The Barbed Coil

by J. V. Jones

  Glancing at the harrar, Marcel let his new discovery settle around his body like a fine silk cloak, enjoying the feeling of confidence it gave him. This time when he spoke he didn’t bother to clear his throat. He had a feeling his voice would come out well. “There may be one particular place worth a look.”

  “Where?”

  “A small town house on the west side of the city, in the same street as the old milkstone martyry.”

  The harrar’s hand flicked from his waist to his knife. “Who lives there?”

  Marcel hesitated, wondering whether to give details about Emith and his elderly mother or leave matters as they were: vague. Surely there was no danger in telling? After all, the harras would probably only put a watch on their door, and what was the harm in that? Indeed, thought Marcel, he could probably get himself into worse trouble by not telling. Izgard’s men were notorious for ferreting out lies and evasions.

  Glancing from the harrar’s knife to the shelves of his own prized vintages, Marcel took an actor’s breath and then spoke. He had to think of himself first. Besides, he was rather fond of the sound of his own voice.

  Tessa was on the foredeck, leaning against the rails, the bridge house behind her and nothing but the sea in front. It was early morning and the sun shone at an oblique angle on the water, creating veins of silvery light on the surface. If she watched the shifting silver threads for long enough, she began to see patterns within their forms. Shapes winked at her, then vanished, like letters written in invisible ink.

  Frowning at her own foolishness, Tessa deliberately shifted her gaze to the sky. No clouds, no birds, no banks of lifting mist: the uniform grayness suited her just fine. She didn’t want to spot patterns wherever she looked. She wanted to look at the sky and see the sky, not some grand and intricate design.

  Pulling her cloak over her arms, she turned from the railings and moved across the deck toward the steps. Her new boots made good, slapping noises against the wood as she walked, and a handful of sailors turned to look at her as she passed. Tessa’s frown turned to a smile. She was beginning to feel at home on the ship.

  The ginger Ravis had prescribed worked. In fact, everything he had said yesterday worked: the ginger, the walking, the fresh air, and the suggestion that she familiarize herself with her surroundings. The seasickness had gone completely, and barring high storms and spoiled food, it didn’t feel as if it were coming back.

  Tessa had spent most of yesterday just walking around the deck. It felt good to be outside after so many weeks of staying in. The female passengers on the ship mostly ignored her, either sending disapproving looks her way for daring to walk around deck unaccompanied or glancing nervously at the knife she wore at her waist. Tessa quite enjoyed those glances: it amused her that people thought she might be dangerous.

  The male passengers made her thankful for Ravis’ presence. They stared at her openly, and Tessa couldn’t tell whether they were interested in the contents of her money pouch, her body, or both. Nothing she did—either staring them down, making a show of feeling for her knife, or walking away—could stop them until she mentioned loudly to a passing deckhand that her husband needed an extra pallet belowdecks. No one had bothered her since. Tessa didn’t like to think what she might have had to do if Ravis wasn’t with her. This world was no place for a woman to be on her own.

  When she had finally returned to her cabin she found Ravis still asleep. No food was supplied on board, so she had taken an apple and a wedge of cheese from her sack, eaten a quiet supper, curled up on the second pallet that the deckhand had somehow managed to squeeze into the room, then quickly fallen asleep.

  She’d woken early. Hand throbbing, muscles aching, and shivering with cold, she had brushed down her dress, clipped on her cloak, grabbed the chamber pot that had so thoughtfully been supplied with the cabin, relieved herself in the deserted silence of the latrines, then made her way above deck. The few sailors who were up and about gave her no trouble, and after she had bathed and dressed her burn, she’d gone to stand on the deck to watch the sun rise.

  The yellow, haze-stretched sun looked just the same as ever. And until Tessa spotted its first rays glowing on the horizon, she hadn’t realized how important it was for her to see it. Like the ring around her neck, it was a connection with home. It was the same sun that had shone down on her the day she’d found the security deposit boxes, she was sure of it. When she had first put on the ring in the clearing in the forest, and the world had begun to switch beneath, above, and around her, the sun may have changed angles, but its heat and light remained the same.

  Tessa didn’t know what it meant, but leaning over the railings, watching the sunlight glance off the waves, she decided it was a good thing. Her old world and her old home couldn’t be far away.

  “Just in time for breakfast.”

  Tessa spun around. Ravis was standing in the hatch that led down to the galley, steaming jug in one hand, a basket filled with bread and pastries in the other. Tessa felt a wave of pleasure seeing him, then told herself she hadn’t.

  “You will join me, won’t you?” Ravis smiled. He looked a lot better for his long sleep. “I haven’t just bribed the ship’s boy, two scullions, and a very irritable cook to eat all this by myself.”

  Finding herself smiling along with him, Tessa said, “I thought passengers had to bring their own food on board with them?”

  “Well, they do if they want to arrive in Maribane with anything more than holes in their pockets. I could have bought a chainmail vest and matching leg arms for what this stash just cost me.” Ravis stepped out of the hatch and onto the deck. “Follow me. I have it on good advice that the aft deck is the place to be at this time of day: quiet, sunny, and sheltered from the worst of the wind.”

  Ravis walked on ahead of Tessa, assuming she would follow. Tessa hesitated for a moment, wondering whether to protest his assumption by staying put or just go along with him as expected. The old Tessa McCamfrey would certainly have objected. But then, thought Tessa, planting her foot in the space just vacated by Ravis, the old Tessa McCamfrey would have missed out on breakfast.

  The aft deck was just as Ravis said it would be: quiet, warm, and sheltered. One crewman was busy adjusting the sails on the aft mast, but if he noticed Ravis and Tessa sitting on the sun-bleached bench by the railings, he didn’t show it, just kept winding in the rope and squinting into the wind.

  Ravis surprised Tessa by serving her breakfast. He pulled two square cloths from the basket and laid one on her lap, passed her a bread roll and two fat pastries, poured a brimming cup of cider and, after pausing to blow off the steam, handed it to her.

  “Is there anyone on the ship you haven’t bribed this morning?”

  Ravis grinned. “The captain, the first mate, the helmsman and the ship’s cat.” He poured himself a cup of cider. “Though in fairness, if I could have found the cat, I may well have bribed it.”

  Smiling, Tessa tore a chunk off the bread roll. While she had been spending the morning leaning against the railings, gazing out at sea, Ravis had obviously been busy arranging things belowdecks. “So that’s how things are done around here: bribery?”

  “Not just bribery, no. I always make it my business to get to know the men around me. You never know when you might need their help.”

  Tessa nodded. Everything Ravis did seemed to have a calculating edge behind it. “How are you feeling?” she asked, motioning toward his right side. “How is the wound?”

  “I won’t lie. It’s as sore as hell, but the skin’s resting flat and I think it’s starting to dry out.”

  “What about Camron? How was he when you left him?” As Tessa spoke, she broke open the pastry, checking to see what was inside. It was some kind of chopped-up sausage filling, so she put it back in the basket and broke open another. She liked to know what sort of meat she was eating.

  “Camron was in a poor way. He lost a lot of blood and his legs were cut up badly, but he’s young, strong, and where he’s
going he can be seen to by the best doctors in Rhaize.”

  Tessa tried to remember the name of the place Ravis had mentioned yesterday in the cabin. “Mir’Lor?”

  “Yes.” Ravis split open his own pastry, inspected the contents, then handed it to Tessa. “It’s where the Sire and his mother, the Countess Lianne, are. Camron’s gone to warn them about Izgard’s army, tell them what to expect when they meet the harras.”

  “And will the Sire listen to him?” Tessa examined the pastry Ravis had given her. It contained slices of ham, the meat clearly identifiable, packed between layers of pale yellow cheese. She was quietly impressed. Not only had Ravis been watching what she was doing, he had guessed the reason behind it.

  “Sandor is not a stupid man, but he’s not a clever one, either. He’ll listen if enough people tell him to.”

  “You know him?”

  Ravis shrugged. “I’ve met him once or twice.”

  “Why didn’t you go to Mir’Lor instead of Camron? If you know the Sire, surely he would listen to you?”

  Ravis made a hard sound in his throat. “The Sire of Rhaize would not listen to any warning given by a mercenary.”

  Tessa looked up from her pastry. Even though the sunlight shone down on his face, Ravis’ eyes were the darkest she had ever seen them. His bottom lip moved minutely, and she realized that inside his mouth, he was chewing on his scar.

  The sailor who had been adjusting the sails picked that moment to take his leave. After knotting the rope around the lanyard, he stripped off his gloves, spat over his shoulder, and leapt from the masthead to the main deck below.

  When Tessa’s gaze returned to Ravis, she caught him with his hand around his ribs. He grabbed the fabric of his tunic as soon as he realized she was looking at him; made as if he were straightening his clothes rather than easing his wound. Tessa pretended she hadn’t noticed anything and took a deep draft of her cider. Later she would make sure he got some rest.

  “What do you think Izgard will do next?” she asked.

  “Izgard will push for Bay’Zell as quickly as he can. He won’t be pleased that Camron and I are still alive, and he’ll be worried about what harm we can do him now that we know what sort of men he’s fighting with.”

  “I think he’ll be worried about me, too.” As Tessa spoke, she pulled the edges of her cloak together. Her voice sounded unfamiliar to her: serious and firm. “Someone spotted me when I drew the pattern. They looked into my eyes and saw my face. They knew I was trying to work against them.”

  Ravis nodded slowly. “Then that makes three of us Izgard’s after.”

  Tessa shivered. A sharp spasm of pain coursed up her arm from her burn. She almost expected the sun to slip behind a cloud, but it didn’t, just kept shining down on the bench, her cheek, and Ravis’ face.

  The ship’s timbers creaked all around them and the sea had a sound all its own, yet to Tessa everything suddenly seemed too quiet, and she spoke to fill the imagined silence. “What do you know about sorcery?”

  Ravis ran a hand through his hair, thinking a moment before answering. “Not much—rumors, hearsay, like everyone else. Sorcery is like the devil: some people think it exists, some don’t, and no one wants to talk about it either way. Years, decades, even centuries pass with no mention of it. A thousand years ago in Drokho they burned old women who lived on their own, saying they were witches who had communion with demons. Five hundred years later every Maribane scribe on the continent was hunted down and hanged. The Holy League claimed they summoned devils as they painted.”

  Ravis shrugged. “The stories still carry to this day. You can walk around any town or village in Rhaize and Drokho and find people who are afraid of scribes, old spinsters, and holy men from the Anointed Isle.”

  “But there is some truth to the stories, isn’t there?” Tessa pushed aside her food as she spoke. She wasn’t hungry anymore. “Deveric is proof of that—I am.”

  “I don’t think you’ll find many people on the Anointed Isle willing to admit it. They’re very careful these days about what they do and say. Officially they don’t even admit to scribing the old-style patterns anymore. They paint pretty pictures now, with proper subjects: landscapes, portraits of the great holy men, recognizable plants and flowers. Nothing shocking or abstract. Their work is still sought after on the continent, though, and I’ve seen people pay good money for a manuscript transcribed and illuminated by their holy men.”

  “Yet Deveric learned how to draw the old-style patterns there,” Tessa said, “and so did the man I’m going to see: Brother Avaccus.”

  Taking a deep draft of cider, she looked out toward the horizon as she listened to Ravis’ reply. Even though his voice was pitched low it carried well over the sound of the sea.

  “Izgard’s scribe was trained there as well. And Izgard himself has exchanged letters with the abbot.” Ravis eased himself forward on the bench. “We have to be careful when we get there. Garizon and the Anointed Isle have had a long association with each other. They share secrets, histories, God knows what else. When Hierac himself needed some patterns scribed, he commissioned an Anointed Isle scribe to do the job.”

  “Hierac?” Tessa felt like a fool. There was so much she didn’t know.

  “The greatest war king Garizon has ever known. Or the worst, depending on who’s writing the history books.” Ravis poured cider into Tessa’s cup. Tessa was surprised to see it was empty. Had she drunk that much already?

  “Hierac was the first man to wear the Barbed Coil,” Ravis continued. “Before his reign Garizon was nothing more than a poor duchy surrounded by uncleared forests, with no major waterways to call its own. Hierac built it up field by field, league by league, stream by stream. There was no stopping him. His army was ruthless, his strategies as cool as a blade packed in ice. By the time he died Garizon wasn’t just a country. It was an empire.”

  “Did he take over Bay’Zell?”

  “Not just Bay’Zell, but all of Rhaize. The Istanians ruled most of the continent at the time, and Hierac broke their hold on it. He drove them out of Rhaize, Drokho, Medran, Balgedis, and Maribane. He killed millions of people. Millions. Even so, there were many who were glad to see him come—rather a Garizon overlord than an Istanian. At least Garizon was one of their own.”

  “But I thought Istania was just across the sea from Bay’Zell? Surely that counts as part of the continent?”

  “The country does, but its ruling classes don’t. They originally came from the distant east, across the stretch of barren land that rings the Gulf. Their language and customs were foreign to the west, and they were cruel in different ways from Hierac and his Garizon warlords.”

  The bench Ravis and Tessa were sitting on was covered by a fine layer of sea salt, and while Ravis spoke, Tessa found herself tracing a design in the dust. “What happened after Hierac died?”

  “Other Garizon kings followed. Some were greater than others, but all pushed for territory: for trade routes, for cold-water ports, then warm-water ports, for passes and rivers and land. Hierac may have been the first of the great Garizon war kings, but he definitely wasn’t the last.”

  As Ravis said the word last, Tessa put the final flourish on her pattern in the salt. It was crude, with thick, fingertip-wide lines, yet the design was unmistakable: it was the ring she wore around her neck. She hadn’t realized what she was drawing until Ravis stopped speaking. Unnerved, she swept her hand across the pattern, wiping it out. “Let’s take a walk around the deck,” she said, standing.

  If Ravis was surprised at her request, he didn’t show it. He merely inclined his head, gathered the breakfast things into the basket, and came to stand at her side. “Lead the way.”

  Tessa led Ravis down to the main deck. Remembering his injury, she moved slowly, feeling guilty at making him walk. The sea was calm, and the ship hardly rocked at all beneath Tessa’s feet. Every passenger and crewman on the ship seemed to be above deck, and children ran yelling along the main deck while sailo
rs worked on the sails and women worked on themselves. The woman with the veil that covered her eyebrows was busy patting powder and something that looked like pig’s lard onto her face, and farther up the deck, two old ladies were soaking their feet in barrels of warm, soapy water.

  It was turning out to be a fine day. The sky was very blue and the wind was high enough to fill the sails, nothing more. There was no land in sight, and after a while Tessa gave up trying to spot any. It was more interesting watching people’s reactions to Ravis.

  His presence drew some sort of response from everyone they passed. He had a way of meeting people’s eyes, of forcing them to look at him and then holding their gaze until they were obliged to look away. The woman with the veil had sneered at him, but Tessa also noticed that she drew in her breath and smoothed down her dress as he approached. The two old women laughed nervously as he walked by, bobbing their heads and smiling quick, worried smiles.

  It was partly his scar, Tessa supposed. It made him look dangerous, hardened. And his coloring was so much darker than the fair-skinned, fair-haired people of Bay’Zell. She could tell they thought he was a foreigner. In fact, she had a feeling that was exactly how Ravis wanted to look. The dark clothing he wore only enhanced his foreignness. He was the one man on the ship dressed in black.

  For some reason, as she walked alongside him, Tessa found herself thinking about the night he’d kissed her. Six weeks ago now, yet it seemed like much longer. She wasn’t the same person anymore. Living with Emith and his mother had altered the way she looked at things, made her realize that being tough and self-sufficient wasn’t everything.

  Ravis hadn’t realized that yet. Every glance he gave was designed to say, I don’t want or need your good opinion or respect.

  Feeling an odd mixture of emotions, and remembering the feeling of Ravis’ lips against hers, Tessa slipped her hand through his arm.