Child of a Hidden Sea (45 page)

“What does my origin have to do with it?” Sophie pointed at the tapestry depicting the flags of all the nations. “Can you name me one of those countries whose entire population is truthful? Or one where everyone's a liar? I mean, the pirates are considered legit, aren't they?”

A chuckle from the starboard side of the gallery.

“We need not impugn an entire nation, Kir Hansa.” Maray seemed to accept the point graciously. “Let's move closer to home. Isn't it true that your natural mother stands accused of bigamy and fraud?”

“I—” She swallowed an urge to defend Beatrice.
Where did that even come from?
“Yes.”

“And it was your mother who had hidden Yacoura for so many years, your mother who's now accused of a serious crime against a prominent member of the Judiciary?”

“Yes.”

“And it was, in fact, you who retrieved the Heart of
Temperance
and turned it over to persons unknown.”

“True,” Sophie said.

“Nobody but you has seen Yacoura, and yet you come here and accuse others of intent to commit an unforgivable act of vandalism against
Temperance,
the most cherished symbol of the Cessation.”

“Before you go any further, Convenor Brawn up there explicitly said he'd smash the thing by day's end. Everyone here heard that. You don't have to take my word for that one.”

Maray paused in mid-breath, caught out, and there was a ripple of quiet laughter from the starboard side. Sophie looked down at the fringes of Maray's robe again.

Did I really see…? Yes, there it is.

“Kir Hansa makes an excellent point, Speaker,” said Annela Gracechild.

Maray recovered quickly. “Since we're speaking of banditry, isn't it true that you have taken steps to usurp your sister's intended position among the Verdanii?”

Sophie bit her lip. “Are you going to challenge me on the facts? Or are you just going to make me out to be dishonest?”

“There's no point in cross-examining you if you can't be relied upon,” Maray said.

“If there's no point in cross-examining me, you've been wasting everyone's time for a while now. Come on. Can't all you people see this is all about making me look bad enough that everyone will forget that her people have a blockade around Tiladene?”

“Have you or haven't you tried to assume your sister's rightful place in Fleet society?”

“I have
not,
” Sophie said. “There's been confusion with Gale Feliachild's … estate, but Verena and I have always agreed that it all goes to her. The rest is paperwork.”

“This confusion … did it originate with you?”

No getting out of that, is there?

“Yes,” Sophie said.
Don't look guilty, you didn't do anything wrong, it's not your fault …

“Might you be
confused
about some of your other assertions? Can we really believe, for example, that you saw Hugh Sands? Here lies a dead Golder, known to be violent, in the company of John Coine, with the injuries you describe.”

“A dead Golder who conveniently resembles him, yes,” she said.

“If you can get confused about something as enormous as the adjudication of a great Verdanni estate…”

“Now you're calling me stupid,” Sophie said. She kept her eyes on Maray, trying to forget the hundreds of strangers in the room, hanging on their every word. “I'm not stupid.”

“Your tale is outlandish. You must either be actively deceitful or grievously mistaken.”

“Is that a question?”

“Active deceit seems most likely. I put to the Assembly that the closest relation you can produce stands accused of fraud. You yourself are tarnished with this inheritance ‘confusion.' Honored Kirs, Sophie Hansa has a documented tendency to lay claim to things that aren't hers, and she has no heritage to offer us but her mother's criminal behavior.”

“Cly Banning—” Sophie began, but then she saw a little gleam of triumph in Maray's face.

Oh
, she thought,
this is where you want this to go. You want me to claim I am Sylvanner now, and then you're gonna say I'm out for whatever I can get, that nobody's proved Cly's paternity anyway, and then you'll stomp all over me some more for stealing the magic purse.

Instead she said: “Okay, true, I'm not Verdanii. Beatrice slammed the door on that possibility when she didn't present me to the Everymom—”

A faint shock of nervous laughter met this and across the gallery, she saw Tonio flinch.

Oh good, way to start, Sofe.

“I met Beatrice for the first time about four weeks ago and she rejected me utterly: She wants nothing to do with me. I am not Verdanii. I never was, never said I was. And—since you're so interested—I don't particularly want to be. My sister Verena is Beatrice's heir: she gets the purse and the job and the ship and crew and…” She fought an urge to look at Parrish, keeping her eyes on Maray. “… and all the trappings.”

The trappings seemed to be looking down, fighting to hide a grin.

Annela rose. “I believe Kir Hansa is formally declaring an intention to relinquish her claim on Verdanii citizenship and the Feliachild estate, Speaker.”

“Well?” he asked. “Is that true?”

Was it?

“That stuff was never mine,” Sophie said.

A murmur from the assembly: Apparently this had made an impact.

“There you go,” Annela said, “This dispenses with the intimation that Kir Hansa is engaged in some grandiose form of estate theft.”

“All it shows is she knows when to cut her losses,” Maray said. “The question remains: if she's not Verdanii, who is Sophie Hansa?”

“The people who raised me are are from … what's your phrase? No great nation. From your point of view, they're nobodies.”

Over in the petitioner's loft, Parrish was definitely smiling.

“I'm nobody,” she repeated, as if she was saying it to him alone, but it wasn't true.

“Then you've made my case for me,” Maray said. “Speaker, Honored Kirs, I submit that Sophie Hansa has no national honor to fall back on, no pedigree, and nobody stainless to vouch for her. Perhaps she's been obliged to give up her flimsy attempt to usurp her sister's inheritance, but her history remains tarnished by her natural mother's fraud. You cannot accept her word on matters so damning to my people.”

“I am inclined to agree,” said the speaker. “Sophie Hansa, this Convene cannot accept your unsupported assertions. They cannot be read into the record. Resume your seat in the petitioner's loft—”

“Wait!” she said. “Don't I get a turn?”

“To do what?” Maray said. “Make more questionable assertions?”

“To prove what I've said is true,” Sophie said.

“Your word—” the speaker said again.

“I said
prove,
not bluster,” Sophie said. “If I can catch these guys in a lie or two, it changes the whole game, doesn't it?”

The speaker's face darkened. “This is no game.”

“Oh, believe me, I'm taking it more seriously than any of you seem to be.” She'd had enough with playing the nice girl in a pretty dress, holding her emotions in and wearing the social mask. She should have told Annela to bag the ball gown; she should be wearing a true skin, like her wetsuit. “You spent all this time and energy just to hash over the possibility that I might lie? Anyone might lie. Why would you take my uncorroborated word? Why would you take anyone's?”

The speaker gaped at her … as did everyone in the room. “I beg your pardon, young woman—”

Don't give them a chance to shut you up
. Being brazen seemed to be setting them all back on their heels, so she limped out from behind the podium toward the monks. “Is any of you a doctor? Anyone here?”

Looking nervous, one of the monks raised a hand.

“He's not authorized to speak to the Convene,” Maray objected.

“I was the ship's medic aboard
Starbright
,” said one of the starboard Convenors.

“Come on down here. Kir. Your Honor. Please.” Sophie bent close to the dead man, the fake Hugh, and pulled the sheet farther down. His arm, the one Cly had busted so casually, had been realigned and laid at his side. “This arm's broken, right?”

The Convenor felt his way up both sides of the joint and said, clearly, “Yes.”

“It looks pretty okay. It's not swollen or anything. Why is that?”

He looked closely. “Death occurred so shortly after the fracture that swelling was minimal.”

“Okay. But his face is swollen.”

“Yes,” he said. “That injury occurred perhaps a few days ago.”

“A few days,” she said. “You sure?”

A murmur ran through the room as the quickest of the Convenors saw her point. Maray flushed, ever so slightly.

You people don't even have basic forensics. A
CSI
fan could do this.

“Yes, a few days, a week at most—”

“Not a month?”

“Oh.” The Convenor looked startled. “No, the bruising would have healed considerably in a month.”

“Okay. The attack on Gale was last month. Nobody's contesting this. Maray's saying I broke this man's nose a month ago. So are you sure?”

He took a careful look. “This is not a month-old injury.”

Point for me,
Sophie thought. She gave the Convene time to absorb the discrepancy of timing before she continued. “Now, what about this raw patch here, around his wrist?”

“The man was clearly bonded,” the doctor said.

“A slave?”

More murmurs.

“Suggestive as this may be,” Maray said, “I fail to see how it proves anything.”

Sophie took a moment to cover the corpse, checking Maray's robe-tatters one last time. Still playing to the crowd, she took the doctor's hand, letting him help her up, like some kind of great lady. “What if I could prove the Ualtarites have
Yacoura?
”

You could almost hear the whole room snap to attention.

“Excuse me?” the speaker said.

Maray was staring as though she'd gone mad. “There is no such proof, Kirs.”

“Says you?”

“It's not me who's been declared unreliable.”

“Why don't I put some evidence up against your unimpeachable word and see who comes out ahead?”

This caused a sustained babble among the Convenors. It rose until they were on the verge of shouting.

Finally, the speaker hammered his gavel, eventually silencing the hubbub. “What could you possibly have to indicate the Ualtarites are in possession of the Heart?”

Sophie limped to Maray's side. She picked the white fleck out of the fringes of her long golden robe.

All a show,
she thought, raising it high.
Constitutional chicken. Take your time.
Pacing out her steps with deliberation, she crossed the floor, finally dropping it in the speaker's palm.

“And so?”

She fished in her skirt, groping for the sealed tube full of packing peas. She rubbed the glass on her princess skirt to build up a bit of static, uncorked it, and flung the peas out on the scribes' table. They did what they always did: bounced everywhere and stuck to things. Those that didn't cling to the inside of the jar scattered, some lodging on the papers. A few spilled onto the carpet and rolled under the desks.

Suddenly Maray looked disturbed.

The Speaker was, visibly, puzzled. “And these are?”

“These? I call them packing peas. They're polystyrene—”

“Are they inscribed?”

“Nope. They're ordinary everyday technology. And I'm betting you've never seen anything like them,” she said.

The speaker squeezed the foam experimentally. “They fall outside my experience. Anyone?”

“They are mundane gadgetry from the outlands,” Annela said. “Not commonly available within the Fleet.”

“So recorded. What's the point of these packing peas, Kir Hansa?”

Sophie said. “Before I turned Yacoura over to the pirates—”

“Point of fact: nobody from my nation has laid hands on the Heart,” said Convenor Brawn.

“Whatever. I packed the Heart in these things before I gave it up.”

“Who says so?” Maray was looking uneasy. “You? We've established that your word is worthless—”

“Captain Garland Parrish—”

“Ah! Parrish!”

“—and Tonio Capodoccio, the first mate of
Nightjar,
saw me do it. Think you can impeach their honor too? They're right over there.”

Maray flinched, ever so slightly. “Kirs, she could easily have concealed that item in her hand before seeming to take it from my garment. She might have dropped it on me in the petitioner's loft.”

“Ah, but they don't travel alone, do they?” Sophie addressed the Speaker again. “You search Maray's rooms on
Ascension.
I guarantee you'll find packing peas there. She may be honorable, but she is messy. That place was an absolute junk warren, and there'd be no cleaning the peas out once she opened up the bag. See how far two tablespoons of them have gone in thirty seconds? There's one under that guy's—that Convenor, sorry—his foot. Garbage spreads.”

Maray was trying—and failing—to hold onto a derisive expression. “This is a child's gambit.”

Sophie decided not to give her a chance to get the wind back in her sails. Instead she pointed across the floor at Parrish's satchel, as though it were her own.

Theater,
she thought again.

“While we're talking about weird mummer garbage from my insignificant nation, I've been making pictures of everything I could since I got here. I'm curious, which you guys seem to hate. I've been asking questions and noting answers and even taking the occasional name.”