The Barbed Coil

by J. V. Jones

  At last she had managed to surprise him, for he tensed for a moment and turned to look at her face. Tessa didn’t know what was showing in her eyes just then, but after a second Ravis made an almost imperceptible movement with his lips and, relaxing slightly, switched his gaze back ahead. During his next few steps, he gradually altered the angle of his arm, making it more comfortable for Tessa to hold.

  “What’s Drokho like?” she asked, steering him toward the relative calm of the quarterdeck. It was time he sat and rested for a while.

  Ravis took a breath but didn’t answer. He gazed straight ahead, yet Tessa had a feeling that the last thing he was seeing was the ship. After a moment he took a second breath, held it in his lungs for a long while as if he were trying to draw strength from it, and said, “Drokho is many different things to many different people.”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Home I can never return to.”

  Tessa felt Ravis’ words in her heart. He spoke softly, yet there was no mistaking the pain in his voice. It ran through the words like the scar on his lips: deeply rooted, long shadowed, irrevocable.

  Tessa’s free hand stole up to the ring around her neck.

  Home I can never return to.

  She could have said those words herself, yet she knew she would never say them with the same raw longing as Ravis. Her home meant a different thing to her, and although it wasn’t easy to admit, she knew that if it wasn’t for her parents, she wouldn’t have spared her old life a second thought. This world was becoming her home now. And Emith and his mother, waiting patiently back in Bay’Zell for her to return, were her family.

  Unsure what to say next, Tessa gently increased her pressure on Ravis’ arm and decided not to speak. She didn’t know Ravis at all, couldn’t begin to guess what had made him so bitter.

  Ravis kept walking until they reached the end of the quarterdeck. Turning so his back rested against the railing and he could look Tessa in the face, he said, “What? No more questions?”

  Tessa thought he might be angry, but she wasn’t sure. His voice was soft enough, but the tendons at either side of his neck were raised and taut. A muscle pumped high in his cheek. Seeing him like that, she remembered the day they’d ridden to Fale to find Emith. She remembered how Ravis had left her and Emith walking down the road while he went back and beat up Deveric’s son. Before he had gone, he looked just as he did now.

  “Why was it so important for you to hurt Deveric’s son in Fale?” she asked. “He was just a small-time bully, nothing more.”

  Ravis flashed a quick, dark smile. “You do have a way of getting to the heart of things, don’t you?”

  Tessa didn’t like Ravis’ smile, and she didn’t like the sharp edge to his voice. If it hadn’t been for something else shining in his eyes, she might have turned and walked away. Drawing closer to him, she said, “I don’t think you were upset with Deveric’s son because he was mean to Emith. I think there was another reason behind it.”

  Ravis looked at Tessa. He drew his hand across his mouth so his scar didn’t show, lowered his heavy-lidded eyes, and searched her face. Seconds passed. He didn’t speak for a long time, just kept taking deep breaths and watching Tessa with a steady gaze. His eyes were so dark, most people would have mistaken them for black. But they weren’t. They were a rich, sable brown. The color of sepia ink.

  Finally something in his gaze shifted, and the muscles surrounding his eyes and mouth shaped his expression into something new. Inclining his head toward Tessa, he dropped his hand from his lip. “You’re right, of course,” he said, speaking more gently than she had ever heard him speak. “I wasn’t angry over how the man treated Emith. I wasn’t really angry at him at all. More at the way things are done, conventions, people’s greed.” He shrugged. “Myself.

  “Death brings out the best and worst in people. Deveric’s son was just protecting what he thought was rightfully his. And likely his brother, sisters, and mother were busy doing the same thing too.” Ravis spun around so he could stare out to sea. “I don’t know. I just hate to see people scrambling for possessions.”

  “Why?” Tessa came and stood by his side. She tried to follow his gaze, but his eyes were focused on a point far beyond the horizon, and she could see only so far.

  “Because I did it myself once, and it brings back memories I don’t care to recall.”

  “Bad ones?”

  “No.” Ravis shook his head. “Not all bad memories. Some good ones as well.”

  He let his words hang for a few seconds and then spoke into the distance. “When my father died he left his estate in Burano in chaos. He was a gentle man, not a great leader or a manager of men, not even a good custodian. His one ambition in life had been to become a village cleric, but his older brother died without producing a legitimate heir and the lands and title of Burano fell to him. He never wanted them. Didn’t know what to do with them.” Ravis smiled. “He spent the first ten years managing the duchy in a sort of bewildered daze. He just wasn’t cut out to be overlord of a great estate. Sometimes I would run into the small library and find him immersed in his prayer book, planning sermons in his head, blind to the mountain of paperwork that surrounded him.

  “Malray and I were young at the beginning and couldn’t help him, but over the years we grew to love the land. We worked on it together: clearing forests for planting, building up the estate stock, introducing new breeds, and planting new crops. Malray was four years older than I, but we took decisions together, worked always together. We were so young—boys, really—yet we built that land up. Toiled on it for five years. And then our father died.”

  Ravis paused. His knuckles were white where he gripped the railings. A droplet of sweat trickled down from his brow, and Tessa suddenly remembered he was ill. She didn’t say anything, though. She doubted he would hear any words spoken just then.

  “He never left a will.” Ravis’ voice was flat, unemotional. “He wasn’t that sort of man. The only thing the executors could find that even came close to one was a letter he wrote and sent to the Lectur at Jiya. In it he stated that after his death he would like to see his wealth divided fairly amongst his family.

  “Fool’s words.

  “What family? His sons, Malray and me? His sister and sister-in-law, his nephews and nieces, his younger brother, his elder brother’s bastard son?”

  Ravis beat his fist against the rail. “What family?”

  Tessa flinched. Her own hand was on the rail, and she felt the impact of Ravis’ punch like a blow. Even before the rail stopped vibrating, Ravis had managed to control himself. His tooth was down on his scar, reining in his anger. When he spoke again, seconds later, his voice was calm.

  “In a normal case the fact there was no will wouldn’t have mattered—the estate would have passed over to Malray, the eldest son. Yet by that time people began coming forward with claims of their own. A bastard son of the original duke was the first to press his claim. He brought papers, conveniently smudged by spilt wine, that stated his father had been about to legitimize his parentage when he died. The old duke’s widow was next. She claimed she had been left part of the estate in a separate codicil that had just come to light. Our own aunt, Rosimin, who had lived off our father’s generosity for twelve years, claimed that he had promised to set aside a third of his wealth to be distributed evenly among his nephews and nieces upon his death. There was even a great-uncle, my grandfather’s brother, who claimed he owned the rights to all fish pulled from the river and game shot down from the sky above Burano.”

  Ravis made a hard sound in his throat. “It was madness. Everyone who was brazen enough to make up a lie and stick to it claimed part of the estate for their own.

  “It was because there was no will, you see. It brought out the worst in people. They saw a weakness and used it.”

  Still staring straight ahead, he ran a hand through his hair. The wind had picked up while he spoke, and the sails of the mizzenmast were making tearing, snapp
ing noises behind him. Tessa didn’t need to look round to know that a sailor was up in the mast, adjusting the riggings, as his shadow formed a dark slash that ended at her feet. The sun was in the west and the day was wearing on.

  Part of Tessa wanted to guide Ravis away from the railings, make him sit down, rest, sleep. Another part wanted to hear the rest of his story. It was almost as if he were casting a spell with his words, taking them both to a place that was neither past nor present, suspending them in the warm light but hard substance of memory.

  Knowing that by speaking she would break the spell, Tessa said nothing. She waited, and after a while Ravis carried on.

  “I was seventeen. Malray was twenty-one. The day of our father’s funeral was the last day of peace we had in seven years. We clung together as they carried Father’s body to the crypt. Both of us tried to be strong, but one of us started crying—I don’t know who—and then we were both crying. Leaning against each other and crying. And the strange thing was it didn’t matter. As long as we were crying together and had each other it didn’t matter. We loved each other that much.

  “The next day the fighting started. The first duke’s bastard son, Jengus of Morgho, led a force onto the estate. Malray and I had no choice but to defend our home. By more luck than skill we managed to force them from the grounds. The only real advantage we had was our knowledge of the estate. It was just after spring thaw, and a handful of the smaller streams had overrun their banks, turning some of the low-lying valleys into marshes, and somehow we managed to drive Jengus and his men onto them. As he withdrew, Jengus threatened to be back with more men within a week.”

  Ravis halted for a moment. Tessa glanced up at his face and was surprised to see he was smiling faintly.

  “Malray and I were terrified, though we both pretended not to be. Jengus was ten years older than us, a fighting man with real experience on the battlefield and with contacts in all the mercenary companies in the north. We were just two young boys who knew how to tend the land and little else.

  “To make things worse, other people began to press their claims that same week. Magistrates came to the gates, armed with clubs and torches, demanding money and goods to the value of a third of the estate in the name of Rosimin and her six children. The next day, Savarix, duke of the province bordering Burano, sent out his steward to warn us that if any fighting occurred on land adjacent to his property, he would be forced to come in and occupy as much Burano land as he judged fit to protect his borders.

  “Vultures were closing in. Jengus would be back in a few days, the magistrates could only be put off for so long, and as young as Malray and I were, we knew enough to realize that Savarix wasn’t really interested in his borders at all. He wanted Burano land.

  “Two nights after we drove Jengus from the estate, Malray came and woke me in the middle of the night. ‘Ravis, we must learn to fight,’ he said. ‘This land is ours by right and by use. We have loved it and worked on it and called it our home for fifteen years. No one is going to take it from us, even if it means waking up every morning and buckling on a breastplate and sleeping every night with a knife close at hand. I will neither rest, negotiate, nor relent. And you will be with me, fighting by my side, as my brother and my friend.’ ”

  As Ravis spoke the last sentence, Tessa felt the hairs on the back of her neck bristle. The words sounded like a prayer spoken without belief. She felt them resonating in the space within her inner ear where the tinnitus used to start. They made her long for something, but she wasn’t sure what. Family? Love? The past?

  Ravis’ gaze had shifted from the point beyond the horizon, and he now looked down at his hands. Tessa wanted to touch him—she even moved her hand up from her waist—but at the last minute she stopped herself. She didn’t have the nerve.

  Head tilted down toward the railings, breath coming in deep but irregular bursts, Ravis continued. His voice was rich with opposing emotions, yet as his words wore on and he spoke of fighting alongside his brother, all his pain seemed to slough away. And the one emotion left behind was, surprisingly, joy.

  “So Malray and I fought. Together, always together. We made mistakes, a few terrible ones, yet somehow we managed to learn from them.

  “Jengus came close to defeating us more times than I can remember. He was a fine fighter. He never stopped pushing, never stopped testing, searching for our weak points. Years passed that were no more than one crisis after another. Jengus burned our crops, poisoned the groundwater, slaughtered our cattle, and burned all the outbuildings. He never did love the land. At one point he joined forces with Rosimin and her sons, and Malray and I spent six months barricaded in the manor house, and to this day I can’t remember if it was because we couldn’t come out or wouldn’t.

  “One wet spring Savarix sent out his men and claimed the long stretch of Burano land that ran adjacent to his southern borders. All hell broke loose after that. Jengus didn’t know whether to fight Savarix, join with him, or ignore him and carry on his own campaign.” A gentle laugh escaped from Ravis’ lips. “You know, to give him credit, I think he tried all three.

  “And through all this madness—terrible bloody fights, sieges, ambushes, shifting alliances, and double crosses—Malray and I were always by each other’s sides. We recruited men of our own, fought on hard ground and in the courts. Learned what it was to fight, really fight, over weeks and months and years.

  “We relied on each other completely. Trusted each other completely. We anticipated each other’s moves, compensated for each other’s weaknesses. If I went first into a battle, then I knew without question Malray would be at my back. If I was on the ground and wounded, I knew all I had to do was wait until he found me and brought me home. When Malray was sick, I tended him. When he was worried and thought everything was about to collapse around us, I could not rest until I had eased his mind.

  “And he”—Ravis shook his head slowly—“he did no less for me.

  “We were young and we grew into manhood fighting. And sometimes it wasn’t easy; sometimes we had to fight those we loved, like our cousins and Rosimin. Yet as long as Malray was at my side there was no question of right or wrong. We were brothers fighting for what was ours.

  “Seven years we fought. Seven long years, where hardly a day passed without some new challenge sent to try us. Rosimin tried to have us evicted, Jengus turned the gatehouse into an armed camp, and Savarix sent letters to the Lecturs at Jiya and Parafas, demanding our excommunication, swearing that one night he spied us fighting on the consecrated ground of the estate martyry.

  “Somehow, by sticking together and not giving up, we managed to live through everything. And the day I killed Jengus the madness finally stopped.

  “I suppose, if I were to judge honestly, I was a better fighter than Malray. It was I who planned the strategies, trained the men. Even back then I had a talent for it. Malray had passion, though. He was stronger than I, and when he fought a rage came upon him and nothing, absolutely nothing, could make him put down his sword. One morning, he and a few men rode out to the edge of the estate to check the traps we’d set for Jengus. Jengus was lying in wait. He had three times Malray’s numbers. If I had been there, I would have withdrawn, got the hell out of there as fast as I could, made sure I lived to fight another day.

  “Malray didn’t withdraw. He stayed and fought. He was sick and tired of fighting. He wanted the whole thing over—we both did. But he felt it more than I. He was nearly thirty, and I think he wanted what other men his age had: a wife, family, peace.

  “As the afternoon wore on and Malray didn’t return, I went out to look for him. I finally came across the battle. Found Malray lying in a plowed field, blood pouring from a gash on his thigh, Jengus standing above him, sword poised to enter his throat.”

  Ravis’ hand flitted up from the railing in a small gesture of self-denial. “After that I hardly know what happened. I have heard accounts, but whether I believe them or not I can’t say. I remember only rage. Absolute
, blind rage. Malray was all I had. And Jengus was about to take him from me.

  “According to some, I rode my horse over four men to get to him. Crushed the skulls of two, cracked the ribs of another. Some say I screamed as I rode. Others say I was silent as the dead. I felt only the weight of the sword in my hand and the sheer terror of losing Malray in my heart.

  “Jengus barely had time to straighten his back. I came at him, swung my sword, and beheaded him in a single blow.”

  Tessa closed her eyes, pressed her lips to a tight line to stop herself from making a noise.

  “After that I didn’t stop—couldn’t stop—until all Jengus’ men were dead.” Ravis’ voice was soft, almost bemused. “Malray had to pull me off the last man’s corpse. He’d been dead for God knows how long, but still I couldn’t stop beating him. I don’t know what happened to me, don’t know what I became. I think by the time Malray reached me it was already too late.”

  Something like a shiver passed down Ravis’ spine. Tessa could see Ravis harboring its momentum, using it to give his body strength.

  “Things moved swiftly after that. Jengus had always been our greatest threat, and with him gone all other disputes fell away. Savarix could no longer claim his borders were threatened, Rosimin could find no one new to back her suit, the local magistrates were sick of the whole thing, and everyone else who had ever raised a greedy eye or a clutching hand toward Burano finally backed away.”

  As Ravis spoke, Tessa was aware of the light fading around them. How long had they been standing here? Hours?

  “So you won?” she said, filling the pause after he finished.

  A hard, bitter laugh burst from Ravis’ lips. “Not me. No. I didn’t win anything. Only Malray won.

  “A month after the whole thing ended and the lawyers finally agreed to sign the estate over to us, he turned on me. My own brother, whom I had loved and fought with for seven long years, turned. He said I had tainted everything by what I did that day in the plowed field. He said I still smelled of the blood. He didn’t want me on his land. His land. His!”