The Isis Knot Read online

  THE ISIS KNOT

  Hanna Martine

  Two lives crossed…

  William Everard was once a man of the sea, until a terrifying incident in Egypt at the turn of the nineteenth century cast him out of the British Royal Navy, forcing him to live in disgrace and to question his sanity. For eighteen years, visions have driven his actions and directed his life. When they compel him to commit theft, he is sentenced to the New South Wales prison colony, half a world away.

  Death would have been more kind. Sera Oliver awakes in a desolate, sun-baked land with no memory but her name. She senses, however, that the gold band with the curious symbols clamped around her arm does not belong to her, and that she does not belong to this place...or this time.

  Their souls knotted together…

  During a hellish five-month sea voyage, William is haunted by the face of a beautiful, troubled woman. He knows what he must do when he reaches Australia: Find the woman. End the visions. Regain control over his mind.

  For Sera, William’s presence begins to unlock the keys to her past—or is it her future? She doesn’t know which frightens her more: the sudden knowledge of her modern-day birth, the terrifying story behind her time travel, or the dangerous magic that now runs through her body. Fear of this cruel, unfamiliar world makes Sera reluctant to trust William, until an ancient enemy crosses continents and centuries to hunt her, and she must turn to William for answers, for life, and for love.

  But will their connection bind the fraying strands of time...or unravel the world?

  CHAPTER 1

  New South Wales, 1819

  Most of William Everard’s formative years had been spent on water, but never chained belowdecks. Never stuffed into a steamy, rancid hold filled to near bursting with another hundred and forty-five convicts. Now, after five interminable months at sea, William had finally arrived at the place of his punishment. A jail without bars, but equally as cruel.

  New South Wales. A land of undesirables, of criminals. Mother England’s rubbish bin.

  Seven years’ Transportation Beyond the Seas, the judge had ordered at the conclusion of William’s trial. Seven years for stealing those boots he hadn’t wanted and that didn’t even fit. Seven years of hell.

  Or would it be? The Spectre claimed otherwise, but he was fucking tired of listening to it.

  William was a man born to sail—to work and live on the ocean, not on land as his family had once done—and yet now he longed to breathe in air that did not stink viciously of salt and men who were not sailors. He hungered for the feel of solid ground beneath his feet, even if it meant that this time there would be no escape.

  Because here, down at the bottom of the world where man was still new, somewhere in this criminalized version of civilization, the Spectre had told William that he would find her.

  The John Barry, the former Royal Navy frigate once used in glorious battles and victories, and now recommissioned for transporting the likes of William to a harsh new continent, at last left the open Pacific Ocean under sail and slipped westward into Port Jackson. He watched striped shadows creep across the dirty bodies of hunched-over men. His own body listed to one side as the prison hulk came about. Though he was packed tightly into the center of the hold, the nervous movements of the other convicts allowed him occasional glimpses through the glass-paned portholes. The world outside shifted. Vast, endless blue changed to rocky cliffs and an empty, green-and-gold landscape.

  Even at this distance, and even seeing it with eyes that had beheld a great deal over the years, New South Wales seemed eerily strange.

  Here, whispered the Spectre. Here. Finally.

  Finally. Yes. William’s eighteen-year-long nightmare would come to an end. He would find the woman and be rid of the Spectre forever.

  Sailors’ feet pounded on the deck above. Various muffled orders volleyed from port to starboard, bow to stern. Every man aboard except for those locked belowdecks readied for the hulk’s arrival in Sydney Town.

  Somewhere to William’s right, a man whose face was lost in the dense pack shrieked, “We’re here! We’ve made it!”

  A low buzz began among the imprisoned men. A buzz filled with fear. Excitement. Agitation. Anxiety. The men began to move, rising to their bare feet, pacing in the cramped spaces. The movement fed the atmosphere, clogging it with ripe sweat and impatience, and it steadily grew and grew.

  William remained still and calm, because that was what this moment demanded. He had to act as the eye of this impending storm. He had to be a star in the sky, constant and reassuring.

  The Spectre inside him, however, whispered suggestion and urges. It wanted William to slam his elbow into one of the portholes, break the glass to pieces, and toss himself into the harbor. Swim to shore. It fed him, yet again, an image of the woman with the round face, shining, plaintive dark eyes, and the long, straight black hair.

  As much as William yearned to find her, to end the Spectre’s cursed visions, there would be no swimming for him.

  He reached down and scratched underneath the fifteen-pound weight clamped and locked around his ankle. No other convict wore such a device, and its presence had been no one’s fault but his bloody own. Several months ago—was it two? three?—when the convicts had been allowed on deck to breathe the nighttime air, William had been staring up at Sirius, his star, when the Spectre had first given him the vision of the woman. He knew then that she was the true reason he’d been sent to New South Wales, and that knowledge had cracked him open. He’d drunk too much, picked a fight with two convicts, and broken a crate over the quartermaster’s head.

  He hadn’t been allowed to see the sun or Sirius since.

  But that fight and the weight of punishment had ended up granting him a level of fearful respect among the convict population.

  “I see it! The town. Sydney!” cried a man near a porthole.

  Beside William, Jem made a noise better suited to a nine-year-old boy than a nineteen-year-old young man. Jem contracted into himself, his long, spidery legs pulled up under his chin. William gave him a solid nod of encouragement. From over his unfortunately hooked nose, Jem’s tiny eyes softened.

  One hundred and forty-four convicts clambered for space near the portholes that had once framed the necks of cannons. Jem’s slim neck craned upward, futilely trying to see over the others’ heads. The convicts would never part for weak, timid Jem. But they would for William.

  “Fancy a look?” he asked.

  Jem blinked. “Aye.”

  William hauled himself to standing and started to drag his shackled foot over to port. Jem followed closely. There was precious little space at the crowded portholes, but all William had to do was tap a man on his bare shoulder, jut his thumb to the side, and the man scooted out of the way, letting William and Jem assume a place on the glass.

  With great trepidation and trembling expectation, William got his first true look at the place where the Spectre’s visions had sentenced him.

  Sydney Cove appeared as a generous scoop of blue water carved into the hilly green landscape. Sydney Town’s simple buildings squatted long and low against the earth, the stone blocks greatly limiting variation and construction and innovation. The pale color was so different from the monotonous gray stone of London. Forests of billowing green tested the town’s borders and suffered bald spots where the trees had been chopped. Miles of fences shot out of sight, dividing the land. The sun burned blindingly bright. The whole place looked primitive, unremarkable, and more than a bit dirty.

  A tremor danced down William’s spine.

  The clank and roll of a great chain echoed throughout the hold, followed by a heavy splash, as the John Barry anchored. The hold became saturated with deep voices speculating what would happen to the convict
s when they were brought on land. The stories fed back to England varied, and nothing was scarier than the unknown. William knew that well. For eighteen years, all his tomorrows were blank slates, dictated by whatever the Spectre wanted. Fright was a daily emotion for him, but unlike these men, he knew how to use it. How to hide it.

  The porthole went dark as the swaying, bulky shape of a rowboat was lowered down from the main deck. William scratched the thick beard on his chin and wondered why it was only one boat and not more. Then he saw the captain and a few of his favorite officers sitting inside the boat among piles of clothes and food and rum—the very items they’d withheld from the convicts during the journey for the purpose of punishment or wicked teasing.

  The rest of the convicts saw this, too, and as soon as one started to pound on the glass and hurl obscenities at the captain, the rest were quick to follow. The hold spiraled into a deafening roar of malcontent. If the men in the rowboat heard—and it was more than likely they did—they simply ignored the noise and slowly pulled the oars toward shore.

  #

  A day later, the convicts were still trapped in the hold. Land so close and yet still so far away, and very little sustenance left to go around. William was nearly crawling out of his skin with agitation, and his stomach cramped with hunger. The incessant drive of the Spectre no longer lived just in his mind, but now in the pulse of his blood.

  The captain’s rowboat returned, empty of goods, but the pockets of the captain’s fine coat bulged with coin. When the convicts saw this, a riot erupted. Chaos consumed the hold. Vile curses plugged the thick air. The men began to beat their fists against the bulkhead…and then on each other. Months-old arguments and vendettas escalated into scrabbling and fighting.

  William retreated. He made himself deaf so he wouldn’t hear and be tempted to join. He made himself sightless so he wouldn’t see the beautiful violence. Though he longed to throw his own good, hard punch, and yearned for the dance of strategy against an opponent, this aimless, messy fumbling wasn’t the type of fighting he loved. These boys knew nothing. Let the stupid convicts release their pointless anger. Let them pound away and uselessly scream of the injustice.

  Pushing deeper into the shadows of a berth, he closed his eyes and channeled his energy into thoughts of his quarry, the woman.

  A violent jolt knocked William back into himself and his eyes flew open. Two men had slammed into his berth, their legs kicking and arms flailing. They dropped to the floor and pummeled each other. Annoyed, William swung his shackled ankle over the side of the wooden bunk and grabbed one of the men by the oily shirt collar. Yanking him to his feet, William shoved his face close to the other’s and growled, “Hold on to yourself. Both of you.” He flicked his eyes to port, where New South Wales waited. “Be wise. You’ll need your strength and your mind out there.”

  Wide-eyed, both convicts nodded and stumbled away. William wiped his soiled hand on his even dirtier trousers and drew a deep breath.

  A sick, clammy sensation grabbed hold of the back of his neck and refused to let go. He stared into the melee, fearing what was causing this dread. He didn’t want to be right.

  But he was.

  Three rows of stacked berths divided the hold. William stood in one aisle. Down the other stomped Richard Riley.

  The Irishman’s eyes were wild, his muddy brown hair and wiry red beard untamed, his movements jerky and full of loathsome energy. His two mollies—sad, forgettable, sallow men who’d given in to Riley’s demands months ago—followed in his wake. The three of them made a show of grabbing each convict to search his face. They were hunting for someone in particular. Someone they’d terrorized before. Someone on whom to take out their own mark of anger.

  It was always easiest to single out the weakest.

  Jem.

  William searched for the lad within the recesses of the bunks. Jem had been sitting with him there since yesterday, but now the lad was gone. He must have noticed the riot starting and slipped away, out of sight and punching range. William’s heartbeat started to pound in fear.

  Jem was his responsibility. Just as Alastair had stood over William twenty-four years ago when a seasoned sailor had threatened to beat a young William over a crust of bread, William would be there to stand over Jem. He’d been too late to save Jem from Riley at the beginning of the voyage, but now William was determined to help him heal. To show the lad that not all men were like that. That there was strength to be found in even the meekest of humans. Sometimes you needed another’s guidance to help you find it.

  A sea of angry, bloody men screamed and fought and surged all around. Jem was somewhere inside it, and Riley was trying to use the confusion to take back what William had stopped five months ago.

  That was not going to happen.

  William pushed deeper into the aisle and quickly ducked an errant blow. One convict had ripped apart his berth and was using a broken timber to destroy another man’s bed, the insistent cracking sound adding a beat to the riot. William shoved aside the vandal and pressed on. Where was Jem? He couldn’t see anything except sweat and skin. Then two grimacing men, their hands twisted in each other’s shirts, tottered out of his path and he finally saw Jem.

  The lad had wedged himself into a safe spot underneath the steep steps leading up to the main deck. The hatch above was closed and locked, and Jem clung to those steps as though they were a floating piece of debris in a cyclone. His legs were tucked up against his chest, his bony arms wrapped around a staircase tread. His prominent eyes bulged wider than usual. But he was safe.

  Stay there, William thought. Maybe Riley won’t see—

  But Riley did. In the other aisle, he halted suddenly and slapped an arm across the chest of one of his mollies. The Irishman’s stillness within the storm of bodies was apparent and awful. His fists opened and closed at his sides. He adjusted his cock through his trousers.

  William’s dread died. In its place sprouted a rage and determination he hadn’t felt since he’d first stood between Riley and Jem all those months ago.

  The big Irishman elbowed convicts aside, heading for his prey. Riley was closer to Jem, and Riley wore no ankle weight. William charged forward, too, the weight making his steps uneven and agonizingly slow. His knuckles tingled in anticipation. He could feel the curl of his own lip, the pound of his own blood. He would saw off his own leg and beat Riley with his shackled foot before he allowed Jem to be attacked again.

  What seemed like a million brawling convicts stood in William’s way, and he had to shove and punch his way free from the twisted knot. At last he burst into a pocket of open space before the steps. Dear God. Riley had gotten to Jem.

  The Irishman had shoved Jem face first over a tread in the steps, his arse stuck up in the air. Jem’s narrow torso dangled helplessly over the other side. Riley’s two mollies were holding his arms and…grinning.

  Riley planted one hand on Jem’s back and fumbled with the rope holding up his trousers with the other. William couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see straight for the wrath that coursed through him. Suddenly there was no more weight on his ankle, nothing at all holding him back. He lunged for Riley before the Irishman even knew William was there. His tight fist smashed into Riley’s snarling, despicable face.

  Sweet Lord, but it felt glorious. The sound of flesh meeting bone, the sight of blood as it burst from Riley’s nose, the surprise and flash of fear in Riley’s eyes, even the pain that shuddered from William’s fist to his elbow. How he’d missed this. This—this—was the fighting he loved. One on one. For a purpose.

  Riley stumbled backward, lost his footing. His arse struck the floor and his head snapped back against a post.

  William stood over him, baring his teeth. “You’re a right twisted bastard.”

  Riley scrambled to his feet, rising half a head taller than William. The Irishman hissed through bloody teeth then cackled, an ugly, gurgling sound.

  William fixed his stare on Riley but threw over his shoulder, “You al
l right, Jem?”

  “Aye,” came Jem’s reply, squeaky and uneven in the face of humiliation and terror.

  “Let him go, then.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, William saw Riley’s mollies releasing Jem’s arms. Jem awkwardly extricated himself from the steps. In that moment, William finally noticed the dead silence in the hold, where it had been mayhem only moments earlier. He should have known this would draw an audience.

  Riley shoved away from the post, his hairy fingers curling into fists. The sight of them made William’s heart thud in deeper excitement. Had he really held out from a fight for three long months?

  “You knew I wouldn’t let you have him again,” William said. “Nor any other man who doesn’t want you.”

  “Oh, but I wanted to let you try. The game has changed, now that we’ve arrived. You no longer rule the hold. You’re mine.” Riley glanced pointedly at Jem and licked his lips. “And then he will be, too.”

  William grinned, the old cockiness coming back as easily as though it had never left. He lifted his arms, palms to the ceiling. “You won’t best me.”

  “A meal on the old man!” someone shouted from the back of the onlookers.

  Old man? At thirty-nine, he supposed he was, compared to the lads who surrounded him. But age meant nothing when it came to a fight.

  Nearby, a young convict pulled out a sorry slab of old meat from his trouser pocket. “I’ll take that wager. My food’s on Riley.”

  More bets ricocheted from port to starboard—useless items like buttons and rope and tatty cloth. The convicts pressed in, forming a tight half-moon.

  Yes. Yes. A buzz better than opium swept through William’s body. The roar of past audiences came rushing back to him. The memories of dark cellars, fancy, heavily paneled rooms, and open-air grassy knolls, all swarming with people waving their marks, felt as fresh as if they’d happened this morning. The memories goaded him, thrilled him. He’d show them all who the old man was.