Don’t get on your high horse, Sofe. That was what Bram would probably say.
Okay, fair enough. She would do her best to observe and not judge.
With another shower of sparks, Incindio leapt to the upper rope of the fighting ring, flipping up and out of range of the sword, bouncing on the rope as if it were a trampoline, and cartwheeling in midair. Verena took the opportunity to lunge after another wet rag, but she misguessed her opponent’s direction; he came down behind her, kicking her ankle out from under her.
There was a whoosh as flames ran up Verena’s leg. She rolled out of Incindio’s reach, apparently unburned, coming up on the other leg. Hopping, clutching the rag, she swept her sword out defensively before he could follow up his advantage.
“She’s not hurt?”
“In a fight like this, if you’re tagged you must approximate the injury. It’s an honor system.”
“Care to double?” Tonio said, with extravagantly pantomimed carelessness. Parrish laughed, a gleeful, boyish trill, infectious and surprising from someone so sober, and nodded.
The two combatants seemed more in earnest now. Incindio lashed out with the left arm; Verena, still hopping, managed to parry. She had the wet rag balled like a softball, ready to fly. A fierce, concentrated expression, like happiness, like Bram on the hunt for the answer to a puzzle, suffused her face.
“Look, Kir! She’s drawn out the Conto’s nephew,” Tonio murmured. “He loves a good fight.”
Leaving her camera fixed on the ring, Sophie followed his gaze. The boy watching the mock duel from across the piazza was maybe eighteen, with curly auburn hair and a face right out of a Dante Gabriel Rosetti painting—big eyes, expressive mouth, skin smooth as soap. He was surrounded by a bevy of expensively dressed teens who were chattering and exchanging coins—bets, Sophie guessed—but he was rapt, entirely absorbed in the blow-by-blow between Verena and the flaming man.
“A true sports fan,” she mumbled, taking a second to pan the group, getting everyone in the entourage.
“What is that object, Kir?” Tonio asked as she returned her attention to the fight. Verena seemed to be tiring.
Before Sophie could frame a reply Parrish interrupted. “Erstwhile mummery.”
“Ah, like Kir Gale’s phono?” His curiosity vanished.
She found herself nettled by the exchange, as if Parrish had said, “Quaint garbage from the Nation of Stupid.”
Verena ducked under a blow, dropping to her knees and then doing an odd martial-arts pivot from that position, to escape another. She slashed her sword across Incindio’s face and, as he recoiled, threw the rag at his heart—and the cluster of sparks gathered there—as hard as she could.
It seemed an impossible move to counter, but the flame man threw himself back against the ropes, catching the rag left-handed. As his arm smoked and guttered out, he blew a stream of flames at Verena. She couldn’t bring her sword back around in time to keep them from enveloping her head.
Bowing, Verena threw the wooden sword straight upward. The sparks followed, bursting into full-blown flames and immolating it as it whirled in midair. The crowd bellowed and cheered.
“Well fought!” Tonio bellowed, applauding madly. “Brava, brava!”
“She did lose, right?” Sophie said.
“Barely,” Parrish said. “She’s catching up with Incindio.”
If Verena was disappointed by this result, it didn’t show. The sparks on her leg and around her head winked out, but for a crown of winking motes in her hair. Her opponent, an ordinary-looking man again, drenched in sweat and soot, offered her a hand up and then pulled her into a hug.
“That was amazing,” Sophie said, as her half sister joined them.
Verena acknowledged this with a nod, but she was waiting for Parrish’s reaction.
“It was close,” he said, voice warm. “I’d say you’re about evenly matched now.”
She colored, seeming pleased. “’Cindio said that too, but he’s such a flatterer.”
“How’d it go with the Verdanii?” Sophie asked.
“Sorting the inheritance is on hold until we find out something about Gale’s death. And, you know, I’ve been asking around and I’m not sure I think the Conto’s nephew was involved, anymore. I wasn’t expecting the whole island to go into mourning…”
“Kir Gale was beloved here,” Tonio said.
“Yeah. So I’m thinking…” She dropped a short bow in the direction of the pre-Raphaelite prince, who acknowledged it with a mere flutter of his long lashes. “Terzo’s too canny to risk being vilified for getting rid of her. It’s bad politics.”
“We may have another line of inquiry,” Parrish said, turning to Sophie. “You are sure … I apologize. What I meant to say was—you say the Ualtarite we saw was involved in the attack against Gale?”
“I’m good with faces,” Sophie said. “Especially the only one I’ve ever bashed in. Anyway, his pirate friend, John Coine, said they wanted the item we talked about before … heart of Temperance? Yacoura?”
“The heart is lost,” said Verena and Tonio, almost at once, almost in the same tone.
Parrish seemed to ignore this. “Was Convenor Gracechild on the ship from Verdanii, Verena?”
Verena shook her head. “They knew the Conto would give Gale to the Fiumofoco. I’d say Annela sent a small, slow ship on purpose. The family saved face by showing up, but managed to let Gale have what she wanted. I have a formal protest to deliver. It’s kind of perfunctory.”
“Then they don’t mind that the Conto cremated her,” Parrish said, with obvious relief.
“Tell me about it. All we need is Erinth and the Allmother at each other’s throats.”
She’s feeling a little better, Sophie thought.
“You’re saying the men who attacked Gale near Mom’s were from Ualtar?” Verena said.
“Tonio says the guy I recognized is from their embassy,” Sophie said.
“That makes no sense,” Verena said. “What would the Temple of Ualtar want with defanging Temperance?”
“Can we go and find out?” Sophie asked.
“Go where? To the embassy?”
“Well … or to Ualtar, I guess.”
“We could do that, if you wished,” Parrish said.
He was obeying her, because she was the boss. “I’m asking if it’s a good idea.”
“I can’t help thinking we may have learned all we can here,” Parrish said. He was, tacitly, addressing Verena. “The Conto will assess whether there is, in fact, any connection between his nephew and the murder. It’s in his best interest.”
“And he loved Gale,” Tonio put in.
“Yes. We can rely on him to send us a message if he learns of any link.”
“I bet there isn’t anything to learn. Terzo conniving with a bunch of clerics … doesn’t seem right,” said Verena.
“No. Then again, the Isle of Gold, working with Ualtarites…” That uneasiness Sophie had noticed before seemed to surface. “It’s almost fantastical.”
“John Coine didn’t want me to see them together,” Sophie said. “And he all but bragged about attacking Gale back home. I have video you can look at.”
“This hints at a bigger plot.”
“You’ll have to explain the politics to me and Bram. If we did leave, how long would it take us to get to … Ualtar?”
“Six days if winds are fair,” Parrish said. “They’re quite a closemouthed culture—they don’t like outsiders. It will be hard to learn anything from them.”
“Especially if we’re there on official business,” Tonio put in.
“Are they good neighbors?” Sophie asked.
“Pardon?”
“Is there anyone nearby who might know what they’re up to? Someone who might gossip?”
The captain looked at her with more respect. “We could visit a few of the nearby islands, I suppose.”
“Sumpter,” Tonio said. “Or Tiladene.”
“I know a guy from
Tiladene,” Sophie said. The memory of Lais, their brief affair on Estrel, and his spider breeding project, brought a smile to her face.
“Lucky you,” said Tonio.
He sounded sincere; she grinned, even more certain that she liked him.
Restlessness caught her, like wind lifting a kite. The prospect of going, rather than sitting, awakened a hunger within her. “Bram should be in on this discussion,” she said. “Let’s go up, deliver Verena’s protest from the Verdanii, and tighten up the plan. How soon could we sail out, hypothetically?”
Parrish looked to Tonio. “We’ve restocked?”
“Job’s half done. The rest of the provisions are loading this afternoon.”
“Then we’ll go after sunset.” Parrish looked to Tonio. “Ready the ship, but be discreet. Leave up the mourning sails until the last minute; there’s no sense in announcing our departure.”
“Done, Kir. Don’t forget to send my mother that cask of wine.” With one of those tight Erinthian bows, Tonio strode off.
Verena blushed. “You’ve got to stop betting on me, Parrish,” she said, but she seemed pleased.
They hiked up through the market, Verena accepting shouted, good-natured congratulations on her honorable loss to Incindio, Parrish apparently deep in thought. Sophie paused at one stall in the market; the vendor was selling plated, fused shells, much like tortoise shell but with a deeper arch to them; their shape was almost as curvy as Parrish’s bicorne captain’s hat.
Hump-backed turtles, she thought, imagining the creature they must have come from. The shells had been converted to baskets and filled with an arrangement of dried flowers and beetle carapaces, a macabre display of dried biological samples.
“Get it,” Parrish advised. “The price is reasonable, and buying things earns you goodwill with the people.”
“She won’t be needing goodwill,” Verena said, her own evaporating. “Her position here is temporary, remember?”
“I don’t have any money,” Sophie said, attempting to defuse the sudden spark of resentment.
“Nightjar does.” Parrish gestured and the vendor handed some over.
That put paid to any conversation until they were up in their rooms again.
Dear Miss Manners, Sophie thought. The obnoxious but cute boy my half sister likes just bought me a tortoise shell full of dead flowers. Now she’s all hosed at me. What do I do?
Their suite at the palazzo was crammed to bursting with open books. Bram had opened a library’s worth on the floors of every room, and was scrawling notes on the terrain, maps, histories, and a few carved reliefs. He was going over it all with the exhausted scribe, the two communicating in a mishmash of romance language words and broken Fleetspeak.
“Bram,” Sophie said. “Let the guy catch some sleep, okay? We need to talk.”
He peered up at her, as if from a distance.
“Come on, come back to the here and now,” she said, briskly, clearing the books from the couches.
“That’s just it,” he said. “We don’t really know where here and now are.”
“I know—cool, huh? Make any progress?”
“Grigo found me an ancient, end-of-the-world myth that reads a bit like Noah’s ark.” He unfolded himself from the floor, where he’d been sitting crosslegged among the papers. “Here, let me. It’ll make it easier when I pick this up later. How about you? Catch your murderer, by any chance?”
“On video, no less,” she said.
“Seriously?”
By now they’d made a hole big enough for them all to cram together on on the couch. She pulled up a small table, propped up the video camera atop the stack of books so that its little screen was resting dead center, and sat in front of it, working its controls. Bram plopped down on her left. Verena perched on the armrest, near Bram. After a moment, Parrish took the only remaining spot, next to Sophie.
“Okay, look.” She brought up the video of her conversation with the pirate, John Coine, and cranked up the audio. She’d forgotten about the threat he’d made, until the little tinny speaker played his words again: “Your name is Sophie Opal Hansa, is it not?”
Both Parrish and Verena straightened in their seats at that.
Bram hit pause. “What’s the deal?”
“They can enchant her, if they want,” Verena said.
“They’ll turn her into one of those things?” Bram demanded. “Mezmers?”
“Unlikely. He obviously wants Sophie to find the heart,” Parrish said. “Coine is trying to frighten her.”
Sophie started the file playing again. “How can he be so upfront about it?”
“Golden tradition. You show yourself to your enemies before you clash, if you can.”
Enemies. She didn’t like the sound of that. “He’s practically bragging about killing Gale.”
“He didn’t know you had captured his words. But if it came to a trial, his defense would probably be justification. Isle of Gold has always claimed the right to pursue the Heart,” Parrish said. “It’s the involvement of the other gentleman that concerns me.”
“Other guy?” Bram said.
“Just watch,” Sophie said, resuming the vid. On the little screen, Coine was sauntering away. He spotted the broken-nosed Ualtarite heading his way, and waved him off. The man peered in Sophie’s direction, seeming not to recognize her as she zoomed in, bringing his face closer.
“Could Tonio be wrong about his being Ualtarite?” Verena asked.
“Doubtful. Tonio’s feelings about Ualtar are…” Parrish ran aground there. “I don’t know the Anglay word.”
“Tonio really dislikes Ualtarites,” Sophie said. “That much was screamingly apparent.”
“How could Coine have learned your middle name? Who knew it?” Verena asked. “Here on Stormwrack, I mean.”
“Just the guy who did the inscription that taught me Fleetspeak, and a few people from the crew of that salvage ship, Estrel. Lais from Tiladene saw the conch shell, too.”
Verena and Parrish exchanged a look.
“Yes, I was careless,” said Sophie. “How was I to know it mattered?”
“It’s obviously a big deal, Sofe,” Bram said.
“And believe me, I have added it to the long list of things to be freaked out over. So, Parrish, if we were gonna ship out of here tonight and check out Ualtar, what would we need to do to get going?”
“The palazzo staff have most of the actual packing in hand.” Parrish looked at one of the guards who’d been quietly attending them all day, and switched back to Fleetspeak. “Would you ask the Conto to make inquiries after Lais Dariach and after the salvage ship Estrel, Captain name of … Sophie?”
“Her name’s Dracy,” Sophie said. “Do you think something’s happened to them?”
“I couldn’t speculate.” He looked at the guard.
“It will be done, Kir, of course.”
“The Conto can send whatever he learns to us.”
“You do! You think someone on Estrel told them my name.”
He nodded.
She swallowed, fighting a rush of emotion: anxiety, guilt, and fear.
“If we’re going, I better deliver that protest,” Verena said, springing up so suddenly the servant had to rush to open the door for her.
“Hand me that protocol book again,” Sophie said. Bram opened it across both their laps, and she paged to the end, looking for Ualtar, reading aloud. “The brotherhood of Ualtar believes in a doctrine it calls Perfectibility of Man: believes everyone must rise to an ever-increasing state of grace, and that those who fail to strive are inferior. I bet that means they mistreat their livestock and keep slaves.”
“Yes.” Parrish bent close to her, and she caught a whiff of soap and something like cloves. He ran his finger down, past the text to a column of statistics: land area, the name of the ship that represented them within the Fleet, and finally down to an entry marked “Economy.” It was followed by a “(B).”
“B for bonded,” he explained. �
��The free nations are indicated with an F.”
“F for free. Very discreet. F or B, no discussion?”
“It is a sensitive subject,” he said. “The people who compiled this particular volume wished it to be complete. For that they required cooperation from all the nations. I can find you any number of treatises that discuss and condemn the practice of bondage, and an equal number that praise it to the skies.”
“How many countries of each side?” Bram’s grammar was off, his accent was terrible, but he had followed the conversation—they’d slipped into Fleetspeak when she was reading it off the page—and replied in kind. Parrish looked frankly amazed.
Ah, yes, behold the wunderkid, Sophie thought.
“Over half of the nations are free,” he said. “Ualtar is unique among the bonded nations in that their perfectibility doctrine allows for the possibility that a person may not only rise from bondage to freedom but that, if one performs the correct rites, they may become a full citizen.”
“So that makes them odd one out among the slaveholders?”
“To some extent, yes. They are regarded as unpredictable, or unreliable, perhaps. Ualtar has always done exactly as it pleased,” Parrish said. “They have never—there have been attempts, during the past century, to break the Charter and return the nations to a state of war. The Temple has never been involved, so far as I know. They have an unnecessarily large navy, but even so they’re considered a lesser nation.”
“Did you get that?” Sophie asked.
“About half,” Bram said.
She repeated the main points, dragging the conversation back into English. Then she returned her attention to the book. “Didn’t Gale have a copy of this back at her apartment?”
“She did,” Parrish said. “I can have it sent to Nightjar if you like.”
“It’d help.” Maybe we can scan the whole thing, she thought. “So … in the meantime, all this inheritance mess sort of happened because I blundered around helping people on Stele Island and Estrel. What can I do to not make it worse?”
He gave her a small, approving smile. “It would be better if Verena was seen to be in charge aboard Nightjar. If she had Gale’s cabin, for example, and you and Bram were guests.”
Child of a Hidden Sea Page 15