Child of a Hidden Sea (32 page)

I'd probably do the same,
Sophie thought. And then:
Does he have any other family?

“That was stunningly adequate,” Cly called to the younger judges, who both wilted. “Rematch after lunch. Come, Sophie.” They strolled on to one of the fencing rings, where a man and woman were going at swordplay with a speed that made Verena's duel with Incindio, back on Erinth, seem pokey in comparison.

She couldn't win against the least of these guys
, Sophie thought.
If they appointed a proxy for me, I'd get the whole estate: the job, the houses, the magic purse. And Cly's my father. Would it be up to him?

Cly continued to reminisce: “The need to mingle socially, night after night, wore on your mother. She is emphatically not a sociable creature, as you may have observed. I wasn't understanding. I had a vocation; she had yet to chart a course for her own life. It seemed obvious to me that if she couldn't choose, she might at least contribute to my success.”

“Nice,” Sophie said.

“I was spoiled as a child, and somewhat hardhearted. Beatrice was spoiled too, of course, but more tender in spirit. In that we were—how did you put it?—temperamentally incompatible.”

“Was it violent?”

She had his full attention, suddenly—it was like falling under the spotlight of a police chopper. “I beg your pardon?”

Tactful, Sofe. That was the height of rudeness
. Bram's voice, and she felt a pang. All this was just time spent not rescuing him. Worse, it was chasing this that had got him abducted.

But there was no getting out of it now. “How unsympathetic were you? Did you hurt her? Did you threaten her? You're pretty much a fighting machine, aren't you? I bet lots of people find you pretty…”

“Yes?”

Could you have gone out on more of a limb?
“Pretty terrifying.”

Oh, and there are probably at least three people who overheard us.

Parrish was probably watching from
Nightjar
. If Cly tossed her overboard …

Stop obsessing about Parrish already!

“Have I been made out this much of a monster?” Cly asked, reaching for her hand. “Child—”

“I'm not a child.” She jerked back. “Answer my question.”

“No!” He pulled himself up, almost to rigid, military attention, the way they all seemed to do here when things got argumentative. “I'll swear any oath you care to name. I never struck, cut, or made physical threat upon your mother. I've never dealt violence to anyone, for that matter, without just legal cause and the full power of the Charter behind me.”

“Okay, look, I'm sorry.”

“I am a well born, well raised, honorable gentleman of—”

“Really, I'm sorry! I had to ask.”

“This what's been said to you? Am I slandered to such a degree, to my own flesh and blood…”

Oh, and they say Beatrice is a drama queen?

“Cly,” Sophie said. “It wasn't anything they told me—they told me nothing. I just assumed—”

“You assumed?”

From bad to worse. What could she say now? She could feel everyone eavesdropping: the crew, the junior judges. “Everyone's made such a big deal of keeping this secret. Stay away from the Dueling Court, they said. Stay away from Storm … from the Fleet. Go home, never come back. I'm sorry I assumed the worst, I am.

“But come on! There's something rotten at the heart of this. There has to be something they're afraid of. If it's not you, what is it?”

Like that, the tension was gone.

“Ah, of course,” Cly said. “The obvious inference was that the rot lay with me.”

“It doesn't?”

“I'd have reached the same conclusion.” He shook out his hand. “The Feliachilds, that cur Parrish and the Allmother herself have conspired to hide my child from me.”

“Cur?”

“I cannot know their side of the argument, and I'm sure their actions seemed reasonable at the time. But from my perspective it seems apparent their reason was petty, self-serving … sordid.”

“What reason? Why'd they hide me?”
What'd I do? What's wrong with me?

“Beatrice and I come from very different nations. A Verdanii woman can set aside a man if he displeases her, but my people frown on divorce. Our marriage negotiations were complex. Time passed, and Beatrice wanted to leave me. I can understand her wishing to be free of our marriage. It had gone wrong, terribly wrong. She was desperately unhappy. We did have terrible arguments. But on paper, in the binding document we both signed—”

“Yes?”

“The possibility of divorce had been conceded, reluctantly, by my father,” Cly said. “But only until such time as the union produced children.”

“Seriously?”

He lay a hand on hers, peering into her eyes. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, though in truth she felt a little stunned. “Me being alive meant no breakup?”

“She couldn't have divorced me if it were known she was pregnant. Could never have divorced me once you'd been born. And by turning up now … your very existence makes you evidence of breach of contract. You've invalidated my divorce and branded Beatrice Feliachild a fraud. A bigamist too, if she's remarried.”

Which she has, and you're fishing again.
Instead of calling him on it, Sophie asked: “So that letter you gave Verena, for Beatrice. Captain Parrish said it was a summons?”

“It is,” Cly said, and there was no mistaking the satisfaction in his tone. “An arrest warrant.”

CHAPTER
21

If you stay in Stormwrack, you'll bring trouble to your closest kin.
So Gale hadn't been referring to some big D destiny thing at all. It wasn't prophecies or soothsaying or fate she was afraid of.

Just a lawsuit
, Sophie thought.
What a relief!

Whatever she might have said next was interrupted by a shout from the crow's nest: “Spell! Two points north—”

The seas were boiling.

“What now?” she groaned.

Cly cast an eye on the water. “You said it was the Golden who had your brother? This might be their ransom demand.”

“I already know what they want.”

“There's a formal show of threat—their traditions are grandiose.”

Something white-blue was rising from the froth, a solid form … an iceberg, Sophie realized, a gigantic jagged crag made of ice, with a face carved into it. A hundred feet high, dripping and glassy, its eyes were whitened by what looked like hammer blows that cracked and crazed the frozen water's surface, so that it resembled a shattered windshield.

“Holy crap,” she muttered.

“Have you never heard of a kalassi?” Cly asked.

She shook her head.

“In the days after the Fleet took to sinking their ships, the Piracy resorted to other means of raiding. This was one of their more effective spells.”

The iceman had continued to rise and grow until it towered above both ships, until it bobbed on the water, the form of a man, bare chested, submerged below the ribs. It wore the face of John Coine.

He cast a disapproving eye over
Sawtooth
. “You've involved others in our business, Sophie Opal Hansa.”

Before she could answer, Cly put his hands on her shoulders. “This woman is my daughter, Kir. If anyone has involved me, it is you.”

“How's Bram?” Sophie said. “If you've hurt him…”

“The boy breathes.”

She felt a rush of relief, so strong her knees buckled. She grabbed for the rail, steadying herself.
He's alive.

“Will you exchange our heart's desire for him?”

Her voice wobbled, but she got the words out. “I've figured out a way to maybe get your stupid inscription. But after that stunt you pulled on Lais, with the grenade … if you're not gonna exchange him fair and square, why should I trade with you?”

“This is why you've run to Father?”

In a movie, the iceberg's voice would be cranked up to timber-shattering volume. But this one wasn't even amplified. Somehow that made it scarier.

Cly looked from the iceman back to Sophie. “If you have no honor, Kir, she cannot transact with you.”

There was a boom as a second berg shot up out of the water, this one shaped like a hand, massive, fingers splayed, with long nails. Huge mussel shells were embedded on its fingers, like diamonds on rings. It stretched delicately, taking a grip on
Nightjar
's forward hull, curving like talons.

“Easy, child—it's all bluster,” Cly purred in her ear, before she could scream. “Affect a bored aspect, if you can.”

“Why does everyone here expect me to be some kind of actress?” she said.

“The art of the bluff—”

“Come on. It's all just willy-waving.”

“Now you're being coarse.”

The hand pushed up, up, lifting
Nightjar
's bow out of the water, a meter, then two, then five. Gale's crew grabbed for rails and rope. The cutter looked suddenly small, frail. She felt a real surge of fear, for the people aboard and for the ship, too.

As she watched, Tonio lost his balance, falling toward the stern. The bosun's assistant, Sweet, caught him—lassoed him, practically—with a loop from one of the buntlines.

The ice face looked at them, inquiringly. “Shall I go on?”

“Sophie,” Cly said, “can you recover the inscription without your aunt's ship?”

“No. Of course I need
Nightjar.
It's got—”

“Shh, never mind what's aboard. Enough that something is. Are you prepared to give them what they want? No matter the cost? You cannot fail.”

“Bram's my baby brother,” she said. “I'd give them my eyes.”

“Understood.” Raising his voice, Cly said: “Bandit, I didn't much care for the former owner of that vessel, and truth be told I have a legitimate grudge against her captain.”

“What's that to me? Raise up blade to him! There's plenty in Fleet would thank you for skewering the incorrigible Garland Parrish.”

Cly tsked, sounding regretful. “Because of my position … it would look ill if I challenged him.”

“T'would be murder, I suppose, but what care I?”

“If you can shake the flailer off
Nightjar,
you can have him and welcome. My concern begins and ends with my family. If the boy Bram were further harmed and my daughter's heart broken…”

He'd very neatly implied that Bram was his son, Sophie noticed, without saying so.

“A vendetta would damage your almighty position,” Coine said.

“I am old enough to retire, young enough to pursue you, and rich enough to make a good chase of it.” Cly leaned forward, smiling, looking like the prospect of such a hunt would be a delight, a lark. “I have influence, Kir. I've spent a lifetime accumulating favors without collecting. You, your family, your treasure hoard, your health, your happiness—they are all at risk if you anger me. I'm reckoned by some an ill-tempered and vengeful fellow.”

“A vengeful judge?”

“Ask my wife if you doubt it.”

Coine laughed.

“Kir, I've been reining in the swampside of my spirit in for thirty years. I beg you, give me a reason to run wild.”

Sophie shivered.
Is he bluffing?
If he was, she couldn't tell: Just then Cly looked as though he'd happily slice all comers in half, just to make sure every single one of them bled red.

John Coine's enormous, icy face twitched a grin. “You'd make a good bandit, Banning.”

“Be glad my position fetters me.”

“We ain't gonna kill your son, if she delivers.”

“You're accused of word breaking. We require an intermediary for the exchange, someone of impeccable reputation,” he said. “And put down
Nightjar
, Kir—cheap theater is worse than none at all.”

The ice hand broke into shards, allowing the smaller ship to fall back to the surface of the ocean with a slap and a splash that made Sophie wince.
Sawtooth
's deck rose, riding the wave of displaced water.

“The boy shall be taken to the Fleet and put aboard
Sackcloth
,” Coine said, and to Sophie's relief he sounded disgruntled, as though he were truly giving up something he hadn't wanted to. “He will remain until Kir Hansa delivers the ransom. You trust the flailers, don't you?”

“Who doesn't?”

“It will be done immediately.”

“He'd be safe enough with the monks,” Cly murmured to Sophie. “Will you agree to it?”

She nodded, relieved.

“On what surety, Coine?”

The ice figure rumbled, seeming to ponder. “Shall I give you my middle name?”

“Done,” Cly said.

“It's Raille,” he said, and spelled it. “Of course, if Kir Hansa doesn't pay, the boy will remain in the custody of Issle Morta.”

Issle Morta was Parrish's home nation, Sophie thought. “For how long?”

“Unto death, child.”

“Hey—” Sophie began, but Cly put a hand on her arm.

“It's agreed.” He turned to Sophie. “We can't leave him with the Golden. It's already been a day.”

“What does that mean?”

“How will Kir Hansa pay you?” Cly asked the talking iceberg.

A rowboat, also limned in ice, rose from the depths of the sea. It had a long rope coiled over its bow, and a skeleton laying across its seats. “Give Yacoura to Whitey here,” Coine said.

With that, he broke into a half dozen smaller chunks of ice. One fell to the deck of
Sawtooth
; the rest bobbed on the surface, a peculiar threat.

“I think we came out ahead there,” Cly said, his tone as mild as if he'd been trying to cadge a dinner reservation at an impossibly popular restaurant. “Would you like to continue your tour?”