Cold Steel (The Spiritwalker Trilogy)

by Kate Elliott

  Chartji whistled, and Caith bobbed apologetically and retreated to the table, where he tapped his talons so fretfully on the wood that he cut shallow gouges.

  “That might just work,” said Brennan to Vai with a nod of appreciation that melted Vai’s frosty manner a trifle. “How are you going to explain how you suddenly picked up your three servants after being here two weeks with none?”

  “What makes you think I have to explain anything to anyone?” Vai tugged on his sleeves.

  Rory tugged on his with exactly the same movement. “The sleeves were too short,” he said, “but the clever tailor put lace on to lengthen them. Don’t they look nice?”

  Vai gave me a stern look to remind me not to criticize.

  I said, quite truthfully, “The color looks well on you, Rory. The fit is good, too, although you might need to have it let out a little at the shoulders. I’m delighted”—if astounded!—“that Vai has seen fit to make sure you are properly clothed.”

  “By the way, Magister,” said Chartji, “several letters came to you from Expedition.”

  “Have they?” Vai grinned with such unfeigned delight that Bee looked as startled as if he had turned into a different man. “Kofi said he would write! I don’t suppose there is any chance you have the letters with you?”

  “No—” Chartji broke off as I raised a hand for silence.

  Footfalls sounded from the passage. The woman with the baby entered, carrying a tray.

  “Cook will be having the soup hot soon now, Maester,” she said to Brennan, “meaning no disrespect to the magister.” She glanced at Vai and then took a second look up and down in an admiring way before she began unloading the dishes.

  Bee cast me a look, rolling her eyes. Fortunately Vai was speaking to Chartji in a low voice about sending letters back to Expedition, and did not notice. Youths brought the food, a hearty fare of mutton stew and cabbage mashed up with turnips, and we sat. I half expected Bee to be casting sly glances and arch looks at the man she had confessed was her lover, but she treated him no differently from the rest of us.

  “We radicals are not working for General Camjiata,” Brennan explained to Vai. “We are working with him to achieve those goals we share in common. He will soon march his army north over the Pyrene Mountains into the Gallic Territories. We need to discover the plans of the Alliance of princes and mages, where and when and with what numbers they mean to fight him, because they will fight him. The general simply cannot have raised as large an army as his enemies will. He will need our help to defeat them.”

  “Have the radicals no spies?” I asked.

  “We have successfully insinuated a few spies into the princely courts. What we lack is any knowledge of the plans of the mage Houses, for they are closed to us.”

  Vai considered his bowl of stew, then met Brennan’s gaze. “I can move easily into any mage House in Europa. But I do not stand so high in mage ranks that I would ever be admitted to councils of war.” He glanced sidelong at me in a way meant to make me smile, and it did. “However, once I introduce my wife into those halls, she can eavesdrop.”

  “Are you truly willing to do this for the radicals, Magister?” Brennan asked.

  “I don’t do this for you. I do this for my friends in Expedition, and for my village.”

  “If the mage Houses discover you are acting as our agent, they will kill you.”

  He shrugged. “If I am willing to risk nothing for freedom, then I am not a man.”

  “Spoken like a radical, Magister.” Brennan set down his cup. “We had best get out of Sala sooner rather than later. I won’t travel with you all the way to Noviomagus. I need to deliver news of the general’s victory to printers and allies in Koumbi. We’ll meet in Havery after we have both completed our other business.”

  “Caith and I are not going to Noviomagus,” added Chartji. “Not if one of our older brethren is nesting there.”

  “Keer also used the phrase older brethren,” I said. “By which I collect you mean the creatures we call dragons. Why can you not go to Noviomagus if the headmaster is one of them?”

  She showed her teeth again, all white and sharp, and chuffed in a way meant to show amusement or, perhaps, a shiver of what a human would have called nervous laughter.

  “Because he would eat us.”

  29

  On a cold late Martius day, slushy and stinging, we reached the mighty Rhenus River. The town of Noviomagus had been founded as a far-flung outpost of the expanding Roman empire and was now a thriving center of trade and textiles. The central district was crowded with opulent four-story edifices, the homes of rich lords and merchant families. In contrast, the mage House was ostentatiously single-storied, its sprawling wings and courtyards eating up several city blocks.

  The palatial forecourt of Five Mirrors House looked every bit as grand as the estate of Four Moons House. Even decently dressed in well-tailored clothing I felt utterly out of place. Vai slapped his gloves repeatedly onto his palms as he examined the sweep of the steps, the pillared portico, and the double doors.

  “Keep silence and follow my lead.” The press of his mouth gave him a sneer.

  A steward starched to perfection in a magnificent orange boubou appeared at the door. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and as dark as Vai, the patrician height of all that is cultured and impeccable.

  “We interview for servants in the kitchen wing. You may go around to the left.”

  Vai crushed his gloves in his hands. “I am Andevai Diarisso, a magister of the Diarisso lineage, out of Four Moons House. I suggest you escort me to see your mansa as soon as we are properly purified and have made the rightful courtesies.”

  The steward’s eyebrows flew up in an expression of astonishment. “Is this all an honored magister of Four Moons House travels with? A satchel and a woman?”

  A chilly blast of air huffed over us as a few stray hailstones clattered down.

  “I am on a Grand Tour. My coach overturned this morning. It will take days before it can be repaired. Likewise, my servants were injured. I left them behind with the coach and driver and came ahead myself with my wife to have a hope of acceptable accommodation and some manner of edible food. Really, the fare at the mage House hostels in this part of the world is unpalatable. I had heard that the magnificence of the architecture and the lavishness of the table fare at the mage Houses in old Roman territory were beyond description, but I admit myself sorely disappointed in what I have so far experienced.”

  Here stood the Andevai I had first known and loathed!

  The steward’s stare made my neck prickle. “Ah, of course. This way, Magister.”

  He ushered us into an antechamber furnished with plain wooden benches and a set of tapestries depicting the diaspora from the Mali Empire. A heavyset woman in an indigo robe offered us water in the traditional way.

  “Magister, you must be purified through water.” She indicated that Vai should go with the steward. “I will myself attend you, Maestra.”

  The House had splendid baths in the Roman style, split into a men’s and a women’s half just as they had been at the gatehouse of Four Moons House.

  “Tell me what happened,” she said after I immersed myself.

  We had deposited Bee and Rory and our luggage at a modest hostel at the edge of town and sent the carriage back to Sala, but naturally I was not going to tell her any of that.

  “It was so frightfully rough to be tumbled in such a vile manner. And I had to leave all my gowns behind.” I simpered into a digression on why I preferred wool challis to damask that soon caused her expression to glaze over in a satisfactory manner.

  Servants brought clean underthings and a shapely gown with a shawl. In this pleasing garb I was escorted to a parlor fitted with low couches. Attendants brought a tea tray with tiny almond cakes and jellied berries. Vai was shown in, and we were left alone. He wore the same dash jacket he had arrived in, although it needed to be cleaned and pressed.

  “Did they not offer you
a change of clothes?” I asked.

  “Nothing I could lower myself to wear,” he said in a combative tone.

  Refusing the bait, I reclined on the cushions and drank three cups of tea and ate four almond cakes and all of the jellied berries while Vai glared over the bare branches of a winter courtyard as if his gaze had ripped the leaves from the shrubs. The way he tapped a drumbeat on his thigh was a sure sign he was churning with restlessly unpleasant thoughts.

  “Vai, you need not use that expression when there is only me here to see for I can assure you it no longer intimidates me although it does make me want to bite you. And not in an amorous way.”

  My wit did not raise even the ghost of a smile.

  The door opened. I rose. A wiry man in an indigo boubou walked in; his gold earrings marked him as a djeli. He was followed by the woman and the steward. An elderly man wearing a modern dash jacket and trousers entered and took a seat.

  “To our House we give you welcome, son of the Diarisso lineage.” The djeli slipped into a melodic chant heavily infused with Bambara. By the way Vai’s hands stilled, I could tell this elaborate greeting mollified him.

  At length the djeli finished. The elderly man raised a hand to indicate he meant to speak with his own voice. “The Diarisso lineage has a reputation for strong cold mages who are proud to the same measure that they are powerful.” The mansa’s gaze slid from Andevai to me. “You are not mage House born, Maestra.”

  “I am Kena’ani, Your Excellency,” I said, dropping my gaze respectfully.

  “What is your name?” asked the djeli.

  I heard Vai’s intake of breath but to lie to the face of a djeli was to invite disaster. “I am Catherine Bell Barahal, Your Honor.”

  “You’re chained,” the djeli said. “Such a marriage is unusual these days.”

  The mansa pressed his fingers together. “I had no idea any Kena’ani clan had the means or opportunity to interest a mage House in a marriage contract.”

  I had not worked at Aunty’s boardinghouse for two months without learning how to handle old men. “It is certainly not anything I can speak of, Your Honor, for having been but a child of six at the time the marriage was contracted, naturally I knew nothing about it. Indeed, you may imagine my consternation when I was suddenly informed but a week before my twentieth birthday that I was required to marry a man I had never met and indeed never before heard of. In fact, I only discovered my fate when the magister himself arrived at my aunt and uncle’s house to claim me. I was speechless.”

  Vai’s lips twitched but he did not quite smile.

  “Most would marvel at your good fortune,” said the woman. “I hope you appreciate the unexpected bounty you have received.”

  “I make sure she appreciates it every day,” Vai said in a stern tone belied by the flicker of his eyes.

  The woman chuckled.

  The mansa was less amused. “I should like to see how powerful your magic really is.”

  Vai’s frown returned. “I can prove myself in any manner you request.”

  My cane trembled to life as he spun a rainbow into a carriage drawn by horses and then into the horse-headed prow of a ship and then into an antlered stag.

  “If nothing else, you can earn a living entertaining in the taverns,” remarked the steward. “I hear that is how village-born cold mages make their living in the circuses of Rome.”

  A crashing cold made me hasten to Vai’s side. His hands were in fists, and I was afraid he might draw his sword.

  The mansa raised a hand in a gesture of peace. “You are no impostor. Be welcome here as our guests. It will take us a few days to properly consult our records to determine which women might be best cultivated by your seed. I’ll need to know the names of your forebears, likewise.”

  The steward opened the door. “Do you prefer to take supper in the hall or a tray of food in the guest suite so you may recover from your travails in comfort and quiet?”

  “A quiet evening tonight, if you will be so kind,” said Vai.

  We took a polite leave and followed the steward past the schoolroom wing with its echo of children reciting in loud voices. People paused to watch us pass. Their reserved expressions were as intimidating as their highly decorative and rather old-fashioned clothing.

  As the door of the guest suite closed behind us, Vai sank onto the silk-covered couch.

  “Cultivated by your seed! You are reduced from animal to plant!” I pressed a hand to his forehead. Ashen shadows dulled his eyes, and lines of weariness soured his mouth. “You’re warm.”

  “She piled her cold magic on top of mine to try to cut the threads of my power.”

  “She did? The woman?”

  “The mansa could not be bothered to test me himself… yet what if he didn’t challenge me because he already knew his cold magic isn’t powerful enough to challenge mine? Perhaps the woman is the more powerful cold mage.”

  “Then wouldn’t she be mansa?”

  “A woman can’t be mansa. The mansa is a man who rules the House as a prince rules a territory or the emperor rules Rome.”

  I placed the cacica’s skull on the side table, positioned to stare directly at Vai. “What do you think of this argument, Queen Anacaona?”

  “Catherine!”

  “Why should I not appeal to a woman who ruled a powerful empire? Either the most powerful cold mage in any House rules as mansa, or the mansa is chosen by some other criterion. But you cannot say that the mansa is the most powerful, if he is not. I would like to hear what Chartji would make of your argument.”

  “Lawyers are paid to make arguments. Furthermore, the feathered people love nothing more than picking through the most arcane details to find things to quibble over.”

  “You have no answer to my perfectly reasonable point, have you? For that is exactly why you hired Chartji in the first place.”

  He beckoned. I returned the skull to the basket. When I sat next to him, he pulled me close and whispered, “So much for our attempt to spy. The steward said ‘village-born.’ The mansa knew you aren’t Houseborn. I think they know who we are.”

  His words fell like stones, unpleasant because they were so hard. “How could they know? I’d better go see what I can learn.”

  “You need not look quite so eager, love. Although I suppose it is natural that you do.”

  He released me as a parade of solemn servants entered bearing platters. As they readied the table I retreated to the bedchamber, drew the shadows around me, and walked unobserved back through the bustle in the sitting room and out the open door.

  Near the entry hall I recognized the djeli’s distinctive tenor. I peeked around a corner. The djeli and the steward were speaking to a soldier who had saddlebags slung over a shoulder. Although their speech had a rhythm different from that of Adurnam, I could string together sense.

  “Ride to Four Moons House. Tell the mansa we have the young magister he seeks. Go in haste. Do not rest.”

  Four men armed with crossbows stamped in from outside and bowed to the steward. He directed them down my corridor. They walked past without seeing me.

  The djeli was holding a sheet of foolscap, which he read. “There are four fugitives, my lord,” he said to the steward. “We are advised to keep the wife as hostage for his good behavior, but that she has peculiar abilities and must be watched by a djeli at all times. Also, remove all mirrors. Kill her rather than allow her to escape. There may also be another man and woman. Shoot the man and capture the woman.”

  The steward made a sign to avert evil spirits. “Ill-omened! Strange to have them turn up a year after we got the letter.”

  The djeli perused the letter again. “The four have become partisans for General Camjiata.”

  “If they are partisans for the general, why are they not with his army?” asked the steward. “Why would the young Diarisso come here in such disorder? He is not on a Grand Tour, although no doubt the women will wish to pursue the matter.”

  The djeli nod
ded. “Above all, we must not make them suspicious. We will coax them to stay.”

  Pursue the matter! Coax them to stay! I retreated to the sitting room, still in my shadows. The table had been tastefully laid and a side table arranged with platters: spiced beef with apples, fish in a pepper sauce, and winter parsnips stewed with leeks and garnished with freshly bloomed violets for decoration. Three servants awaited orders.

  “We will serve ourselves, as we prefer to dine alone.” Vai spun cold fire into lamps of fluid silver shaped like a lion, a crocodile, a stag, and a horse. This casual feat made the servants murmur as appreciatively as if he had done it to entertain them, and maybe he had. “Do not disturb us unless we call for you.”

  Dusk was settling over the garden. People paced its confines, lighting stone cressets with cold fire. I shut the curtains. Yet I could not despair, for the food smelled delicious. I again set out the skull and placed a spoon with a bit of meat, fish, and parsnip by the white jaw, then steered Vai to the table.

  “I’m not hungry,” he said, with the burning look of a proud man who is preoccupied by feeling he has allowed himself to be outmaneuvered by his enemies.

  “Yes, yes, magic feeds you. So you told me before, although I’m sure I don’t understand what you mean by it. You will eat to keep up your strength.” I shoved him into a chair and whispered. “They’ve sent a messenger to Four Moons House.”

  With my own plate piled rather higher than his, I savored a fine meal, and he did at length start eating. I demolished the remaining dishes and afterward, before I quite realized I was doing it, cleared the table and set everything in stacks on the side table as I had become accustomed to doing at Aunty Djeneba’s. Closing my eyes, I allowed my senses to range afield. The vast compound was deeply woven with threads of pulsing magic. By the sounds of boot-heels, I could track the guards patrolling the garden and passage.

  I led him to bed and undressed him. Beneath the covers we snuggled close.

  “We’re under guard,” I whispered in his ear.