by J. V. Jones
“Yes. Me and a dozen bowmen.” Ravis ran a finger along his lip, pausing to linger over his scar. “I held my company back. I knew the whole thing was a trap, yet I didn’t know what form that trap would likely take. The last thing I expected to encounter was a troop of harras like the ones you and I met on the bridge.”
“Someone is behind them,” Tessa said. “I felt them come after me.”
Ravis nodded. “I think it’s Izgard and his scribe.”
“Yes. There was a scribe.” Tessa felt her heart beating fast. “Before I blacked out I smelled pigment, and I’m sure it wasn’t my own.”
“Can you remember anything else?”
Tessa shook her head. She was still trying to accept the fact that Camron of Thorn wasn’t dead.
“Think. Think!”
“There’s nothing else to remember. I was painting a pattern, I saw the harras attack Camron, I tried to help, didn’t know what I was doing, and got caught.” Tessa’s temper was coming back. “That’s all there is.”
Ravis didn’t even blink at her raised voice. Instead he said, “So, whoever it was—Izgard or his scribe—only noticed your presence when you tried to work against them?”
“I can’t say for certain. I’m not sure.” Seeing another question ready on Ravis’ lips, Tessa halted it with one of her own. She didn’t like being the one under attack. “You haven’t said why you are here yet. Or did you just happen to find yourself in Bay’Zell and thought you’d look me up?”
Ravis’ smile was dazzling in the dim, smoky light of the cabin. It changed the mood instantly, warming the very air itself. “I seem to have overstepped my question quota.”
Tessa didn’t want to be charmed by his smile, yet she couldn’t help herself. His dark eyes twinkled with delight, well aware he had accurately pinned down her motives. “Just answer my questions,” she said, pleasantly surprised at how serious her voice sounded—that, at least, was still under her control.
Ravis eased himself forward on the pallet. The only sign he was in pain was a slight deepening of the lines around his eyes and a flicker of white tooth biting down on his scar. Details, Tessa thought as he spoke.
“I came to Bay’Zell to find you. To make sure you were safe, and keep you safe, and try to find out why you’re here.” Ravis’ voice was low without being a whisper, rough without being harsh. “You’re connected to this whole thing in some way—even before you told me you’d seen Camron in the valley, I guessed that. What you’ve just said proves it.
“I don’t know what you’re capable of, but I’ve seen what Izgard’s harras can do, and it frightens me. I’ve never fought men like them before. They’re not like normal troops, they have no fear or sense of responsibility. They keep coming and coming and don’t stop. I sliced one man open from the throat to the navel, yet he didn’t go down—his face didn’t even register pain—he just kept on attacking until he was so weak from loss of blood that the knife fell from his hand.”
Ravis shivered. His fingers hovered around his rib cage. “When a man’s that badly injured his first instinct should be to back off and save himself—not fight until it kills him.
“What frightens me more than anything else, though, is the thought of thousands of men like that. I don’t know how many harras there were in that valley—probably a lot less than there seemed at the time—but their numbers were nothing compared to what Izgard held in reserve. He has an army of twenty thousand men. Twenty thousand. And over a quarter of them have been trained to the point where they can handle weapons, horses, and drills well enough to be called harras. What if Izgard can turn them all into animals? We’ve seen what can happen when the harras are let loose on a town: they annihilated Thorn. Women and children, armed men or animals: it made no difference to them. They kill everything that moves.”
Ravis gnawed at his scar. “Believe me, if Izgard has got the means to turn his entire army into monsters, he won’t hesitate to use them. And if he does, I don’t see any way that Rhaize can stand against him.”
Kneeling quietly in the corner, Tessa closed her eyes. She knew Ravis had deliberately spoken to frighten her, yet it didn’t make any difference. She was frightened. Her stomach ached, and a dull pain sounded in her temples. No tinnitus, though. No tinnitus ever again.
Not knowing if that thought made her feel strong or angry, she said, “I know why I’m here. Deveric drew me to Bay’Zell so I can stop the harras.”
Ravis looked at her, the lids on his eyes dropping to conceal his thoughts.
Tessa rushed on. “Those patterns Deveric died completing, the ones Emith gave to Marcel of Vailing to keep safe, were a summons. They brought me here. They’re a series of five illuminations that Deveric began working on twenty-one years ago, and every time he completed one of them it brought me closer to finding the ring. I’ve checked out the dates—they match exactly. Deveric has been pulling me along for most of my life, and the day he finished the final pattern was the day I found this.” She pulled the ring out from her bodice, held it up toward Ravis. “And when I put it on it brought me here.”
Ravis made no move to touch the ring. He held his position on the pallet, looking neither worried nor surprised. He didn’t ask where she had come from; instead he said, “And that was the morning I found you by the docks?”
“Yes.”
“And a week ago, when you were drawing the pattern and saw Camron fighting the harras, there was a point when you thought you were actually making a difference?”
Tessa nodded. “I’m sure of it. The harras began to slow down, to change. They began to seem more like men, and if I’d known what I was doing, I think I could have stopped them.”
“So that’s why you’re on your way to Maribane? To learn what to do?”
“Yes. Emith can’t teach me anything else—he’s a scribe’s assistant, not a scribe. He only knows so much.” Tessa found she no longer minded answering Ravis’ questions. Saying these things out loud seemed to make them more comprehensible. It helped that Ravis accepted everything she said without question.
“When I was painting that pattern last week, just before I saw Camron, I found something inside of myself, something buried deep beneath my skin. It was as if a part of me has been hidden away for twenty-one years, and only by coming here did I get to find and use it.”
Ravis felt the flesh around his rib cage. He suddenly looked tired and pale. “So you’re going to Maribane to find answers as well as advice?”
“Emith has given me the name of a man there, Brother Avaccus, who he thinks might be able to help.”
As she spoke, Tessa began rummaging through her sack. Mother Emith had supervised the packing of all sorts of herbs and pastes—“You never can tell what dangers might befall a woman alone on a ship,” she had said—and Tessa thought she might be able to find something to help Ravis. The pot-marigold paste she used on her burn might help his wound heal cleanly, and the dried willow bark Mother Emith had included for aches and fever could ease his pain. After opening various small packets wrapped in sedgeweeds and tied with string, Tessa found what she was looking for. The willow bark would have to be boiled in hot water first, but the paste could be used right away.
“Take your shirt off,” she said.
Ravis’ eyes widened. “So soon? We’ve only just left dry land.”
Tessa saw the smile playing around his lips and frowned. “You know what I mean. I want to take a look at your wound, put some of this on it.”
“What is it?”
“Pot-marigold paste.”
Ravis nodded. “It might help.” After tugging the lacings from his tunic, he dragged it over his head and then pulled off his undershirt. Part of the linen was stuck to the wound, and he winced as it came away.
Tessa drew in her breath. The wound was caked in dried blood, and the skin to either side was bloated. All that she had picked up about healing from listening to Mother Emith in those long afternoons around the fire didn’t seem nearly enough
to cope with anything like this.
“See that knife in my saddlebag?” Ravis motioned toward his belongings piled by the hatch. “Pull it out and heat the blade over the flame.”
Glad that Ravis appeared to know what he was doing, Tessa did as she was told. Once she’d unhooked the lantern from the ceiling hook, she flipped off the brass cap and exposed the flame. The blade blackened as she heated it, and when it started to smoke Ravis said, “Enough. Wipe the edge with the paste and bring it to me.”
The ship pitched sharply as Tessa stepped forward, and she was forced to grab the cabin wall to stop herself from falling. Her stomach appeared to move independently of her body, though, and even as she managed to steady her feet, a wave of nausea rippled up from her gut. Biting down on her tongue, she handed Ravis the knife.
Ravis didn’t waste a second. He pivoted the handle in his grip, bit down on his scar, and sliced the skin just above his bottom rib. Grimacing, he grabbed his shirt and pressed it into his flesh, forcing out blood and pus. Tessa wasn’t normally squeamish about such things, but her stomach wasn’t playing fair right then, and the sight of thin yellow fluid oozing from Ravis’ wound made her gag.
“Have you got any ginger in that pack of yours?” Ravis asked, wincing as he pushed against a tender spot.
“I’m not sure. I’ll check.” Tessa was glad for a chance to turn away. “What do you need it for?”
“It’s not for me. It’s for you. You look pretty green from where I am.”
“Green?”
“You’ve got a bad case of seasickness. Ginger is the best thing for it.” Ravis lifted the shirt from the wound, then concealed the blood and fluid stains by rolling it in a ball. “Pass me the rest of the paste and a clean cloth if you have one.”
As he tended and bound his wound, Tessa searched for ginger among all of Mother Emith’s various packages. “How come you know so much about medicine?” she asked, bringing something yellow and disk shaped to her nose to smell.
“I need to. It’s part of my job. If I ship men expecting them to fight on arrival, then I’d better be sure that they don’t spend the entire voyage losing their meals and groaning in their bunks. Same with sending troops into battle—you have to know how to deal with the wounded, how to stop bleeding and prevent infection using whatever materials are close at hand. If the word gets round that in your company you leave your wounded to die, then no amount of gold will help you recruit more men.”
Having discovered that the yellow disk was in fact dried, sliced ginger, Tessa popped it in her mouth and began chewing on it. What Ravis said made cold business sense, and she found herself strangely disappointed by it. Changing the subject, she said, “How long will your wound take to heal?”
Ravis finished tying a knot around the bandage and then reached for the berriac flask. Although he had given no verbal indication of being in pain while he tended his wound, beads of sweat trickled down from his brow and there was blood on his lip where his tooth had bit through his scar. Having swallowed a mouthful of berriac, he said, “By the time this ship docks in Kilgrim the wound should be dry.”
“Three days?”
Ravis laughed. “This old heap of nails will take more than double that to reach Kilgrim.”
“But Emith said the voyage took three days.”
“It can if you happen to be sailing in an Istanian bark or a Medrani cutter. In an old merchanter like this one we’ll be lucky to get there within a week.”
Tessa didn’t understand. “But it has three masts—”
“And it needs all three of them just to pull its load.”
“But Mother Emith chose Tarrier because it had the highest masts and broadest sails of any ship leaving for Maribane.”
“Emith and his mother are very dear people and they may well know a lot about food and scribing, but neither of them knows the first thing about ships.” Ravis made himself comfortable on the pallet. He seemed amused. “You can’t judge how fast a ship is by the number of its masts. You look at the shape of its bow, the length of its hull in relation to its beam, and the cut of its riggings. You can hardly tell the bow of Tarrier from its stern, and it’s nearly as wide as it is long.” Smiling, Ravis shook his head. “Not a good sign in a ship you’re hoping will get you somewhere fast.”
Annoyed at Ravis’ smugness, Tessa spat out the ginger into the palm of her hand and said, “I suppose you make it your business to know all about ships so you can move your men into battle faster?”
Ravis shrugged. “Not really. I just pick things up as I go along.” He thumped the cork into the flask and let it drop to the floor. Pulling a blanket over his chest, he said, “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take a short nap. You need to keep chewing on that ginger, go on deck, breathe in some fresh air, and get accustomed to the motion of the ship. We have a long journey ahead.”
Still mad, yet unable to think of anything to do or say about it, Tessa crossed to the hatch. Despite all his sarcasm and bravado, Ravis was genuinely sick and he did need some rest. Feeling an odd mixture of anger and excitement, she made her way up through the ship. Part of her old self came back to her as she climbed the steps to the main deck: her old love of traveling to new places and seeing new things and waiting for adventures to happen.
N I N E T E E N
M arcel’s cellar was dark, and that was the way he liked it when he was receiving guests. He didn’t like to look at the harras. They scared him. He didn’t like to smell them, either, but there was nothing to be done about that. After they left he usually burned cinnamon-scented candles to cancel out the smell. It was not the sort of thing a connoisseur like himself would normally do in a wine cellar containing such rare vintages—the aroma of cinnamon might slip through the corks and casts, corrupting the wine beneath—yet he did it anyway. The smell of the harras really did bother him quite badly. He even had to wash it off their gold.
Just one harrar had come through the gate in the back courtyard. Pulling open the wooden trap door, he had let himself in. That was another thing Marcel didn’t like, but he knew from experience that if he bolted the door against them, they would simply tear it off. Unannounced guests were one thing, suspicious noises in the early hours of the morning were another thing entirely. There was no worse sin in the banking business than drawing unnecessary attention one’s way.
“What do you people want this time?” Marcel asked, the actor in him injecting the words with a measure of impatience and mastery he did not feel. “I’ve already told you that I do not know where Ravis of Burano is.”
The harrar’s face was in shadow, and all Marcel could see of him was the whites of his eyes and the glint of saliva on his teeth. This one looked more like a man than the last one, but the smell was still the same.
“We need to find a girl—a woman. The one who was with Ravis of Burano the night we attacked him on the bridge.” The harrar spoke in a whisper, his jaws smacking together as he pronounced the words woman and bridge.
“The girl’s name is Tessa. She’s a foreigner. Ravis brought her here that same morning.” Marcel edged away from the harrar as he spoke. Sometimes he wondered how he had got himself into all of this. Things had started out simply enough—a nice middleman deal between Izgard of Garizon and Ravis of Burano—but ever since the night Berick of Thorn was murdered at Castle Bess, events had taken a more serious turn. Izgard didn’t want him in the middle anymore, he wanted him firmly on his side. And Marcel of Vailing always prided himself on being accommodating to his clients. Most especially those who mattered.
Izgard of Garizon had manpower and might, and it didn’t take a clever man to see he’d soon have more. He wanted Bay’Zell and he was likely to get it, and Marcel planned on being one of his sympathizers when he did. Just because power changed hands didn’t mean that money had to. Fiscal continuity was what really counted.
“Where is the girl now?” Saliva slapped around the harrar’s mouth as he spoke, giving the impression he was chewing on som
ething tough like gristle. His thin-bladed knife was hooked on a strap beneath his armpit, and the leather-bound hilt was stamped with blood.
Averting his eyes from the knife as he spoke, Marcel said, “I have no idea where she is. She could be anywhere.” Feeling his voice wasn’t doing the best job it could, and knowing how very important it was that the harrar believed he was telling the truth, Marcel threw his hands into the air for extra emphasis. “Anywhere.”
The harrar’s boots made no noise as he stepped toward Marcel. “We think she is in the city. Where is she likely to be?”
All of Marcel’s actor’s instincts weren’t enough to stop himself from shaking. The harrar might not be one of those mad-dog men now, but he had been, and it wasn’t only the smell that still clung to him. Seen close up, the whites of his eyes had a faint golden cast and his gums were a splintered ridge of bone.
Marcel attempted a nonchalant shrug as he cleared his throat before speaking. “I can’t begin to think where the girl might be. I . . . I . . . I just don’t know.”
“She was in a kitchen. There was a broad table spread with pigments and brushes.”
Still recovering from the blow of his voice giving way, Marcel attempted to rally his thoughts. Kitchen? Table? How could he possibly be expected to pin down such things? Why, there must be ten thousand kitchens within the city gates alone!
The harrar leaned close and breathed on Marcel. His breath was moist and gamy, like the mist steaming off mud-banks at night. “I need to know where she is. Think!”
Marcel thought; it seemed the wisest thing to do just then. Kitchen . . . table . . . pigments! His plump lips pulled tight as he recalled the night he’d dropped off Deveric’s illuminations at Mother Emith’s house. The table had been loaded with pigments! And neither Emith nor his old bat of a mother could wait to be rid of him. Emith had been about as nervous as an Istanian courier carrying gold, and his mother had all but pushed him out the door. That was it! They were hiding the girl.