Cold Steel (The Spiritwalker Trilogy)

by Kate Elliott

  “How would you know what she is like in private?” I demanded.

  He blinked. With a shake of his head the contemptuous mage vanished, and the Vai I loved returned. “Why, Catherine. Here is an unexpected sting of jealousy!”

  How I hated that particular smirk of his. I fumed, not wanting to admit he was right or that I had simply assumed a dazzling beauty could not also be an accomplished magister.

  “In fact, as the mansa’s heir, I am allowed to sit in his private parlor in the most casual manner imaginable. I may even converse easily, like a son, with his charming wife.” He slid into a light Expedition cant. “I reckon that gal’s a little lonely and like me company.”

  “Peradventure some maku is going to find he own self a little lonely sleeping on the floor!”

  He glided so quickly around the little table that I did not have time to step away before he pulled me to him. “Is he, now?” he murmured caressingly.

  “Do you want to provoke me, Andevai?”

  “Now that you mention it, I rather find that I do. You have no idea how attractive I find you when you get like this.” Given that he held me against him and his dressing robe had fallen half open, I had some idea. “I have been promised this whole day is mine to do as I wish.”

  “To argue with me?”

  “We can argue as much as we need to, love, as long as it is understood that we trust each other. I know this is unexpected and that it may seem like the wrong path that goes against everything we have discussed at such length. I admit I have some reasons that are not the right ones and that I just… to do this, to receive this… heir to the mansa…”

  He kissed me in a tumult of emotion that he had no other way to express. I struggled not to give way to the intense desire I felt for him, to think with my mind instead of my body, but the two were woven too intimately together.

  I eased the dressing robe off his shoulders. “I shall need more of that ambrosial sweetened and whipped cream when I am done with you.”

  “Not yet, not yet,” he whispered in a hoarse murmur that made me wild.

  All entangled and kissing him, I nudged him toward the bed.

  “Announce me.”

  The mansa’s voice fell like the stroke of a sword. Vai would have leaped back as if cut from me, but modesty made me cling to him. The mansa had in fact already announced himself, standing on the upper step with the entry curtain held away in his left hand and his thick eyebrows raised interrogatively. I thought he looked amused or, perhaps, relieved that the young man he had chosen as his heir was capable of the deed. He stepped back and dropped the curtain to give us privacy in which to straighten and retie our dressing robes.

  “Thank Tanit we hadn’t made it to the bed,” I muttered, my face aflame.

  But after recovering from his surprise, Vai did not look displeased. He lifted the curtain. “Mansa, please. Come in.” To a servant beyond, he said, “Bring more coffee and a fresh cup. Another bowl of berries and cream.”

  The mansa sat in my chair and Vai opposite him, leaving me to accept the new pot and cup when it was expeditiously brought. I squelched an urge to pour coffee over both their heads and instead poured for them and afterward for myself. I heaped my cup with two spoonfuls of the cream, after which I retreated to stand off to the side.

  “There is news,” said the mansa, careful not to look at me, for although I was covered from neck to ankles in the dressing robe, his presence in the gazebo felt strangely intimate. “Camjiata’s skirmishers have been sighted in Cena. He may intend an assault on Lutetia.”

  “He proclaimed his legal code here in Lutetia in the year 1818,” I said. “Twenty-two years ago. That must mean something to him.”

  The mansa sipped thoughtfully at his coffee. “Indeed. Handbills and broadsheets and seditious pamphlets circulate in the streets. They claim to be the text of a declaration of rights. By this means he has deluded gullible villagers and illiterate laborers with an idea they will be better off with his imperial rule than with the rule of local lords and mages who know their people and are concerned for the health of their lands. Can you imagine?” He paused to give Vai a long look.

  Vai would never stare down an elder, but his respectful manner was not meek. “I would not call them gullible, Mansa.”

  “I suppose you would not. Yet should the general succeed, he will need governors to oversee provinces. Such people will skim off bribes for themselves and hand the right to collect taxes and tithes to their cronies and favored underlings. A great deal of petty and grand corruption will ensue. Meanwhile, there is the problem of fire mages. You are sure he is using fire mages, Andevai? The mansa of Gold Cup House was an old man. His heart might simply have given out.”

  “You saw what happened. You know I am right. Furthermore, I know exactly what manner of unscrupulous and callous man is being allowed to have his way by the general.”

  With a faintly mocking half smile, the mansa examined Vai. “One thing you have never lacked is certainty that you are right. I will be sending Serena back to Four Moons House immediately with an escort. See that your mother and sisters are ready to depart with her at midday.”

  “Will my wife accompany them?”

  “No,” said the mansa, at the same time as I said, “No!”

  Vai’s rigid posture did not ease. “Mansa, I have some concern over how my mother and sisters will be received at Four Moons House if there is no one there to see to their comfort, nurse my mother properly, and protect them from disrespect.”

  “Be sure I recognize your concern, Andevai. At my request and command, Serena will take charge of ensuring they be received in all ways appropriate to my heir. Understand that disrespect shown to them is now the same as disrespect shown to me.”

  “The girls should be allowed to take lessons,” I said. “Even if they have no cold magic—and of course that is not yet determined—they should be educated as any girl in the House would be. Wasa should be treated no differently just because she’s undersized and her legs don’t work well. She’s a very intelligent girl, and it would be a mistake to allow her to languish. Forcing her to study will also keep her out of mischief. Also, the crutch she has been using is too short and heavy. I asked several times if it might be replaced with something better, but the attendants said they had no authority to replace it. If she had one made to fit her frame she would be able to get around more easily and that would allow her to gain strength.”

  The mansa lifted his cup to indicate that I had not anticipated that he needed more coffee. “It has come to my notice, Andevai,” he said, ignoring me as I poured, “that your wife has a mouth on her, as I would have crudely said when I was a lad.”

  “Yes, Mansa.”

  “Are you going to teach her to curb her tongue?”

  “Mansa, it is her place to determine whether and when she speaks, not mine.”

  “Are you going to continue talking about me as if I am not here?” I demanded.

  “Curbing her tongue would surely be a difficult task for anyone,” said the mansa. “Some of that cream, if you will, Catherine. As you put on yours. I want to try it. Andevai, you have not touched your cup.”

  “No, Mansa.” He picked up the cup, looked at it, and set it down without drinking.

  “You don’t eat enough,” added the mansa, “as I have had cause to observe.”

  “I tell him the same thing,” I said promptly. “Would you prefer tea, Husband?”

  He shot me an accusing look, and the mansa actually chuckled.

  Blessed Tanit protect me! A few more steps down this road and I might start believing it was possible to like him, the cunning architect of our prison! Perhaps it was only coincidence or perhaps Noble Ba’al saw fit to remind me that I stood garbed in false clothes in the palace of my enemy, for a rumble like thunder drifted in the distance.

  Vai leaped to his feet.

  The mansa rose. “See to your family, Andevai. I want them on the road within the hour.”

 
As I held away the curtain for him to leave, I puzzled at the blue sky, where I saw not a trace of storm cloud.

  “How can it be thundering?” I said to Vai.

  “It’s not thunder. It’s cannon.”

  Servants hurried in. They stripped the table bare with the speed of locusts. A manservant appeared with a fresh set of clothing, including a brown-and-gold dash jacket I hadn’t seen since we’d had to abandon most of Vai’s garments in Adurnam.

  “Gracious Melqart, Vai! How did you get your clothes back?”

  Vai stepped behind a screen to dress. “The mansa had them delivered to me one day. I admit, I was surprised. I had riding clothes made for you, love, so we can go out today.”

  A woman helped me into a split skirt cut in an exceedingly practical and flattering style with buttons down the front, and a long jacket in an amber-brown challis. Expensive calfskin gloves and a saucy hussar’s shako crowned by a jaunty feather completed the ensemble, although it was Vai’s smiling admiration that made me preen.

  We traversed the garden on a path of white gravel through a stand of ornamental fruit trees. Bintou and Wasa sat on a bench by a fountain, playing with an adorable puppy that licked their faces as they giggled. They were wearing new clothes, neatly made and brightly colored.

  “Vai! Cat!” they shrieked, seeing us. Bintou leaped up and ran to him while Wasa bounced on the bench in excitement. Vai released Bintou to pick up Wasa’s crutch and give it a frowning examination. Then he carried Wasa into the breakfast room, where his mother sat on a couch, watching our arrival through the glass. She, too, wore new clothing. When he knelt before her in greeting, she did not effuse over him but merely laid a hand on his head. Excluded, the girls swarmed me. I held one in the curve of each arm and watched as he raised his head to address her.

  “Mama, I have news.” The rumble of a distant cannonade stirred the air, then faded. “You will return to Four Moons House with the girls.”

  “To Four Moons House? You cannot think of taking us to live in the House.”

  “It is appropriate for you to live on the estate in a suite of rooms like this one, suitable to your consequence.”

  Her slender frame tensed. “How will the girls be comfortable in that place?”

  “You must be shown the honor and respect that is due to you,” he said, a little exasperated. “If you don’t live in Four Moons House, it looks as if I am ashamed of you. You never liked the village anyway.”

  “To live in a prosperous village was my greatest dream! I was satisfied.”

  “After Father died, I don’t think you were happy.” He glanced at the carpet and muttered, “I certainly couldn’t make you happy.”

  Her thin shoulders trembled.

  He drew in a breath as if he had been struck. “If it does not please you, Mama, if you prefer to return to Haranwy, then you shall do so.”

  Her chin lifted. “With your father’s passing, there is nothing in Haranwy I shall miss. We will do what suits you, now you have been raised so high.”

  If I hadn’t been looking at her I would have missed the shine of pride that brightened her face, quickly limned and quickly gone.

  Vai saw it, too. His smile blended relief and satisfaction. “That’s settled, then. The girls will receive schooling, and they will not be bullied as I was.” He glanced toward us, without a trace of teasing smile. “They will work hard and comport themselves with good manners.”

  “No child of mine will embarrass our family with poor manners.” Vai’s mother spoke the words in such a stern tone that I would have feared to disgrace her.

  Bintou nudged me. “The girls in the House won’t want to be our friends.”

  Vai rose. “Your trouble will be that the girls in the House will want to be your friends, and some of them will want it for the wrong reasons. You two shall have to discover which are honest and which false. As for your friends in Haranwy, it can be arranged that they visit you. In fact…” He looked at me, radiant with triumph. “I see no reason I cannot ask the mansa to consider expanding the school to include the village children. It is not too far for them to walk. It would not tax the resources of the House to admit thirty more children to the school during the day.”

  “That is a fine idea in principle, Husband,” I said, “but what about the House’s other client villages? Will they languish, while you favor Haranwy?”

  His mother said, “The children in the village are needed to work at chores.”

  “I will find a way to do this,” said Vai with a stubborn pinch of his lips.

  Fortunately an attendant announced Serena, who came accompanied by two other women. I greeted her with clasped hands. She greeted Vai casually, like an equal, then introduced me to her companions: One had married into Four Moons House and one been born into it. I escorted them to Vai’s mother, who remained seated, which was the privilege of an elder, although I was pretty sure Vai’s mother was younger than the mansa for all that she looked much older from years of illness. She accepted their polite greetings with a rigid aspect of seeming calm. The girls were so stricken by shyness that they barely whispered.

  “They will ride in my personal coach,” said Serena. “If there is trouble, I can protect them.”

  “That’s very generous,” I said, in genuine surprise.

  “Is it?” she asked with lifted eyebrows. She turned back to Vai’s mother, bending over her to clasp her hands. “Maa, be sure I will take proper care of you and your girls, both on the journey and once we return to Four Moons House. Now I must go and make ready.”

  She kissed me on the cheek and departed with her companions. Going to collect the cacica’s skull from a table by the door, I heard them murmur as they walked away down the passage.

  “Really, Serena! He is certainly the epitome of a man in looks and dress, and we have all heard more times than we could possibly wish about his cold magic, but the family! How could you not laugh at seeing his mother’s rustic simplicity? They say she was born in a cart.”

  “My grandmother would slap me for any such display of poor manners. Nor do I forget that my children will one day need the favor of the new mansa to make their way. Besides that, now my husband has chosen his heir, disrespect shown to them is like disrespect shown to him.”

  “Catherine, what is it?” Vai murmured, coming up beside me as I laced the basket shut. Seeing his mother distracted by a steward’s quiet instructions, he caught my hand in his. “That’s a brilliant idea you have about opening up the school to all the children of the local villages.”

  “Yes,” I said dreamily, imagining the consternation at the introduction of so much rustic simplicity when Vai and I announced our new plan.

  Noble Ba’al! Had I already acquiesced? Had the mansa defeated me so easily? Or was it the look on Vai’s mother’s face that had weakened my resolve? How could Vai and I possibly manage a household if we started from nothing among people hostile to cold mages? How would we even keep warm in winter? To build a house with a hypocaust system was ruinously expensive even if Vai did much of the carpentry himself. We hadn’t a sestertius to our names.

  He allowed a servant to push his mother and Wasa in the invalid chair so he could walk behind them arm in arm with me. As we paced through the compound along corridors I had never before seen, he smiled, for the people who lived in Two Gourds House did pause to look. Blessed Tanit! The man meant to make sure everyone saw him. I was both amused and embarrassed. I did not like so many people staring at me. I did not like the feeling that I was being seduced into the clutches of the mage House with lovely clothing and flattering admiration, even though I knew that was not Vai’s intention. No doubt he simply wanted to give things to me to show he could, like the sandals he had bought for me at Aunty Djeneba’s and the bed he had built for us.

  The troubling confusion of my thoughts made it therefore a relief when we settled the family in the coach. When a big basket appeared with the puppy in it, to be conveyed with the girls in the coach, I than
ked Serena so profusely that she smiled in a way that made me feel gauche, an emotion I would never have believed I could experience.

  “The creature will give them something to keep their minds off the journey and whatever trouble lies behind us.”

  The girls wept and clung first to me and then to Vai before he gently reminded them that he relied on them to take care of their mother.

  Vai’s mother took my hand in hers, speaking in a low voice. “You were right. He did not leave us behind.” To my surprise she kissed me on the cheek.

  From the steps we watched the cavalcade depart. The spears of the escort flashed under the bright eye of the sun. The Four Moons banner rippled in a brisk wind. Distant thunder rolled, and everyone waiting in the courtyard looked up at the cloudless sky.

  Vai spoke. “The cannonade is not battle. It’s Lord Marius’s army at field maneuvers. We shall take a tour of the city today. The river walk is lovely in the sun.”

  “Vai, yesterday Viridor acted as your ally, yet he is the one who betrayed you.”

  He shrugged. “He did what he thought was best for his House, not out of malice. I can’t fault him for that. In a way he helped me, for none of this would have happened had I not fallen into the mansa’s hands. He and I talked it all out.”

  “You are friends again? You trust him?”

  “Yes.”

  A steward dressed in the brown livery of Two Gourds House approached Vai. “Magister, you are required in the men’s hall. Maestra, if you will, the steward of the women’s hall attends you.”

  Vai went his way and I went mine, accompanied by a young djelimuso with jangling gold bracelets on both wrists and gold earrings. In our guest suite a formidable woman stood examining the cacica’s skull. Her resplendent starched boubou and head wrap marked her as Houseborn. After a suitable exchange of greetings, she cut to the point.

  “As long as you remain here in Two Gourds House, you will need persons to attend to your needs and those of your husband. Have you any particular requests, Maestra?”