The Barbed Coil

by J. V. Jones

  The fist at Ravis’ side shook so violently, it made the rest of his body shake with it.

  “He said our father’s property was his now, and to split it would diminish it. A great estate like Burano had to be preserved intact. He told me I wasn’t made for the land. Told me I was a born fighter and should go away and fight.” Ravis’ voice dropped abruptly, as if he himself could hardly believe what he was saying. When he spoke again he sounded as confused as a child who had grabbed something shiny only to find that it burned. “Offered me five hundred pieces of gold and pointed the way to the gate.”

  Tessa swallowed hard. Her eyes ached. Stretching out her hand, she touched Ravis’ arm. “I’m sorry.”

  Ravis reacted to the words as if they were acid. Snapping back his arm, he pushed himself off from the railing and turned to walk away. “Don’t be sorry for me,” he said. “I made sure I got my revenge.”

  Spying a handful of drunks on the nearing street corner, Emith scurried across the road to avoid them. He had two hot, butter-drenched lobsters wrapped in grease cloth in his hand. And if the drunks got as much as a single whiff of them, his mother’s favorites wouldn’t stand a rowboat’s chance in a storm of ever making it home.

  Mother really loved lobster, you see. She only said she didn’t to Marcel of Vailing to stop him from asking questions about Tessa. Mother was good at things like that—far better than he himself. Which was just as well, really. Every household needed one person capable of showing troublesome guests the door. Not that Marcel was bad, of course. He just had a way of asking questions in his commanding banker’s voice that made it impossible not to give answers.

  Well, nearly impossible. Emith had yet to meet the person who could get Mother to say anything she didn’t have a mind to.

  Smiling, Emith clutched the package containing the lobster to his chest. He didn’t want them going cold before he got home. It wasn’t often Mother had lobster, and it was even less often that it arrived on her doorstep shelled, hot, and ready to eat. It would be a nice treat for her and one Emith hoped would cheer her up.

  Mother had been lonely since Tessa left. Oh, she tried to hide it—this morning alone she’d gutted enough fish and peeled enough onions to make a mountain of herring bake—but she was all the same. Emith knew it. She couldn’t fool him. He saw the way she stared into the fire and never once wiped the tears from her cheek when the onions made her cry.

  Mother missed Tessa. They both did. Tessa was so full of life, so strong. The house just wasn’t the same without her.

  Emith had tried various things to cheer his mother up. Last night he had opened their second-best flask of arlo, lit wax candles instead of tallow, and picked out her favorite tunes on his fiddle. He wasn’t a very good player, but that didn’t matter to Mother. In her mind she heard the music as if it were played by angels—he knew it because she had told him so a very long time ago. And Emith never forgot things like that.

  No matter what she heard, though, it had only seemed to make her sadder. So Emith had decided that tonight they would have a makeshift feast: lobsters, a nip or two of the berriac that was kept in the back of the larder for feast days, medical emergencies, and special guests, and this time no music, just some tale telling instead. Mother liked to be read to, and Emith still had a few of Master Deveric’s books lying around the house. One of these days he really must return to Fale and hand them over to Master Rance.

  It was just getting dark as Emith turned into his street. Two shadowy figures passed him by on the far side of the road. Emith paid them little heed: they looked in too much of a hurry to bother a man about lobster. Besides, this street was a safe one, unlike other parts of the city. He would never have agreed to work five days a week in Fale if he hadn’t been sure of that.

  Working out the earliest day in his head when Tessa might arrive back from Maribane, Emith made his way to the house. It just might be possible that Tessa could be back in less than nine days’ time. If he remembered rightly, the passage only took three days, and Tessa as a laywoman would only be allowed to stay one night on the Anointed Isle itself. The abbot was very strict about things like that.

  Feeling excited about the idea of telling his mother that there was a chance Tessa could be back earlier than they first thought, Emith made his way to the back of the house.

  Mother had a front door, but in the thirty-four years she had lived here, Emith had only seen it open once. That was the day Mother’s sister, Aunt Pelish, had arrived from Mir’Lor to stay for a month. At the time her own house was being refurbished with the latest and most fashionable of amenities—a red brick oven—and Mother said she was far too grand to enter via the yard.

  The smell of lye and quicklime bristled at Emith’s nostrils the moment he opened the yard gate. Judging from the faint sweetness accompanying the smell, the hides would soon be ready to be scraped. Nowadays he didn’t need nearly as much parchment as when he’d worked with Master Deveric, but old habits died hard. Making parchment was a link to his old life with Master Deveric, and the idea of giving it up was as unthinkable to Emith as jumping into the sea in midwinter. He was a scribe’s assistant, and although he had no scribe to work for and, with Tessa gone, no one to train, he still had to do his job. It was what made him who he was.

  Shouting out to his mother he was home, Emith reached for the door.

  It was ajar. A narrow band of light spilled out onto the cobbles.

  Emith frowned. Surely he hadn’t left it open?

  Grabbing the handle, he opened it fully, then stepped into the kitchen.

  A cool breath of air replaced the smell of lye with something else, like wet animal fur, only stronger. Something sticky caught at the sole of Emith’s shoe, and he looked down to see what it was. A hard knot twisted in his stomach. The package of lobster meat in his hand suddenly felt as cold and greasy as pig fat left overnight in the yard.

  Almost unaware of what he was doing, Emith shook his head. Just because the stain was red didn’t mean it was blood. . . . It could be one of his pigments—he was always spilling those—or one of Mother’s raspberry sauces.

  “Mother?” Although he hadn’t intended it, the word turned to a question in his mouth.

  The room was dim. The fire was burning low, and no lamps had been lit. The knot in Emith’s stomach rippled into a liquid band as he looked over to his mother’s chair. The back of her head was visible above the headrest. Even from behind, Emith could tell her hair was mussed.

  “Mother?”

  There was no response.

  She was resting, that was it. Just like her to be resting the one day he returned home with cooked lobster.

  Smiling faintly and shaking his head, Emith crossed to the fire. Other red stains pulled at his soles, but he tried not to think about them. He’d clean them up later, after he’d woken Mother. As he took the last few steps toward her chair, Emith twisted the package of lobster meat in his hands. He twisted it so hard, butter squeezed through the cloth.

  A trickle of grease ran down his thumb as he spun around to face his mother.

  A short noise, like something broken, escaped from his lips. His grip gave way on the lobster meat and the package hit the floor.

  Mother was covered in something. Covered.

  Emith sprang forward. How could she sit there, sleeping, and not be aware of it? Even as part of his brain formed that thought, another part warned him that something was terribly wrong. He pushed the idea away.

  She was resting, that was all.

  “Mother,” he called, trying to roll saliva in his mouth so he could spit on his sleeve and wipe the dark stuff from her chin. No saliva would come, though. His mouth was completely dry.

  Collapsing at the foot of the chair, Emith hugged his mother’s lap and begged her to wake up. She didn’t hear him. He grabbed at her wrist to shake it, and as he did so a scrap of paper fell from her grip.

  Emith recognized it straight away. It was a copy of Tessa’s bill of passage to M
aribane. Mother had scrunched it up into a very tight ball, as if she had been trying to hide it. The bill contained all the details about Tarrier, its tonnage and ports of call, and Mother had insisted on keeping it close in case anything should happen to Tessa’s ship. Anyone holding a bill of passage would be sure of receiving disaster information first.

  Emith picked up the scrap of paper, smoothed it flat in his hand, and then slipped it onto Mother’s side table, where she liked all her important things to be kept. That done, he turned back to Mother and sat and waited for her to wake up, until the dairyman found him the next morning and forced him to come away.

  T W E N T Y

  T arrier had a smooth and peaceful voyage to Maribane. There was no bad weather or high winds, no close brushes with jagged rocks, sea creatures, or pirates. Just long days and short nights and sunsets that were broad and blood red.

  Tessa lost count of how many days she had been aboard the ship—certainly more than seven, but surely not as many as ten. The extreme monotony of the days made them hard to track: they all felt like one and the same. Up at dawn, breakfast, walk around the deck, midday meal, sit on the deck, evening meal, and then bed.

  Talking to Ravis was the only thing that broke the monotony, but ever since the day he had spoken about the fight for his father’s estate, Ravis had been subdued. He had made it clear that he didn’t want to discuss his past any further and had kept all talk impersonal since. He wasn’t rude exactly, just guarded. The stories he told were never about Drokho, and the people he mentioned were casual acquaintances or former employers, never family or friends.

  His wound got better, but slowly. Pain kept him awake late at night, made him toss and turn and throw off his sheets. Even now, a week later, sudden movements could still make him wince. The burn on Tessa’s palm was healing well, and scabbed skin broke off in flakes revealing a hard, raised scar beneath. Tessa hated to look at it. When she ran her finger over the scarred tissue, it didn’t feel as if she was touching herself at all. All sensation had gone.

  Thanks to Ravis’ powers of persuasion, they had been well taken care of along the way. At least once a day the ship’s boy would knock at the cabin door, bearing a tray loaded with fresh bread, hot cider, and joints of meat. Tessa couldn’t be sure whether or not Ravis was still bribing the crew for food; his purse never looked any lighter.

  “Land ahoy off the port side!”

  Tessa turned to see who was shouting. It wasn’t a seaman. It was a young boy imitating one, but when she followed his gaze port side she saw he was right: land, a hazy gray wall of it, looming to the northwest of the ship. Something tingled in her stomach. Maribane. Another journey ended.

  Making her way to the foredeck, Tessa pushed past excited women and children, dodged deckhands, and gave all male passengers a wide berth. She was at home on the ship now, sure of herself in every way. Even her long skirts no longer hampered her, and she scrambled up ladders and jumped from deck to deck with the skill of an old hand. Ravis laughed at her sometimes. Told her she’d never make a proper Rhaize lady. The words might have been an insult, but Tessa had a feeling they weren’t.

  The midday sun beat down on the crown of her head as she leaned over the ship’s railings and tilted her body out to sea. A seagull shrieked overhead—the first one in days—and Tessa convinced herself the air was fresher, less salty, now that land was in sight.

  “There’s a sight to warm a man’s blood.”

  Hearing Ravis’ voice behind her, Tessa nodded without turning to greet him. “Wonderful, isn’t it? How long before we get there?”

  A warm, throaty laugh sounded from behind. “It wasn’t the land I was admiring.”

  Embarrassed, Tessa swung about and stepped back from the railings. She tried to issue an indignant snort, but it ended up sounding more like a peeved squeak instead. Ravis always managed to throw her off guard.

  He smiled. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

  “Yes, you did. That’s exactly what you meant to do.” Spying a crease in her skirt, Tessa went about smoothing it with venom. The purse at her waist jingled as she moved.

  “Have you got all your belongings from belowdecks?” Ravis asked. “Right about now, when everyone is so excited by the sight of land that they forget their own good sense, is when most thievery takes place.”

  Still irritated, Tessa motioned toward the pack at her foot. “I carry all my things around with me. When will we dock?”

  Ravis gazed out to sea. “Not as soon as you think. That land over there isn’t close to where we’re headed. We won’t dock until a good few hours after dark.”

  Ravis was right; Tarrier didn’t pull into port until the moon was high and the sky was completely black. The approaching dock was ablaze with torches, and standing where she was right at the prow of the ship, Tessa could smell their smoke and feel their bitter fumes sting her eyes. Rowboats clustered around the ship’s hull, some drawing so close that she wondered how they managed to avoid harm. All sails except the aft had been reefed, and Tarrier glided into port with little help from the waiting tugs.

  Only a mild wind blew, but somehow the night managed to be the coldest of the voyage so far, and Tessa had her cloak tied at the neck and chest. The lights of Kilgrim were muted compared to Bay’Zell’s, and the town seemed scattered and loose, with buildings dotted across the surrounding hills, robbing the town of central focus. Ravis said Kilgrim was a wayport, not a real destination in itself—just a place people passed through on their way to somewhere else.

  Tessa hadn’t seen Ravis for over an hour. He was probably plying the crew for information about the best place to spend the night, eat, and hire horses. He was always busy with things like that.

  As she looked on, the ship drew alongside the dock. Longshoremen jumped across from the wharf, and the crew threw ropes and secured lines. The Maribane men had strange voices, harsh and guttural, and they swore outrageous curses, pausing only to bow low to the ladies and wink at any awestruck child.

  Within minutes the ship was transformed. Everyone was on the move: passengers, seamen, longshoremen. Hawkers boarded the ship and did brisk business selling hot pies and cold beer to people who had seen neither in over a week.

  Tessa held back from the crush. The blazing torches, harsh cries, and flickering shadows made her uneasy. They reminded her of the battle amid the stones. Without being aware of what she was doing, she drew her burned palm up to her face. The skin was hot against her cheek.

  “I thought I’d find you here.”

  Tessa jumped at the words, even though she realized straight away it was Ravis. He had changed clothes since she had seen him last, slicked back his hair, and put a shine to his boots.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. Not waiting for an answer, he held out his hand. “Here, let me take your pack.”

  Tessa handed it over. She didn’t feel in the mood to make a point by insisting on carrying it herself.

  As their hands met over the rough canvas of the pack, Ravis said, “There’s no need to be afraid, you know. I’ll be with you all the way.”

  Tessa hadn’t heard him speak so softly since the day on the quarterdeck by the railings. She met his gaze for a moment, long enough to see that he meant what he said, and then turned on her heel and stalked away. She didn’t like the way he pinned all her emotions down. It made her feel vulnerable.

  “Come on,” she said, calling over her shoulder. “Let’s get off this ship and into the town.” Feeling her voice sounded harsh and knowing her actions were, she added, “Last on dry land buys the other supper and a jug of ale.”

  Ravis didn’t reply, but somehow he managed to beat her to the ladder, and when he jumped down to the main deck, she noticed his eyes were sparkling.

  Without saying a word, Ravis bade farewell to what seemed like the entire crew. Meeting the eyes of every seaman they passed, he either nodded, inclined his head, or pressed his lips together in some kind of sailor’s salutation that was half
way between a frown and a smile. Watching him, Tessa was drawn to the scar on his lip. It was the first time she had noticed it in days. Strange, she thought, how quickly she had grown accustomed to it.

  Ravis picked that moment to turn and offer his arm. “Are your legs ready for the shock of dry land?”

  Not knowing what he meant, she nodded. Her legs felt fine to her.

  Together they walked down the gangplank and onto the wharf. Ravis held back slightly, allowing her foot to hit the wooden boarding first.

  He sighed amiably. “Looks like I’ll be buying supper.”

  Again Tessa was surprised by him. She had been sure he would try to win the bet.

  “Carry your bags, sir?”

  “Trinkets for the lady? Ribbons?”

  “Horse and cart to take you to the best inn in Kilgrim?”

  People crowded close. Hawking, begging, and propositioning, they thrust out their hands, speaking in fast, thick dialects that Tessa had to strain to understand. Ravis shook them all away. Unlike with the other passengers who had disembarked earlier, one flat rebuff from Ravis and they left him well alone.

  The torch smoke was so thick it made Tessa’s eyes water, and flecks of burned matter caught in her mouth and throat. As she walked along the wharf, her legs began to ache. The bones felt heavy, and every time the pads of her feet hit the ground, she felt a jolt coursing up through her ankles as high as her knees.

  “Sea legs,” Ravis said, placing his hand beneath her arm for support. “Happens to the best of people when they’ve been on a ship as long as we have. Bones get used to the give and take of a ship. Land just takes, doesn’t give.” He smiled like a rogue. “It’ll get worse when we reach the hard ground of the dock.”

  “I suppose that’s another of your military considerations?” Annoyed by Ravis’ smugness, Tessa tried to walk as steadily as she could. Every move she made seemed to give something away.