Cold Steel (The Spiritwalker Trilogy)

by Kate Elliott

  My skin prickled. My heart beat faster.

  “That’s right, Cat,” said Drake. “I now weave multiple fire banes as catch-fires. But I can still use you in the old-fashioned way, burning you up like kindling. No one will stop me because you’re a condemned murderer. It would as easy for me to kill you as to take in my next breath.”

  The whisper of their magic stirred my blade. “I’m not unarmed.”

  Instead of stepping back prudently, he leaned closer. His unruly hair brushed my cheek as he whispered in my ear. “Neither am I. I’m training up an entire company of fire mages loyal only to me. Think of that before you taunt me. But if you kiss me, I’ll consider allowing you to become my concubine instead of my catch-fire.”

  Rory snarled, causing Drake to startle back.

  “You are too late, Drake. I have already been tried and acquitted by the Taino court of ancestors, in the spirit world.” I swung the basket around and pulled out the skull.

  Drake’s nose wrinkled up. He brushed a finger along his clean-shaven chin, glanced at the pretty blonde, then looked back at me. “There is something very wrong with you, Cat. Put that skull away, if you please, for it does not impress or frighten me. Indeed, you do nothing but poke at people with your impertinent questions and your outrageous tales, and all to no purpose except to annoy.”

  He had never figured out that there was something odd about my answering questions with questions, not as Vai had immediately. Blessed Tanit! What an ass!

  The thought made me smile mockingly, and of course my smile roused his temper.

  “Enough! I am now wed to the daughter of the honored Armorican prince who is overlord of all the Veneti dukedoms. Such an honor is due me as a son of the Ordovici kings of old.”

  “The Ordovici kings of old? Of what are you trying to convince me, Drake?” I asked, for this boasting, defensive mood puzzled me. “That because you are highborn I ought to overlook your boorish behavior? You cannot think I regret the way we parted, or the choice I made.”

  He laughed nastily. “You’ll soon be sorry you didn’t take a princely crown when it was offered to you.”

  Camjiata stepped into the breach. “My steward has been at pains to signal that our dinner is ready to be served. Let us not delay the repast, for my command staff is waiting. Lord Drake, will you and Lady Angeline join us?”

  She answered for Drake in a cultured, formal voice. “We would be pleased to join you, General.”

  She smiled soothingly at Drake—rather, I supposed, as Bee might say I sometimes smiled soothingly at Vai when he had climbed up onto his highest horse of intemperate disdain. Only, of course, Vai was no murderer. Was she a smart woman who had learned to manage him, or a frightened one eager to assuage his fits and starts? Her gaze flicked my way as she hooked fingers along his elbow.

  “Come along, Cat,” said Camjiata with an unusual hint of asperity. “I think you have made enough of a scene for the moment.”

  “Me?”

  He steered me commandingly toward an interior door. In a side chamber, a table had been laid with settings. Eight people waited, expressions brightening with interest when they saw me and Rory, and darkening when Drake and his bride—and the six catch-fires and the four young fire mages and the six soldiers—entered. Among the command staff I noted the one-eyed proprietor of the Speckled Iguana in Expedition, the man who had once fought alongside my mother at Alesia.

  A woman stepped forward. She wore a sober brown skirt and jacket, fitted with a second cutaway sleeve on her left arm in the same green fabric and silver braid worn by the Amazon Corps. Her black skin was remarkably unlined considering her hair was half gone to silver.

  “Proud Diana! You must be Tara Bell’s child. Even with that hair and coloring, I would know you to be hers.”

  “Doctor Asante,” Camjiata said, “I would like to introduce to you Catherine Bell Barahal.”

  She took my hands between hers and stared for the longest time in a way that made me dreadfully uncomfortable. Her dark eyes shone with unshed tears.

  “You knew my mother?”

  “I loved your mother very dearly, Catherine Bell Barahal. Besides that, I midwifed you into the world. Tara was weak from her terrible injuries. I trusted no one else to make sure she came through the ordeal alive. It was a frightful day.” Her fingers tightened on mine. “Not that your life was ever at issue, for you came out squalling like so many cats fighting in an alley.”

  “You were there when I was born?” I repeated stupidly.

  “Quite the noisiest newborn I have ever heard.” She chuckled, then sobered. “I am glad to see you well, little cat, for I never heard of what became of you after Tara and Daniel fled.”

  “Yet now is not the time of speak of such things, Doctor,” Camjiata murmured.

  “Anyone would think you were trying not to anger Drake,” I said in a low voice.

  He casually stepped on my foot to silence me, then smilingly introduced me to his command staff, soldierly men with self-assured expressions. The one-eyed innkeeper was in reality the infamous Marshal Aualos, called by the Romans “the butcher of Zena.” Captain Tira entered with a cadre of Amazons who arrayed themselves along the wall as the command staff took their places. Camjiata sat me at his left hand and Drake to his right. By the number of glances at the red-garbed youths and by Drake’s smirking expression, I could tell the fire mage made everyone uncomfortable.

  When wine was poured, Camjiata toasted the gathering.

  “Here we have Captain Tara Bell’s child, come to join our cause.”

  “And my bed,” said Drake with a laugh. “Where is that cold mage, Cat? The one you claimed was dead, when in fact you spirited him away in order to keep him safe from me? Now you are come to spy for him.”

  “I came here to ask for help,” I said. “He’s being held prisoner.”

  “Which must explain why we have seen him riding with the Coalition forces. He quite spoiled my efforts to burn down the mage House in Lemovis. Do you think we’re fools, Cat?”

  Again, Camjiata’s foot pressed on mine, unseen beneath the table.

  It was a good thing he was seated between us.

  “I think you are not in possession of all the facts,” I retorted. “His family and indeed his home village is being held hostage for his behavior. He supports the general’s legal code, but if he does not serve the mansa, they will all be put to death.”

  Drake’s blue eyes sparked as a tendril of fire laced from him into one of the catch-fires. “If the general would release me to ride west, I would be happy to rid Four Moons House of its chain on Andevai Diarisso by burning the House to the ground. Then he need not be held hostage. Anyway, your excuses stink like lies. You can’t possibly expect me to believe he was born into a rabble of unwashed, illiterate slaves. Or that he would risk his power and rank to help such people.”

  As he gloated, hoping to needle me into a burst of rash action, I watched the others. Marshal Aualos wore the blank mask of a man suppressing his feelings. Others—hardened soldiers!—looked nervous, as if they feared the whole chamber might roar into flames. Only Lady Angeline appeared unruffled. I admired the calm way she demolished her leek soup. I wondered if she, like Drake, found it so very unbelievable that a powerful cold mage could be born in a humble village.

  Camjiata sighed. “Given that we have a war on, I thought we might discuss our plans. I believe that is the usual business of a command staff.”

  “In front of her?” Drake objected. “When she will certainly steal away into the night and spill every word she hears back to the mages?”

  “The mages who tried to kill me, do you mean?” I retorted. “Truly, you have no idea of my history, to think I might ever wish to aid them!”

  “I know something of your history, Maestra.” Marshal Aualos broke in as if making a flanking movement to turn the tide of a skirmish. He had the breadth of a man gone stout with age but still packed with muscle, well prepared for soldiering. “Your m
other was one of the best soldiers I ever served with. She was tall, like you, but heftier, very strong. Absolutely up to the mark in every way. But of course the Amazons always had to be better than the men just to prove they were fit for the task. Most folk in Europa say women ought not be engaged in war.”

  “If a war is being fought, surely women are engaged whether they wish to be or not. The only difference is whether they can defend themselves.”

  He smiled. “Spoken like your mother.”

  His words pleased me. “Thank you. As it happens, I read the words in my father’s journals. The ones he wrote when he was collecting intelligence for his family in the service of the general’s first war.” I pressed my own boot atop Camjiata’s rather harder than I needed to. He did not flinch.

  “We may hope the daughter will prove as valuable as the father.” Camjiata slid a glance at me that cut like a surgeon’s scalpel. “As it happens, I left the journals at the Hassi Barahal house, in Gadir, with Daniel’s next of kin. Yet some Hassi Barahals travel with the army, among my clerks and intelligencers. I’m sure my chief of intelligence will have some idea of how to make use of you.”

  Frowning, I stared at my plate. The moment of choice was upon me. Did I admire Camjiata’s legal code more than I distrusted him? Did I stand with the radicals? Yes, I did.

  I captured his gaze. “The Coalition army is camped outside Lutetia, under the command of Lord Marius of the Tarrant clan. A Roman army is marching north via Senones along the Liyonum Road, three legions in all plus a fourth already with the Coalition. Hard to see how you can defeat such an allied force.”

  “It is always hard to see victory if one does not have vision.” His nod made me think he spoke in code, warning me, but he smiled impartially around the table. “My thanks, Cat. Your timely arrival and this intelligence gives us just the advantage we need at this juncture. Let us consider what this means. This army has the discipline and speed to reach Lutetia in two days’ march. Our army is smaller than the combined alliance of Coalition and Romans. But if we reach Lutetia before the Romans do—something they won’t expect we can manage—we can defeat the Coalition and immediately turn to face the Romans as they come up from the south. That gives us the advantage in both battles. Once we win Lutetia, I will proclaim the Declaration of Rights on the very steps of the prince’s palace, where it was first proclaimed twenty-two years ago. My proclamation of a new and more expansive legal code will embolden many a prudent Gallic lord to abandon the Coalition and join our cause, just as it will rally the guilds and laborers and all those trapped by clientage to our side. Justice will be the reward gained by all.”

  “Now that I think of it,” Drake said, “I haven’t asked for any prize of war to this date, have I? All I want is the cold mage. I need him alive so he can acknowledge my long-awaited victory.” He sipped at his wine with a musing smile. “People do feel envy when they must admit that another is better than they are. As your husband will soon discover.”

  Sadly, I laughed. I shouldn’t have, but I did, nor did I trouble to hide my scorn. “Oh, he already knows he’s better than you.”

  A thread of fire spun out of Drake and into me. Its heated touch made me gasp, half in fear and half with the cruel grasp of magic-borne lust. My fingers lost the strength to hold the utensils, which clattered onto the plate.

  “Cat?” Rory pushed back his chair.

  A second catch-fire shimmered, catching the backlash as one of the girls spun a candle flame above her cupped hand and took a threatening step toward Rory. He drew up short, to the girl’s sarcastic laughter.

  The girl hadn’t Drake’s finely honed control. Her catch-fire moaned, “It hurts.”

  “Stop it!” I shouted, leaping to my feet. My chair crashed to the floor behind me.

  The sliced folds of roasted beef caught fire on my plate as heat scalded through me. I coughed, fumbling at my cane, for by the gods I would crack his head open before he killed me.

  The heat ceased. The girl’s dancing flame vanished. The catch-fire slumped to the floor, and not one person moved to help him. Yet I could not help but notice how Captain Tira had arrayed her soldiers, giving them clear shots at Drake and the four young fire mages. Lady Angeline cast me a look that would have murdered a lesser creature.

  “Come now, Cat, don’t make me angry.” Drake brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes. “I just want you to watch when your husband begs me not to harm you because he’s not strong enough to kill my fire. Or perhaps, better yet, when he’s brought before me in shackles, and I ask you to choose between me killing him or you becoming my concubine for him to see.”

  I cast a disbelieving look at Camjiata, but he was watching Captain Tira in a fixed way that made me think he was ready to blink an order if need be. Melqart’s Balls! Who was in charge here?

  With curled lip, I addressed Drake. “Obviously to save his life I would do what I must.”

  “That would make you a whore.”

  “No, Drake. It would make you a coward. For this is the coward’s way, to boastingly strut when there is no real threat to his own self.” I turned my attention to the chamber at large, in disgust. “Have we played this scene for long enough? James Drake insults me, hoping to degrade me in your eyes, and I defend myself. Is there a hope for an end to this mockery? Or am I merely his latest victim…?”

  I trailed off to let my thoughts catch up to my mouth. Fiery Shemesh! Vai had warned me to be prudent. But it was just so hard when Drake sat there lording it over them, him and his deadly fire magic and his young acolytes and their captive catch-fires. All of them could die. Captain Tira’s pistol and sword were fast, but fire outraced steel.

  So I smiled and laughed, stepped around Camjiata, and kissed Drake on the cheek as I had kissed my sire to take him off guard. He recoiled as if I had knifed him in the gut.

  “You’re so clever, all of you! I see what you’re about. You don’t trust me, me appearing so suddenly and with such a tale, so you have appointed Drake to carry out a cunning interrogation. But I assure you, everything I have told you is true. My husband’s mother and sisters were dangled as hostages before him so he had no choice but to bow his head to the mansa’s yoke. His radical sympathies have not changed.”

  I righted the chair, nodded at Rory, and sat down. My fingers trembled only a little as I considered the smoking ash of my beef. The mood in the chamber shifted from a knife’s edge to blunt wariness.

  “Bring the maestra a fresh plate,” said Camjiata. “Please be aware, Drake, that Lutetia is the crucial battle of this entire campaign. This is no time to quibble over prizes as if we are boys playing a game of sticks in the river. I have promised you that when the time is right, we will turn our attention to the Ordovici Confederation, but I cannot do so if my army is defeated. Cat?” He examined me. “Are you well? You look pallid.”

  “When will the time be right?” muttered Drake under his breath. “How long must I wait to get back the throne and honor that are rightfully mine?”

  “Ah, here is a fresh plate. I hope everything on it is to your liking, Cat.”

  It was an imperial portion of beef and a full half of roasted chicken. I knew better than to let anger and disgust harm my appetite. I dug in while the command staff discussed the speed with which the army could move, and how far from Lutetia’s walls the hospital camp ought to be set up.

  The meal’s ending gladdened me, for escape from Drake’s presence beckoned the way a street filled with the best fabric and tailoring shops calls to a fashionable woman with a limitless purse. Camjiata ushered me out of the room with a speed that took my breath away. Doctor Asante cut off Drake with a question that allowed us to get out the door, and the door shut behind us even before Rory could follow me. The general’s fingers pinched so hard I almost yelped.

  “Wait before you speak,” he murmured.

  He escorted me swiftly out of the hall and up a set of back stairs to a modestly furnished loft. Four young officers, one an Amazon, st
udied a table covered with maps. They acknowledged our entrance with salutes. He pressed me past them through an inner door into a long attic storeroom whose boxes and crates had been shoved back to leave room for bedrolls and gear. A window at the far end looked over the front of the market hall and the main square to an old stone castle tower rising above green trees.

  Camjiata paused at a closed door that led into another room set in under the eaves. Hand on the latch, he paused. Long golden spears of late-afternoon sunlight lanced in through the window to illuminate his figure as in a portrait. As in a dream. His hair was pulled back and tied with an incongruously bright-green ribbon that matched the old-fashioned bottle-green dash jacket he wore, cuffs trimmed with lace.

  He turned to address me with a serious look that quite disarmed me, for who would offer such a direct and confiding gaze to an enemy? His tone had an intimate color, as if despite everything he trusted me enough to speak his true mind.

  “I need you to kill him. You’re the only one who can.”

  40

  This was what it meant to walk the dreams of dragons, for I had swum through this very moment when I had slept in the belly of the beast as we crossed the Great Smoke. That journey in the ocean of dreams had given me a brief taste of Bee’s gift. I was too astounded to speak.

  Footfalls hammered up the back steps.

  “But not until we defeat the Coalition and their Roman allies,” he went on, as if I had already agreed. “If we lose now, the mages, princes, and Romans will use their victory to crush the radicals and all dissent for another generation.”