Another nod.
“Well, then,” Alexis said, settling herself into a nearby chair and gesturing for Isom to do so as well.
The woman looked confused for a moment. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Alexis pulled out her tablet and settled back in the chair, giving every impression that she intended to be there for some time. “Waiting for Mister Grandy,” she said.
“You can’t do that!”
“Dear,” Alexis said, “if you’re capable of a thought that’s at all beyond the ornamental, you’ll see clearly that I’m already doing so.”
“I shall call the authorities!”
Alexis looked up from her tablet and narrowed her eyes as though thinking hard, then nodded. “Yes, please do.”
“I … what?”
“I’m sure the arrival of the authorities will cause some sort of ruckus, at which Mister Grandy will appear and we can be about our business.” She waved her hand dismissively and settled back into the chair. “Do as you think best, dear.”
The woman clenched her jaw and turned back to her console. Isom made to speak, but Alexis held out a hand to restrain him. She checked her tablet for messages — she was receiving occasional messages from the Port Admiral’s station, addressed to her at Penduli Station, but still nothing addressed to her on Hermione. She’d thought, at least, that their extended stay on the station would allow her messages to catch up with her. After a few minutes, she noticed the woman at the desk speaking lowly into her console. The woman nodded, but her lips were pursed, clearly unhappy with what she’d heard.
“Shouldn’t be long now, Isom,” Alexis whispered.
In fact, it was less than a minute before a man hurried out of the back offices. He was past middle-age and balding, with a thin mustache. His gaze passed over Alexis and the rest of the waiting area before fixing on Isom.
“Mister Isom?” he asked, his smile faltering a little. Alexis couldn’t blame him for being unsure, as Isom was dressed as a common spacer and still sported the bruises and cuts from the beating he’d taken from the port marines.
“Mister Grandy!” Isom said, standing and holding out his hand. “Thank you so much for seeing me.”
“Of course,” Grandy said. “Of course! It’s a pleasure to meet you finally. Your work on the Wickholm property was first rate — my client was exceptionally pleased with the result.” He looked Isom up and down. “But what is this? You’ve given over the law for naval service?”
Isom flushed and looked at the floor. “That is the matter I wished to speak to you about, Mister Grandy,” he said. “The joining was not by choice, you see.”
Grandy’s face fell. “Oh, dear,” he said. “Caught up in the Press? Indeed?”
Isom nodded.
“I see. Well, come back to my office and tell me what’s happened. We’ll see what can be done.” He turned to Alexis and held out his hand. “And you, Miss …”
“Carew, sir,” she said. “Midshipman aboard Hermione, the ship Isom is serving on.”
“Would you come back with me, sir?” Isom asked. “In case Mister Grandy has questions about the ship or the Service?”
“Of course, Isom.”
Alexis followed Grandy and Isom back to his office. Rather than sitting behind his desk, Grandy ushered them to a sitting area with four deep chairs around a low table. Grandy waited, making small talk about legal matters with Isom, until the woman had brought coffee for them all, served with cream, sugar, and a dark look for Alexis.
As soon as the coffee was served, Grandy became quite business-like. His tablet was suddenly in his hands and he was tapping away as he asked Isom to tell his tale, interspersed with questions about minute details. Alexis sat back and sipped her coffee. Isom’s tale was common one for spacers since the start of the war and the reinstatement of the Impressment Service. Less so for a landsman who’d never been to space, but he’d been caught up in it nevertheless.
“Well, sir,” he said, “I’d been out one night near the port, you see, and was making my way home. It was a bit late, but there were still plenty of people about —”
“Why were you near the port to begin with?” Grandy asked. “It hardly seems the place for you.” He inclined his head to Alexis. “Meaning no offense, Miss Carew, but naval crews are somewhat rowdier company than one expects of a law clark.”
“None taken, Mister Grandy,” Alexis said smiling. “I’m sure ‘rowdy’ is quite the politest thing my lads have been called in port.”
“Indeed,” Grandy said and looked expectantly at Isom.
“I … well …” Isom flushed and Alexis had a sudden suspicion.
A legal clark with prospects, but no real standing as yet. His opportunities for meeting a woman would be limited, while the port would offer access at a cost affordable on a clark’s wages. Or a cost much greater, as it turned out for him.
“There was a lady involved, Isom?” she asked gently.
Isom flushed more and nodded.
Grandy cleared his throat and waved a hand. “I see, well, the reason you were there will likely have no bearing on the case. Do continue, please, Mister Isom.”
“I was making my way home,” Isom repeated, “and suddenly there were men running down the street past me. Running hard and shouting from ahead, so … well, I turned and ran with them.” He looked from Alexis to Grandy, eyes wide. “I wasn’t sure what they’d be running from, you see, and … it’s a hard area, as you said. The next I knew, there were men ahead of us. They rushed into the crowd and started striking people with stunners. One of them struck me and I blacked out.”
Isom was hunched over in his chair and Alexis saw that his eyes were wet and she reached out to lay an arm across his shoulders.
“When I woke I was in the hulks. Twenty of us jammed into a compartment, waiting for transfer to some ship. I tried to tell them I wasn’t a spacer! Never been to space at all. I was a bloody clark, for pity’s sake, never been outside the city, even!” He rubbed at his eyes. “They’d taken my tablet and they wouldn’t call down to the city to check who I was at all. Said I was a liar and a spacer.” He spat out a laugh. “Pointed to a tattoo on my arm as proof.” He rolled up his left sleeve to show a tattoo on his inner arm, a fouled anchor many spacers got as their first tattoo. “I’ve never wanted a tattoo and it was still bleeding when they pointed to it. I suppose they had it done while I was unconscious to prove I was a spacer.” He shrugged. “Then I was put aboard Hermione and sailed for the border.”
Alexis felt her eyes burning. It was one thing to choose the naval life, another to be forced to it by circumstance as she had been, but something very different to have had your life stolen and be thrown into it against your will. She couldn’t imagine how Isom must feel.
And to be put onto Hermione to top it all?
Grandy was silent for a time, brow furrowed. “Mister Prescott is aware of your situation?” he asked. Alexis assumed this was Isom’s former employer.
“He is,” Isom said. “First I had access to send a message, I informed him. He’s said he’ll look into it, but it’s hard with me aboard ship so far away and not there to make the complaint myself. I thought, being here …”
“Yes,” Grandy said, “but I have some experience with the naval courts. In some ways they are superior to the civilian courts, in others …” He shook his head. “No, the court on Uffington will say that you must be there to make a complaint, while the court here will say that they must have the impressment records from Uffington.”
“We must send for those records, then,” Alexis said.
Grandy nodded. “Which shall be done.” He gave her a thin, rueful smile. “And when they arrive some months from now, where will your ship be?” Isom’s shoulders slumped. “That is presuming, of course, that they send the correct records in response to the request. The Impressment Service there will not wish its actions known. Your Navy, Mister Carew, can be remarkably efficient in its inefficiencies.”
Alexis wanted to defend the Service, thinking of Captain Grantham and Merlin, but the knowledge that captains like Neals also existed stopped her. She remembered Williard’s words. Two Navies.
“All this is not to say that you must give up hope, my good man,” Grandy said, reaching forward to pat Isom on the leg. “Between me here and Prescott on Uffington, we’ll work it out. They’ll have a much harder time failing to produce the proper records with him right there. Once he sends them to me, I’ll be in a better position to file the case.”
Isom looked up at him, eyes wide with hope. “So you’ll take the case, sir?”
“Of course!” Grandy said, taking up his tablet again.
Isom’s face fell and he looked suddenly worried. “I haven’t much in the way of money, sir, a bit of savings, but —”
Grandy waved his hand. “No matter, Mister Isom. This will be a professional courtesy.” He smiled. “I’m sure you’ll have ample opportunity to repay the favor when you’re back on Uffington … with your own practice one day.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Grandy asked Isom a few more questions and then sat back. “Sadly, there’s nothing more we can do until we have the records from Uffington. I assume I may contact you by sending the message care of … Hermione, was it?”
“Yes, sir,” Isom said.
“Well, then,” Grandy said, standing. “We’ll try to get this cleared up as soon as may be.”
“Mister Grandy?” Alexis said. The man seemed to have a grasp of the law; and Isom, for all he was a sad sight as a spacer, seemed a knowledgeable clark. Dalthus had no real solicitors yet, the population was too small, and she hadn’t had the thought to speak to one since joining the Navy. Perhaps he might have some insight into the issues of her inheritance.
“Yes, Miss Carew?”
“If you have a moment, there’s a matter I might wish to consult with you regarding.”
Grandy smiled and sat down again. “Two new clients at one go? A banner day.”
It took a surprisingly short time for Alexis to lay out the situation she faced on Dalthus. Being her grandfather’s only heir, but unable to inherit because of a law of male primogeniture. For something so important, it should take longer to explain.
Grandy frowned when she was done and she took this as a bad sign. He’d been smiling and reassuring throughout the talk of Isom’s situation.
“Yes,” he said finally. “We see things like this in the Fringe so often. It’s a patently illegal law, you see, but there’s no real system in place to deal with it. The colonies are generally allowed to do as they will, provided there’s no real human rights violations. And even if there are, they’re left alone if their emigration policy is liberal enough. A sort of ‘if you don’t like it, leave’ policy.” He sighed. “The problem for you is standing, you see.”
“Standing?” she asked.
“Yes. You see, in order to bring a case before a magistrate, you must have standing. You must have been injured by the law in order to challenge it. Unfortunately, you have not been injured.”
Alexis drew in a deep breath. “I have, sir, I assure you. Were it not for this law, I would be at home this minute, tending to my grandfather’s lands.”
Grandy nodded. “Yes, and there’s the rub, you must understand. Your grandfather’s lands, still. As he’s alive, the inheritance laws have not yet injured you, do you see?”
Alexis was shocked. “Do you mean to say that the courts will not hear my case because my grandfather is not dead?”
“Bluntly, yes.” He nodded at her look of outrage. “I quite understand your feelings, Miss Carew. This would be one of those areas where your naval courts are superior to the civilian, in my opinion. The civilian court must follow the law — that’s their oath, on all sides — while the naval court, the captains presiding, even the prosecutor, well their oath is ‘to seek justice and the best interests of the Service’.” He sighed. “Gives them greater latitude to seek a just resolution. Like your Articles of War, yes? Full of ‘shall suffer death’ for every offense, but then gives the captain the option of ‘or such other punishment as shall be decided’.” Alexis began to think that Grandy had a great deal more knowledge of the Navy than she’d originally suspected.
Grandy frowned. “I assume your family is not titled?”
“No, sir,” she said. “Would that make a difference?”
“If you were titled, they would be family lands and must pass with the title.”
Of course, the aristocracy would have an out for it. Above the law, even the bad ones.
“Let me do some further research,” Grandy said. “Dalthus, was it?”
“Yes, sir. I have some funds with an agent, if you —”
Grandy waved his hand. “No, Miss Carew, I suspect that I should not have the opportunity to help my friend, Mister Isom, were it not for your kindness. A bit of research is the least I can do in thanks for that.”
“Thank you, Mister Grandy,” Alexis said. “I do appreciate it.”
Her tablet began beeping insistently and Alexis pulled it out. Her face fell and she felt a chill run through her.
“Are you quite all right, Miss Carew?”
Alexis looked up at him, eyes wide and struggling to regain her composure. She hadn’t realized just how much she’d been hoping, and the disappointment she felt on reading the message made her want to scream.
“Hermione’s returned.”
“Drunkenness! Brawling! Desertion!”
“Sir,” Alexis said, back straight, eyes focused on the bulkhead of Captain Neals’ day cabin. “There was no desertion, sir. All the lads are accounted for.”
Neals slammed his tablet onto his desk. “I’ve the reports from Station Patrol right here, Carew! That they caught the man before he could succeed doesn’t excuse it!”
“Sir, Isom wasn’t deserting. He was free to do as he wished until reporting back — the lieutenant misunderstood something about a pass and —”
“Will you forever argue with me, Carew? Forever play the space-lawyer?” Neals stood, palms on his desk and looked down at his tablet. “I have never in my life seen —” He raised his eyes to look at her. “— such a list of offenses.”
Alexis stared at him in shock. What Navy had the man been serving in all these years? While she’d been on station, she’d seen the Penduli Station Patrol take up virtually the entire crews of two other ships, rival captains in some matter, and ban the lot from landing for six months over brawling. Her lads had been piddling puppies in comparison. Why, her brawlers were welcomed back into pubs as soon as the damages were settled, and her drunks … well, publicans had sent boys to wait outside the berth to make sure her lads found their way back the next night.
“This is what happens from putting a woman in the mix,” Neals went on. He slammed his palm down on the desk. “No discipline!”
Alexis clenched her jaw and resumed staring at the bulkhead.
Neals came around the desk and stood near her. This close, she could feel him trembling with anger.
“I thought I was finally shut of you, Carew,” he whispered. “Cost me a boat and some crewmen, but well worth it at twice the price. Yet now you’re back.”
Alexis swallowed hard to stifle a gasp. It sounded almost as though he’d left them behind deliberately and not just as an accident of his running, but not even Neals would do something like that, would he?
“I will be shut of you, Carew, do you understand? I’ll have you out of my Navy, no matter the cost.” His jaw worked, breath ragged, before he stepped back.
“Sir —”
“Shut up, Carew.” Neals resumed his seat and picked up his tablet. “No discipline. That’s what comes of trying to play at Captain Goodfellow with the men. They should have been in the Assize Berth where they belong, not … coddled by a little girl.” He sighed. “Well, I’ll have them back under proper naval discipline.” Neals narrowed his eyes and tapped the tablet. “You’ll write them up for
next Captain’s Mast, Carew, every one of these offenses.”
“Sir! I held Masts myself and issued punishments. They’ve already been —”
“Punishments?” Neals raised the tablet. “Yes, I read your report as well as the Station Patrol’s, Carew.” He snorted. “Cleaning? A bit of pay stoppage for the worst? Confined to the berth … in a pub?”
Alexis cringed. Yes, confinement to a pub for drunkenness might seem odd, but the lads had taken the spirit of it. The offenders had kept to themselves at a corner table for the duration and not had a bit to drink past their daily issue. All of them had taken their punishments as willingly as they would have aboard ship. And she feared their reaction if they had to appear before another Captain’s Mast for the same offenses — the men would accept punishment for an offense, even the lash, but they expected that to be the end of it. “Over, done with, and no more said about it,” was their view — to be punished twice for the same offense wouldn’t be tolerated lightly.
“As for yourself, Carew,” Neals was saying, “I must say that I find myself disappointed beyond measure.”
Well, of course, why would I expect any different?
“This coarse, money-grubbing scheme of yours to steal from your shipmates goes beyond even my lowest opinion of you.”
Alexis blinked and her mouth dropped open in shock. What on earth —
“Trying to claim a prize for yourself alone? Cheat Hermione’s crew of their just reward? Shame, Carew. You can be sure I’ll be challenging this in the Prize Court … on behalf of the crew.”
Alexis steeled herself. Well, of course he’d try to get a piece of what her lads had accomplished in taking Sittich. She wouldn’t begrudge at all sharing the award with Hermione’s crew, but for Neals to accuse her of cheating and stealing from them …
“Sir, it was submitted so at Admiral Piercy’s order.”
“Yes, I’ve seen the tale you spun the admiral about being ‘abandoned’, Carew. Not a word about your utter, contemptible failure to dock with Hermione as ordered? As ordered more than once! You can be assured that I’ve corrected Admiral Piercy’s perception of the events … despite your conniving efforts to beguile the poor man.”
Alexis Carew: Books 1, 2, and 3 Page 41