The Nature of a Pirate

by A. M. Dellamonica

  “It’s empty.”

  “Yes. Mumma’d have my hide if I shared the mysteries with you.”

  Then why bring it up? Sophie waited.

  Beatrice opened it, revealing a box within a box—a cigarette case, made of tin and fronted by an ivory panel. She opened it, revealing nine ordinary cigarettes from home, and one butt.

  “Forgot about those.” Her birth mother’s voice was falsely casual. “One’s been smoked. Not by you, I take it?”

  Sophie shook her head.

  “Taking tobacco with the Allmother is the final stage of the ceremony.”

  “No fear of me getting converted, then.” Unless the ceremonies were just so much hoo-ha. “So. One person, at least, Bettona’s definitely tried to initiate. Her accomplice?”

  “That’s my theory.”

  “Why do me on the sly?”

  “So the blame will fall on you, of course,” Beatrice said.

  Sophie leaned back, fiddling with her turnip mash, and took in her birth mother. Beatrice was watching the tenner, exuding a sense of having a lot going on, mentally. It was that same quality Bram had when he was multitasking.

  Let her think, then. Sophie opened her book of questions and paged through it. She had made a few notes on Bram’s proposed experiment—leaving his magically hardened time capsule at home, possibly somewhere near Mount Rainier, and then seeing if they could find it here.

  He’d gotten to this same page, adding notes about the items he planned to leave in the box: a bone, a zircon, and a piece of lava whose age had been verified by one of his geologist roommates. TAKE IT BACK TO CE AND TEST ITS AGE.

  Inspiration struck. Sophie added: INCLUDE A SHEET OF MESSAGEPLY.

  As for leaving it near Mount Rainier …

  Garland hates Issle Morta, she thought.

  There was a sanded-down version of Clingmans Dome, in Tennessee, that still existed on the map of Sylvanna. She had a friend who lived near there, a caver.

  ALUM CAVE IS NEAR CLY’S ESTATE, she wrote.

  Did Garland have any favorite mountaintops?

  The question took her back to a whole set of things she hadn’t written down—questions about Garland and whether he thought he was in love with her, questions about whether it could possibly be real for him. The prophecy about his falling for someone just before Gale’s death, on the one hand. Beatrice’s spells, on the other.

  Pretty and graceful and fertile, oh my. She flipped the page. It should’ve been blank, but Bram had drawn a cartoon portrait of Mr. Spock, with a beard.

  A snort. Beatrice had come out of her reverie and was smirking at the drawing.

  Sophie cleared her throat and spoke in English. “He’d have been thinking about … We’re trying to determine if this is a future of our … you know, home.”

  “Believe it or not, I have seen Star Trek. So what?”

  “Either Stormwrack is a far-future version of you-know-where, or it’s a parallel. If the latter, there may be an infinite number of each of us: you, me, Bram—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Good ones, evil ones, Spock with a beard. You don’t think one of us has an evil twin, do you?”

  “No.” Though it did open the field to an even bigger number of suspects. “If Stormwrack is literally the future, then something catastrophic is going to happen to home.”

  “Soon?”

  “Within ten thousand years.”

  Beatrice laughed.

  “Yeah, sounds trivial, but—” Sophie objected.

  “You need to learn to prioritize.”

  “My parents are in San Francisco.”

  “Honey, the Big One’s more likely to hit. Ten thousand years is a long time.”

  It was true. Sophie felt deflated and then relieved. Chances were, there was no disaster on the way. “It’s still an important question.”

  “I’m all for science. Until it keeps you up at night, anyway, worrying about remote, unlikely doom,” Beatrice said.

  The Verdanii guard approached, bowing. “The convenor is awake, Kir Feliachild. She’s asking for you.”

  Before Sophie could ask, the guard added, “Just her.”

  Beatrice closed her knockoff purse and slung it over her shoulder. “You have another sheet of that messageply?”

  “I can make do,” Sophie said, writing HANDING THIS TO BEATRICE on the half-full page she’d been using to swap texts with Bram. “Here.”

  “I’ll let you know if I get anything from ’Nella.” Before she turned to go, Beatrice frowned a little, half reached for Sophie with one hand, and then turned the gesture into a clumsy fist bump. “’Kay, ’bye.”

  She bustled off, drawing the guard with her, and leaving Sophie, who hadn’t so much as touched her birth mother yet, openmouthed and a little at a loss.

  CHAPTER 15

  Lovely Kir Sophie:

  How thoroughly delicious to hear from you!

  You are quite right—the chindrella you saw in the exhibits archive are mine, and the dispute between my family and the Ualtarites over my attempt to breed their spiders may come to court soon. We have cross-charged them with trying to kill me. Mensalohm is representing my collective. He says that, since everyone’s equally guilty, it’s anyone’s guess as to which side will win.

  There’s been no talk of dueling it out, in case you’re wondering.

  You ask if I have any sense of Ualtar remaining on a war footing—if I think they are still looking to invade Tiladene. I have asked some of our trader cooperatives who do business with the Ualtarites, and they say the general consensus seems to be that their government feels it overstepped … that the Piracy, by using Ualtar as a game piece, exposed and embarrassed them. That Ualtar supports a war is in no doubt, but the chitchat on the racetrack has it that there will need to be some kind of public outrage, the sort of thing that can trigger full-scale hostilities on a grand scale.

  One example that comes up repeatedly is a long-running myth about an island of escaped slaves, oddities, and giants, a place called Nysa. The story currently going around has it that Nysa is working up to invade the portside nations. The assumption made by those telling this tale is that the abolitionist nations might be tempted to let an attack stand unopposed, and thereby break the mutual defense compact on which the Cessation is based.

  If any other gossip comes my way, I shall gladly share it. I will be taking horses to Stilence, Verdanii, and several other islands for the racing season, and I will keep my ears tuned to the chatter.

  With all due warmth and affection,

  Lais Dariach

  Garland’s ship, Nightjar, was a seventy-foot cutter with a crew of twenty. Her sails had a pearly sheen to them and her rigging was shot through with silver threads—some of it the hair of her former owner, Sophie’s aunt Gale. An enchantment on Gale had made her hard to remember, harder still to take seriously. She had moved among ports like an unwanted and unruly cousin-by-marriage, playing the dotty old lady as she ferreted out conspiracies and state secrets. The threads of her hair, woven into the rigging of the ship, allegedly made Nightjar easier to overlook.

  Stepping aboard Nightjar was like coming home.

  The ship’s first mate, Antonio Cappodocio, was waiting to greet Sophie as she climbed aboard via a net thrown down to the ferry.

  “No Garland?”

  Tonio shook his head. He was a compact and clever-looking man in his early twenties, from a volcanic island nation, Erinth, that was located where the Mediterranean should be. Today he was clad in dark breeches and a cable-knit sweater that suggested he was expecting cool weather.

  “I have to talk to Garland as soon as … practically yesterday.”

  “He’s overseeing your property transfer.”

  She almost gagged.

  “Forgive me,” Tonio said. “I assumed you wouldn’t want to say…”

  Slave. “No, don’t say that, either.”

  “We could call him a prisoner, I suppose. Yes, prisoner.”

  “Tonio, if there
was any way I could’ve let this guy … The last thing I ever wanted was…”

  She searched his face. What did they think of her?

  If he was disappointed in her, he was far too suave to show it. “Ginagina, we’ve been in stranger situations.”

  “Apparently nobody disapproves of my being Sylvanner except me.”

  “You can’t help your parentage,” he said, but he was bowing now to the rest of her … did three people qualify as an entourage?

  Krispos was looking, to Sophie’s eye, a little like he’d come from a performance of The Importance of Being Earnest. He’d gotten himself a chocolate-colored frock coat, new boots, and a white shirt, along with a heavy leather valise for his papers. He had hired someone to embroider a patch depicting the Forensic Institute insignia—a more formal version of something Bram had sketched on their initial proposal to Annela. The patch was pinned to his valise; he hadn’t gotten around to sewing it on yet.

  Sophie and Bram had encouraged him to memorize every resource on inscription and spellscribing Annela would let them open, and now he was reading everything he could find about the fright spells that had been used to attack Kitesharp and Shepherd.

  Krispos was flanked by two uniformed police constables from the Watch—the officers who would be learning fingerprinting and building the database.

  “This is Cinco Mel Humbrey, from Ylle,” Sophie told Tonio, speaking clearly and distinctly, triggering a bow from the elder of the two men, which Tonio returned. “And his partner, Sixer Ragan Selwig, of Cardesh.”

  She was watching Tonio closely again, because Cardesh was a slaver nation. Apparently, it was policy, within the service, to partner portside officers with starboard ones. “They’re here to work on some Institute stuff and to make sure Kev Lidman doesn’t escape.”

  “Welcome to Nightjar, Kirs,” Tonio said, with every evidence of cordiality.

  Sophie said, “Did a guy show up? From my lawyer?”

  “Achi, Nightjar!” This came from a small sailboat—privately chartered, from the look of it—that was whisking close to Nightjar. Its passenger was waving vigorously. He was lanky, blue-eyed, and had the peaches-and-cream complexion you’d expect of a lute player in a pre-Raphaelite painting. The effect wasn’t hurt by the fact that he was clad in an open peasant shirt—so white it practically shone in the sun, winter be damned—and leather breeches.

  I didn’t think he’d be cute, she thought, dismayed.

  “You’re Daimon?” Sophie called.

  “Yes, Kir, of Tiladene.”

  Tonio gave her an inquiring look as one of the crew, Beal, threw Daimon a rope ladder. “Gift for me?”

  She punched his arm. “This is Mensalohm’s new clerk, Daimon. He’s … When did you say Garland would be aboard?”

  “When he’s got Lidman, I expect.”

  “What about Bram?”

  “Kir Bram is coming?” Tonio lit up. “Better and better. Ship full of blossoms, and me the bee.”

  Before she could answer, Daimon had climbed aboard. Close up, he was just short of picture perfect.

  “I’ll get everyone settled, Kir.” Beal, one of the crew, gave her a wide grin, followed by a kiss on the cheek, and swept up a double handful of traveling bags.

  Sweet, the bosun, climbed down from the rigging, where she’d been inspecting the mainmast. Sophie decided to delay the explanations a moment longer, in favor of collecting a hug.

  “Welcome home,” Sweet whispered.

  That lifted her spirits, and Sweet seemed to sense it. “Come on. You’re forward, in Kir Gale’s old cabin.”

  “Isn’t that Verena’s?”

  “Verena’s still asea. We don’t have space to keep a room for someone who isn’t here, not when the main guest cabin will be in use and you’ve brought all these people.”

  This was a polite way of reminding Sophie that Lidman would be in the cabin with a door that locked from the outside.

  “Lead the way.”

  She whisked Sophie off to the cabin. “Maybe you’re thinking to start bunking with someone else?”

  Sophie felt herself blushing. “Fat chance of that.” Garland was an old-fashioned guy, with ideas about extended courtship. And when he found out what she was up to …

  Sweet scratched her head. “Want to talk? It’s just us.”

  Did she?

  “I’d rather talk about Verena’s detachment ritual and why Annela was fasting. If you know enough about Verdanii customs to tell me.”

  Sweet nodded. “I know enough.”

  Sophie eased herself onto the bunk. She’d never stayed in this particular berth. By shipboard standards, it was an opulent room, three times as big as the berths Bram had rented aboard the apartment block. Verena had never properly moved in. A framed sketch on one bulkhead depicted a horse running on a beach, hooves churning the foam. There was a big lighthouse in the background of the image.

  A clock was fixed to a low shelf, and Verena’s practice dummy for sword fighting lay under the sack of sand she used as a free weight, along with a leather jump rope and a bated fencing foil.

  Verena had a book half read—Fleet-Approved Spells Pertaining to Memory, Mental Acuity, and Madness—and a pair of others in languages Sophie couldn’t decipher.

  Sweet had been gathering her thoughts. “The Verdanii are coy about their bloodlines and the abilities of the Allmother, but I do know—everyone does—that she is only the fifth to hold that position, and the longest lived. She was in power well before the Cessation.”

  “That was a century ago!”

  Sweet nodded. “Magic. She should have picked her heir-designate by now, but it’s never happened. It has to be someone from the ruling families. Rumor has it there’s a quest, or a vision. At this point, we’re well into gossip, but Convenor Gracechild was attempting to qualify. According to the wags, she tried once before.”

  “And failed?”

  Sweet nodded.

  “What about Verena?”

  “Her passion for the captain wasn’t good for her; you saw how deep it ran, and what it cost her when you two…”

  “Didn’t quite start dating,” Sophie finished wearily.

  “The detachment quest is supposed to help.”

  “I suppose I should be glad she’s not home fasting herself into a coma, too.” It was hard not to feel guilty about having gotten involved with her half sister’s crush object. She could remind herself a thousand times that Garland had never cared, romantically, for Verena. It still felt oddly like betrayal.

  “I doubt anyone would accept Verena as an Allmother candidate. Too young, and she’s nearly as much a foreigner as you are. Everyone wanted it to be Convenor Gracechild. They sent her into government to build up her international experience. Now that she’s failed again, Verdanii is vulnerable.”

  Sophie perched on the bed. There were four or five bundles sitting on it, traditional pouches of wayfaring gifts, meant as wishes for a good journey. One smelled of apricots and anise.

  Garland’s bunk was on the other side of the bulkhead, she realized.

  “The Verdanii sent Fecund to collect Verena,” Sweet said. “She asked Captain to deliver the goat—”

  “And he did, and here we are. I wonder if she’s feeling better.”

  “I think she was glad to go. It’s been awkward aboardship.”

  Sophie thought, Does he like me because I’m magically pretty or because I’m magically charming or because I’m magically smart or because he thinks it was fate that we met…?

  “I need to be up on deck,” she said, even though the thought of moving was entirely unappealing. She was weighed down by the thought of Beatrice and her seven scrolls; they were like boulders, rolling around in her belly. “I have to talk to him as soon as he’s on board.”

  “Haul away, then,” Sweet said.

  She got herself upright and they made their way upward, only to run headlong into Beal, making his way down the ladder in a rush.

  “Messe
nger for you, Kir,” he said, a little wide-eyed. “From the Golders.”

  Sophie climbed up. Was it Convenor Brawn again? But the young woman on the deck was the big-eyed Fleet cadet who’d accompanied Brawn to their previous meeting. She had long auburn hair, tinted black at the tips. High boots added four inches to her height. Her extended, clawlike fingernails had been clipped short since Sophie saw her last.

  “From His Honor Convenor Brawn from Isle of Gold, with all good wishes for peace,” she said, holding out an envelope. Her accent was an exaggerated version of Brawn’s, full of drawn-out vowels. “I’m to wait for your reply.”

  Sophie took the envelope and bowed for good measure. She looked around for Garland before she opened the envelope. Inside were three pages.

  Kir Hansa,

  I write for it seems that you may be asail soon, and I wish to discharge the favor I have lately come to owe you.

  You see before you as much answer as I might offer to your question about the individual who conveyed the agent John Coine to the outland my people name as Powderkeg.

  It was a neat bit of doublespeak, Sophie thought. He wasn’t quite admitting that John Coine had been his agent.

  Coine might have told you more about how his journey was accomplished, but as he lies dead in Issle Morta, you shall have to resurrect him if you wish to ask.

  What I will say, from Coine’s accounting, was that Powderkeg was what we call a bakoo marvelous place, jammed with more people than the great city Moscasipay, with much to overwhelm the senses. Once there, he was escorted to two places where you may continue your investigation. One was a dining establishment in a province or ville called Tenderloin. The place was called Sunny Side Jim, and enclosed, as proof, is one of their price sheets, written I believe in your native Anglay.

  Sophie glanced at the diner menu. Eggs, bacon, hash browns, all at rock-bottom prices.

  She had Coine’s picture. If she could get home, she could see if the waitstaff at the diner remembered him.

  The other locale was the munitions supplier who provided the grenades, muskets, and other oddments of war which Coine and his coconspirators employed in their ill-fated attempt to stir trouble. I know that the supplier was a short distance from Sunny Side Jim and that the name of the place was Freedom TwoFourSeven GunsGunsGuns.