culture.
Right on the list under OMG, why do you have slaves, what kind of people are you?

She wrenched herself back on task. “So the pirates want to take
Temperance
out?”

“They've tried before. The last time they failed was some years ago. Gale was involved.” He unfurled another of the pages he was holding, looked for a bare surface to lay it on, and ran up against Bram's mounds of open books, the scattered pages of his homegrown Fleetspeak-Anglay dictionary and a long series of notes that looked mathematical. Finally he held the page up against a wall so they could see it.

The page was a tight little grid of information about ships: names, nations, specifications, cargo. “There is an Isle of Gold ship here in port.
Barabash.
”

Sophie set the protocol book aside. “Why don't we go see if any of her crew's in the market?”

“That sounds suboptimal,” Bram objected.

“Pardon?” Parrish said.

“Don't mind him—he talks like a computer when he's tired.”

“I meant dangerous,” Bram said.

“The mercato's safe enough,” Parrish said. “We can take the guard the Conto offered us.”

“I'm supposed to investigate Gale's murder, Bram. I can't do it all here from the penthouse suite. There's no Internet, in case you haven't noticed. I can't just hit a search engine and type in ‘mezmer-making homicidal jerks currently on Erinth.'”

“Has anyone mentioned, Sofe, you're not a cop?”

“Come on, we're basically talking about going out and chatting up a couple of sailors. I'm good at that—”

“They're not sailors, they're pirates.”

“Ex-pirates,” she said. “From what the book said, they're semi-legit.”

Bram looked at Parrish, probably wanting more reassurance that it'd be safe for her to leave the heavily guarded palace.

Like it's up to him!
“Stay if you want,” she said. “I'm going.”

“Sofe…”

“It can't be any riskier than cave diving.”

She could see Bram rolling that around in his head, hating the simple truth of it: Her entire family had been forced, years ago, to come to grips with the fact that she did risky things all the time. “Fine, go, you're right. I'm gonna keep on with…” He waved a hand at the books, meaning the twin quest to learn to speak Fleet and figure out where they were.

“Wasn't asking your permission,” she said, barely managing to keep her voice light.

The guards more or less appeared, trailing behind her, as she made her way down to the palazzo gates, Parrish at her side.

“I don't see what geography has to do with the problem at hand,” Parrish said.

“What?”

“Your brother. The atlases and sea charts.”

“Bram's taken over wondering about the continental … irregularities, between here and home. Anyway, he's not on the hook to solve Gale's murder—I am.”

“Were it my sister ‘on the hook,' I would feel compelled to help.”

“Him hoovering up every shiny bit of knowledge that comes our way will help, sooner or later. Besides, he's not gonna be much use until he's learned more of the language. Listen, Parrish, we're neither of us any good at denying our intellectual curiosity.”

“I've noticed.”

“Our parents are very big on the idea that if you have a question, you should go find the answer. I'm getting that that's uncool here, but—”

For just a moment she could see the pain of loss on his face. All he said was: “Gale was like that, too.”

“Anyway, I'm glad Bram's not stuck looking into sordid, monster-making assassins.”

His answering nod seemed halfhearted. She remembered that he'd offered to buy her off with a grand tour of the island, tried to convince her to go off touristing while he chased Gale's killers.

The memory made her feel self-conscious. Was she whining? “Of course,” she went on, “everything here is interesting.”

She was trying to be gracious after the fact, but the statement was true enough. Their route had taken them down to the market, a round piazza encircled by wooden stalls where vendors were hawking bread and meat, cloth and glass. Little kids worked the crowds, trying to interest passersby in the products being sold by, she assumed, their elder relations. Others sat in the shadow of the carts, working lessons on slates while watching, apparently, for shoplifters.

A fair number of people seemed to recognize Parrish, and more than one handed him a black ribbon as he passed.

A young sailor—she thought it might have been one of the other pallbearers, from yesterday—approached. He was a little taller than Parrish, and
Nightjar
's uniform fit him so precisely it must have been tailored. His expression was warm and he seemed to know everyone in the market. He had bloodshot eyes and his own handful of black ribbons. “You look terrible, Garland. Haven't you slept?”

“Antonio Capodoccio, this is Kir Hansa,” Parrish said gravely. “Our employer.”

“Only temporarily. And call me Sophie,” she corrected.

“Tonio is
Nightjar
's first mate.”

He bowed. “I am at your service, Kir Sophie.”

“I'm so sorry about Gale,” Sophie said.

“Grazie, Kir.”

Grazie,
she thought. That
was
Italian. “You a hometown boy, Tonio—you're from here?”

“Yes.” He pointed up the hill, at one of the black buildings. “My family lives near the Cortile Beata.”

“Beata … is that a religious reference?” Erinth didn't seem to have much in the way of churches, just the volcano and its guardian statue.

“It means Court of the Beautified,” Parrish translated, absently. “It's the cosmetic inscription quarter.”

Is that where your looks came from?
she wondered, but did not ask. It didn't matter, and it wasn't any of her business. It was way off point. Even so, her mind niggled at it: He was bossy, but didn't seem vain. But he had to be vain to have had his face made for him, didn't he?

Is there any point in thinking about Captain Tasty? Come on, Sofe, explore the mercato.
The men dropped a few paces behind her as she fell into observation mode, once again shooting video from her hip. The gabble of voices, most speaking languages she didn't know, formed a wall of white noise: Her thoughts clarified as she looked around.

Court of the Beautified
, she thought. All these conspicuously beautiful people here. And many of them seemed sick; they had coughs and canes, or moved as if they hurt. She saw one such beauty, raven-haired, with glossy skin and bright flashing eyes, scolding a man twice her age. He was nodding and bearing it, as if she was his employer or, no, maybe …

His mom
, she guessed.
The cosmetic magic makes them seem younger than they are, but it doesn't make them young. She could be his grandmother.

It seemed a testable theory: closing her eyes, she primed her ears for sounds like Ma, Mamma, Nonna.

She was listening to the gabble of the market so intently she didn't notice, for a second, when someone spoke to her.

“… Kir Feliachild's heir?”

Sophie opened her eyes. One of the men who had attacked Gale, back in San Francisco—the one she'd filmed yesterday on the funeral procession, was standing beside her.

Okay
, she thought, as her heart went into overdrive.
It's all perfectly okay
. Parrish and Tonio were steps away, the Conto's guards were discreetly browsing nearby and she could see the man's hands.
You just told Bram you do risky things all the time
.

Yeah, Sofe
, his voice seemed to reply.
You understand those risks. Drowning, hypoxia, hypothermia, falling—

The concept was the same. Clear your mind, focus on what's happening now, think before you act. Diving mode. She turned slightly, putting the corner of the merchant booth—a table laden with shells, corals and sponges—between herself and the stranger.

“Who are you?”

“I have the honor to be called John Coine,” he said. “And you, Kir?”

“Sophie Hansa. What do you want?” she said.

“The same thing we wanted from your aunt,” he said. “Yacoura
Tempranza
.”

“The heart of
Temperance
?” She tipped her camera up—her hand was sweating—but if he saw her do it, or cared, he didn't react. Why would he? He didn't know what it was.

“That's right, the lost heart.”

“Kir Coine,” she said, since that seemed to be the catch-all polite address here. “I can probably get you arrested right here and now for attacking Gale.”

“You can prove I sent mezmers after Kir Feliachild?”

“I saw you attack her at home, remember?” she said.

“Ah, so you're the unarmed, screaming fury who set on us in the outlands.” He looked her up and down, assessing.

I was screaming?

“That's pretty much an admission of guilt right there.” Could it be this easy? All she needed now was a cop.

He seemed amused. “You might make a go of an accusation, I suppose.”

“More of a go than you'll make out of bullying me for something I don't have.”

“I'm sure if you exert yourself, you'll discover how your aunt mislaid the heart, all those years ago. You have the same bright eyes as she.”

“My shiny eyes aside, what makes you think I'd share anything I learned?”

His lips were a dead pink-gray, like earthworms, and when he smiled there was nothing of warmth in the expression. “Kir Feliachild was a dry, determined rope of a woman, knotted tight around the Fleet Compact and with nothing else to care for. Your grip's not as tight, is it?”

She felt an absurd sting of hurt—even this creep of a pirate thought she was some kind of powderpuff, a pushover. “What does that even mean? I'm not rope?”

“Sponge, rather.” He picked one off the cart, contemplating it. “You can always wring something out of a sponge, if you squeeze.”

“You couldn't squeeze me for the way to the bathroom if you had to puke,” she said. “I'm not helping you with anything. I can't even believe I'm sitting here chatting with you about—look, you and your stupid games and intrigues, I don't care. You're a murderer.”

She began to move, thinking to summon Parrish and the guards, even as she kept one eye on the man and her camera between them.

“Opal,” Coine said. “Your middle name is Opal, is it not?”