by J. V. Jones
Camron opened his eyes and saw a room sprayed red. He scanned the bodies of the three men he had known and respected before his gaze came home to his father. For the first time he noticed a knife in his father’s right hand. Bone-thin fingers were curled around a blade tipped with blood.
Seeing it, Camron clenched his fists so hard they shook. Berick of Thorn had gone down fighting. This great man, who had fought wars in his youth and long-held beliefs in his prime, had taken up a knife and defended himself against his attackers. He was almost seventy years old.
Camron nestled close to his father’s body, trying to press back the heat; he couldn’t bear the thought of him growing cold. Only hours earlier, in this same room, with the afternoon sun slanting obliquely through the rosewood shutters, Camron of Thorn had called his father a coward.
“So where are you from, then, miss?” The woman, who had introduced herself as Widow Furbish, sister to the dockhand named Swigg, reached forward and touched the fabric of Tessa’s blouse. “Must have come from somewhere fancy, with linen as smooth as that.”
Tessa opened her mouth to say that the fabric was in fact cotton, not linen, then held her peace instead. She wasn’t sure if the woman would know what cotton was.
“You must be a mite cold with such a thin stretch of cloth on.” Widow Furbish walked over to the shutters and opened them wide. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to change into something warmer?”
A cool breeze cut through the room. Tessa shivered. She had been fine until the shutter was opened. “Do you have a shawl I could borrow?”
Widow Furbish shook her head emphatically. She was older and heavier than her brother. When Tessa had first met her, she was wearing an elaborately embroidered eyepatch over her left eye. Now the eyepatch was pushed up to her forehead, revealing a perfectly fine, if rather beady, eye beneath. “No shawl, miss. No. But I do have a warm woolen dress I could give you.” As she spoke, she opened the second set of shutters.
The smell of decaying vegetables, rotten meat, and urine wafted up from the river below. Tessa took shallow breaths. How could people live with such a stench?
“Of course, I’d need something of yours in return.” Widow Furbish waggled a fat finger. “Favor for a favor, as they say.”
Tessa frowned. She had figured out some time earlier that the woman wanted her blouse. Sky blue with white buttons and a single breast pocket, it really wasn’t much of a prize. “Very well,” she said. “You can have my clothes in exchange for a dress.”
Both of Widow Furbish’s eyes narrowed, though the one that had been under the patch shrank the most. “All of them?”
“Yes, all of them. But I want to see the dress first.”
Widow Furbish looked set to protest—her cheeks puffed out, her finger came up, and her lips shrunk ready for spitting—but after a moment she swallowed hard, made an odd pecking motion with her head, and left the room.
Tessa drew a huge sigh of relief. Alone at last.
She stood up and walked across the rush-strewn floor to the first of the windows. Her hands crisscrossed her body with every step: scratching, swatting, flicking. Mosquitoes buzzed past her collar and cuffs, and an acrobatic flea was busy hopping down the length of her arm. The place was crawling with vermin. Other creatures crawled up Tessa’s back and inside her jeans, their touch as light as dangling thread. Tessa slapped at her legs and shoulders, flattening. She hated bugs.
As she pulled her left hand off her blouse, she heard the fabric rip. Damn. It was the ring. Its barbed edges had caught on the shoulder seam. She had completely forgotten she was wearing it. Carefully she freed the ring from the cotton fibers, working the fabric over the gold until she could pull her hand free. Her palm was still caked with blood, but apart from a faint itching sensation at the base of her middle finger, she felt no pain.
The light in the room came from a smoking brass lantern, and Tessa moved toward it to better see the ring. Sulfurous fumes caught in her throat as the dim mustard flame cast its glow upon the gold. What would happen if she took it off? Would she return to the glade?
And if she could, did she want to?
The last thing Tessa remembered of the forest was the smell of dry grass. She remembered it clearly because it stayed with her through the journey—or whatever it was that had brought her here. The sound of the ocean and the smell of dry grass.
There was pain and darkness, then light. There were separate instances like dots upon a page: pain, anticipation, and fear. Tessa remembered moving through each state—stomach hollowing, rib cage pressing lung against lung, eyelids like heavy coins against her face. She remembered the exact instant when the stench of the alleyway replaced the smell of dry grass. And then the very sun itself changed angles.
From west to east it moved. Not in one quick shift, but in a gradual turn. Tessa felt the sunlight pass from her right cheek to her left in a continuous, slow-moving arc. In all her life she had never experienced anything like it. Her body, her soul, and most of all her skin reeled with the sheer force of the shock. The sun never moved that way. Never.
Then, as the sun settled into place and new sounds slipped in with the sea, she opened her eyes.
Everything had changed. Seagulls shrieked above her head. Dogs barked, pigs squealed, geese honked. The smell of the place was overpowering. The sweet, sickly odor of rotting vegetation vied with the smell of the sea. Sunlight blazed across her face and the wind ragged along her body, pushing her blouse against her chest. Rats scuttled and bluebottles hummed. Tessa’s head spun with all the new sensations. Her feet slipped in something that she hoped very much was mud, and as she tried to right herself two men approached. Seeing them, Tessa realized that everything hadn’t changed after all. Men were still men. And strangers were still dangerous.
She stepped from the sunlight running down the center of the alley into the shade of the wall. The two men—one large and fleshy and one just large—stepped with her. Tessa shivered. The shade was colder than she expected. Keeping her eye on the two men, she moved back, using her ankles to feel the way.
When her left ankle smashed into a wall she knew she was in trouble. Spinning around, she came face-to-face with a dead end. Even as she turned back, she heard the first man shout:
“Let’s have her.”
Tessa saw them coming for her. She saw them draw their knives. A fist of pure fear slammed down her spine, and in that instant she did something she hadn’t done for twenty-one years.
She screamed.
A note high and clear came from her lips. It rose like a battle cry, cutting through rival sounds as if it were a blade. With it came memories of warnings long given and well heeded. Tessa, remember the porter’s whistle. . . . Don’t get excited. . . . Stay clear of loud noises . . . and never, ever, scream.
The two men stopped in their tracks. Finished, Tessa pressed her lips together. She held her breath. Waiting. It took her a moment to realize what she was waiting for: the ringing to begin in her head. Seconds passed. The noise didn’t come. The only sound from inside was the rap of her heart. Something deep within her relaxed. There was no metal rasping. No punishment. There was silence where there should have been noise.
When the two men stepped closer, she screamed again. Words this time, loud and clear: “Get away from me!” There was power in her voice—she could feel it. Once again the two men hesitated. The fleshy man glanced sideways at his accomplice, waiting for a nod to carry on. Tessa had her eye on his knife, and when it swung toward her in a wavering curve, a short gasp of horror escaped from her lips. And then she scratched the knife-man’s face.
After that things moved too quickly to track. A stranger appeared out of nowhere and attacked both men. Wasting nothing of himself as he fought, the stranger took no breath that wasn’t needed, landed no blow that didn’t count. Tessa remembered feeling blood spray across her face as the stranger flicked his knife clean between stabbings. She heard his teeth grind together as he moved in for the kill. I
t took him less than two minutes to dispose of both men. Tessa didn’t want to remember the soft hiss of their flesh and last breaths.
When it was over and his knife was back at his waist, the stranger turned to her. His face was yet another surprise in a day brim full with them. Dark hair, dark eyes, and a full bottom lip with a scar cutting through to the left. He had the richest voice she had ever heard; low and soft, it seemed to come from the space directly behind his scar. Tessa had been about to tell him he sounded like an actor when she chose the word pirate instead. He sounded far more dangerous than any man on a stage.
A fact that was proven true only five minutes later when he threatened to kill the dockhand Swigg if his orders weren’t obeyed.
The hour that followed was the strangest one of her life. Swigg took them on a journey through the heart of the city and into the fringes beyond. Up until that point, Tessa hadn’t given any thought to her surroundings—fear liked a clean slate to work with—but as she walked down lanes piled high with refuse, pushing past small-eyed, angry hens and dogs nursing crusted wounds, the truth began to sink in.
She was somewhere else entirely.
Not in a different land, or a different time, but an altogether different place.
Bay’Zell, the man who called himself Ravis had said. Northernmost city in the kingdom of Rhaize, greatest port upon the Mettle Sea. Tessa thought at first she knew these names—they were oddly familiar and sounded right upon the tongue—yet when she tried to place them, her mind came up blank.
The city itself was a dense, narrow-streeted maze of buckled buildings. White and gray stone structures, sinking beneath their own weight, were propped up by huge black timbers that wept turpentine under the strain. Strings of mist escaped from covered wells, and piles of refuse smoked as they decomposed. High lichen-corroded walls cut down the light, and brightly painted doorways and shopfronts shone out of the dimness like lit signs.
Tessa was overwhelmed. She couldn’t take it all in. As Swigg led them through a series of increasingly busy streets, noises assaulted her senses. The jarring sound of metal hammered against metal rang in one street, the sound of sawing timber in the next, a huge market square was filled with the flapping and cawing of birds in bamboo cages, and on every other street corner young women wearing black lace hoods called out to passing men.
Nothing had any effect on Tessa’s hearing. She frowned. Here, in this strange city filled with a carnival of noises, she had finally found some peace.
Turning to Ravis, she had said, “Tell me about Bay’Zell.”
Ravis gave her a hard look. After glancing ahead at Swigg, he leaned close and murmured, “Bay’Zell is a beast marked for the kill.”
Tessa shivered. Ravis’ voice was cold. There was a glint of something hidden in his eyes. Unnerved, she pulled away. He made no move to stop her, and they walked the rest of the way in silence, feet apart.
Swigg led them down to the riverbank. Swarms of darting mayflies formed squalls across their path, while dragonflies and mosquitoes stalked beggars in the shade. The smell became unbearable. Even to Tessa’s untrained eye, the district seemed to have taken a turn for the worse. Houses squatted close to the ground, shutters rotting on the hinge, walls crumbling to dust.
The river itself was more mud than water. Banks of gray-brown silt flared wide to either side. A stone bridge arched across its width, and Swigg guided them toward it.
Buildings crowded along the bridge’s length, some leaning out over the river on stilts and others meeting in the middle to form tunnels. Swigg came to an abrupt stop by a door boasting the sign WIDOW FURBISH — FORTUNE - TELLER TO THE MERCHANT CLASSES AND SEAMSTRESS TO THE HOLY LEAGUE .
Widow Furbish promptly manifested her powers of foretelling by opening the door before them.
Tessa’s first instinct was to step back. The woman was large and heavy, with a network of broken veins across her nose and a gold, embroidered eyepatch over her left eye.
“You’re late,” she said to Swigg. “And you’ve been drinking.” Her voice was flatter than the floorboards she stood on.
Swigg shrugged magnificently, his shoulders reaching up to his ears. His gaze circled the sky like a vulture in mid-flight before coming to land on Ravis. “I have visitors, my little herring.”
Catching sight of Ravis, Widow Furbish underwent something close to a metamorphosis. Her thin lips fattened to cushions and her eyebrows parted like gates. After a quick scan around to ensure no one was looking, she pushed the eyepatch away from her eye. “Aah, guests. Come! Come! Swigg, hurry inside and pour some arlo for our friends.”
“The two-year?” asked Swigg.
Tessa, fearing the sight of slack eye sockets or sewn-up eyelids, had closed her eyes the moment the widow’s patch went up. When she opened them again, she not only saw that Widow Furbish did in fact have two perfectly good eyes, but also that both of them were now trained on Ravis’ kid-leather tunic.
Gaze rising from Ravis’ tunic to the gold medallion at his throat, the widow said, “Let’s open the seven-year flask.”
Just before Tessa walked over the threshold, Ravis caught hold of her arm. “Tell these people nothing about yourself,” he hissed.
Arlo tasted vaguely of apples, and burned going down. Until she took a mouthful, Tessa hadn’t realized how much she needed a drink. Without a doubt it had been the strangest day of her life. Funny, but not once during the whole day had she thought she was imagining it all. Bay’Zell was real, Ravis was real, and arlo was so strong and biting that it could never have existed in a dream.
“My lady friend and I need shelter for a night or two, madam. And your worthy brother was good enough to offer us refuge.” Ravis bowed from brother to sister as he spoke.
They were sitting in Widow Furbish’s parlor, a gloomy room with many cupboards. Widow Furbish filled Ravis’ glass. Tessa’s was also empty, but the good lady chose to ignore that fact. “Swigg takes after our dear papa,” she said, fat fingers toying with the strings of her patch. “Hospitality nestles in the bosom of our family.”
“You are both very kind.”
Widow Furbish nodded with satisfaction, as if receiving the exact cue she had hoped for. “Just as you are generous.”
Ravis showed his teeth. “Madam, I have already given your brother my last gold crown as a deposit. Would you demand the rest up front like a bathkeeper or a bawd?”
Widow Furbish slapped a large hand to her chest. “Sir, I am seamstress to the Bay’Zell Holy League. My reputation is second to none.”
Tessa looked at Widow Furbish’s big-knuckled hands. Seamstress?
“Madam,” Ravis said smoothly, “I meant no offense. You are obviously a good woman who keeps a highly reputable house. Now, if you will excuse me, I must take my leave for a short while. I trust you will keep my companion entertained in my absence.” With that he rose and walked toward the door. “Think of her as a further deposit.”
As soon as Ravis left, the flask containing the seven-year-old arlo was returned to one of the many cupboards. Swigg mumbled something about seeing to his vats and scuttled out of the room before his sister had chance to object. Widow Furbish snorted but made no attempt to stop him. Having collected and counted all four arlo glasses and flicked an offending speck of dust from her sleeve, she turned her attention to Tessa.
“How long have you known Lord Ravis?” she asked, pulling up a high stool and sitting barely a foot away from Tessa’s knees.
“Oh, it seems as if we’ve known each other forever,” Tessa said with a dismissive wave of her hand. Dodging questions was a way of life for her—she had never felt comfortable talking about herself. There was so little to say.
The next hour passed with Widow Furbish questioning Tessa’s accent, her marital status, her occupation, her relationship with Ravis, and her age. When the good lady failed to get the answers she required, she moved on to the subject of Tessa’s clothing. For some reason she seemed especially interested in the blouse,
and when she offered to swap one of her dresses for it, Tessa quickly accepted. She knew that if she was going to stay in this place, she needed to look like everyone else.
Which brought her straight back to the question of the ring. Tessa glanced at the gold strands glowing in the lamplight. Was she going to stay here? Did she want to? And, when it finally came down to it, did she have a choice?
Widow Furbish could be heard rummaging through chests in the next room, looking for a dress that would fit. Tessa had a feeling that the one she chose would be ugly, shapeless, and dull. Widow Furbish was not a woman’s woman.
Frowning, Tessa crossed to the window. She wasn’t sure what she felt about being here. Everything had happened so fast, she hadn’t had time to form opinions. Bay’Zell wasn’t some magical fairyland where everything was peaceful and pretty. It was a real place, with real people and real dangers. In the space of one day she had been attacked, rescued, marched through a city, and then left in a lodging house in lieu of a deposit. Events moved swiftly here, and Tessa had a feeling that she had somehow been thrown into the middle of them.
There seemed little for her to return home for. Her parents loved but didn’t need her. Living close to a golf course in Arizona, they were just settling down to enjoy their retirement. Whenever Tessa called they always seemed to be on their way out to play bridge or a round of golf or to visit with friends. Tessa was glad they were happy, secure in the knowledge they were safe.
She had no friends to worry about, she never had. There was always a distance between herself and other people. She found them hard to judge, got wary when they drew too close. People called her shy, but Tessa didn’t feel shy, just reserved. She had never felt free to make commitments.
Her possessions had never amounted to much. Her rented apartment contained only the barest amount of furniture. Her wardrobe contained just a minimum of clothes. Even her car was over ten years old. There was nothing and no one to draw her home.