A Jewel Bright Sea

by Claire O'Dell

  “Ah.” His smile was faint and brief. “I understand that. Mihali tells me it’s an hour at least to his village, but we can make a few stops along the way.”

  The island, it turned out, was far larger than Anna had guessed from her brief remembered glimpse from far above. Beyond their ravine stretched a rolling grassland, crisscrossed by streams and more ravines, and rising steadily upward toward a line of hills to the north. As Koszenmarc had promised, they broke their journey twice for a cold meal and a pot of tea while the goats grazed, though each time Mihali complained bitterly at the delay.

  By the time they reached those northern hills, the sun had crossed over the meridian. No more stops, Mihali insisted. No, he didn’t wish another coin. He merely thought it wiser if they did not dawdle. He led them east, around the shoulder of the tallest hill, into a pass surrounded by rocky cliffs. Very quickly, the pass narrowed, until the cliffs nearly met overhead, with only a ribbon of sky visible. Other rifts and passages branched off to either side, but Mihali never paused to consider which direction to take.

  Anna had lost all sense of time and direction when a long warbling whistle floated down from above, like that of a dove. At once, Mihali stopped and held his fingers to his lips. Then he gave an answering whistle, thin and sharp. Once, twice, three times. There was a pause, then came a repeat of the first whistle. Mihali gave a satisfied nod and continued, the goats streaming behind.

  “What was that?” Anna murmured.

  “Lookout,” Andreas replied softly. “These are clever runaways.”

  The narrow passage took several abrupt twists, like a snake doubling back upon itself. Then, so suddenly it took Anna by surprise, the pass opened into a sunlit valley. Mihali’s goats swarmed ahead, bleating, but Mihali himself paused after a few steps. Koszenmarc followed cautiously, then motioned for Anna to join him.

  It is a refuge, she thought. A pocket of freedom.

  Hills ringed the valley, which was barely a mile long, with a narrow stream running through the middle. Fields of hay alternated with green, leafy crops that had to be yams. Farther down stood a cluster of houses, next to thorny enclosures with chickens and swine. And not far off came the roar of the surf breaking against an unseen shore.

  Five women stood in the fields with spears in their hands. Two more with babies in slings hung further back, but they too were armed. All of them stared at Anna and Andreas. None of them looked welcoming.

  The oldest of the women shifted her attention to the boy. “Mihali. Your sister gave the signal for friends. How are these people friends?”

  Mihali licked his lips. “They aren’t slave catchers. I know it.”

  She snorted. “Stupid boy. That doesn’t make them friends. Go. Take your goats back into the hills. As for you,” she said to Koszenmarc. “I see you have any number of fine weapons. Perhaps you might kill us, but I doubt it.”

  “I don’t want to kill,” Andreas said. “I’ve come to make a trade.”

  She regarded him with wide, bright eyes. Her hair was twisted back into a tight braid, her face cut in sharp lines. Like Mihali, she bore a scar on her left cheek. So did all the other women. “Mihali, I said go.”

  Mihali hesitated, but when his mother flipped a hand in his direction, he swung his stick around, driving the goats back into the narrow pass. Again, the woman nodded. “Very good. You didn’t kill my son before he could take his idiot self away from here. That speaks well. What kind of trade do you want?”

  “Money,” he replied.

  She gave a bark of laughter. “As if we cared about money.”

  Andreas hissed in frustration. Before he could speak, Anna laid a hand on his arm.

  “Medicine,” she said. “We have medicine to help with fever, with poisoning. We also have weapons.”

  The woman eyed her carefully. “And what do you want in return?”

  “To talk to a stranger you pulled from the ocean,” Anna said. “Nothing more. Mihali says—”

  “We found no one,” the woman said harshly. “Take your gods-be-damned bribes and go. Go before I decide I ought to kill you. You might have a pretty sword,” she said to Andreas, “and you might stink of magic,” she said to Anna, “but we aren’t helpless.”

  Anna drew a sharp breath. How had the woman known about her magic? But Andreas went on as though the woman had not interrupted. “This stranger is a friend of a friend,” he said. “We want to help.”

  He took out the coins, knives, and the tinderbox, and set them on the ground in front of him. To that, Anna added three precious vials of medicine. The woman stared at their offering for a very long moment. Anna recognized that expression. Weighing the risk to herself, to her companions, against the value of medicine and tools on this lonely island.

  Finally, she said, “If you harm this man, I will kill you myself.”

  Andreas nodded. “Fair enough. Where is he?”

  She pointed toward a house at the edge of the village. “That one. Lija took him in when no one else wanted to.”

  Anna and Andreas picked their way through the fields, down toward the house the woman had indicated. All the women continued to watch them, their spears held ready. Anna’s neck prickled with the weight of their silence.

  Lija’s house stood at the very end. It had its own garden, neatly tended, and several lines strung between the house and the forest, with washing hung out to dry. There was no door, only a wide opening with flowers around the frame.

  As they ducked inside, a woman called out, “Who are you?”

  Lija knelt on the ground next to a man who lay sprawled on a bundle of fresh hay, a pot of water and a collection of rags at her side. In spite of the bundles of dried herbs hung from the ceiling and the fresh breeze sifting through the windows, Anna caught the unmistakable scent of a wound gone bad.

  Koszenmarc must have recognized that scent as well, because he nodded at Lija briskly. “We made a trade with your friends outside,” he said. “We only want to talk with Lord Sarrész.”

  “There is no lord here, just my man. He’s taken sick.”

  “Very well. We still want to talk with him. Mihali’s mother said we might.”

  Lija stared at him and Anna. Then she slid out the door—to argue with Mihali’s mother, no doubt. But Anna’s whole attention was now fixed on the figure that lay on the floor.

  Lord Aldo Sarrész. Her quarry of so many months. He lay there, naked except for a pair of water-stained boots and a loincloth. His eyes were closed and sunk like dark pits in a grey, gaunt face. Pale stubble covered his jaw, and his hair had been chopped short. He looked nothing like the soft and elegant man she’d glimpsed in Brun’s household.

  Sarrész stared up at them. “Who are you?” he whispered. “And don’t try to pass off that miserable excuse about being a friend. I have no friends.”

  “Let us say we have several acquaintances in common,” Andreas replied. “I spent several years at Court, as did you. I also know you killed a man and stole the Emperor’s jewel. For the murder alone, you ought to face a trial. Let me have the jewel, however, and I will leave you here in peace.”

  Sarrész cursed. His voice was weak, but his vocabulary inventive. “Leave me here to die, you mean. Gods-be-damned jewel. It dropped me into the ocean a mile away from these islands. Thank the gods I can swim. Thank the gods Lija’s cousin was out with the boat that day. I’d be fine except for that fucking fish. Bit me hard right as they were about to haul me into the boat.”

  He waved a hand at his left leg. Anna immediately knelt to examine it. Sarrész cursed and tried to kick her. “Stop interfering,” she demanded. “Unless you want to die a miserable death.”

  “Does it matter?” he whispered.

  She glared at him. “Of course it does. I’ve chased you through half the western Empire, you miserable creature. I won’t let you die until I find the jewel you stole.
”

  “Wish I’d never set eyes on that damned thing,” he muttered.

  A sentiment she could agree with.

  She set to work to examine his injuries. Ribs bruised, body covered with half-healed scrapes. The right leg badly bruised. The left one, however, had a row of angry red punctures, the flesh torn and worried. Pus oozed from the wounds, and the surrounding flesh was puffy and red.

  Anna rummaged through her bag. Joszua had packed for her, but just as he’d assured her, Thea had added all the necessary items. Bandages. Powders. Vials of potions, like the ones she had used to trade with the women. Her hand closed around a small flat object wrapped in a bloodstained cloth. She stopped, disturbed by the unexpected sting of magic. A magical device? She hadn’t noticed such a thing among Thea’s stores.

  No time for that now. She set the bloody rag off to one side. More rummaging turned up a vial of that eerie blue liquid. To be used in case of dire need, said the label, marked in Thea’s neat script. Anna seized Sarrész’s nose between her fingers and dribbled a few drops over his lips. “Breathe,” she ordered.

  Sarrész sucked in a breath, gasped and shuddered. His face flushed with a brighter color and the terrible grey cast to his skin vanished. That would keep him alive while she worked. She laid both hands on his chest and called upon the magic.

  Ei rûf ane gôtter. Komen mir de strôm.

  Thea’s training and that night of terror belowdecks had done some good. She directed the flood of magic from her body into his. Sarrész stiffened, then relaxed with a soft sigh as Anna coaxed the current to sink deeper and deeper. The magic coursed through her and into Sarrész, warming his blood like the sun. She could read how fast the pain leached away by how his breathing slowed and his muscles gradually relaxed.

  Sarrész released a slow breath. “Oh, that is better. Much better.”

  Andreas leaned close to her. “Any sign?”

  “No. None at all.”

  She leaned back and covered her eyes with both hands. Perhaps the signature was simply a remnant of a spell he had purchased back on the mainland. No, that wasn’t right. And yet, she was too exhausted to pick apart the mystery.

  Koszenmarc had taken up the rag bundle she had tossed to one side. He untangled the rags and extracted a thin metal disc, with curious engravings on both sides. Frowning, he slipped the disc into his pocket. “Where is it then?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “What have you done to him?” Lija shoved her way past Koszenmarc and Anna and dropped to her knees beside Sarrész. With light, quick touches, she ran her hands over the man, as though to reassure herself. Sarrész captured her hands and kissed them.

  “You see, we haven’t murdered him,” Anna said dryly.

  The other woman glared at her.

  Well, yes. If I were a runaway slave, I’d hate strangers too.

  Andreas cleared his throat. “Back to our negotiations. Now that you’re no longer dying, my lord Sarrész, let’s discuss the jewel you stole from the Emperor.”

  Sarrész eyed them both suspiciously. “Who sent you here? The Emperor? Or was it that traitor Brun?”

  Traitor?

  Cold washed over Anna, in spite of the heat and closeness in the hut. “What do you know about Lord Brun?”

  “Too much,” Sarrész said in a low and bitter voice. “I know he offered me a fortune to steal that bauble. Ten thousand denariie for the jewel, a hundred thousand if the princess liked him well enough...”

  “You’re lying,” Anna said automatically.

  Sarrész’s gaze flickered up to Anna. “I remember you. Back in Duenne, in Brun’s house. You’re one of his people. You might want to watch out for yourself.”

  “I’m not— What do you mean?”

  He laughed, then coughed. “I mean he lied to me. He told me his precious spell would send that priest to sleep. Death was where it sent that feckless lad. Soon as I saw that, I thought, Self, you’ll be next. He wants no one alive who knows his plans, that one. So I took off to Eddalyon. Thought I might sell the jewel and start a new life.”

  Anna rocked back on her heels. No, no, she told herself. But oh, all the clues now shifted into place. The reason for this pointless secrecy. For her pretense as Lady Iljana. The true reason for Raab. Brun had paid Sarrész to steal the jewel. He wanted to present the jewel to the Emperor to gain favor, possibly win the hand of the princess. But he also wanted to make sure that no one could betray his plot.

  She stumbled to her feet and ran from the house. The women in the fields paused to stare at her. She hardly noticed them. All she knew was that she had to get away, from Sarrész, from Koszenmarc. From her own gods-be-damned self.

  “Anna! Anna Zhdanov. Please.”

  Anna stopped and doubled over, suddenly bereft of air. A long-forgotten memory reappeared, sharp and unwelcome. The day after Brun had claimed her for his bed. She’d tried to run away, but the guards had caught her before she could escape the grounds and marched her back into the house, where she’d spent a night in the cellar as punishment.

  She sucked in a long breath, then another. All was silent, except for the distant rumble of the ocean, the rustle of leaves upon leaves from the nearby jungle. Slowly, she turned around. Andreas stood a few feet away, his hands held loosely at his sides, as though to convince her he wasn’t a danger.

  “You know who I am,” she said.

  He hesitated. “Not everything. Your name. Lord Brun’s. That you and Kovács were searching for the same jewel I was.”

  Yes. He had confronted Sarrész immediately with the jewel and its theft. She had missed that before, in her relief at finally coming face-to-face with the man she had hunted for so many months. What else had Andreas Koszenmarc failed to mention? What other lies had he told her?

  “How long? Did Thea—?”

  “Thea said nothing. I heard you, that first morning, when you talked to Maté. On the island, when I left you both together.”

  She remembered that morning. She’d thought herself so clever to check for listening spells, but now she recalled those fluttering spiderwebs, the scent of old ashes carried by breezes from deep within the hillside. And in Koszenmarc’s chambers, atop the island, the whispering from the vents inside the cave. Of course, there had been no signs of magic. None were necessary, if he could overhear her conversations through such ordinary means.

  “You pretended to believe me,” Anna said. “Why?”

  He looked as uncomfortable as she felt. “The truth is, I didn’t want to put you on your guard. I hoped that if I pretended to believe you, I might overhear more of your plans. Then, when I learned that I could trust you, I hoped you would trust me enough to tell me yourself.”

  The cramp in her stomach eased a fraction. “And if I had? What then? Whatever Lord Brun intended, he meant to turn the jewel over to the Emperor.”

  “Anna, we can talk about this later, but I promise you—”

  A shout interrupted him. “Raiders!”

  Anna and Koszenmarc both jerked around. A young woman stood on a ridge to the north. “Raiders!” she called out again. “Rounding the point!”

  All the women in the field dropped their baskets and snatched up their spears. Everyone scattered in different directions into the southern hills, the young woman who had acted as lookout not far behind. Mihali’s mother paused long enough to fix Andreas with an angry stare. “Yours? Goddamn you for a lying bastard.” Then she shouted, “Lija! Raiders!” before she too vanished into the hills.

  Anna started to follow, but Andreas was heading back toward the village. “Did you hear?” she cried out. “We must go.”

  “We can’t leave Sarrész behind,” he called over his shoulder.

  For a moment, she considered abandoning him. Only for a moment. He was right, damn it. If slavers took Sarrész, they might wring the truth out of the man an
d take the jewel for themselves. Swearing under her breath, she hurried after Koszenmarc. “He likely lost that jewel in the ocean,” she muttered. “Not that I would be surprised. It’s just like him to…”

  Her voice died at the sight of two dozen men and women cresting the hills. All of them armed with short swords and knives and clubs. Her first thought was to run, to lose herself in the maze that burrowed through the hills, but a second wave of strangers had already cut off their escape. Anna pressed close to Koszenmarc’s side as the circle shrank, with them in the center. All those flat bright eyes staring at her. She could see death in her reflected image.

  A woman shouldered her way to the front. She was short—not even reaching Anna’s shoulders—but stocky and muscled. She wore dark blue trousers in the Eddalyon style and a sleeveless shirt, which exposed a tattoo running around her arm. Pale scars crisscrossed her dark face.

  “Isana Druss,” Koszenmarc said softly.

  “So I guessed,” Anna murmured.

  Druss stopped a few feet away. “Hello, my friend. How happy to see you once more.”

  Her voice was rough, her accent that of the southern provinces on the mainland, but softened by years in the islands.

  “If you are that happy, perhaps you should offer us a reward,” Koszenmarc said.

  “Hardly. But if you cooperate, I might grant you a quick clean death.”

  She glanced pointedly at his sword. He shrugged and dropped the weapon on the ground, followed by the knife from his belt. Druss nodded in satisfaction. “Karim. Yasin. Go fetch Sarrész. Which hovel is his?” she asked Koszenmarc.

  He hesitated, then pointed toward the house at the opposite end from Lija’s. Druss smirked. “Karim, you start at one end. Yasin, take the other. Lies,” she said to Koszenmarc, “are paid back in kind.”

  Anna had not let go of Koszenmarc’s hand, and now she gripped it tighter as Karim strode toward the opposite end of the village, while Yasin made for Lija’s hut. A few moments later, a noise broke out from that direction. A woman’s voice, rising in panic. A man protesting, first in Veraenen, then in Kybris. Then a thin, sharp shriek, suddenly cut off.