A Daughter of No Nation

by A. M. Dellamonica

  He brightened. “Indeed. I’ve read the transcripts for all five cases. The first—”

  “You put the other transcripts away?”

  He looked a little crestfallen but opened a cupboard, revealing the encyclopedia-size sheaves of paper.

  She swapped in the transcript she’d taken, opening the next. As with the other, its first chapter was an overview. She skimmed it while the memorician huffed and sighed.

  “I’m sorry, Krispos,” she said. “I appreciate what you do, and you’re going to be really helpful. It’s just my custom to flip through things.”

  “Yes, all right, I understand.” His tone was sulky.

  “It’s an outlander thing.”

  “I understand.” Definitely sulking.

  Sophie kept skimming until she’d looked at them all.

  “Cly says he has a personal tie to these cases.”

  “They affect his lands, friends, or near neighbors.”

  “Which one’s dearest to his heart, do you think?”

  He nudged the oldest of the case files, a dispute with Sylvanna’s near neighbor, Haversham. The government of Sylvanna alleged that Haversham had deliberately infected their lowlands with a species of invasive vine that, from its description, sounded much like kudzu.

  Haversham’s defense was that the passage between the two nations, the Butcher’s Baste, was too heavily guarded to allow saboteurs.

  “Hard to prove if the trail’s been cold for twenty-five years, don’t you think?” Sophie set it aside.

  The next two were suits filed against Sylvanna’s national spell research institute. One claimed they had propagated a turtle species native to another island; the second, that they’d exploited some kind of honeybee, in violation of Fleet treaties. The last two were straightforward accusations of theft or maybe industrial espionage: they claimed the institute had flat-out stolen newly developed spells and rushed them through the Fleet certification process—which sounded like a patent office—even though the spells weren’t theirs to certify.

  She could feel the weight of Krispos’s attention as she flipped.

  “This Sylvanner Spellscrip Institute gets sued a lot,” she hazarded, which was more a comment than a request for information.

  “The honeybee case references sixty other actions in progress against them as of Maille last year.”

  “Sixty accusations, huh? What are the odds they’re entirely innocent?”

  “I’d need a treatise on odds-making to answer that,” he replied.

  She poked the pile of doorstop-thick transcripts. “Cly thinks these cases could be winnable—there could be hard evidence to prove them.”

  “Yes?”

  “That argues Sylvanna’s in the right, as far as he knows.”

  The memorician squinted, apparently trying to work out whether she was asking him something. His eye wandered to his book on auras.

  Sophie picked up the turtle case. “The first question would be whether the turtles from Grimreef really are the same species as those on Sylvanna.”

  Krispos perked up. “That was agreed by both parties in a hearing six years ago. Physical characteristics were found by the court to be identical—”

  “External characteristics only? Or did they dissect?”

  He mouthed the word “dissect” with apparent discomfort. “The presiding judge looked at a specimen from each beach.”

  Sophie could just see it: a judge with two turtles, flipping them over and concluding, “Gosh, they look the same to me!”

  Of course they wouldn’t consult a taxonomist. If they even have such a thing.

  “The auras of the specimen turtles were examined by a prominent aetherian. Most tellingly, spellscribes were able to use the shells of both species as mixing bowls for the specialized armoring intention used on quarry workers.”

  “A hearing like that, is it something they could revisit?”

  She could almost hear Bram chuckling. What are you going to do, Sofe, run the turtles’ DNA?

  “I haven’t read the Fleet Code of Law, Kir.”

  “No.” That was Cly, appearing suddenly, in that catlike way he had, lounging against the hatch of Sophie’s lab. “The courts are busy enough as it is without requestioning established certainties.”

  “Certainties,” she said.

  “Physical examination is a flimsy standard of proof—you’re right about that. But the two shells produced the same magical outcome. That is conclusive.”

  I’ll have to find out if that’s true. She added a note to her book of questions.

  “You’re looking at the Turtle Beach file, then? Not the throttlevine?”

  “Just browsing.” She searched his face. She wasn’t a psychologist or psychiatrist—her certainty, an hour ago, that Cly might be sociopathic was eroding. He had always seemed emotional enough: he was all hugs and smiles, and there was that needle-sharp sense of humor.

  Maybe I watch too much crime TV.

  Stop guessing. Test him.

  “How’s the survivor from the other ship?”

  “Survivor? The man who laid hands on you?”

  “The term’s fair if the others are all dead, isn’t it? Lidman, I think he’s called?”

  Instead of taking the bait, he said, “Did Sophie tell you she saved us from military embarrassment at the hands of a six-man sloop, Krispos?”

  “Indeed, Kir?”

  Cly had not crossed the threshold of the lab. “May I come in?”

  Seriously, waiting to come into my space? Good boundaries.

  “Of course.”

  He perched on a bench. “She charged our plank as confidently as if she’d taken the Fleet boarding exam. Landed right beside their spellscribe and knocked out their primary offensive inscription. You’ve the makings of a warrior, girl.”

  “Cly—”

  “Yes, yes, the prisoner. His teeth are loose in his head and he’s got scurvy. Doctor’s feeding him lemon juice. Looked minded to hang himself, so he’s bound.”

  “Did you figure out what they were up to?”

  “It appears to be petty banditry.” Cly opened a hand, revealing a spiney pink whirl of calcium, coiled like a corkscrew at its base and then straightening to a point. “Curling anemone,” he said. “Most valuable thing we found aboard, though there was a sizeable amount of powdered maddenflur sap and a cache of the petals. The seeds, too—you found those.”

  “Maddenflur’s an opiate, am I right?” Parrish had mentioned it once, and Sophie had gotten a good look at it in the infirmary; the plant was thorny, but the flowers, seeds, and pods were reminiscent of opium poppies. “Painkiller, addictive.”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s with the anemone spike?” She took it, examining it closely.

  “They also have various benign and recreational uses.”

  “Another drug?”

  “It seems likely that the ship Incannis most lately sank was transporting spell components and medical contraband.”

  “So … we have bandits sinking smugglers?”

  “A little side business for their captains. Shady, but common enough. Nothing to warrant murdering their crews.”

  “Nobody deserves to be executed,” she agreed, remembering the bandits’ captain falling with the crossbow bolt in his throat.

  “It’s an all-around-terrible business,” Cly said, tone sober. “But—the turtles?”

  She decided to go with him on the change of subject. “Well, the other island in the suit—”

  “Grimreef,” Krispos and Cly said simultaneously.

  “Grimreef accuses the Sylvanner Spellscrip Institute of transplanting them to this one beach—basically, sneaking a bunch of turtle eggs from Grimreef to Sylvanna. The idea is once the turtles hatched there, that’s where they’d return to lay. They say this happened about eighty years ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “There won’t be any evidence of the theft left, unless of course there’s documentation, a paper trail.”
>
  Cly grinned. “I was rather hoping you’d prove we didn’t do it.”

  “Truth’s truth, Cly. Aren’t you a judge or something?”

  “Quite right.” He bowed from the neck. “I believe I can guarantee there’s no paper track to find.”

  Which doesn’t mean they didn’t do it. “I have some ideas about ways to start documenting the animal behavior patterns. It’ll cost your institute guys or … does someone own the beach?”

  “Yes, it’s privately held.”

  “Well, it’ll cost some money and might take a few years to build up good data, but—”

  That pish-posh flick of the hand. “No matter. The case would be in court for another decade, at this rate. You see what a boon your forensic practices might be?”

  Is that sincerity or flattery?

  “Now—I wondered if you’d consent to having that conversation with the tailor I brought. I’d like you dressed as a Sylvanner when we arrive. But…” He inclined his head.

  Sophie glanced at her clothes. There were green blotches on her hoodie where the maddenflur bubbles had popped, blood on her jeans from helping with the gashed sailor’s leg, and a long smear of something sooty.

  “My clothes are too filthy to go see about my clothes?”

  He laughed. “Put that way, it seems silly.”

  “I’ll clean up.”

  She crossed the corridor, going into her cabin, and checked her messageply. Bram had not wasted words. OMG, SOCIOPATH? NEED SYMPTOMS? SHALLOW EMOTIONS, LYING, NEVER ADMITS TO BEING WRONG, TRIES TO CONTROL PEOPLE, WANTS ADMIRATION, CHARMING, MANIPULATIVE. SOFE, RU GONNA BE OKAY?

  She scrawled back: COULD BE OVERREACTING. CLY’S NO DANGER TO ME.

  “I have salt monsters and bandits with scurvy for that,” she muttered.

  Verena had written, too, finally: talked to Lovergirl’s captain, Montaro from fishing vessel Waveplay. He’s sticking to story that Corsetta tried to steal their cash box. He tried to have her locked up so she couldn’t talk to anybody. Something hinky there.

  Sophie’s eye fell on the satchel of animal hair—tabby cat hair, the same color as that of the cat they’d pulled off the derelict—and the spinner she’d taken from the bandit ship. She had promised Verena she’d stay out of the investigation of Corsetta. How would her sister feel if she learned Sophie had stumbled over a connection to Waveplay, way out here and far away?

  Think about the little schemer later. She washed her hands, changed the green-splattered shirt, and accompanied Cly to his cabin, which turned out to be a full suite of rooms, including an office and a parlor.

  The tailor waiting there might have been the oldest person aboard ship. He was a spidery black man with white hair and a sleepy air. Measuring tapes dangled around his neck, and a pincushion—the needles were bone and quill rather than steel—was bound to the back of his left wrist. He didn’t speak Fleet.

  “You travel with a tailor?” she asked.

  “I hired him for this cruise,” Cly said. “I’ve seen your outlander clothes.”

  “They’ve barely raised an eyebrow in Fleet.”

  “Fleet personnel are used to interacting with a cultural hodgepodge and to being polite about it. The Autumn City is less cosmopolitan. It’s better if you blend in.”

  The tailor had tacked together a half-dozen outfits for Sophie, the first of which reminded her of a British riding habit—short breeches and a vest.

  “We call this a sporting suit,” Cly said. “For outdoor activity. See, it leaves the arms free for swordplay or riding—well, try it on. You may change back there.”

  She stepped behind a screen. “Tell me about Sylvanna.”

  “With pleasure. What do you wish to know?”

  “Anything,” she said. “I meant to look it up in Gale’s big index of nations, but her books had been taken off Nightjar, and the crew was…” She stopped short of complaining about how Verena and Parrish had been ordered to block her explorations at every turn; somehow, it felt disloyal. “I never managed to get to it.”

  “Other things were more interesting than your homeland, perhaps.”

  “It’s not that I’m not curious.”

  “No, but given the choice between looking at a new bird or studying humanity, you seem more inclined to the natural world.”

  “There’s a lot to absorb here, Cly. A lot of shiny and only so many hours in the day.”

  Manipulative, she thought, remembering Bram’s sociopathy symptoms. See how fast he got you on the defensive?

  “True enough. Let’s see: Sylvanna is the third largest of the great nations, as measured by land area. Only Verdanii and Zamaduccia are larger. The name means ‘land of abundance.’ The nation in its current political form was established by Merkady Iblis Brightburing, our first president. She—”

  “A woman?”

  “Ha. I thought you’d appreciate that.”

  She finished buttoning the breeches and vest: they seemed perfectly fitted and very comfortable. She stepped out and tried swinging her arms, then did a knee bend. “You really could do sports in these.”

  Cly had one big hand over his mouth. “Oh. Child.”

  His voice was tight.

  Okay, if he’s faking emotions, he’s damned good at it. Her own feelings surged.

  “Hey,” she said. “It’s okay.”

  “When I think of you as a girl, how you would have looked running a pony cart on the great lawn of Low Bann, with a nurse trailing after you. Winning achievement pins at school…”

  “I’m here now. Just chill, okay?”

  “Here for how long?”

  She was saved from answering when the tailor, impatient with waiting, shoved her arms up so they were out at her sides. The back of his pincushion rolled over the underside of her forearm, prickling.

  “Forgive me,” Cly said. “It’s an unfair question, I know that. You have a life in the outlands, a brother…”

  And parents, she thought guiltily. “Yeah.”

  He let out a long breath. “Go try on the dinner gown. I promise to control myself.”

  What was she going to do? Move to Stormwrack, vanish from her family’s lives, give up her friends? For the first time, she wondered if she might have been better off not knowing about any of this.

  The dinner gown came to just below the knee. It had a flared skirt and a cowl neck; it was comfortable enough, but somehow it reminded her of the 1970s.

  Disco isn’t dead; it just came to Stormwrack.

  It was made of a thin, silky fabric, green in color, so sheer it was nearly weightless. The tailor frowned at it as she stepped out from behind the screen, twitching the cowl over her chest—she’d been showing a bit of cleavage. He absolutely glowered at her bra.

  “That’s not coming off,” she said, and he promptly put a stitch in the cowl to hold it demurely shut over her chest.

  Am I really going to move to a world without spandex? She could feel a giggle building.

  Cly was true to his word—he’d stopped being emo, or faking it, perhaps. As she attempted a twirl, he nodded. “You look lovely, my dear.”

  The tailor muttered something.

  “He says you’re built like a mermaid.”

  “Swimmer’s shoulders,” she said.

  “Indeed,” Cly replied. “I think perhaps … two more sporting sets, then, and a second dress in what color?”

  “I look good in deep blue,” she said.

  “That chestnut hair,” he said. “Beatrice does, too.”

  He spoke to the tailor and dismissed him, then picked a wooden box off the desk.

  “What’s this?”

  “A gift.”

  “Cly, you don’t have to keep giving me presents.”

  “Sylvanner parents believe in giving their children everything they want,” he said. “I’m well behind.”

  She fingered the box. “What if what I wanted was for Beatrice to be off the hook?”

  “She should be home soon.”

 
; “On bail. She’s going on trial for fraud, isn’t she?”

  “She behaved with criminality and malice.”

  “Ever hear the phrase ‘no harm, no foul,’ Cly?”

  “I was excluded from most of your childhood,” he said. “I call that great harm.”

  “What about ‘forgive and forget’?”

  A blaze of fury in his face, unmitigated rage, and that emotion she did entirely believe. And then it winked out, like candleflame being snuffed. “Open this gift and I’ll consider it.”

  She fumbled the latch.

  “I realize the lab and the memorician are probably more to your taste. Clothes and fancy balls and visiting other estates … I’ve no idea if that holds any appeal.”

  “It seems a little old-fashioned, but I’m game to try if you are.” She opened the box. Inside was a jade necklace, intricately carved with images of braided leaves.

  “Allow me.” He opened the clasp, slipping it around her throat. It was a snug fit. “There. Brings out your eyes, I think.”

  Accepting it felt odd, like sneaking something past her parents. “It’s lovely. Thank you.”

  “Sit.” He gestured at a chair and as soon as her butt hit the seat, a steward appeared with a silver tray containing coffee. “Let me try again to tell you about Sylvanna, shall I?”

  “That’d be good. Let’s start with this whole thing where unmarried people are children.”

  He poured a steaming cup and nudged it over. “It’s been a problem for me. My parents never reconciled themselves to the divorce. The day Beatrice left me, they moved my possessions back into the nursery.”

  “Harsh!”

  “They tried for a time to find me someone new, but … well, maybe if I’d been home more.”

  “You arrange marriages on Sylvanna?”

  “Sometimes. All this occurred during my early days at the Advocacy, when I was very much at home in the Fleet. I know what it is, Sophie, to be pulled in two directions.”

  Manipulative. She swallowed.

  “My estate, Low Bann, is in the lowlands, on the northeast coast in the Autumn District, quite near the Butcher’s Baste. Much of the land in that area is swampy; we hunt alligator and a big fish called saltsander there, and harvest figs and wild redplum from the preserve. I have some land under cultivation. Hemp and tobacco mostly. We also raise nightshades.”