Child of a Hidden Sea (31 page)

Well, that at least would keep her busy. She fished out the rest of her small samples—seeds and shells and snips of leaf, insects in alcohol—concealing them at even intervals within the petticoat until, up on deck, the sailors began to bring the two ships alongside each other.

“I could've spent all that time and energy changing my clothes,” she said suddenly. “Damn!”

Changing into what? What did you wear to meet a … oh, she was so overthinking this!

She fought back a flood of tears, reaching for reason. Her father could reject her in a peasant shirt and spandex tights as easily as anything else.

“Want to come?” she asked the ferret. “Moral support?”

Blue unwound itself, sniffed, and then settled by her pillow, the snake's head of its tail stretching out into a thin ray of sunshine coming through the dark glass.

Sophie went back up on deck.

The two ships were perhaps fifty feet apart now, easing ever closer.
FJV Sawtooth
was painted on the caravel's prow. As it came between them and the sun, its shadow fell like a blanket, chilling
Nightjar
's decks.

Her crew was dressed in trim black uniforms with little pillbox hats and an insignia—a sword and a fist, crossed—embroidered in gold on their shoulder. They were neat and efficient as they brought the ships alongside, matching speed and course with
Nightjar
.

A tall, lean man in a black half-cloak leaned on the rail—over it, almost—scanning the ship, alert as a tracking dog on the scent. As his gaze lit on Sophie, he broke into a wide, bright-eyed, thoroughly delighted grin. “
Perza vrai? Il Feliasdottar?
”

Sophie waved mightily. “Hello! Hello!” To the others she whispered, “He doesn't speak Fleet? He has to speak Fleet to be a judge, doesn't he?”

“He's attempting Verdanii,” Verena said. “His accent's trash. It's polite of him, though.”

“Hello!” Sophie called again.

“Sophie—” Parrish murmured. “You mustn't tell him anything about Erstwhile.”

“State secret, right?” she said coldly. “I remember.”

“It's more than that. Your mother's peace of mind, her sense of having found refuge—”

She rounded on him. “What'd he do?”

“It's—I wouldn't say exactly that he—now isn't the time.”

“Fine. I won't tell him about San Francisco.”

He drew away with a tight bow.
That's right. Bug off, Mister Secret-Keeping Captain of Secrecy.

“He doesn't look like the incarnation of evil,” she whispered to Verena.

Her half sister laughed.

“Hello,” Sophie called again. “Kir … Banning? Hi!”

The man—her father? really?—beamed. He all but glowed.

Clydon Banning was fiftyish from the look of him, an athletic fifty, with wavy chestnut hair and an unmistakably wolfish expression. He had strong-looking hands, straight, perfect teeth and wore a cutlass at his hip.

“It's true,” he said. “A daughter. I see the Banning in you! You must be twenty-four, yes?”

She nodded.

“What's your name?”

“Sophie. Sophie Hansa.”

By now the two ships were barely within reach of each other. He leapt up to the rail. “Captain?”

“You're welcome aboard, Your Honor,” Parrish said. “Of course.”

Banning's black-clad sailors laid a plank from rail to rail. It barely reached, but her father—her father!—leapt onto and across it, practically skipping, then hopping down.

“Might I?” He made as if to open his arms, but didn't grab.

A little dazed, Sophie nodded. Clydon Banning folded her into a hug. His cloak was heavy wool; it was like being enfolded in a blanket with hard buttons. For good measure, he kissed the top of her head.

Great. I'm gonna cry again
.

“I can only imagine what you've been told, child, but I beg you, don't credit it until you know me,” he said, ever so quietly, into her ear. Then he released her.

Then he addressed himself to Verena. “Kir…”

“Thorna Feliachild,” Verena said. “Your Honor.”

“Rumor of Gale Feliachild's murder has reached the Fleet. Is it true?”

She nodded.

“My condolences to all of you. She was a determined, resourceful woman, devoted to the Fleet Charter and the Cessation. We're all the poorer.”

“Thank you.”

“Please—we're family now. Cly will do.” He had left a hand resting loosely on Sophie's shoulders, but addressed Verena. “You're Gale's child?”

“Her heir, yes,” Parrish interrupted.

She could almost feel the chill pass between the two men. Their faces were untroubled, their voices calm, but the frost was nevertheless so palpable that Sophie half expected to see her breath fogging between them.

Cly seemed to reach a decision. “Sophie, will you come and see
Sawtooth?
We have much to discuss. I want to know everything.”

“Yeah, sure. I mean, of course, I'd like to. But—”

A glint there. “But?”

“Well … we're sort of on a … mission. Solving Gale's murder. The people involved—Goldmen, and Ualtarites—they've grabbed my brother.”

“Brother?” For a second Cly jaw worked, and when he spoke his voice was breathless. “There is a son as well?”

“No,” she said.
Would he have rather had a boy?
“I mean, not your son. Not Beatrice's either.”

“Ah.” The emotion was gone. You were fostered?”

“I want to get to know you,” Sophie said. “I can't tell you how much I've gone through—how much I've put others through—for this. But Bram's in danger, and there are all these political ties to the crime. We were going off to the Fleet to report…” She watched Parrish, looking for any hint she might be heading into troublesome territory.

“The Golden may be involved in a conspiracy to break the Cessation,” Parrish said.

“War?” Cly was visibly jolted; his lip curled in something that might have been a snarl. “What are you doing about it?”

“Verena has to contact Beatrice. She has information we need.”

“She lives?” The smile on her father's face held, but his eyes were unreadable.

“She does,” Parrish said, with obvious reluctance.

“You're not bound for Verdanii.”

“I prefer not to comment on our course, Your Honor.”

The crinkle again. “As it happens, I too have messages for Beatrice. Perhaps, Kir Thorna, if you're going anyway…” He snapped out an order to a flunky who'd made it across to
Nightjar
before
Sawtooth
had pulled back its makeshift gangplank. With a bow, the younger man produced an official-looking, sealed and beribboned envelope.

“If you'll be good enough to deliver this?”

Verena accepted it warily. “What is it?”

“Court business,” Cly said.

“I imagine it's a summons,” Parrish said.

“Whatever family matters Gale may have divulged to you, Captain, I hardly think it's your role to speculate or gossip.”

If only he had gossiped,
Sophie thought. “Summons?”

“Child,” Cly said. “Forgive me. This is difficult, and the captain means to do his duty as he sees it, I'm sure. I will explain, you have my word.”

She felt a slight impulse to defend Parrish. Then again, he'd had his chance to tell her the story, ten times over, and he'd flat-out refused.

“Verena?” she said.

“I have to talk to … to Beatrice, if we're going to rescue Bram,” she said. “And this … is official. We're duty-bound to deliver it.”

“Do that,” Cly said. “Sophie can tell me what we need to do to throttle this rebellion in its cradle—”

“Can I do that?”

“Within the limits I mentioned earlier,” Parrish said.

Meaning she couldn't tell him about San Francisco. “Right.”

“We can trust the Duelist-Adjudicator to act in the best interests of the Fleet.”

“If you can't, the Charter and a century of peace are just about sunk,” Cly said drily. “Captain, we'll amend your instructions as necessary once I understand the situation. Sophie, please, let me show you
Sawtooth.
” He swept out his cape. She saw a blade—the sword—and for a second she imagined he was going to go all Errol Flynn on her: grab a rope and swing them both across to the other vessel. Instead, he was gesturing at his crew, who were once again maneuvering the ships so they could lower a makeshift bridge.

She turned to Parrish, who gave her the faintest thread of a nod. She scrambled across, up to the deck of the larger ship. Two uniformed sailors were waiting to hand her down from the rail to the deck.

“You were pretty short with Parrish just now,” she said, as Cly bounded down.

“Mmm? I do apologize. Since I learned there was a child—a daughter—you! I've been in a bit of a state. You've been kept from me all this time, and I've no doubt that fellow was in on it.” His eye roamed back to
Nightjar,
and his lips pulled back from his teeth. “I'm a patient man, Sophie, extremely patient, but some things strain the temper.”

“Parrish makes me crazy, too,” she said.

“I also talk too much when I'm excited.”

She laughed. “So do I.”

“Tell me all about yourself! You were fostered, you say? Where? Beatrice didn't raise you?”

“Oh no,” she said. “I've been waiting for answers a lot longer than you have. If anyone's going to spill, it's you.” She turned, taking in the ship. Yes,
Sawtooth
was what she would have called a caravel: square-rigged, with a look that said old-fashioned even by the standards of all these sailing ships. Its crew, compared to
Nightjar
's, would be huge, at least a hundred sailors, probably more like two.

The ship's fighting deck was literally a fighting deck: It had three rings for practicing swordfighting, two for boxing or wrestling, and a row of practice dummies much like Verena's, except that they looked hardier, more expensive.

“Young duelists in training,” Cly said, as she looked over the various combatants clashing in the rings.

“Lawyers who kill,” she said. “You're all lawyers?”

“Of course,” he said. “Do you fight?”

“No,” she said. “Very definitely no.”

“Well. If you ever wish to learn … or perhaps you don't believe in it?”

“You're fishing for info on me again,” she said. “You were going to tell me about you.”

“Guilty as charged—you're very sharp, Sophie.” That bright hunter's smile again. Despite herself, she felt a glow of gratification.

“Where shall I start?” He offered her his arm, then led her along the fighting deck, offering an airy gesture to two combatants. The men, who'd been standing ready and apparently waiting to command his attention, were wrestlers. At Cly's motion, they began to circle each other. “I joined the Fleet when I was younger than you are, and I've been its creature for almost as long as your aunt Gale was.”

“Why?”

“Pardon?”

“Why'd you join?”

“I had an aptitude for both personal combat and for book learning, so I was asked to, by—excuse me. Hold! Andre, you're favoring the left leg. Is it still injured, or not?”

One of the wrestlers flushed. “Merely the habit of recovery, Your Honor.”

“I'd better not catch you feigning weakness in court, Counsellor. Continue.”

The wrestlers resumed circling.

“Sorry, Sophie, where was I? Ah, yes, I'd written my examinations and been made a Clerk-Adjudicator, a sorry scrap like all of these, when I met Beatrice Feliachild.”

“What can I say about your mother at twenty? She was beautiful, of course. I imagine she still is? But where most Verdanii are so self-sufficient, so entirely … oh, cloaked, I suppose, armored in their own sense of moral rightness…” He paused, seeming to consider his words.

In the ring, the two wrestlers had begun the head-slapping dance for position, reaching for each other by turns, twisting free, circling faster. Now the allegedly injured one, Andre, lunged in and snagged his opponent by the ankle, flipping him—but failing to pounce and pin him before he escaped.

“Beatrice needed someone,” Cly said. “She wasn't at home among her people, which is always a tragedy.”

Sophie thought briefly of her parents and Bram. Was that her problem? She didn't fit?

“I've never been so drawn to a woman,” Cly said. “I courted her, or she me, to her family's considerable and vocal disapproval. Eventually I asked my father to approach the Allmother to beg a marriage contract.”

“So you loved each other?”

He frowned. “We both believed so.”

“What the hell went wrong, then?” The wrestlers came together in a clinch, their upper bodies quivering with strain as each tried to muscle the other over. “You were young and stupid and temperamentally incompatible?”

“Is that what your mother says?”

She remembered the look on Beatrice's face. Horror. It was horror. Cly seemed nice, all things considered, but— “I'm asking
you.
”

“Some of it was our youth, yes,” he said. “My position was also a source of strain. An adjudicator survives within Fleet society by maintaining an impartial face to all comers. You have only two choices. One is to withdraw from society—see few, befriend nobody. The other is to throw yourself into every engagement. Accept every invitation.”

“See everyone? And befriend—”

“Befriend nobody.”

“It sounds lonely either way,” she said.

“Yes.”

“And you picked which path?”

“I am a social animal, Sophie.” The smaller of the two wrestlers finally threw the other, flinging him a good three feet beyond the marked boundary of the ring, where he landed with a thud that vibrated through the deck. “I chose company and conversation, however shallow, over a life of solitude in service.”