The Barbed Coil

by J. V. Jones

  Tessa went to ask another question, but Moldercay stopped her.

  “Please, my dear lady. There was no further mention of an illumination. I’m quite sure of that. The narrative skipped to Bay’Zell and then the passage home. Now, if you will please excuse me, I need to bathe the bones.”

  “But—” began Tessa.

  “Come on, Tessa,” Ravis said, cutting her off. “Moldercay has a job to do.” He stood up. “Thank you for all your help, Moldercay. We’ll show ourselves out.”

  “No, dear me. No. I can’t have you doing that.” Moldercay called for Crust. “Come and take these good people to the door.”

  He bowed to Tessa. “Good night, dear lady. My sister spoke most highly of you, you know. Said you reminded her of Nelly. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of greater help.”

  “Thank you, Moldercay,” Tessa replied. She was beginning to think she had pushed the bone keeper too hard. Avaccus had been right all along: there was no mention of Ilfaylen’s illumination in the journal. There would be no mention of it anywhere. Which meant she had nothing to go on, and time was running out. “I’m sorry I was so . . . insistent. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Not to worry, my dear lady,” said Moldercay.

  “We all end up as bones in the end.” Crust appeared in the doorway. His white apron was soaked through, and his hands were now bleached like Moldercay’s. “Follow me, please.”

  Ravis and Tessa followed Crust from the kitchen. Just before Ravis stepped from the room, he turned to Moldercay and said, “You don’t happen to recall where Ilfaylen and his scribe stayed while they were in Bay’Zell?”

  Moldercay stopped in midstep, cloth and rubbing alcohol in hand. “Why, Castle Bess, I believe. King Hierac had just had the place built, and they stayed there with his blessing.”

  Tessa glared at Ravis, annoyed that after all the questions she had asked, he was the one who had finally uncovered something worthwhile.

  Ravis smiled winningly, pretending not to notice Tessa’s glance. “Thank you, Moldercay. You’ve been most helpful.”

  Crust guided them through the house in silence. Most of the tiny candles in the hallway had burned low. One or two had gone out. When Crust opened the door, wind and drizzle blew in Tessa’s face. The idea of riding to Kilgrim turned her stomach. All she wanted to do was sleep. She was exhausted.

  “Let’s head back to the tavern,” Ravis said as Crust closed the door behind them. “You’re in no state to ride tonight.”

  Tessa wanted nothing more than to return to the tavern, wrap herself up in warm blankets, and fall asleep. It took all she had to shake her head. “No. We have to leave now. We’ve only got five full days. Even with a fast ship it’ll take three to get to Bay’Zell.”

  Ravis looked at her without speaking. Tessa sent her last scrap of strength flashing into her eyes. She had responsibilities now. There was no running away.

  After a long while Ravis nodded. “Very well,” he said, turning to untie his horse’s reins. “Let’s get started. Camron will be expecting us in Bay’Zell.”

  T H I R T Y

  T he girl is still alive, sire.” Ederius looked down at his hands. The middle and index fingers on his left had been bandaged above the knuckles with silk. Angeline couldn’t tell if it had been done to protect against blisters or to cover ones that had already formed. He looked ill. Very ill. Yet Izgard seemed not to notice.

  From her vantage point in the adjoining chamber, Angeline could see most of Izgard’s quarters. She and Snowy had just been about to settle down for the night when she heard Ederius’ voice filtering through the tent canvas. He had come to tell Izgard something, and from the tone of his voice, it was bad news.

  “What else?” Izgard said, turning so his back was toward Angeline. “You haven’t just come here to tell me that.”

  Angeline took a step nearer to the tent flap. Her own chamber was in darkness, but Izgard’s was well lit. Lamp smoke floated through the slit in the canvas, making Angeline blink. Snowy was at her heels, legs bent, tail down, belly brushing the floor. He was stalking something, but Angeline wasn’t sure what it was. It might have been the smoke.

  “Easy, Snowy,” she breathed. “No noise now.”

  Snowy pulled back his no-good head and frowned at his mistress.

  Snowy insulted. Making no noise.

  “Sire,” said Ederius, still looking down at his hands, “my patterns make me uneasy. I fear the girl is a greater threat than we first thought. She carries a ring that is a match for the Coil.”

  “A match?” Izgard stepped forward. “What do you mean, a match?”

  Ederius took a step back. “I have seen it, sire. It is cast from the same gold as the Coil and it mimics every twist and turn and barb.”

  Angeline didn’t like the way Ederius sounded when he spoke. Surely his voice had once been a lot stronger than that? It was all the long days of traveling; that was it. Ever since the battle at Hook River, Izgard had made everyone ride from dawn to dusk each day. Long hours in the saddle, hasty camps, ill-prepared food, and little sleep were taking their toll on everyone. Angeline hated it. She wished with all her heart she had never left Sern Fortress. Izgard was heading for Bay’Zell, and judging from what she’d heard around the camp, there was going to be another terrible battle when he got there.

  Frowning, Angeline turned her attention back to what was happening in the adjoining chamber. Ederius was speaking:

  “I think they might try to destroy the Coil, sire.”

  “They? Who are they?”

  “The girl and Ravis of Burano.”

  Izgard moved so quickly, Angeline saw him only as a blur. Swinging about, he sent his fist slamming into the camp table, setting charts rolling, papers jumping, and metal boxes full of pins and chalk jittering against the wood. “He is still with her? You told me he was gone. Said the girl had traveled to the abbey alone.”

  Ederius began to cough. Softly at first, but then as he tried to speak through the hail of coughing, spasms racked his chest, shaking his entire body. Spittle flew from his lips. A wet, frothy noise gurgled from his throat as he fought to control himself.

  Angeline’s first reaction was to go to him—he needed her. Yet as she put her hand on the edge of the canvas to push it back, Snowy growled: Stay.

  Glancing from Snowy to Ederius to Izgard, Angeline hesitated. Her fingers brushed the canvas. Snowy’s eyes narrowed. Angeline looked at the no-good dog a moment and then dropped her hand to her stomach. Snowy was right. Now wasn’t a good time to annoy Izgard. Ever since Camron of Thorn had evacuated the town of Merin only hours before the Garizon army had planned to take it, Izgard had been as snappish as a hound on a hunt. Anything could set him off: a wrong word, an improper glance, an ill-timed intrusion into one of his private meetings.

  On the other side of the tent flap, Ederius’ coughing fit slowly began to subside. He held a white cloth to his face, and as his coughing ceased he folded it away.

  Cupping her belly in her hand, Angeline breathed a sigh of relief. She had to learn to think before she acted. Ederius would not have welcomed her help—it would have meant trouble for both of them. He was just so ill, though, that was the problem, and no one else seemed to care.

  Izgard was working him too hard. While the rest of the camp slept, Ederius would be at his desk, scribing through the night. Angeline knew because whenever morning sickness hit early, or hunger pangs stayed late, she’d peek out across the camp and check for Ederius’ tent. Standing out amid the flickering yellow glow of watch fires and braziers would be the cool, steady burn of night oil. Ederius hadn’t taken a full night’s sleep in weeks.

  “Drink it.”

  Angeline’s attention was diverted by the sound of her husband’s voice. She looked up in time to see Izgard handing Ederius a filled goblet. Angeline hoped it contained water, not wine. Wine was bad for people with coughs—everyone knew that. What Ederius really needed was her honey and almond-milk tea. Perhaps lat
er she would send Gerta over with some.

  Angeline’s face crumpled in the darkness. Gerta wasn’t here anymore. She was on her way across the mountains, guarded by two strange men who didn’t care about her, sick and all alone. Angeline twisted her fingers into knots. Why couldn’t she remember that one simple fact? Because she was stupid, that was why. She didn’t think before she acted. Her brain was full of holes. Why, even a no-good dog like Snowy had more sense than she did.

  “Now,” Izgard said to Ederius. “Perhaps you would care to tell me where Ravis of Burano and the girl are?”

  Angeline could no longer see Ederius, but she heard the sound of a cup being laid on the table, followed quickly by a muffled cough as the scribe cleared his throat. “I believe they are currently en route to Bay’Zell, sire. They should arrive a day ahead of us.”

  Izgard ran his hand across his cheek. “It fits. They will have arranged to meet Camron of Thorn there.” Abruptly he turned to face the tent slit.

  Angeline froze. Snowy bristled.

  Izgard stared into the shadows behind the slit. Although he was staring directly at Angeline, right into the darkness surrounding her face, he seemed to be looking somewhere else entirely, somewhere beyond the room, the tent, the camp. His eyes dimmed.

  After a moment he spoke: “All three want what is mine. Thorn would have my throne and my country, Burano would have my life, and the girl would have my crown. They cannot be allowed to continue. Bay’Zell must be taken, and swiftly. In three days’ time the Barbed Coil turns five hundred years old, and I will have its power as my own.”

  Hearing Izgard’s words, Angeline felt a cold weight form in her stomach. The skin on her hands and face stiffened, then cooled. It didn’t feel like skin at all, more like tent canvas after a night of frost. At her heels, Snowy began to scratch at the mat beneath her feet.

  “Ssh, now,” Angeline mouthed, guessing that Snowy felt the same way she did: frightened, yet unable to express why. “It’s all right.”

  Izgard chose that moment to spin around and face his scribe. His finger was up and pointing. “You and Gamberon were the ones who told me of its power. You both agreed I should take Bay’Zell five hundred years after its founding. Now you stand there and tell me you think some slip of a girl can take it from me. How can that be? You said the Barbed Coil could not be destroyed. Look what happened to Gamberon—he nearly died trying to crush it.”

  Stepping into Angeline’s field of vision, Ederius spoke. His voice was still raw from coughing. “Sire, we know so little about the Coil. We know it is a powerful weapon of war, that Hierac feared losing it and commissioned an illumination to bind it to Garizon and its kings. We also know that it is inscribed with patterns that can alter a man’s strength, his mind, even his body. Yet for the most part we use it blindly. I am not a great scholar like Gamberon. I need more time to—”

  “Time.” Izgard’s jaw snapped as he spoke. “There is no time. In three days we arrive in Bay’Zell. Nothing can be allowed to interfere with its taking. Nothing. Sandor and his armies are of little consequence to me, Bay’Zell’s defenses have been seen to. There is only one fortress in the entire city that stands a chance of holding out against me, and that fortress is Castle Bess. Garizon designed, Garizon built: it was shaped for foiling sieges. Now you tell me that Ravis of Burano and the girl who wants my crown are on their way there.”

  As he spoke, Izgard ran his hand along the tent pole, feeling for splinters or knots. Angeline knew her husband well enough by now to guess he was planning his next move. He liked to touch things when he was scheming.

  Angeline suddenly wished she were in bed, fast asleep. She didn’t want to hear what came next. Yet even as she sent her foot out behind her to check that the way back was clear, Izgard’s head began to shake.

  “We have no time for learning, my friend. I want them dead. All three of them. We will wait until they are together in Castle Bess and then destroy them. I will send out a troop of men tonight. They’ll have the fastest horses in the camp, and orders to stop for neither man nor beast until they reach Bay’Zell. I hold the plans to Castle Bess. If the troop arrives in good time, there’s a chance they can take the fortress by surprise. Thorn won’t be expecting an attack so soon. Neither he nor Burano will guess we’ve sent a separate force ahead of the main army.”

  Izgard stepped toward Ederius. Angeline knew instinctively he would touch the scribe, and she was right. Reaching out with his hand, Izgard drew his index and middle fingers across Ederius’ cheek. “And you, my friend,” he said gently, almost lovingly, “will ensure they do not leave Castle Bess alive. I will send the men. You will send the Coil. Everything you have learned these past months must be drawn to defeat Burano and Thorn. Every pattern that can be used, must be used. Every creature that can be created from the raw flesh and bone of the troop must be sent to attack the fortress. We can take no chances. The Coil is mine, Garizon is mine, and revenge for past wrongdoings is long overdue.”

  Izgard’s voice dropped low. His index finger burrowed into the scribe’s cheek. “Burano had been on this earth twelve years too long. Because of him I no longer have a family to call my own, just a mindless child-wife and a sister long dead.”

  Although Izgard continued speaking, Angeline no longer listened. A mindless child-wife. She blinked, letting the words sink in. The world around her dimmed, growing colder and narrower like the walls of an underground tunnel. She felt trapped. Her bottom lip began to quiver. She was nothing to Izgard. Nothing. He had loved her once—he had said so on the day of their betrothment. Yet now he hated her.

  Snowy, sensing a change in his mistress’s mood, came and laid his head on her foot. Angeline knew she was supposed to look down and smile—as she normally would—but she didn’t have the heart for it. She didn’t feel like smiling. Father’s words came out of nowhere to reprimand her: “That’s what wide-eared girls get for listening at doors.”

  Angeline’s chest hurt. The tunnel seemed to be closing in around her. Izgard hated her, Father was dead, Gerta had gone: she was completely alone.

  Snowy picked that moment to issue a soft, doggy yawn.

  Snowy here.

  Angeline nodded her head. She loved Snowy, but there was only so much a no-good dog could understand. Everything had changed. She no longer lived in a big, protected cocoon where nothing bad would ever happen to her because she was Izgard’s wife and his queen. She lived in an armed camp, watched over by one man alone: her husband, who issued orders to kill people as easily as other men spoke of the weather—she had heard the truth of that tonight with her own wide ears. And now she knew what he really thought of her, it was easy to imagine other, more personal orders, on his lips.

  Angeline felt a small, fluttering movement in her stomach. She thought it came from fear, but then as she waited it came again. It was her child growing inside. Her body was its protected cocoon, the only thing that kept it safe from the outside world.

  Slowly Angeline began to back away from the tent slip, Snowy at her heels. Izgard continued to speak and touch and scheme, but she was no longer interested. Never again would she make the mistake of imagining Izgard loved her.

  Tessa walked the decks of The Mull, designing patterns in her head. Every now and then she would stop by a masthead, a railing, or a flight of stairs, pull her ring out from under her bodice, and just stare at it. What had Ilfaylen painted on that parchment? How had he managed to bind the Barbed Coil? What designs had he used? What structures had he imposed? How did he know where to start and where to end?

  Tessa sighed. For the eighth time in less than an hour, she tucked the ring back in its place. She had no answers. If only she had some idea of how Ilfaylen had carried out his task. Draw the problem, then solve it, Avaccus had said. Yet how could she draw it when she didn’t even know what the problem looked like?

  Feeling a telltale soreness in her back, Tessa headed for the nearest railing and leaned against it for support. Walking around the ship
for a full afternoon had made her lungs ache.

  She and Ravis had been on The Mull for two days. Tomorrow they would arrive in Bay’Zell. The journey so far had been a quiet one, and Tessa had used the time mostly to rest and rebuild her strength. The Mull was a fast ship, manned by efficient sailors dressed in sun-bleached linens who went about their work adjusting ropes and folding sails, never seeming to notice the dozens of passengers milling around the decks below them.

  Tessa was glad to be left alone. She was getting better, but slowly. Things took her longer to do than before. She couldn’t take a flight of stairs without resting halfway, and last night when she awoke in darkness, desperately needing to relieve herself, she had used the chamber pot in her cabin rather than take the short walk to the latrines. Ravis told her it would take weeks, even months, for her to recover her strength completely. Gritting her teeth, Tessa released her grip on the railings. She had no intention of letting it take that long.

  Three days. That was all they had left. Izgard would arrive in Bay’Zell with his army, and the Barbed Coil would turn five hundred years old. Ravis was right: Izgard had planned it from the start.

  Without conscious thought, Tessa pulled the ring from her bodice. She had to think. There must be something she had missed, some detail that could help her understand what she had to do. According to Avaccus, no copy of the illumination had ever been made; Ilfaylen had been searched every night to ensure that nothing was ever smuggled from the scriptorium. Even the parchment itself was checked for pinpricks. Yet Ilfaylen had obviously come to regret his work on the pattern. So why had he never tried to undo it? It made no sense. Tessa let the ring fall against her chest. She felt as if she were grasping at moths in the dark.