“I used it on a dive,” she said. “I held it. I’d never seen anything like it before, so I took a good look.”
“Isn’t it true that Gale Feliachild asked the Conto of Erinth to claim you as an illegitimate child, to give you a false position as an Erinthian?”
“What?” Jolted by the change in direction, Sophie had to take a second to search her memories. “Yes, I think so. I mean, the Conto told me they’d discussed something like that.”
“A small fraud, perhaps, but a telling one,” Maray said. “Who must you be if the prospect of posing as an Erinthian bastard is considered a better identity?”
She could hear the Convenors whispering. “I can’t talk about my background.”
“If I call upon John Coine to relate the details of your conversation on Erinth, what will he say?”
Another change of direction. She’s trying to rattle me by jumping around. “John Coine’s dead.”
Gasps ran up and down the galleries.
Maray affected shock. “Dead, Kir Hansa?”
“Yeah, right. Tell me, honestly, you didn’t know?”
“You’re the one under question.” Maray glided past her, more shark than spider. “Coine told the Watch, yesterday, that you begged him to help supplant your half sister Thorna Feliachild, in the matter of a certain inheritance.”
“That’s not true!” Sophie said. The response sounded, to her ears, forceless. But part of her was stirring. This wasn’t going to be some matter of defending her interpretation of the facts. This wasn’t about her being wrong, or coming to the wrong conclusions.
She’d thought they would say she’d misinterpreted, that her chain of logic was erroneous, that her analysis was lacking. That she wasn’t bright enough, or good enough. That she’d been a sloppy thinker.
But they were just going to lie.
Maray’s taking me seriously, even if nobody else is.
She bit her lip, suppressing a giggle. Was it wrong that somehow that made it all a bit easier?
The speaker interrupted. “Can you produce any witnesses to this conversation, Tanta?”
“There is a shell vendor from Erinth about three days’ sail away,” Maray said.
“Three days. By then those ships of yours will have rolled right over Tiladene, am I right?” Sophie demanded.
Maray whipped around, turning so sharply that for a moment the dragging train of her robe looked like it might entangle her legs. She kicked it aside with practiced grace, and Sophie saw a speck of bone-white within the sun-colored tatters at its hem. “It is only you, Kir Hansa, who says we mean to engage in hostilities.”
“So? You’ve got me saying one thing and John Coine saying another. He says I’m lying, I say he is. It’s my word versus his.”
“Not exactly.” Maray gave her an almost pitying smile. “The assertions of John Coine cannot be contested now that he’s dead.”
Her mind whirled. “So he … he attacks me last night, and he dies, and then his saying I tried to rip off Verena goes into the record?”
“Oh! He died in an altercation with you?”
“You’re gonna make it out that I had him … what was it? Deathscripped?”
“Did you, by chance, know his full name?”
“Yes, he gave it to Cly, but—”
Oh! They killed him on purpose, had him feed the Watch a pack of lies and he went to his death, must have been in on it, would someone die just to make me look bad? Sure he would, people sacrifice themselves for their countries all the time, and he was getting so ragged from all the magic they worked on him anyway …
“Given that you held his name,” Maray continued, “it would have been easy enough to hire someone to inscribe his death, using the ill-gotten resources of your estate.”
“I wouldn’t know how,” Sophie said. Her voice rose, despite her attempt to keep it even. She was becoming furious.
“You had another motive. Coine abducted your brother, didn’t he? And tortured him?”
Across the chamber, Bram was tapping the rail of the petitioner’s loft with his finger, a signal. Meaning what?
Get back on point, she thought. It was a good reminder. “Coine wasn’t acting alone.”
“Ah yes, that brings us handily back to your insistence that it was also Hugh Sands who attacked your aunt.” Maray gestured, and the great doors creaked open—only to bang against the piles of stored crates. Two guards hurriedly rearranged the piles of nets so they could be swung wide.
Eight brown-robed men who could only be monks bore in two draped stretchers, and carried them past Maray amid a rising murmur from the Convenors. They laid them on either side of the podium, on the floor, and pulled back the shrouds, revealing the bodies of John Coine and the terrified swordsman from the night before.
For the barest of moments Sophie braced to see the contorted expressions the men had worn just before they died, but the bodies were still, calm. The concealing makeup had been wiped from the swordsman’s face, revealing livid bruising.
Sophie looked from the bodies to the Convene, scanning first the portside, then the starboard. The assembly was rapt; people leaned forward in their seats, as if they were afraid they might miss a whisper. Did they expect her to swoon at the sight of the bodies?
Instead, she took the opportunity to look at them closely. Now I know why they attacked Graduation last night. They wanted Coine’s accusations about me wanting help to steal Verena’s estate to be ironclad. They’d made sure I had Coine’s name. But the other guy … why’s he here?
Calm descended. Suddenly she might have been fifty feet underwater with a failing tank. She looked back at the bodies, at Maray.
Maray gestured. “This is John Coine, who you say attacked Gale Feliachild twenty-nine days past?”
“It sure is.”
“This other gentleman?”
“I don’t know him.”
“His name is Arlo Shank, also of Isle of Gold.”
“Okay.”
“Do you recognize Kir Shank?”
“He attacked me last night.”
“Is he not the other gentleman who attacked your aunt?”
“No.”
Of course. That’s why he’d been busted in the face.
Theater, she thought. Make up the lie and then sell, sell, sell it.
“Are you certain, Kir Hansa?”
“I’m positive.”
“Would you agree that he bears a strong resemblance to the diplomat you saw on Erinth?”
“He does,” Sophie said, “But he’s not the man I saw in Bernal.”
“You contend you struck your aunt’s attacker in the face? This man—”
“He’s not the one. It’s not him.”
“Last night, during the altercation, your brother was overheard saying he was that man.”
“My brother wasn’t around when Gale was attacked.”
“Still, there’s disagreement?”
“Bram never saw him. I did.”
“Once again we come to the question of your reliability. Who are you, Sophie Hansa? Of what people?”
“Does that really matter?”
“Why is it nobody can vouch for you?”
“My lack of … social connections, I guess?… shouldn’t have any bearing on your assessment of my honesty.”
“You’re not merely ill-connected. You were discarded by your blood relations at birth, were you not?”
“Discarded…” The Convenors’ eyes were pitiless, and everyone was staring. Sophie knew that, within the tight sleeve of the white dress, she was red right down to her cleavage. “Yes. I was adopted.”
“By whom?”
“What matters is they want me.” She looked at Bram.
“While that’s touching, I take it to mean your adopted kin can’t lend weight to your assertions, either. I put it to you again: How can this gathering accept your word?”
“What does my origin have to do with it?” Sophie pointed at the tapestry depicting t
he 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?”
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