A Daughter of No Nation

by A. M. Dellamonica

  The party from Tibbon’s Wash consisted of three people: a man, a woman, and a teenage boy with cherub cheeks and thick gold curls. The latter, Sophie assumed, was Rashad.

  There were introductions all around. The man was an envoy from the Queen, and the woman, it turned out, was the spellscribe who’d worked both the suicide pact on the young lovebirds and the cure for Corsetta’s sun exposure.

  Rashad reached for Corsetta. The Crown envoy blocked him, shooing him instead toward his brother. They settled for making eyes at each other.

  “Does everyone here speak Fleet?” Verena said. There was a quaver in her voice.

  Nods all around.

  “Follow me, please.”

  They trooped down the ladder through the galley and found the two fore cabins, Verena’s and Parrish’s, transformed. The bulkhead between them had been pulled and packed, the bunks stowed. In their place was a conference room, formally arrayed, with a linen-covered table, pitchers of cold water, and, to Sophie’s surprise, a tray of small baklava-like cakes. Red curtains imprinted with the Fleet insignia hung around the table, creating false walls that squared and enclosed the space (and hid Parrish’s collection of souvenirs). Beal had donned a scribe’s uniform and waited to take notes. All very official and tidy.

  The formality of the surroundings had an immediate effect. The kids became drop-jawed serious. The envoy cast his eye around approvingly and took a seat midtable, gesturing for the spellscribe to stand behind him.

  Montaro had to duck below the hatch to get his wings in and crouched on a low bench instead of a chair.

  When everyone was settled, Verena uttered a long stream of formal-sounding Verdanii. Then she said, “We’re here to consider events aboard a ship of Tibbon’s Wash, Waveplay, five days after midsummer, in Northwater.”

  “The Fleet has no interest here,” the envoy said. “This is a local matter, a family feud.”

  So he’s siding with Montaro, Sophie thought.

  “The government’s interest is, as always, justice. Kir Montaro stands accused of attempted murder in open waters.”

  The boy, Rashad, went a little bug-eyed at that.

  Verena laid out the story: their discovery of Corsetta half-dead in Northwater, her various misadventures in Fleet, and the flurry of accusation and counteraccusation between both parties. She detangled, in detail, the bureaucratic moves that had thwarted Montaro’s and Corsetta’s respective attempts to flee back to Tibbs.

  Verena declined to raise the issue that might have gotten them both executed: Corsetta’s assertion that Montaro was in league with the bandits.

  “The great rush to get here all comes down to you, Rashad,” she concluded, gently as she could. “Your brother hopes you’ll give up the inscription you made with Corsetta—the life-and-death pact. Corsetta needs you to admit your brother asked you to seduce her so she’d go on the sail with him.”

  The boy looked from his brother to his girlfriend, clearly torn. “What will happen to Montaro if—”

  “We’ll decide that today. He might go back to Fleet, for questioning about other matters.”

  “Other matters?” Rashad asked. He seemed bewildered.

  If Montaro had been friends with the bandits, Sophie guessed the brother didn’t know it. Montaro himself paled, becoming almost as white as his wings.

  Verena looked to the envoy. “What’s the penalty if he’s tried at home?”

  “Risking the life of a minor servant is hardly a crime,” said the envoy. “Attempting to steal the Queen’s favor, on the other hand…”

  Now it was Rashad who looked stricken.

  “Well. As an oddity, Montaro would have his uses. He might serve the Queen as a penance for his crime.”

  Montaro burst forth with a protest, in Tibbsian, clearly appealing to his brother. Corsetta shot Rashad an urgent Shut up! glance.

  Oh, this is getting messy.

  Sophie bit her lips to keep from offering her opinion, then looked to her brother. Bram was sitting back, listening to the flow of Fleetspeak and concentrating, pretty obviously, on catching what nuances he could of the argument.

  Verena, too, was waiting, just taking it in. It’ll fall to her, Sophie realized. She’ll send Montaro home for one kind of punishment or haul him to Fleet for another. Judge and jury, with her cousin the Convenor coming down on her hard if she makes the wrong choice.

  This was what you got in a court system with no standards of proof. Cly might be a slave-owning jerk wad, or worse, but he wasn’t wrong about the system being hopelessly arbitrary.

  Verena stood, drawing everyone’s attention. “Rashad,” she said, and she was doing her utmost to seem impressive. “This is not a situation which requires you to choose between your girlfriend—”

  “My beloved!”

  “—and your brother. Your loyalties are irrelevant. All we require from you is the truth.”

  The kid’s breath hitched. Once. Twice. “Montaro asked me to get to know her.”

  The brother’s wings drooped slightly. Corsetta made a small noise.

  “He’d seen she had a way with wild things. The goats, of course, but birds, rabbits, cats. And—” Now he looked angry. “He thought at sea she’d grow to like him.”

  “But once I knew her, my feelings changed. Corsetta is the finest, most beautiful, the smartest—”

  Devious, light-fingered…, Sophie thought.

  The government envoy couldn’t contain himself. “Silence, boy! You’re embarrassing yourself. She’s a goatherd.”

  “She’s a goddess!”

  The spellscribe was trying not to laugh.

  Rashad went on, “I asked her to marry me, if we could get the Queen’s permission. But we didn’t trust Montaro—”

  “Whose idea was it to have the life-binding done?”

  “Mine,” Corsetta inserted.

  Something passed between them. “I needed assurances,” she said. “It was me who didn’t trust Montaro, not Rashad.”

  Getting their stories straight, right in front of us.

  “This is why cops interview witnesses separately at home,” Sophie muttered to Bram.

  The envoy looked from one to the other. “At any point, Rashad, did your brother reveal an intention to betray Corsetta, once the snow vulture was secured?”

  Rashad squirmed.

  Oh! The little poet boy was in on the plan to kill her, at least at first. And Corsetta, poor Corsetta, she had guessed it. She was covering for him.

  “Just the truth, Kir,” Verena repeated.

  “He knew nothing!” Corsetta protested. “The spell was my idea.”

  The kid let out a long breath. “Only one person can claim the Queen’s favor. If Corsetta did not return, Montaro could claim the prize.”

  “That’s premeditated murder,” Bram said.

  The envoy, hearing Bram’s accent, raised his eyebrows. Before he could ask who the wacky foreign observers were, though, Rashad went on: “We sought the life-binding as protection. And I told Montaro. I told him, if she doesn’t return, I will die.”

  Everyone looked to the tattered figure of Montaro, crouched miserably on his bench. He barked, laughing in a way that sounded painful. “I thought he was being poetic.”

  “So they did tell him,” Bram whispered. “He just didn’t listen to little brother. Tsk.”

  Sophie elbowed him in the ribs.

  The envoy looked with distaste at all three of them. “The goatherd would appear to be relatively blameless. There is no doubt that she cozzled the bird, or that it has chosen her as its protector. The Queen’s favor and the proceeds of sale will go to her.”

  Eyes huge, Rashad asked, “And Montaro?”

  “If he goes to the Fleet, he’ll be prosecuted for trying to murder Corsetta,” Verena said. “If he goes home—”

  “Charged with stealing the Queen’s favor,” the envoy confirmed.

  Rashad leapt to his feet, clutching his heart. “Brother! The truth has condemned you!�
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  All that’s missing is a ‘Zounds!’ Sophie looked at Bram, which was a mistake … he was repeating what Rashad had said, translating, and any second now they were both going to lose it to a fit of the giggles.

  “I know what we can do!” Corsetta reached for Rashad and the envoy slapped her hand, hard. She ignored him, twining their fingers. “We can ask for clemency for Montaro. As our favor. He won’t face execution. You said he can go in service to the Crown if the Queen forgives him?”

  “Without her favor, you can’t wed,” the envoy said. Then he brightened, probably realizing that he liked Montaro and was against the wedding anyway.

  “Does this mean you’ve forgiven me?” Rashad blinked tears off his cherub cheeks and wrapped his arms around Corsetta.

  Jeez, stop, where did they get this guy?

  Bram broke eye contact with her. He was staring at the ugly, wounded, chicken-skin flesh of Montaro’s collarbones, using it to fight off the attack of inappropriate funnies.

  The envoy pried the kids apart before they could start working on their firstborn. He repeated, “Without the Queen’s favor, you can’t wed.”

  Corsetta twinkled at him. “Well, there’s always the next challenge, isn’t there? In the meantime, Rashad won’t be the first landowner to keep a goat slut in his barn.”

  Slut in the barn. The phrase speared Sophie’s ballooning urge to laugh, all at once. She thought of Cly, coming back to Low Bann, late at night, and her stomach did an uneasy flip and roll as she remembered the slave, crying in the kitchen the next morning. The little slave kids on the parade route …

  It’s not proof, not proof, I could be wrong about him, I was wrong, so wrong about him arranging a betrothal.…

  The envoy gritted his teeth, making a gristling sound that brought Sophie back to the present. “Clemency for Montaro depends on the Fleet waiving its right to try him for attempted murder asea. We remain beyond Tibbon’s wash’s territorial limit.”

  All eyes turned to Verena.

  We should ask him about the bandits, Sophie thought, and that got her thinking about Cly again, about how he’d shot the bandit captain in the throat, about how all of that ship’s crew would be dead, if not for the fluke of her having gotten between him and the last guy.

  There’s a connection there, something I haven’t seen yet.

  “Verena—” she began.

  Her sister made a furious Shut up! gesture and spoke, loudly: “If I take Montaro back to Fleet, you kids can use the royal favor to get married. He might as easily be a messenger there.”

  “I won’t testify against him,” Corsetta said.

  “Nor I,” said Rashad.

  “How would the attempted murder be proved?” Corsetta said.

  Verena replied, “Is this truly what you want, Corsetta?”

  “I must sail my soul’s wind.” The girl nodded. “Montaro is my beloved’s family, and this is a Tibbs matter.”

  Verena let out a long sigh. “Fine. Go, all of you.”

  The envoy turned to the spellscribe. “Take them above, and for Lady’s sake, keep them separated.” When they were gone, he turned to Verena. “She’s trouble, that one. You sure you don’t want her back? She must have broken a few laws in Fleet.”

  “None Montaro didn’t break, too.”

  “What a shame. Well, you’ve done us a favor. I’ll be sure to send my appreciation to … Convener Gracechild?”

  Verena blinked. “Thanks. I’ll—can I see you to your ferry?”

  “With pleasure.” He bowed impressively and they, too, vanished out between the velvet curtains. That left Sophie and her brother alone with Parrish, who hadn’t said a word the whole time.

  “Is there a … ‘pheromone’ for forgiving your enemies?” Parrish murmured. “Corsetta showed extraordinary generosity in sparing Montaro.”

  “Or she’s being practical,” Sophie said. “How long will Rashad keep up the ‘oh my love, my only love’ riff if she gets his brother hanged?”

  “Keep up the … riff?”

  “They’re kids,” Bram agreed. “They’ve got decades to get tired of each other.”

  “I thought you valued the evidence of your own eyes.”

  “You saw true love, did you?” Bram said. He gave them another of his snotty-brat looks and sauntered out.

  Oh. No way was she staying to discuss the nature of romantic love with Parrish. She scrambled after Bram.

  They found Verena on deck, still in her green wrap, waving good-bye to the delegation.

  “Hey!” Sophie said. “You did it!”

  “Mostly,” Verena replied. For no reason Sophie could see, she was looking stung.

  “Come on, give yourself the win. True love, clean living, and you.”

  “Did I ask for a cheerleader?”

  “Verena—”

  “Why can’t you just go home?”

  Sophie’s mouth fell open as she strode away, all but tangling with Parrish as he climbed the ladder from the galley.

  It was Tonio who broke the silence. “Set course for Issle Morta? Captain?”

  “Yes,” Parrish said, in a tone so colorless the word might as well have been typed on the clouds rather than spoken aloud.

  CHAPTER 23

  “‘Dearest Sophie,’” Sophie read to Bram. “‘I have been much occupied with thoughts of our recent time together, what went wrong and how matters between us might be amended.

  “‘I think you know I had no idea of your being ignorant of the fact that Sylvanna is a bonded nation. Had I realized, I would have told you. It is the way of us, in fleet, to talk around the subject, always. I suppose I should have guessed, rather than choosing to believe you had reconciled yourself to it, as your mother attempted to do.’”

  “Subtle dig there,” said Bram. “Beatrice was okay with it.”

  “‘As for the misunderstanding regarding Rees Erminne and his mother, I assure you I am not one to throw a child into marriage with someone they’ve known but an hour.’”

  “Given that he’s a lawyer, I feel I should say this doesn’t mean he wouldn’t throw you into some other marriage, if he could.”

  “Or maybe we’re being unfair.”

  “What else does he say?”

  She read on: “‘You ask what it would take for me to intercede with the Court on behalf of Beatrice. You use the phrase “let her go,” though I assure you it’s not so simple.

  “‘I continue to see no reason why I, as the party defrauded, denied my parental rights and now facing a socially complex divorce, with a daughter who would under other circumstances have been proud heiress of Low Bann, should attempt to make things easier for the author of my misery.

  “‘Beatrice has set her sails; let her ride the winds.

  “‘Ever your loving father, Clydon Banning.’” With that, she handed the page over, as though she thought Bram would see something in it she hadn’t. Bram read it, slowly, familiarizing himself with the spelling and grammar of the Fleet words.

  “You didn’t ask if he was sleeping with the slaves?”

  “In a letter?” She shook her head. “I chickened out. I don’t have any decent evidence, and after how badly I misjudged the betrothal thing…”

  He nodded, reaching the end, and folding it. “There’s no admission of fault in this. Sociopaths don’t.”

  She nodded, agreeing but not entirely sure what to do with the bundle of issues that was Cly. He’d been a fire-setter as a child and the Bannings had magically tempered him. Killing was part of his day job. Even if she had no proof that he forced his slaves to sleep with him, just thinking about that filled her with rage and despair.

  And they were his, weren’t they? His responsibility?

  If so, by extension they were hers, too. She thought again of the goat-people, of that stomach-turning moment when she realized they weren’t fauns.

  Despite everything, part of her hungered to believe in the Cly who’d seemed so vibrantly alive. The delight he seemed to
take in everything, his excitement when he’d learned of her existence. Even the hurt he’d expressed when he’d talked about trying—and failing—to make Beatrice happy.

  Did that make her a bad person?

  “Was it all just an act? Could he really be so awful?”

  Her brother rolled his head side to side. “Pretty seamless act, if it is. Hey—totally other topic—there’s Mount Rainier.”

  It was a transparent offer to move on to less painful terrain, and she was only too happy to take it. She turned, taking in the familiar cone, a dark blue shape etched on a fog-gray horizon, less a sighting of land than an implication of one.

  Over the next few hours, the mountain and the rest of Issle Morta came into focus. The clouds at its peak separated, revealing a flatter top. Even here, it dominated the landscape. Rainier’s slopes were clad in green and blue, the cedar-spruce-dogwood-and-fog palette of the Pacific Northwest.

  “It’s smoking,” Bram said as they approached. “It’s active.”

  Sophie glanced at him carefully. There’d been an active volcano in Erinth, too, and he’d been less than thrilled to be near it.

  “It seems apparent that Stormwrack’s a lot more active, geologically, than Erstwhile.”

  Bram nodded agreement.

  As the day wore on, they saw the approach to the island had been made into an obstacle course: massive stone skulls, not quite human, with exaggerated canines, rose from the surface of the water. Barnacles encircled their high waterline, and each had a single redwood tree planted within the bowl of its stone head. The cawing from above and the lime below indicated there was an enormous murder of crows living within the canopy of the artificial forest.

  Parrish took the helm himself as they approached, wheeling them between the skulls on an apparently random route. He had a stopwatch out and was timing the gaps between skulls as they traveled; his face was set.

  “What’s he doing?” Bram asked.

  “It’s called interval navigation,” Tonio said. “A lot of islands built hazards, before the Cessation, into their vulnerable shore approaches. They salted them with shallows and shipwreckers. These”—he waved at the skulls—“date back to when Issle Morta was part of the Piracy. If you know the waters well enough and you fix your speed, you can time your passage of any landmark and then steer into the harbor blind, or in fog, just by counting.”