Cold Steel (The Spiritwalker Trilogy)

by Kate Elliott

  But what shocked me was that it matched the fabric of the dash jacket worn by the man meant to be Vai in the false dream sketched by Bee to convince Caonabo not to arrest me.

  The bell jangled as the door opened. A swirl of chilly, damp air shivered into the shop like a big cat with a cold nose nudging your cheek. A remarkably attractive man with blond hair, a thick mustache, and scarred knuckles stopped short.

  “Bold Diana! It is peculiar to find you exactly where I was told you would be.”

  “Brennan!” Elation throbbed through my chest. Brennan Touré Du was the first man who had ever truly flirted with me, however mild a flirtation it might have been that night at the Griffin Inn when I had met him, the trolls Godwik and Chartji, and Professora Kehinde Nayo Kuti. I had understood at the time that he was being kind, for a man of Brennan Du’s experience and reputation was quite out of the reach of a girl like me.

  Vai’s hand settled possessively on the small of my back as he stepped up beside me. “I believe we have not been formally introduced,” he said in his most coolly belligerent tone. “I am Magister Andevai Diarisso of Four Moons House. Perhaps you will be so kind as to inform my wife and me why you are here.”

  The infamous radical called black-haired Brennan had a history of fighting, whether in taverns or in the service of his radical philosophy. He also had a brilliantly charming grin, which he deployed with blinding good humor as he approached Vai with an outstretched hand in the radical manner, man to man as an equal.

  “Magister! It is an honor to make your acquaintance formally. You must have quite a rousing tale to tell, if everything Beatrice has told me is true.”

  Good manners won out, as they always did with Vai when it came to the point. He shook hands, but watched like a wire strung taut as Brennan shook my hand.

  “She told me to look for the tailor shop opposite Queedle and Clutch.”

  I just could not stop grinning. “Where are Bee and Rory? Can I go to them right away?”

  “Immediately!” When Brennan turned that smile on me, I realized he was striking in large part because he was at ease in himself. He was not burdened by the insecurities and vanities that plagued Andevai.

  “Let me finish here before we go,” said Vai, again settling a hand against my back.

  “No need to accompany us if it’s any trouble for you, Magister.” Brennan examined Vai with a distinct crinkle of laughter about his eyes. “I will return your wife to you by nightfall.”

  “It is no trouble for me to accompany you,” said Vai in a fruitless attempt to sound unconcerned: His tone came off as threatening. “Indeed, I insist on it.”

  “You can’t wish to wear that dash jacket in public,” I said.

  Unfortunately the tailor sailed into the breach. “I have the other dash jacket ready, Magister, if you will just come back with me to try it on. I assure you, it will fit exactly as you wish.”

  I followed Vai back behind the screen, where we chanced to have a few moments alone as the tailor went to the wardrobe to fetch the other garment.

  “I don’t know that I would call him the handsomest man I ever met,” he muttered with such ill temper that I was tempted to smack him. “But the enchanting smile has a certain stark effect.”

  “Jealousy ill becomes you,” I whispered as I unbuttoned his jacket.

  He glared.

  “Also, I don’t like it.” I slipped the fourteenth button free and pressed my hands to his shirt, beneath the jacket. “It makes it look as if you don’t trust me.”

  His chest heaved. “Of course I trust you.”

  “Do you?”

  The tailor returned with the finished dash jacket, this one sewn out of a fine damask dyed the color of a ripe peach. I stepped back hastily.

  “Had you some remark upon the floral fabric, Maestra?” the tailor asked with a hopeful bow.

  “I think by all means it is entirely appropriate for a dash jacket,” I said as the old man strove to contain his unprofessional wince at my unprofessional judgment.

  Vai was too preoccupied by his own struggle to notice our aside. His tone could have been chiseled from granite, it was so hard. “Go on, Catherine. I don’t need to accompany you. Will Beatrice and your brother be returning to stay with us at the mage House?”

  I took his hand. “It might be best to join them for supper at their domicile.”

  The bell tinkled again as the door opened. A familiar voice said, “You’ve been in here a long time, Brennan. You said to come in after you if there was trouble. Is there trouble? Cat! I can smell you’re in here! Begging your pardon, Maesters. I didn’t see you there. I’m Roderic Barr. It’s a pleasure to meet you. You’re sewing! I do admire people who can sew. They have such nimble fingers!”

  “Rory!” I shrieked, dashing out from behind the screen and into Rory’s arms. I looked up into his smiling face. “You’re all right, both you and Bee?”

  He kissed me soundly on each cheek in the traditional Kena’ani way. Still close, he sniffed. “Goodness, Cat, that man has put his scent all over you!”

  My cheeks must have flamed red, for the sewers turned their heads to hide their chuckles. Brennan looked past me with a warning lift of his chin. I released Rory as Vai stepped out from behind the screen in his unbuttoned jacket.

  “So she did rescue you!” Rory walked up to Vai and stared him down eye-to-eye. Rory was a touch taller and he had puffed himself up in that odd way he had of making himself seem bigger. “I am her brother. I look out for her.”

  Vai did not budge. “Catherine is capable of looking out for herself.”

  “You have sisters. You know what I mean.”

  “How do you know I have sisters?”

  “Cat tells me everything.” Rory made the words a challenge.

  Brennan put a hand on my arm to keep me out of it. The tailor put a hand on the screen to steady it in case there was an altercation.

  Vai took in Rory’s black hair and golden eyes, and the badly mended and faded dash jacket he was wearing. “Lord of All! That’s the jacket I wore the night of… it’s ruined!”

  Rory’s smile was almost a wink. “It was this, or go naked. Not that I mind going naked, but it does get cold. Be assured Cat already scolded me for ruining it and scolded Bee for letting me wear it in the first place. I do like it when Cat scolds Bee, because no one else does and I can assure you that nothing is more tiresome than Bee let loose in the world with no one to scold her.” Without asking permission, he smoothed the sleeve of the jacket Vai was wearing as Vai’s eyes widened in disbelief at the familiarity. Rory practically purred. “I really like this color. You have the most beautiful clothes.”

  “Roderic, why don’t you accompany the magister so you can bring him along this evening,” said Brennan in a hearty voice as he grabbed my cloak and tugged me out the door.

  I resisted. “But I… what if…?”

  He cut me off as the door shut. “Nothing Rory can’t handle. Better to leave the two of them to get acquainted without you there, for I perceive they are each in their own way a bit… shall we say… protective of you, Maestra Barahal.”

  “Call me Cat, please,” I said, for I perceived it was time to turn the subject entirely.

  “So I shall, Cat, for that is what Bee calls you, and since she talks about you a great deal, I rather feel I know you better than I ought.”

  “Oh dear,” I muttered.

  He indicated a ramshackle carriage waiting at the intersection, driven by a young man burly enough to be a boxer, who was accompanied by a scarred fellow armed with a stout cudgel. The driver acknowledged us with a nod. The carriage started forward the moment we settled in the seat. Grimy glass windows rattled as if likely to shake right out of the frames.

  “Are you the rats who brought news of Camjiata’s victory to Pinfeather & Quill?” I asked.

  “I mean no offense, but before I take you into my confidence, I must know if the magister means to support the radical cause. Bee has repeatedly a
ssured me that in Expedition the magister declared his intention to break from Four Moons House. Yet you are guests at the local mage House.”

  “If you were a cold mage traveling in winter, you would stay at a mage House, too, or else you would freeze to death!”

  He chuckled. “I am not accusing the magister of anything, Cat, although I appreciate your spirited defense. I am sure he would appreciate that defense, too, if he were here, for I have a suspicion he was a little reluctant to allow you to leave with me.”

  We pulled into the heavier traffic along a main thoroughfare. Enchanting as Brennan Du might be, I was not about to discuss Andevai’s character with him!

  I changed the subject. Ahead rose dark clouds, the surly smoke of iron furnaces and bustling manufactories. “I am surprised to see so many trolls in Sala.”

  “The trolls see forests that need to be managed and mines that have been left untapped. Laborers who owe their service as a tithe to their prince or House masters travel here for the chance to be paid a wage for their labor.”

  “And you’ve come to agitate for revolution among the laborers. Never in all my childhood dreams did I imagine I would one day conspire with radicals!”

  His answering grin kicked me right in the gut, for he really was quite attractive.

  “Yet you’ve grown up, Maestra. You were a girl when I met you at the Griffin Inn. I would say you are a woman now.” He reached inside his coat and withdrew a printed pamphlet. “Did you write this account of the Taino kingdom? As Beatrice would say, it’s splendidly engrossing. Especially the bit about the shark.”

  I accepted his compliment with a calm, sensible smile. “It is true I have had some unexpected adventures.”

  I had not set foot in the easternmost district of Sala because it was known as a rough-hewn laborers’ camp where restless men congregated. As Brennan had explained, many came from principalities to the west, escaping indentured servitude in the hope of finding employment in the manufactories. A Venerday market had been set up under shelters. Braziers heaped with wood burned merrily to cast a bit of warmth on passersby. I was grateful for my cloak.

  The carriage rolled along lanes where butchers and bone-boilers hung their signs. We pulled up by empty livestock pens. On one side stood trolls like berries on a bush; no troll stood alone, and most stood in clusters of three or four, while each group kept at least three arms’ length from any other. They wore garments that mimicked human fashions, but their clothing was so adorned with bits and baubles of polished metal, glass, and beads that I had to look away or get a headache.

  On the other side, the fences were crowded with men shoulder to shoulder on the rails and in the pens. They had the unwashed look of men who haven’t the coin to pay for a tub of water in which to bathe. A few shawled and cloaked women moved through the outskirts of the crowd, selling food or, judging by the furtive movement in the shadow of a half-hidden alley, their own bodies.

  The heat of so many people had churned the frozen dirt into a mire. Yet despite the crush, and the occasional bark of a dog, the crowd seethed in a remarkable silence. All stared at a barrel on which a petite young woman stood giving an impassioned speech.

  Bee had raised her voice in the cry for revolution.

  28

  As I reached for the latch, Brennan caught my arm.

  “Don’t get out. The ghana has spies in the crowd.”

  He pulled down the glass in the window so I could hear. Bee’s voice carried easily, for she certainly never had any trouble making herself heard. She spoke in clear schoolroom Latin meant to be widely understood.

  “Our demands for new laws will not cede to the demands of blood and birth. We dispute the arbitrary distribution of power and wealth which is claimed as the natural order. We know it is not natural. It is artificially created and sustained by ancient privileges. Why should those privileges be reserved to only a few communities? By what judgment do the patricians claim they stand above the rest? It is on our backs and our labor and our blood and our children that they rise. We need not stand bent beneath. We can stand straight and say—”

  “Kiss me, sweetheart!” shouted some wag in the crowd. “That’s what we say. You’re the prettiest girl I’ve seen in an age.”

  Raucous laughter followed this sally. I glanced anxiously across the crowd. Brennan pointed to two trolls stationed intimidatingly behind Bee: Chartji and Caith.

  “Kiss you!” Bee exclaimed without losing a beat. “Why would I kiss you when a Roman legate begged me to become his favored one and yet I turned him down? Do you think you are as much of a man as a Roman legate?”

  “More a man than any legate, as I can show you!” the fellow called to shouts of laughter.

  “Thus you prove my point. If you wish me to look upon you as the amatory equal of a Roman legate, then you must surely believe that justice is no different from love. You cannot chain one community into clientage and call that justice while you let another community enrich its coffers and feed its children off the blood and toil of the first. The blood of a poor laborer flows as red as the blood of a prince. Death hunts them both equally, for a corpse knows no rank. It is only those who survive the dead man who dedicate themselves to making such distinctions. There should be one law that treats all communities in equal part, so every person has honor and dignity.”

  “She’s quite remarkable,” said Brennan, keeping his face in shadow as he gazed out the window. “A natural orator. I’ve never seen a heckler get the better of her, and they do try.”

  “I had no idea she would ever be giving speeches!” I stared in rapt admiration at the way she exhorted the crowd to consider how unjust laws and antiquated customs were the means by which the many were sacrificed to exalt the few. Yet it was not Bee’s bold voice I had doubted but the idea that people like us would ever get a chance to speak at all.

  “We do not need nor do we desire their false generosity or their dishonest counsel! We seek only the honor and dignity that by right fall upon every person. The law must unchain all communities from clientage, from indenture, from slavery. That is what we ask you to consider.”

  A rumble stirred the air. A troop of soldiers swung into view at the far end of the livestock yards. Their flowing tunics and feathered caps gave them an imposing presence.

  “Consider wisely!” cried Bee with a glance at the approaching cavalry. “Your ghana wishes to enforce my silence and compel your obedience.” She jumped down from the barrel.

  A voice rang out. “There’s a reward for the man who hands seditionists over to the ghana!”

  Brennan rapped on the ceiling, and the carriage began rolling.

  “I’m not leaving her out there in that!” I grabbed the latch.

  He slammed me back against the seat. “Stop! You’ll never find her in this crowd and will only make things more difficult by going in search of her.”

  I twisted, trying to get free, but he knew the same dirty fighting tricks I did. “Ow! You’re reckless to let her go into a crowd like that!”

  “I am reckless with my own life, but never with the cause. Stop fighting me, and look!”

  As the men began to run, dissolving into a din of fright and panic, the trolls blocked the lanes down which the soldiers rode. Their heads swayed as they scanned the formation. There was something uncanny in the way the trolls bent forward from their usual upright stance, bodies lowering. The riders slowed. I sucked in a breath, gripping the edge of the window.

  A gun went off. Spears lowered and swords flashed as the soldiers rode down the unarmed trolls. If trolls could ever be said to be unarmed.

  They scattered. Whistles shrilled. A cascading melody lilted like a pretty aria, yet its spill of notes made me shudder down to the bone. Some charged, while others easily overleaped the fences and bounded to circle in from the side. I had never seen anything like it. They were so quick that the frontmost simply dodged the thrust of spears. The movement and scent of the trolls panicked the horses, and the lead moun
ts bolted, throwing their riders or slamming into the pens on either side in an effort to get away. A sword flashed, cutting into a feathered hide.

  Was that blood I smelled, hot and dark?

  A shriek tore the air. The clamor of men was drowned under a cacophony of whistles so loud I clapped my hands over my ears. A troll ducked under the belly of a horse and slashed upward. As the horse screamed, its guts spilled.

  Brennan shut the window as the carriage lurched around a corner. “That’s torn it!”

  “I can’t leave Bee out in that—!”

  “Trust that I know what I’m doing. We have a meeting place already planned.”

  Knuckles white, I held my cane, wanting to batter him over the head with it, but instead I took in one slow breath after another, trying to calm myself.

  He shook his head. “It’s a good thing Bee warned me that you leap before you look or you’d have gotten out there and caused ten kinds of trouble. For one thing, what if the ghana’s spies recognized you as the magister’s wife living on the hospitality of White Bow House? What kind of questions do you think they would start asking? You can’t just jump. You have to consider the consequences of each action.”

  “I thought the more you skate onto thin ice, the better you like it. That’s what Kehinde says.”

  A flash of real irritation tightened his lips and eyes. The force of his anger silenced me. I had no idea what Brennan Touré Du thought of me, and I feared he wasn’t thinking very highly of me at all.

  We trundled along as an appalling noise chased us with the pitch of an ugly fight. The carriage jolted to a halt. The door opened, and Bee flung herself into my arms. My eyes grew damp, but after a struggling pause she sat back with one arm gripping my waist and the other holding my hand. The carriage dipped as several people swung up onto the foot-rail in the back.