The Isis Knot (13 page)

“Okay,” she said, a strange word he didn’t understand. “I’m done.”

Gathering himself, he turned around to see her sitting on the floor facing away from him, legs pulled tightly to her chest. The wet coat was draped messily over a nearby bench. Her damp clothing clung to the smooth shape of her back. The way her black hair clumped together reminded him of swinging braids.

“You can do your clothes now,” she said over her shoulder. “You don’t have a coat and you’re soaked. I won’t look.”

He dragged the bucket over and quickly wrung out his shirt and trousers, sliding his legs back into the chilled fabric with a shiver.

“Would it be all right with you,” he ventured, “if I let my shirt dry before putting it back on? I’ll remain over here, if you like.”

She swiveled around. Her eyes raked up his naked chest, then dropped to the candle flame. “It’s fine. Sit down and talk.”

What a funny manner she had. If he hadn’t been practically raised on the open sea among the rawest of sailors, he might’ve found her crass. Unladylike. Instead, it drew him to her. Her sharper edges gave him a sense of the familiar. It made him feel at ease, strangely, when he hadn’t felt that comfortable around people, especially women, in over eighteen years.

And yet there was still a layer of vulnerability within her. She seemed to need him, too, and the male part of him responded instantly to that. He’d met her not an hour ago, and already he was thinking about her in ways that felt separate from how the Spectre had pushed him toward her. Or were these feelings truly separate? He’d been celibate for a decade, and not by choice. How could he be sure that this sudden attraction wasn’t yet another of the Spectre’s machinations? How much could he trust in himself at this point?

Either way, Sera was the winch, pulling hard at the shortening rope between them, and William was lost to its force.

He lowered himself to the floor on the other side of the candle and tossed back his wet hair. Her eyes followed his movements. Her gaze gave him an opium-like high. And he should know how that felt.

“I want to know about this.” She raised her right arm, the gold cuff covered by her sleeve. “You say you found this in a cave in Egypt? So why do I have it?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“But according to you, you found it first. What happened?”

William closed his eyes and inhaled. He could still feel the grit of gunpowder in his palm. Could still hear the
chunk chunk
of cannonballs as they slid into the gun. The sharp smell of flint and flame came back to him with vivid clarity. His arms still burned with the force of the gun as it exploded, straining against the ropes in his hands.

“I sailed with Nelson in ’98. We chased Napoleon’s navy all over the Mediterranean that year, and finally caught his fleet off the coast of Alexandria. I was on deck as his flagship
L’Orient
went down in flames. We thought we were victorious.”

Sera stiffened, her eyes widening slightly. Then she motioned for him to continue.

“We left the Mediterranean without setting foot in Egypt. But Napoleon continued his campaign into the Ottoman heartland, including laying siege to Egypt—exactly what we did not want. English trade routes to India were compromised, so in ’01 the Royal Navy went back to oust the Frogs from Egypt and open up the trade lines again. I knew how to fight on land. So I went.”

He couldn’t be sure, but he thought she whispered, “Oh God.”

“We invaded Egypt. Swept over the land like the sea. The Frogs gave us far less of a fight than the Mamalukes gave them, which is not saying much. They very nearly laid down their weapons the moment they saw us, without Napoleon there to lead them into slaughter. The Frogs left, but we stayed. By then, the talk was everywhere.”

“The talk?”

“No Englishman in Egypt could give a fuck about India. All anyone wanted was the riches inside the monuments and temples they were discovering all over the country. And that was after Napoleon’s forces had already looted what they could. It was all anyone could talk about. ‘Stick your hand in the desert sand,’ they said, ‘and pull out your fortune.’ As soon as the Frogs left, the English explorers came with their shovels and axes and notebooks. Every day caskets and gold and mummies were being pulled out of the ground and put on boats back to England. The soldiers and sailors had to just stand there and watch. I wanted so badly to get lost in the desert, find my own wealth.”

He didn’t think she was aware that her hand had strayed to her forearm and pushed up her sleeve. Graceful fingers ran around the edge of the cuff, which glinted in the candlelight. She looked dazed, dreamy.

“But you found this instead,” she murmured.

“Yes. I was ordered to search the banks of the Nile for resisters, for remaining Frogs or Mamalukes—anyone who might give England trouble. We were assigned to teams. Samuel Oliver was my partner and we scoured the area west of Edfu. I was excited to be out on my own. So was he.”

At the sound of Oliver’s name, Sera shifted uncomfortably. It was so strange; she was an Oliver, too, and yet she looked nothing like Samuel.

“We spent less time with our rifles on guard than we did poking our bayonets into the ground. We used the blades to try and pry the earth open, hoping to reveal our own secret tomb full of gold. All the while we laughed through our disappointment, until one day we actually found it.”

Her breath hitched.

“It was a bloody hot day and we were scouting a slope. Oliver was using his bayonet as a walking stick, testing the ground. And then it happened. A chunk of earth fell away under his blade, then more, until his foot sank and he shouted for me. I hurried over—he was still standing there crooked and half buried, but with a smile on his face—and we listened to the sound of rocks and sand as they trickled deeper into the earth. Do you know that sound? That echo?”

She smiled, though it was distant. And there was pain behind it.

“We spent the rest of the day digging, with our bayonets, with our field knives and hands, until we uncovered the narrow mouth of a small cave. A symbol had been roughly carved next to the entrance. That symbol.” He pointed at the rope-like picture on the cuff.

“Go on. What was inside the cave?”

William was dying to reach the end of his story so he could hear hers. It was why the Spectre had sent him here, wasn’t it? To learn what she knew and use it?

He gathered his wet hair at the back of his neck and gave it a good squeeze. “Not what we wanted. Not a sumptuous, decorated cavern filled to the top with gold. There were two bodies inside, but they weren’t mummies. Just bones and cloth. Symbols had been painted all over the walls, but they were plain and crude. Not the drawings of the kings’ tombs we’d read about.”

“They’re called hieroglyphics.”

“Hmm.” He wasn’t at all surprised she knew that, though something told him he should be. “Last I heard the Frogs had discovered something—a tablet or some such—to help decipher their meaning.”

“They did.” That pained expression flashed behind her eyes again but she pushed it away. “The cuff. You said it was on one of the skeletons?”

“Yes. Oliver saw it first, though it wasn’t hard to miss. The gold took our lantern light and threw it back tenfold. He wrenched the arm off the skeleton and slid the cuff from the bone.” William let out a short, humorless laugh. “Funny, the first thing I remember was the awful smell of the dust that rose from the body. Then I watched the cuff fall open in Oliver’s hand. I asked him what he’d done to it and he said nothing, that it just opened and he couldn’t get it to close again. There was no clasp. I was curious but also jealous, and I went over to get a closer look. That’s when I saw the images on the underside, the beast-man and the woman.”

He shook his head, the damp ends of his hair tickling his chin. “It was stupid of me, but I dove for it. Oliver was prepared for my attempt—he would’ve done the same thing to me, I wager—and all I had on my side was greed. He punched me in the jaw and I stumbled backward. My lantern fell. I tripped over a rock, wrenching my knee as I went down. I crashed into the other skeleton, scattering the bones. I was so disgusted at that point—with the dead body underneath me, with my greed—and I was so
afraid
. Every time I tried to move, my knee screamed in pain. It wouldn’t let me stand.”

“What did Oliver do?” She paused before saying his name, as if it hurt her.

William remembered the other man’s face as if it were yesterday. “He looked torn. He wanted to help me, but he also feared me coming after the gold again. It did strange things to us that day. When he apologized, I knew he was going to run and leave me there.”

She considered him. “What would you have done, if you were him and he’d have tried to take it from you?”

“Probably the same.” The candle flame taunted him.

“What about that greed you mentioned? How do I know you won’t try to take it from me now?”

He raised his eyes. Even in the masculine clothes and the shorter hair, her femininity touched him with warm hands. He no longer felt chilled. “I already told you. Because I won’t.”

“But how do I
know
?”

“Because things are different now.”

“Things.” Her eyes narrowed, but in a way that was more assessing than cold. “It’s not coming off. You’d have to saw off my arm to get at it.”

“I told you. I don’t want it.”

I want
you.

He sucked in a breath, swallowing down that unbidden thought before she could see it plain upon his face. He’d become talented at that over the years—hiding his self-doubt and protecting what few emotions he could claim as his own.

Again he paused.
Had
that thought come from him? Or the Spectre? Before, for so very long, all he’d had to do was obey what the dead man whispered. William had merely acted or reacted in order to appease the demands. He hadn’t had to deal with such personal entanglements.

How was he supposed to manage now?

Sera saved him from huddling back into his own madness by asking, “So what did Oliver do? Did he actually leave you?”

William nodded. “He justified it by saying he was going to get help, that he couldn’t carry me injured back to camp.”

“How long were you in the cave?”

Truthfully, he had no idea. From there his story took a dramatic and bizarre turn, one which he’d never told anyone. If he voiced it, he risked her doubt and her flight. This would have to unfold slowly, in order to make it more believable. He had to win her trust first.

He replied, “Another day or so. When help came, Oliver wasn’t one of them. In fact, I never saw him again.”

Her dark, delicately arched eyebrows drew together.

He said, “You look nothing like him, you know. Samuel Oliver. His hair was the color of sand and he was covered in freckles.”

You
are exotic. Like treasure.

“I take after my mom.” Again, strange words, strange inflections. On top of that, she was obviously choosing her words carefully. “I’ve never met Samuel. In fact, I’ve never even met my father. He left the cuff to me in his will. I know you better than I ever knew him.”

“When did he die?”

“Three months ago,” she answered quickly, then rolled her lips inward as though she realized she’d made a mistake.

Liar
. Three months wasn’t nearly long enough for her to have been sentenced and then to have made the sea voyage to New South Wales.
Beautiful liar.

“Are you certain about that?” He dipped his voice and chin low.

“How do you suppose Samuel and Mitchell Oliver are related?”

He did not miss her obvious change of subject.

“I was hoping you could tell me. But apparently you cannot.” He raised a knee and propped an arm atop it. “Where did you say you were born? Your speech is like nothing I’ve heard before, yet you speak English.”

“I didn’t say.” Her eyes flicked to one side. “I am American.”

His turn for surprise. “Can’t say I’ve ever met someone from there. How did you get sent here, then?”

She remained silent.

He sighed. “I need you to tell me your story. You know my half. I still don’t know yours.”

She drew a shaking breath and whispered, “Because I don’t know it. Not all of it anyway. When you saw me out there that first day, in the back of Viv’s wagon, that was because he found me lying on the ground. I don’t remember much about what happened before that. I don’t really know how I got here, to New South Wales. I know my name, and bits and pieces have come back to me—like my father’s name and the fact that he recently left the cuff to me—but when I try to piece them together they don’t make much sense. They don’t give me a complete story.”

“So what
do
you remember?”

She was so still he thought her carved from wood. A few heavy moments passed before she replied, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

He leaned forward, so close he didn’t know if the sudden heat on his chest came from the lone candle or from her body. “Try me.”

CHAPTER 10

Sera didn’t know what unnerved her more—the open way William stared at her, looking impossibly hard and lean without a shirt, or the matter-of-factness in his expression. Like they weren’t two random strangers from different eras who’d first seen each other days ago out in the middle of nowhere and were now trading impossible tales while hiding out in a church.