by J. V. Jones
Nothing and no one.
Tessa felt a prickling sensation at the back of her neck. Against her will, she remembered the journey through the forest. She remembered thinking how she never seemed to get where she wanted to go. She glanced through the window to the city beyond. Had she finally got here at last?
Slowly, very slowly, Tessa’s hand came up to grasp the ring. The outer barbs had lost their bite and her fingertips could press against them without fear of piercing the skin. Grasping the ring between thumb and index finger, she began to pull it off. Pain stung her bone as she twisted the band up toward the knuckle. Then, as the inner barbs broke free of the skin and the ring slid along her finger, Tessa felt a shearing sensation pass along her body. Noises, light as feathers, skimmed past her ears and a warm breath of air glided across her face.
As soon as the ring was free of her finger everything stopped. Tensed, ready for something she could neither name nor imagine, Tessa felt only relief when she found nothing had changed.
She was still in Widow Furbish’s parlor. Mosquitoes still pestered and the oil lamp still smoked.
Drops of dried blood were set within the latticework of the ring like jewels. Their presence changed the pattern, making it easier to follow with the eye. The gold threads now had markers.
“Here we are! Found the dress. The color’s a little wanting, but the quality of the fabric is second to none.” Widow Furbish burst in the room, brandishing something that looked like a horse blanket. “Here,” she said, thrusting the shapeless cloth into Tessa’s hands. “Feel the quality.”
Tessa closed her fist around the ring. Widow Furbish’s sharp eyes caught the movement. “Very nice,” said Tessa, speaking to distract her. “Very . . . er . . . durable.”
“Durable! Durable! Why, this is fine Taire wool. Worth more than any fancy linen blouse from overseas.” Widow Furbish looked pointedly at Tessa’s fist. “Worth over two gold crowns at market.”
“A deal is a deal, Widow Furbish. The dress in exchange for my clothes. Nothing more.”
Widow Furbish’s mouth hovered like a wasp contemplating a sting. Her left hand plucked at the strings of her eyepatch.
“However,” Tessa said, surprising herself with the shift of her thoughts, “if you can get me something to draw with and a clean sheet of paper, you can have one of these.” Reaching up, Tessa unclipped a gold earring from her ear. She held it out toward Widow Furbish.
“Paper?”
Tessa thought for a moment. “Parchment, slate—anything will do.”
“I’ve got a length of charcoal and a smoothed hide.” Widow Furbish took the earring. “Though the hide alone is worth the pair.”
Nodding, Tessa unclipped the second earring. “Bring them now while I try on the dress.”
As soon as the woman left the room, Tessa opened her fist. She didn’t know why, but all of a sudden she had a strong desire to try to copy the separate threads in the ring. It was the blood, she supposed. It gave the gold depth by adding contrast, made the whole thing easier to see. Tessa felt as if she could trace the lines to their source and discover the design behind the curves.
Quickly she shrugged off her clothes. With the shutters open the parlor was cold and she wasted no time pulling the dress over her head. The fabric was rough, but her skin had already been assaulted by fleas and dive-bombed by mosquitoes, so a little coarse wool was merely one irritation more. The dress didn’t come even close to fitting. It was made for a woman shorter, plumper, and—Tessa judged—more thick-skinned than she. Briefly it occurred to her to ask Widow Furbish to take it in, but she rejected that idea. Despite the sign outside the door, the lady of the house couldn’t look less like a seamstress.
“Charcoal. Bleached cow’s hide.” Widow Furbish reentered the room and handed over the items. Looking Tessa up and down, she sniffed with satisfaction. “Decent at last, I see.”
Tessa ran her fingers over the hide: it was very rough. “Is there anywhere I can be alone?”
“There’s the stock room—but I’m not lighting a fire, and I can only give you tallow, not a lamp.”
Not really sure what tallow was, Tessa nodded. “Sounds fine. I just want somewhere quiet to work.”
“Quiet? Why on earth would you want anywhere quiet?” Widow Furbish looked genuinely perplexed. She shrugged. “Ah well. Follow me.”
The stock room was filled with bolts of clothes, pincushions, reels of thread, and ribbons. As soon as Widow Furbish left—mumbling warnings about touching the wares and pilfering the trim—Tessa placed the hide on a chest and knelt beside it. Tallow turned out to be some kind of candle, only smokier, and she brought the flame forward to better inspect the ring.
Knees resting on floorboards covered in hay, eyes squinting from the smoke, and palms damp with sweat, Tessa began to draw. The charcoal was brittle and inclined to break. The hide was rough and knotted; odd hairs from the cow still clung to the underside, and the flesh side was creased with lines. Nothing mattered. Tessa sketched on and on. Tracing and retracing, studying, smudging, judging angles and curves: trying to copy the ring.
She drew for hours. At first she was tense, waiting for the first telltale signs of tinnitus to reappear, but after a while, when the only sounds reaching her ears were the distant hoot of an owl and the creaking of cooling wood, she began to relax, letting her newfound freedom work its way onto the page.
F O U R
A re both men dead?” Izgard of Garizon shrugged off his crown of gold. Some kings, it was said, had bled to death after wearing the Coil. Izgard’s skin wasn’t even broken.
The scribe Ederius looked tired and ill. The moment he hesitated, Izgard knew something was wrong. “Tell me, my friend,” Izgard said, bringing a hand up to rest on Ederius’ shoulder, “what happened?”
Ederius was old and thin and silver haired. His flesh shook beneath Izgard’s palm. “Sire, something went wrong—a miscalculation, a mistiming, a curve gone awry.”
Izgard’s fingers idled along the scribe’s collarbone. “You wouldn’t tell me they are both still alive.”
“No, sire,” Ederius said quickly, his whole body shrinking from the touch of his king. “One is dead. The raid on Castle Bess went as planned.”
“And the son?”
“The son was left alive.”
Izgard nodded, once. “Good.”
They were in Ederius’ makeshift scriptorium. Pots of powders, dyes, inks, and brushes huddled on trestle tables, scenting the air with a chemical tang. The largest windows in the fortress, cut barely a month ago to Ederius’ exact requirements, were shuttered for the night, and three custom-made candelabras blazed in place of the sun.
“It was the first killing that didn’t go as planned,” Ederius said, his feet scraping softly against the bare stone floor. Rushes were seldom spread in a scriptorium—the vermin they harbored could distract a scribe during a vital penstroke, causing a break in concentration that might take hours to rebuild.
“I thought everything was in place,” Ederius continued. “I was sure I’d done my part.”
“What went wrong?”
“Sire, I do not know. The harras turned up as planned, but the man wasn’t there.”
“You were supposed to ensure he was there.” Izgard’s voice was soft enough to soothe a fretful baby. His fingers continued drumming along the scribe’s left collarbone.
“I made the illumination . . . I felt it working. I thought all was going well.” Ederius attempted to shrug, but Izgard pressed hard on his bone and wouldn’t let him. “I was weary, and I had to draw a second illumination to strengthen the harras—we had to be sure they would defeat the guards at Castle Bess.”
“So you rushed the first illumination?”
“No, sire. No.” Ederius actually managed to sound indignant. “The pattern was a simple one. There was no need to rush it.”
Izgard took a thin breath and said, “Let me understand this: you are telling me that you did your part and the harr
as did theirs? So how then did our old friend escape?”
“I do not think escape is the right word, sire. Just as I began the second pattern I felt something—what I can’t be sure—but someone or something intervened on his behalf.”
“Why then did you not take measures to stop it?” Izgard’s voice was a whisper now. His fingers pitter-pattered along the scribe’s shoulder.
“At the time I wasn’t sure, I—”
Izgard slammed the heel of his hand into Ederius’ collar. The bone split as easily as rotten timber, and it made the same damp, muffled crack. The scribe screamed. His hand shot up to his collar. Fingertips black with ink grasped at the knot of bone. Pigment pots rolled along the desk, some smashing to the floor.
Izgard drew his fist to his chest and held it there. He wanted to strike Ederius again. The desire was strong—stronger than the times before—and for a moment his whole body shook as he fought it.
The scribe collapsed downward in his chair, shuddering and crying softly. Watching him, Izgard was struck by the way the light from the candles shone upon the old man’s skin. Ederius looked like a painting by one of the great Veizach masters. This observation calmed Izgard, and after a moment he trusted himself enough to reach out and touch the scribe. “Ssh, Ederius. Ssh.”
The bone was broken. A jagged point pressed against the coarse wool of Ederius’ tunic. Even as the scribe’s eyes filled with tears, he let himself be calmed by his king, nuzzling his cheek against Izgard’s palm and pressing his lips together to hold back cries of pain.
Izgard fought back a stab of regret, reminding himself that the man had deserved the blow. “The pain will pass,” he said after a moment, touching Ederius’ jaw to force him to look up. “You should know enough about my position by now to realize that I cannot afford to let anyone who fails me go unpunished.” He waited for Ederius to nod. “Good. I will send the surgeon to you at once.”
Izgard ran his finger down Ederius’ throat, pausing to smooth a flap of loose skin that hung from the scribe’s jaw like a yellowing leaf, and then walked across the room. The man’s muffled whimpering accompanied him to the door. “By the way,” Izgard said, spinning around upon the threshold, “I expect you to be back at your scribing desk by dawn.”
He didn’t bother to wait upon an answer. His point was made.
Izgard took a deep breath as soon as the door clicked shut. He was surprised to find himself trembling. When he first struck the scribe there had been a moment when he felt out of control. Something inside of him had not wanted to stop.
Letting the air roll out of his lungs, Izgard forced himself to shrug. His anger had been justified. Ederius needed to realize that things were different now. They were no longer friends. The time when the Barbed Coil drove them closer had passed. All those years spent planning, struggling, and fighting had finally paid off. They had both got what they wanted: Ederius had exclusive rights to study the Coil; and he had exclusive rights to wear it. Whatever happened in the months to come, neither could claim the other had stepped forward blindly.
Not liking where his thoughts were heading, Izgard swept them away with a snap of his wrist. He was king now. And kings had no friends, only servants.
Besides, Ederius would recover soon enough. Izgard had made sure of that: he seldom struck a blow that wasn’t planned. A broken collarbone was painful in the extreme, but it wasn’t seriously debilitating. In choosing the left side, Izgard had ensured the scribe would still be able to use his right hand to lean on and scribe as normal. The pain might bother him. Drugs were out of the question; they might slow his mind and impair his work, endangering long-term plans and sudden strikes.
Walking through the low, barreled passages of Sern Fortress, Izgard turned his thoughts to his coronation. It had been a simple affair: no processions, no fanfares, no show. Only those whose presence was absolutely necessary had attended. Lecturs, warlords, counselors, and enemies: everyone who held power was kept close. The ceremony itself was brief. The choir sung their prayers over the rumble of supply carts, the clerics chanted their blessings to the hammering of nails. Even the sacred oil had been anointed with haste.
Until ten days ago everyone had thought the coronation would take place in Veizach. The capital was the usual site for such stately affairs. Not this time, though. Matters of war took precedence over pomp.
Sern was a mountain castle. Hard as rock, plain as stone, impenetrable as the very mountain it clung to. Its walls had been standing for over five hundred years, and not once in that time had an invading force managed to breach them. The fortress itself had been hewn from the face of Mount Iviss. The ramparts had been known to sheet with ice in midwinter, but the north wind always passed them right by. No one could build a fortress like a Garizon.
Izgard permitted himself a small, satisfied smile. Useful though Sern’s defenses were, it was its position at the foot of the Vorce Mountains that had lured him here for his king-making. Half a day’s march from the Rhaize border, two days’ march to Mount Creed: it was the perfect position from which to mount an attack.
It wasn’t enough to be crowned king of Garizon—one had to spill the blood of one’s enemy to keep the throne. The thorns on the Barbed Coil bit outward as well as in.
And Ederius, old man and mystic, illuminator and scribe, was the one who would ensure each barb dealt only mortal blows.
“My lord,” came a high, breathless voice from behind.
Izgard tensed. He was not in the mood for tears and childish tantrums tonight. He had meetings to attend, battle plans to finalize: war and the Garizon crown walked hand in hand. Without looking around, he said, “Go to your chamber, Angeline.”
Light footsteps tapped a path to his heels. “Can’t I come with you?”
Izgard felt a hand grasping for his. Pulling his own hand away, he hissed, “I want to be alone tonight.”
“But, Izgard, Gerta said—”
“I don’t care what that old maid of yours said. Leave me now.” Izgard spun around to face his wife. Her pale child’s mouth was trembling. Her pale blue eyes were already filling with tears. She was as exquisite and transparent as a jewel, and without her he could not have taken the throne.
Angeline of Halmac owned a third of Garizon land. This past year her family had been hounded by tragedy, and now only the womenfolk were left.
Last summer her father, the great land baron Willem of Halmac, had burned to death. Like many foolish men who spent their youths in the lower south fighting the Shrine Wars, Halmac suffered from periodic bouts of wet fever. During a particularly bad attack, his physician had ordered that Halmac be closely bound in brandy-soaked cloth to encourage sweating. Every night a cleric came and bound him, sewing the linen strips around his torso and his limbs. One night the poor man drew his candle too close and a lick of flame caught the cloth. The bandages ignited and Willem of Halmac was engulfed by flames. As the cleric tore off the bindings, Halmac’s skin came with it.
Both men perished that night. Halmac died screaming in agony, while the cleric wisely killed himself, jumping off old Banas Bridge into the cold black water of the Veize.
Most said he got off lightly. In this country, where the forests ran like rivers and the pastures curved more gently than a thousand open palms, land barons were second only to God.
Angeline’s brother had died two months later. Blind, stinking drunk, he’d choked on his own vomit in a tavern in Veizach’s Arlish Quarter.
The physicians called it a terrible tragedy.
Izgard called it fate.
A soft sob escaped Angeline’s lips, stirring Izgard from his memories. She held out a plump hand, hesitant, like a child touching something she thought might bite. “Don’t send me away,” she said. “I get so lonely here on my own.”
Despite everything, Izgard felt himself weakening. Sickened, he pushed her from him. Angeline’s bottom lip trembled as she tried, very hard, not to cry.
Shadows flickered in the far corridor. Peop
le were heading toward them. Izgard’s gaze shot from the shadows to his wife. He had no choice but to play the part of a loving husband. Even here, a hundred leagues west of Veizach and its ever-vigilant court, in a mountain fortress designed to let in neither enemies nor light, certain appearances had to be maintained.
“Come, my love,” Izgard murmured, offering Angeline his arm. “Let us share a cup of wine before we retire.” The words burned as they slid down his throat. He could no longer understand what he had once seen in his wife. What at one time he had admired as childlike innocence, he now realized was plain simple-mindedness, nothing more. Gaining possession of the Coil had helped him see that more clearly.
Izgard marched Angeline to his chambers, his fingers bearing down upon her arm. They crossed paths with two lords who knelt before them, yet Izgard spared them not a passing glance. Anger beat at the pulse points in his jaw as his eyes focused directly ahead.
Today he had been crowned a king, yet his queen was no more than a childish little girl. He wished he could be rid of her, but a suspicious death too soon after a marriage might result in the loss of both the Halmac lands and his crown. And he had worked far too long and hard bringing his country together to let one small act of personal satisfaction get in his way. Only when old scores were settled and new victories were won could he safely turn a dagger to her throat.
“You have to kiss me, Izgard,” Angeline murmured as they approached the entrance to his chamber. “Gerta says we don’t kiss nearly as much as we used to.” Her breath plumed hot on his cheek and her breasts pushed hard against his side. Izgard felt his body respond to her touch and was powerless to stop it. Briefly he found himself thinking back to their betrothment. Had there actually been a time when he’d wanted her as much as her land?
Although the two sentries who guarded the door looked away, Izgard did not prevent his wife’s tongue from curling down his neck.
