Child of a Hidden Sea

by A. M. Dellamonica

  “I’ll bring pressure to bear for a search,” Cly said. “But you, Sophie, must promise to return to Annela immediately.”

  She nodded. “Fair deal.”

  Cly turned on his heel, heading back the way he’d come.

  “They really could be alive again?” Bram asked.

  “They will be. No inscription lasts forever,” Parrish said. “One day, inevitably, they will revert. But it makes no sense that they would try to kill Sophie.”

  “No?”

  “Convenor Gracechild asked the Watch to stipulate that if she was unable to testify, her assertions would be read into the record as uncontested fact.”

  “Then what was their game plan?” Bram demanded.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can we hope they were just dumb?”

  “No,” he said. “There would have been a purpose.”

  “Be pleased that whatever they wanted, the attack on you failed.” That was Annela, attended by a trio of burly types who could only be cops, or the local equivalent of palace guards. “Come, children. The hearing’s at dawn.”

  “You said we’d have time to prepare,” Sophie said.

  “You do—you have until dawn. Isle of Gold has demanded that the Fleet entire make a penitential cruise to the site of the Lucre sinking. If we sail north, we won’t be able to aid the Tiladenes before Ualtar’s had time to raid them.”

  “But people believe us, right? That they’re in cahoots?”

  “No,” Annela said. “We need to convince the Convene that this isn’t simply a matter of the Piracy achieving its long-cherished dream of revenge on Temperance. You’ll have to show them the Ualtarites and the Isle of Gold are in league.”

  “When’s morning?”

  “Four hours,” said Parrish, with a glance at the stars.

  “Come to my rooms. We’ll go over your testimony.”

  Annela’s rooms were almost as sumptuous as the Conto’s guest quarters had been, though on the cramped scale typical of ocean-going vessels, and in a completely different style. Everything was draped in fabric: thick velvets, heavy cushions, sturdy nailed-down couches. She favored moss greens and dark browns, the colors of the forest.

  “You need not worry about what to say. Simply tell the truth. The thing to remember is this: Whenever something you wish to say touches on Erstwhile, you’ll both need to say ‘my home nation’ instead. Got it?”

  With that, they began to go over all the facts and observations they’d accumulated in their weeks at sea, one tiny piece at a time.

  “I need to stop,” Sophie said, after a couple hours. “At this point either we know it or we’re gonna get more muddled, not less.”

  “All right, let’s move on,” Annela said. “I’ve gone through your trunk—”

  “My trunk’s locked.”

  “It wasn’t a very good lock.”

  “You had no right!”

  “I had every right. You’ve eraglided to Stormwrack illegally, twice. You broke your promise not to tell anyone about us, when you confided in your brother. And the trunk is full of espionage equipment—”

  “Espionage equipment?”

  “But that’s not the point.”

  Sophie tried to wait her out, and failed. “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the point?”

  Annela turned, producing one of the gifts from the Conto—the full-length ball gown.

  Busted! Sophie’s heart sank.

  Instead of castigating her, Annela said: “I think you should wear this to the hearing.”

  Was this a trap?

  Don’t throw me in the briar patch! The thought had an edge of hysteria, the hint of a laughing fit that could turn into a crying jag. “Don’t you have a smaller version of one of those wraps?” She gestured at the vivid green and brown sarong Annela was wearing. “It looks a lot more comfortable.”

  “Given the ambiguity surrounding your citizenship, a Verdanii garment is out of the question.”

  “We can’t even dress me like I might belong to Beatrice?”

  “Self-pity doesn’t become you, child.”

  “Annela, this is practically a wedding dress.”

  “Not here in the civilized world, it’s not. It merely indicates you have the support of the Erinthian crown. Your current … ensemble … will raise questions.”

  “It’ll take me two hours to put that thing on. It’s not bad, as neck to floor princess dresses go, but…”

  “The Erinthians do go for foolishly confining garments, considering their warm climate.” Annela shook it out. A dried flower fell out of the skirt. Sophie tensed, but she didn’t react. “Step in; I’ll lace you.”

  “Just so long as we understand that nobody’s touching my hair,” she said. But she’d protested enough. She let Annela gather the skirts to her waist, and held it there until the waist was cinched. Then she pulled her shirt over her head, so she had her arms and the fabric crossed over her chest. “It probably won’t even…”

  But it did fit, exactly.

  “I don’t understand. It’s like it’s tailored.”

  “Conto’s seamstress would only have needed a look at you.”

  “You expect me to testify looking like the cover of Bride?”

  “Whatever that means, I want you to look respectable,” Annela said.

  “I don’t even know why he gave me this thing,” she grumbled.

  “I imagine he thought well of you.” Annela finished fastening the bodice. “It’s a flattering garment. You have swimmers’ shoulders. A true child of the sea.”

  “I have no idea what to do with a comment like that.”

  “Of course. Forgive me.” She took a step back, evaluating, a slow examination that did nothing to ease Sophie’s nerves.

  “You look like that movie princess who fell in the garbage pile,” Bram murmured.

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Maybe you should reconsider about the hair.”

  She ran a finger through her curls—they hadn’t gotten too shaggy, she supposed. What had it been? Four weeks, since her last haircut? “I’ll brush it out.”

  “Can you even sit?”

  She perched on a cushion, briefly, then stood again. “It’s pretty comf, actually. I guess the Erinthians, since they bind up their old people in these things…”

  Annela glazed, visibly bored. “I’ll give you some time alone.”

  “About the rest of my trunk,” Sophie said.

  “The data-gathering equipment will be confiscated.”

  “That stuff wasn’t free, you know.”

  “Verena can reimburse you.”

  “I wouldn’t have shown the files to anyone.”

  Bram said. “Some of that hardware is mine … does that make a difference?”

  “You may both count yourselves lucky that nobody’s charging you with mischief or spying.”

  “Spying for who?” Bram said.

  Rather than answer, Annela treated him to a withering glare and she swept out of the room.

  “Oh!” Sophie said. “I wish I had a princess shoe so I could stamp my foot in style!”

  Bram had no such reservations and hurled a cushion in the direction Annela had taken. His aim was decent; it caught Parrish coming in, knocking off his silly bicorne captain’s hat.

  “Ah. Am I—” He had bent to fetch the hat and as he rose and took in the sight of Sophie in the white frock—

  “Don’t say anything,” she said. “It wasn’t my idea.” Damned magic Erinthian seamstress anyway, she had to engineer a dress with a padded bodice and an open collar … she felt like she was heaving out at him. In 3D.

  Get a good look, Captain Tasty. It’s all going back to San Francisco in a few days.

  Parrish raised his eyes to her face and kept them there. “It’s a good strategic choice.”

  “If everyone’s dressing up, I suppose I’d better at least throw some water on my face.” Bram scooped his backpack off the floor and vanished into the head.

 
; Parrish was turned out neatly, in a fitted pair of black breeches and a white linen shirt and suspenders. He had the long black officer’s frock coat draped over his arm, and Sophie saw that he’d had the button replaced. He was freshly shaved, and had done something to tame his lamb’s-wool curls.

  It made her feel better; she wasn’t the only one gussied up. And he was certainly easy on the eye. No wonder Verena was smitten.

  “So … what, you’ve been at the salon all this time?”

  “I oversaw your attackers’ bodies when they transferred to the Watch, and alerted Sackcloth to their situation.”

  “Any luck finding the inscriptions that killed them?”

  “I’m afraid not. After this is all over, they’ll be taken to Issle Morta to await the breaking of the spells.”

  “Because that’s what your people do,” she said.

  He set the coat and hat on a low table and she saw he had a small satchel in his hand. “I am a child of Issle Morta, but I’m not truly of that nation.”

  “Does that mean you’re from nowhere, too?”

  “My home has been Nightjar since I was eighteen.”

  “It’s complicated?” she said.

  “Only lately.”

  “Since Gale’s death.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did I tell you I’m sorry she died?”

  He inclined his head in thanks. “Dawn’s not for an hour. Will you not sleep?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “In that case, I’ve brought something,” he said, opening the satchel and making room on a low table.

  “What is it?”

  He laid a green seed case the size of two doubled fists on the table. “It’s called a lifeboat,” he said.

  Sophie took it in both hands, feeling the soft hairs on its seed coat, like those on wisteria, taking in the variations in hue: a darkening almost to purple where the stem had been attached. At the tip it was still bright green, despite being dried.

  Near the tip, the two sides of the seed case gaped in an opening like a pair of pursed lips.

  “You can open it,” Parrish said.

  “Seriously?”

  He handed her what looked like a steak knife.

  Working the point of the knife into the opening, she cut gently along the top seam of the pod. It was leathery and resistant.

  Inside, she found a treasure trove of fly wings. A large, dead, half-pupated insect was squeezed into the bottom like a balloon, resting on a clutch of small barbed seeds. A few undeveloped seeds hung from the upper portion of the pod, embedded as tightly as pomegranates but with tiny hooks.

  A faint smell of honey or beeswax exhaled from the thing, an undercurrent to the rot of dead bugs.

  “What do you think?” Parrish said.

  She sifted through the pod, examining everything.

  “The pod’s probably closed while the seeds are developing,” she ventured.

  He nodded.

  “Once they’re ready, the pod opens. Insects come in … there’s nectar down here at the bottom, a lure. Some of them hook a seed and carry it off. Others probably get caught and can’t dislodge themselves. So they’d die.”

  “Yes.” He touched the pupa with the handle of a fork. “And this?”

  “I’d say the plant this comes from has evolved a relationship with something like a wasp,” she said. “It lays a grub in the bottom of the pod. As the bugs come in for the nectar, baby hoovers them up. As it grows and pupates … do the seeds get incorporated into its body? I’ve never seen that before.”

  Smiling, he produced a small jar containing a pickled wasp, about half as big as her fist. Its thorax was studded with hard beads, popcorn-like kernels. “It’s called a jeweller wasp.”

  “Huge wings,” she said, pinching one of the seeds. “They’d have to be—these things are pretty heavy.”

  “It sheds the seeds after about a month.”

  “Huge stinger, too.”

  “They’re aggressive.”

  “Where does this pod grow?”

  “Craven Reach, Larchrock, Cabrialle Island. Southern edge of the Sea of Bounty. They’re used in spells for battening livestock, and sometimes for sickly children.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “The seed pod? It had imperfections, so it’s no good for magic. Suboptimal, Bram would say. I traded for it.”

  “Today?”

  “No,” Parrish said. “I pick up bits and pieces on our travels. This adult—” He swirled the wasp in the jar. “—it got into Gale’s cabin, a couple years ago. She managed to catch it for me.”

  “Thank you, Parrish.”

  He ducked his head, then rose. “I have to send for Tonio.”

  “That reminds me,” she said. “Can you get him to bring that little tube of polystyrene peas—”

  He raised his eyebrows in a question.

  “Small white … beads, sort of. They’re soft. They were in my cabin, unless Annela got them, too.”

  “I remember,” he said. Then, with a bow, he was gone.

  She grinned at the pod. A little dissection was just what the doctor ordered; she was calmer now. “He might be infuriating, but he sure knows his job,” she muttered, hiking up the outer skirt of the wedding dress and snagging a few of the barbed seeds within the quilted pockets.

  “Awww,” said Bram, startling her; she hadn’t heard him return. “Did somebody bwing ooh a buggie?”

  “Shut up. It’s the least he can do after being consistently annoying for a month.”

  “Yeah, he annoys you.”

  “Change the subject, Bramble.”

  He handed her a comb. “Sofe, are you sure the guy with the busted nose isn’t the one we saw on Erinth? He was a couple hundred feet away, across a crowded market.”

  “I saw him from a distance of two feet when he tried to stab Gale, remember? There’s a strong resemblance, between Erinth guy and our dead swordsman, but no. They aren’t one and the same.”

  “You have to be sure. This is all getting to be kind of a big deal.”

  “A big deal,” she scoffed.

  “If they don’t believe us, there’s going to be an invasion and their hundred years of peace are toast.”

  A renewed thrill of nerves, jittering performance anxiety, crawled through her. “I’m sure, Bram. It’s another guy.”

  Bram looked into the pickled wasp’s jar with an expression that said, basically, Ewww, gross. To spare his sensibilities, she pocketed it.

  “Sofe, you never defended your master’s because you like gathering information more than you do presenting results…”

  “I didn’t defend my thesis because I had a chance to film narwals.”

  “You’ve always been happy to coauthor bio papers with your advisors—”

  “Bram, this isn’t the time.”

  “You can climb a rock face with your fingertips, but you’ve never been able to deal with having your conclusions questioned.”

  She started combing out her hair. “Not listening.”

  Bram kept psychoanalyzing. “You’re afraid of coming up short. Of being told you did it wrong, or you don’t belong, or it doesn’t count.”

  “Know why you don’t understand that? Because you don’t get what it’s like to be fallible,” she said.

  “You’re not wrong about this invasion,” he said.

  “Are you trying to make me nervous? If you are, keep it up.”

  “I’m trying to remind you—”

  “It’s too damned early for amateur therapy hour,” she interrupted.

  “None of this is on us,” he said. “It’s their war. You didn’t start it.”

  “They’ve had world peace for a hundred and nine years.”

  “If these Convene guys aren’t bright enough to see what’s going on—”

  “If I choke and can’t convince them, you mean?”

  “You’ve been amazing,” Bram said. “I’m proud. Remember that, okay? Try to can the stage fright and j
ust give them the facts. Tell them the truth, let them make their own choices, good or bad, and we’ll go home.”

  It was good advice, and it should have helped.

  It only made her more nervous.

  CHAPTER 26

  When dawn came, Annela appeared, escorting them wordlessly to the heart of the government.

  The Convene ran the Fleet and kept the peace from the depths of Constitution, within a long chamber that, in most ships, would have been the hold. It was an imposing, somber room, illuminated by an array of lanterns that resembled giant pearls, nacreous globes with hints of gray and rose, within which firelight wavered and danced.

  The space used the curvature of the ship’s hull to provide a natural rake for the seats arrayed in rows on both sides. They were made of a dark, oaky hardwood, amply cushioned, and provisioned with little writing tables. A narrow strip of polished floor divided the port seats from those to starboard, creating what Sophie thought of—perhaps erroneously—as government and opposition.

  The head of the room boasted a colorful tapestry, a grid eight wide and thirty high depicting the various islands’ national flags. There was a big podium, complete with bell and gavel, and tucked to one side she saw a desk for clerks. Screened viewers’ galleries were above on a mezzanine.

  “Pomp and circumstance,” Bram said in English, and Sophie nodded. It all reminded her of what she’d seen of the British House of Commons on TV, except that an assortment of crates, nets, and rope was piled high right beside the entrance.

  Annela saw her looking at the the stacked ropeworks. “Convene goes out of session for the southwinter break, right after graduation. The ship’s logistics officer usually takes the opportunity to shift around the stores while the government is resting up.”

  “Sometimes it’s a storage room, sometimes it’s where you run an international government,” Bram said, choosing his words slowly, speaking in a thick Fleet accent.

  “Down with the bilge and the ballast,” Annela said.

  It was obviously an old joke, so Sophie tried to make herself smile.

  “Wear these,” Annela said, handing out wrist corsages, pomegranate-colored sprays of small lilies. “In memory of Gale.”

  Sophie fiddled, one-handed, trying to affix it to her wrist.