A Daughter of No Nation

by A. M. Dellamonica

  Parrish straightened, narrowed his eyes, and ran a hand through his curls, spraying water everywhere. He took a deep breath and raised his nose into the wind, as if he could smell the rate at which they were barreling through the dark and rain.

  He looked at the stopwatch.

  “More sail,” he said. “More sail now.”

  “Oh, crap,” Sophie said. “He’s guessing.”

  Tonio gave her a pat, attempting to be reassuring.

  “Rise, rise, rise!” Krezzo bellowed. At home they’d say “heave.” The mainsail was jerking upward, past them, fast and messy. Broken remnants of sinewy stitching were pulling through the fabric here and there. The fabric caught the wind and the ship shuddered.

  Now Sophie was down, her feet on the deck, holding a hand up to steady Tonio.

  “Keep your eyes open,” Parrish said, with all the confidence of a man who was certain of success. “They’ll have ships coming round to intercept as we break the Baste.”

  “Yes, Cap’n.”

  “Sweet, you still with us?”

  “Yes, Kir.” Her voice was a little strained.

  “Come on down,” Parrish said.

  “I may need an assist.”

  “Hold, then. Hard to port, one last time.” Parrish said it as calmly as if he were speaking to himself, but his voice carried—everyone braced.

  He turned the wheel and just then Sophie saw the islet they’d been aimed at, a long knife of rock rising from the sea like a mammoth shark’s fin. Had they turned soon enough?

  She heard a hiss and felt a shudder run through the deck. The ship had kissed bottom.

  Nightjar slowed a little, dragging.

  As they passed the tip of the islet, a lighthouse on its peak flared to life, illuminating them from bow to stern in something akin to daylight. Sophie was momentarily blinded.

  They raced out of the beam, which held them as long as it could, and out to open water.

  “Two,” Sweet called. “Frigates, very fast, lots of cannon, I’m guessing.”

  “Can we outrun them?” Tonio asked.

  “We’ve got a decent lead.”

  “Should we make for a Sylvanner port?” Bram set his stewpot on the deck. The slaloming between rocks had left him a little green, but he gave Sophie a game thumbs-up.

  Parrish shook his head. “There could be Havers between us and the Winter capital, Hoarfrost—they might even persuade the Sylvanners to hand us over.”

  “Why flee west?”

  “The Fleet is on its eastward procession right now,” Parrish said. “We’ll meet them.”

  Verena searched his face. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive,” Parrish said. “There’s nothing we can do now but treat the wounded, repair the sails, and prepare your case for presentation.”

  CHAPTER 29

  They shot out of the Baste moving as fast as Nightjar could move. Once they were out in open water, Sweet had each of the torn sails hauled down in turn, laying the tears flat and hastily patching them. She painted a white substance with the texture of melted marshmallow over the rips, then lay a thin sheet of fabric overtop. Linen, cut to fit, went over this, and the whole area then had to be gently ironed dry before they could flip the sail and do the other side.

  There was nothing to hide them on the open sea: no fog, not even a wisp of heat mirage. The rising sun brought the view of two ships from Haversham in pursuit of them, big frigates with acres of sail.

  Parrish had set a straight course east, running for what he said was the Fleet’s position.

  Their pursuers started out as specks, then grew into little toy boats on the horizon. It took them a while to clear the Baste; they were bigger and couldn’t make a swift course through the dangerous shallows Parrish had taken. By noon they were devouring Nightjar’s lead.

  We’re not gonna be able to lose them unless a heck of a souper comes up. Sophie felt as though they had a bull’s-eye painted on their stern and sails; she could almost see the red circles on Nightjar’s pearly sheets.

  Parrish barely gave their pursuers a glance. He’d seen to the wounded sailors—checking whether the new medic knew his stuff, Sophie suspected—and given orders to inspect the lines for knots or damage while they were on the fly.

  Tonio had taken the opportunity to put an ornamental gold hoop through the needle hole in his hand. “I always liked the idea of piercing but lacked the stomach for it,” he told her.

  “You’re making serious lemonade out of that lemon,” she said. To her surprise, he seemed to understand what the colloquialism meant.

  By midafternoon, Parrish had the crew run up a ship-in-distress flag. “They’ll think we’ve spotted the Fleet,” he said, and sure enough the Havers fell back for about an hour, until they saw through the ruse.

  “Don’t you have something official? Like a watch flag?” Bram asked.

  “No,” Verena and Parrish said simultaneously.

  Verena added, “I benefit personally if we pull this off. It’s best if we don’t use my position.”

  Parrish gave them all a confident smile. “We’ll make the Fleet. My word on it.”

  What could anyone say to that? He’d got them through the Butcher’s Baste.

  Instead of watching the cannon-laden warships as they closed the distance to Nightjar, the three of them went below and assembled their case materials—the charter for the forensic institute Verena had drafted, the notebook Bram had been slaving over, the exhibits showing how the stonewood automaton components were broken down by throttlevine roots. They inventoried the diagrams and the bits and pieces of the half-assembled turtle. Their crowning piece of evidence was the intact automaton Sophie had caught on her dive.

  The wood frame of the turtle she’d recovered was covered in a thin, green-painted cloth. It wouldn’t fool anyone but the most casual observer, but the devices weren’t meant to last long. Bram found a way to detach the eggshell-fine fake shell on one side, swinging it up, almost like the trunk door of a car, to reveal the throttlevine pods within, tucked into the large compartment, each seed carefully inserted into a bit of dried fruit. There were two others in a little glistening bubble of fresh water, encased by wax, already germinating.

  “Should we hide all this?” Bram asked. “In case they board?”

  “Parrish says we’ll beat them to Fleet, we’ll beat them,” Verena said. Her voice held less conviction than her words.

  “Then all we have to do is sell Cly on this. And Annela,” Bram said.

  “They’ll go for it,” Verena said. “People here don’t watch TV. By local standards, what we’ve put together is pretty slick. They’ll be impressed. Gale ran shakier bluffs than this.”

  “It’s no bluff,” Bram said, nettled. “It’s facts.”

  “I don’t bluff,” Sophie said in the same instant. “That was Gale—I’m no Gale.”

  “No,” Verena said. “None of us is Gale.”

  “Maybe—” Sophie stopped herself. For once, she wasn’t going to stick her foot in it.

  “What?”

  Tonio had said, Verena needs you. She shrugged.

  Verena finished the thought. “Maybe with a little luck, the three of us could amount to … say, half of Gale?”

  “Works for me,” Bram said.

  Verena looked half hopeful, half wary.

  “I just want to do science, Verena. Look around, see the world, understand where and when we are—”

  “That’s not all you want.”

  No, it wasn’t. Science and exploration and giving Beatrice a chance to maybe like her one day, all of that. I’m allowed to want things.

  She wanted Parrish.

  It sat there, unsaid and unresolved.

  Verena let out a long sigh. “You’re lucky he can’t be enchanted. I’d love-spell him in a red hot smoking minute.”

  I could enchant him, or Tonio could, and nobody else knows. Sophie’s flesh crawled and she felt the weight of it, suddenly, the burden Tonio had talked
about. “What’s that, your blessing?”

  “More of a promise not to stab your eyes out in the night.” Verena put up a hand, bringing an end to the conversation, then strode away.

  “That was almost heartwarming,” Bram observed.

  “I can really feel the love. Now if I can avoid getting deported again, maybe we can all get to work on each being one-third of half of Gale.”

  “More than the sum of our parts,” he mused, running a finger over the fake turtle’s flipper.

  “Fleet ahead! Fleet—fer le saysa!” Tonio’s cry was echoed by shocked exclamations in a half-dozen languages. There was a rush of feet on the deck above.

  They took the galley ladder up to the main deck.

  The Fleet was traveling in two distinct convoys, separated by, roughly, a nautical mile. On one side was Temperance, the Tallon warship that served as the navy’s big gun against piracy. On the other, two Sylvanner ships, Excelsior and Cly’s Sawtooth, were at the fore.

  “What’s up with that?” Sophie asked. Her mouth was dry. “Is it this war everyone’s so scared of?”

  “Not quite,” Parrish said. “The port and starboard nations line up so, when the Fleet is divided. It means governance is deadlocked.”

  “I’ve never seen this,” Verena said. “It’s happened, like, twice in the past century?”

  “This is over Beatrice? Beatrice and Cly and me?” Holy crap, I’m a diplomatic incident!

  The Havers frigates pursuing Nightjar put on an extra burst of speed as the two convoys came into view. Cannoneers were taking positions on their gun decks, lining up with military precision. They’d be making their gunpowder snowballs, she thought.

  “Uh, Parrish?”

  “Everything’s all right, Bram.”

  “How is this okay? Is a divided Fleet gonna rescue us or watch us burn? You’ve got some rabbit to pull out of your hat before they blow the crap out of us?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” he said, “we do.”

  There was a familiar mirage-shiver, and a mammoth caravel, the one that had seemed far away just moments ago, grew suddenly huge. A cloud of steam puffed upward around it.

  Sawtooth. Zita was waving from the starboard rail. She blew past them on the starboard side, putting herself between the two Haver ships and Nightjar’s stern.

  “That’s your rabbit, Kir,” Parrish said.

  They held their breath. Would the Havers fire on Cly?

  “Someone’s up there with him,” Verena said.

  Sophie reached for her camera, using the telephoto to zoom in. There were indeed three people up in the bow of Sawtooth, presenting a handy target to the cannoneers. Cly’s form, whippy and long-boned, was unmistakable.

  “One of them’s Lena Beck, his captain,” Sophie said. “The other, I’m not sure…”

  “It’s Convenor Gracechild,” Parrish said, and to her surprise he gave in to that boyish laugh of his. “Unless they’re prepared to fire upon both the duelist-advocate and Her Honor, it’s over.”

  “For now,” Tonio and Bram muttered in unison, right down to the fatalistic tone of voice.

  But Parrish was right. The ships from Haversham reefed their sails, dismissed their weapon crews, and headed home.

  CHAPTER 30

  With the Havers retreating, Nightjar fell into position next to Sawtooth, the two ships setting a course for the Fleet even as Parrish issued an immediate invitation to Annela and Cly to come aboard.

  Annela arrived clad in long white robes. “The whole Convene’s officially on sick leave,” she said. “All of governance is on hold because of this tempest.”

  She was too much the politician to say, I hope you’re happy, but the implication was there. You caused this, Sophie, she seemed to be saying.

  “Time to fix it,” Sophie said.

  Cly, too, was dressed in civvies—Shakespeare outfit, black Sylvanner sash, and no sword. Instead of his dashing cloak, he seemed to wear an air of weariness. Despite her fears and doubts, Sophie felt a stab of sympathy. There was something about him that made you want to …

  What? Compromise? Forgive? Make him soup?

  Annela drew herself up. “How do you propose to fix anything?”

  “Pure unadulterated bribery. I offer Cly something tasty in exchange for Beatrice being forgiven. Just as you offered him a cruise with me.”

  “Bribing an adjudicator, mmm? How do you think that will go?” asked Cly.

  “Depends what we’ve got, right?”

  He inclined his head, indicating willingness to listen.

  “Should we set up the conference room again?”

  “I can forgo pomp if His Honor can,” Annela said.

  Cly made a gesture that essentially said, Lead the way.

  Annela may have seemed a little too grand to plunk herself down in the galley, but that was exactly what she did, taking a seat at the table where they’d laid out all their exhibits.

  Verena started with the forensic institute charter, giving due credit to Cly for the idea and laying out their starting principles—use of the scientific method, reproducible results, no magic. She explained expert witnesses and chain of evidence.

  “You’re proposing to set up in competition with the court aetherists, then?” Annela said.

  Cly tsked at her. “Tell me there’s no use for this, Convenor.”

  “We can show the use if you’ll let us,” Sophie said. She left the charter on the table, for Annela to approve or not, and gestured for Bram to move on to the meat of their proposal.

  “If Cly lets Beatrice off the hook—” he began.

  “—and frees the goat-people in the lowland swamps,” Sophie interrupted, earning a glare from her father.

  “Right, that’s first,” Bram said. “Sorry. Then we’ll submit the case evidence to the courts on Sylvanna’s behalf, proving Haversham’s responsibility for the throttlevine infestation.”

  Cly was all business. “The evidence would have to be persuasive.”

  “It will be,” Verena said.

  He ignored both Verena and Bram, leaning in and looking straight at Sophie. “And if I refuse your proposal, child? The throttlevine and the goat-people, as you call them, are to continue in their present balance?”

  “I—” Sophie balked. What was she going to do, leave them in their current situation?

  Cly gave her that sharkish grin.

  “Everything’s a duel with you, isn’t it?”

  Verena laid a hand on hers. “Your Honor. We’re going to tell you right now how the throttlevine is being seeded. You won’t need the goat transforms once the vines are eradicated.”

  “Fair point.”

  “However, if you want us to present the evidence that will win your case in court—”

  Sophie finished for her, in a rush, “Then you let them go, and you let Beatrice go!”

  “Better,” Cly purred.

  “The Fleet is on the verge of a major break, Your Honor,” Annela reminded him. “Largely because of your domestic problems.”

  “Your deceiving Sophie by sending her asea with no knowledge of Sylvanna didn’t help,” he said.

  “Which would be why I came aboard Sawtooth to help with negotiations,” Annela replied.

  Ah, so that’s what she’s doing there! Trying to extinguish the fire her own orders ignited, Sophie thought.

  Annela said, “Even so. This is hardly the time to try to teach your daughter the finer points of haggling.”

  “Hey! What if instead of doing the rhetorical tap dance about whether or not this is a teachable moment, we stay on point. In fact, let’s all agree that everyone here’s been an utter jerk at one point or another,” Sophie said.

  “I haven’t,” Bram said. “I’ve been angelic.”

  “Garland’s behaved pretty well,” Verena put in.

  Don’t get me laughing. She glowered at them both.

  Cly showed his teeth in something that might have been a smile. “Show me what you have. And it bett
er not be petrodemonic mummer images.”

  Is that what we’re calling photographs now? She fought the urge set off another round of snarky banter. Bram held up the second notebook Sophie had bought in the floating mall, all those weeks ago. He had made it official-looking, sketching on a Forensic Institute of Stormwrack logo and adding the official throttlevine case number.

  “We call this a dramatic reconstruction,” Bram said, demonstrating.

  Sophie held her breath. Her big idea for a presentation had amounted to nothing more than having Bram draw a flipbook, stop-motion animation, drawings that moved as you flipped the pages.

  Within the notebook was an animation of the turtle automaton. It began with a quick demonstration of its assembly and launch.

  Bram’s line drawings showed the automaton swimming within the dule of turtles, reaching the beach, and releasing the throttlevine pods. Birds carried the fruit-wrapped seeds into the swamp to take root as the pieces of the automaton were, finally, destroyed by the plant itself.

  The flipbook was a kid’s trick: Sophie had one, back home, that her grandparents had played with as kids. But Cly watched it twice, three times, taking in the animation intently before handing it to Annela.

  “A powerful image—”

  “They’re not petrodragon-whatever tainted mummer images,” she said. “You show this to a judge or jury—do you even have juries? Anyway, it instantly communicates how the Havers have been pulling this off. When the Havers see this, they’ll know the game’s up.”

  “Fine in theory, but what if they don’t immediately settle the case?” Cly asked.

  Annela was watching the animation. “You know they probably will.”

  Cly flicked the “probably” away. “Sophie, you would need to offer me more than just this … assertion. If it came to trial.”

  “We have copies of the plans of the turtle. The originals belonged to Weyvan Highfelling, and they’re in the keeping of the monks on Issle Morta. Who are unimpeachable, right?”

  A slow nod. “Yes.”

  “We and they have pieces of Highfelling’s mechanism, and we have a whole automaton, plucked out of the Butcher’s Baste. If you have Rees Erminne search Turtle Beach quickly, he might find others. It’s only been forty-eight hours.”