Cold Magic (Untitled Kate Elliott Series #1)

by Kate Elliott

  “Killing you seems an unexpectedly harsh response,” murmured Marius, smoothing the red-gold splendor of his mustache with finger and thumb.

  “He was very angry,” I said dully.

  “Where do you go now?”

  “To find and warn my cousin. Four Moons House still wants her.”

  Amadou sipped thoughtfully at his cup and set it on the bench. “Why would Four Moons House so desperately want the daughter of an impoverished Phoenician clan, no matter what secrets the Barahals might have to sell and what business they might have done for Camjiata back in the old days?”

  I felt a pinch of curiosity, wondering at the true extent of Barahal double-dealing. But I knew better than to reveal more than I already had. “I can say nothing more until I talk to Beatrice. Surely you understand.”

  “She’s got you there,” said Marius with an amused snort.

  “We’ll escort you to Adurnam and your cousin,” said Maester Amadou.

  “My thanks.” Tears welled, and I blinked them back. I said, in a low voice, “Saw you any prisoner among the House soldiers?”

  “No. Do you expect there to be?”

  “No,” I whispered. “No.”

  He waited a moment, to see if I would say more. When I did not, he gestured decisively. “We leave at dawn. We can make it in two days.”

  Marius nodded in answer, and the discussion was over, just like that.

  At a signal from one of the priests, Marius rose to make the offering of the first cut of roasted meat at the altar, pouring an entire cup of wine over it. Afterward, we retreated to the largest tent, sparely furnished with a pair of campaign cots in the back half, each one neatly made up with blankets. An attendant took our cloaks and hung them from iron hooks. We sat in the front half on unfolded camp chairs, at a small table. Two braziers heated the interior, and three lamps lit our campaign meal of roasted beef, turnip, and apples. I was ravenous, despite everything, and it was easy to eat with their conversation flowing briskly around me. The two men knew each other well and bantered like brothers. Marius was about five years older, the same age, it transpired, as Amadou’s older sister.

  “How did a young woman newly arrived in Massilia come to marry a Tarrant nobleman far to the north?” I asked Marius.

  He cast a look at Amadou, who shook his head. The lord shrugged as he smiled at me. “Do you Phoenicians like music? I’d be a sad son of the Tarrants if I could not entertain my guest with a few songs.”

  “After all I have been through these last weeks,” I said, very rudely I am sure, “you will excuse me if I seem burdened by a lack of trust. What if you are in league with Four Moons House, and mean to use me to lure Bee into your clutches?”

  “Then we are at an impasse, Maestressa Barahal,” said Maester Amadou in the same polite voice he had used to cow our academy proctor, Maestra Madrahat, by being better mannered and milder than you could ever be. “I have divulged as much as I can. You have revealed as much as you are willing. Either we trust each other, or part ways.”

  “That I have little choice but to accept your help must be apparent to all of us.” I did not mean my tone to grate so grudgingly, but it did. “If I seem unappreciative, it is just that I have been running for my life under difficult circumstances, as I am sure you can deduce by my state of disorder and dirt. If you can get me alive to Adurnam, you will have my thanks and my cousin Beatrice’s as well.”

  Amadou’s mouth tightened on unspoken thoughts and emotions.

  Lord Marius laughed. “What’s this, brother? Have you actually fallen for a woman’s fine eyes and pleasing form?”

  “Excuse me, Lord Marius, but I cannot like to hear my cousin spoken of in such a trifling way.”

  “Oh, it would not be trifling in Amadou’s case, I shouldn’t think.” Marius rose and fetched a case from beneath the cot on the left. He brought out a small harp, set it on his knee, and began to tune it. His features relaxed into a serious expression as he listened to the vibrations of each string. He seemed suddenly removed from us, following the overtones, and for a moment I thought a door might open into the spirit world and we might fall through.

  A burst of male laughter from outside slammed closed the shutters of reality over my dreaming. At a nod from Amadou, the trooper attending the door stepped out. One breath later, he returned with another soldier in tow.

  “What news?” Lord Marius asked without looking up from his harp.

  The soldier started to laugh, thumped his own chest twice, and coughed to contain himself before addressing the two men. “Lord Marius. Legate.”

  Legate? I stared at Amadou Barry, but he was not looking at me. Only the Romans in their much shrunken imperial republic used the term legate for highly placed commanders and ambassadors.

  “There’s a… naked… man at the ramparts. He baldly requests permission to—”

  I stood so fast I banged a knee against the table and had to catch its edge to prevent it from toppling over. My heart had galloped ahead. I could barely string coherent words together. “Let him in. Quickly! Can clothing be found?”

  Lord Marius set to laughing in earnest. When he had controlled himself, and wiped his eyes, he managed to speak. “A naked man, come to my camp? Is it your abandoned husband, Catherine Hassi Barahal? Come to display himself for your benefit?”

  My flush must have reached my ears as his words forced me to consider the prospect of facing Andevai Diarisso Haranwy in very different circumstances than any we’d previously shared. The two troopers and Lord Marius kept laughing while Legate Amadou Barry, whatever else he might be, had compassion enough to take pity on me.

  “If you vouch for him, then certainly we can allow him to join our company. Sergeant, let him enter the camp.”

  The second trooper hurried out.

  “By all means!” cried Lord Marius, placing the harp carefully back in its case and securing it. “Let me go view this prodigy for myself. Dare I hope—” He broke off and looked at me. Amadou put a hand on his forearm, in the way a man might quell a dog’s yap. Marius chuckled and strode from the tent, leaving Amadou to give the order to fetch clothing.

  I grabbed a cloak off the hook and hurried out in Lord Marius’s wake, with Amadou following. The news had spread through camp. The soldiers were calling out jokes, although in no way did they relax their vigilance.

  “Best you stay back, maestressa,” called Lord Marius over his shoulder. “The House company has camped beyond the ramparts. They have crossbows.”

  So I stood, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, as the officer and five men strode ahead. Amadou remained beside me.

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  “I think it likely it is my brother.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I did not know you had a brother, maestressa.”

  “No. I expect you did not.”

  A trooper ran past, carrying a bundle of clothes. He, too, vanished past the angle where the ramparts opened.

  “He saved my life just today,” I added. “I wasn’t sure he was still alive—”

  I pressed a fist to my mouth, unable to speak. My companion wisely held his tongue. Had he said one cursed sympathetic thing right then, I think I would have clawed out his eyes.

  I heard men talking and talking, laughing and joking. It took forever and a day exactly as if they were conducting a party and had forgotten me entirely. I would have run to find out what was taking so long, but I thought of crossbow bolts and did not. At long last strode a half dozen men into view with Rory among them, limping a little—his feet were still bare but he was otherwise decently clothed—and his head thrown back as he laughed at some soldierly quip.

  I might have moaned first, as despair fled my heart, entirely routed. Then I shrieked. “Rory!” I ran, and I flung myself at him so hard he staggered back at the impact and got an arm around me as I pressed my face into the coat he was wearing.

  “You’re safe,” I cried like a player in the theater. “I thought you
were dead.”

  “They were too startled to manage an effective counterattack. And the remaining horses went wild. All but one bolted.”

  I glanced up just as he licked his lips, looking suspiciously pleased with himself.

  “I didn’t know you could do that,” I said with a glance at the soldiers now watching us with the sentimental expressions of men who pretend to be big and tough but in truth dandle babies on their knee with the greatest tenderness and affection.

  “Neither did I!” he replied with a grin. “It just… came over me.”

  We both started laughing, and I broke away and wiped my eyes. “Are you hurt?”

  “A shard of bone cut one paw. Nothing important. Now who are these fine fellows who have given me these fine clothes? And is that beef I smell?”

  I introduced him as my brother Roderic without offering a single detail more, and our hosts graciously had another platter of food brought as well as a fourth camp stool. Rory chatted and laughed with Marius and Amadou, ever so charming, pausing at intervals to try on boots that soldiers brought in, none of which fit.

  I stared at him, scarcely able to believe he had survived. His features, his gestures, his long black braid: All these had become as familiar to me as if I had known them my entire life long, yet I had first encountered him only a few days ago. I did not understand it. Was this what kinship meant? A sense, deep in your bones, that the person next to you is part of you? Inextricable from what you are? That you could not be who you are without their existence as part of the architecture of your very self?

  We are none of us one thing alone and unchanging. We are not static, or at rest. Just as a city or a prince’s court or a lineage is many people in one, so is a person many people within one, always unfinished and always like a river’s current flowing onward ever changing toward the ocean that is greater than all things combined. You cannot step into the same river twice.

  “Philosophizing over there?” asked Rory, as if he could hear my thoughts. “You don’t usually stay silent for this long, Cat. Unless you’re deliberately ignoring me, I mean.”

  I shook off my reverie. “Just worrying,” I said.

  Lord Marius rose. “It will be a long night. I suppose the company pursuing you may take it into their heads to attempt a night raid, so I’ll keep half my men awake and half asleep in their boots.”

  “I’ll take the second watch,” said Amadou.

  “My thanks, Legate,” I said with what I hoped was a biting smile.

  He had the grace to look shamefaced. He and Lord Marius left the tent to us.

  “What is a legate?” Rory asked.

  “A very important man in Rome. I cannot figure it. It seems true that he and his sisters and aunt fled from Eko—”

  “Eko?”

  “You don’t know anything, do you?”

  “No,” he agreed cheerfully. “Not a thing! That horse meat was tasty, though.”

  I laughed, and then grimaced, realizing he was not speaking of our supper. “You stopped to eat not knowing if I was alive or dead?”

  “I discovered, dearest sister, that I am not entirely myself when I am in my natural shape here in the Deathlands. It took me a while to come to myself. Once I had, I followed your trail immediately. And am very glad to have discovered you alive and unharmed. What is Eko?”

  “It’s a place very far away from here on the coast of a land where once rose a rich empire. A terrible plague devastated the country. Those who could, fled and made homes elsewhere, but of course their descendants never forgot where they had come from. In recent years, some intrepid settlers rebuilt the old port of Eko, thinking to return to their lost homeland. But they were attacked and overrun. The survivors returned here to Europa to the families and clans from which they had come. I thought Amadou Barry was just a young man from a well-to-do Fula banking family, who happened to be among those who attempted the resettlement and ended up making a new life in Adurnam after the disaster. Now I hear him addressed as a legate, which means he is connected to Rome! In what capacity he could possibly carry the title of legate I cannot be sure, nor why he was masquerading as a student…”

  Rory yawned. “He smells clean. He and the other one mean us no harm, not like those hyenas waiting out beyond the old earth walls.”

  “Hyenas? What is that?”

  “Never mind. Foul creatures. I hate them. Hyenas, I mean, not our rescuers. I’m tired. I need a nap.”

  He took possession of one of the cots and pulled the blankets up over his head. His breathing slowed immediately. Could anyone fall asleep that fast?

  A cough startled me; a soldier poked his head in and gestured. “If you would like me to turn down the lamps, maestressa? Stoke the braziers?”

  “I thank you.”

  He did what needed to get done, chores I would have performed in my own house. In the house I had thought was mine. The confusion that boiled in my heart made me restless. Aunt and Uncle had betrayed me, and yet they had made an attempt to save me before giving up and letting Andevai take me. What had they thought would happen when the deception was discovered?

  For no matter how hard I stared at the outcome, I had to believe they had not known they were sending me into mortal danger. Merely into lifelong servitude. The Barahals knew how to serve; that’s how they made their living. Had Daniel known of the contract? Why had he and my mother left Adurnam right after the capture and imprisonment of Camjiata? Thirteen years ago. The same year, it seemed, that the Barry refugees had fled the disaster at Eko—1824 had been a very eventful year, hadn’t it?

  I rose, thinking to walk outside to calm my tangled thoughts, but as soon as I stood, my legs quivered and I almost collapsed. I staggered over to the empty cot and sat hard, trembling. I barely had the strength to lie down and pull the blankets up over myself as I shivered with exhaustion. I shut my eyes and plunged into sleep.

  A man sang in my dreams, and the plucking of harp strings opened a path between this world and the other side, a shimmering ribbon of pure sound that ran as a river of silver fire. Rory was chuckling, or purring, and then a scattering of shouts and a clattering of weapons pulled me from the depths and into the night-bound tent. It was dreadfully cold but for a ghost of warmth drifting up from the last banked coals. The red gleam gave me just enough light to see that the other cot had no one in it.

  Had I only dreamed Rory’s return?

  As if my thought were a call, he came into the tent. He was chuckling softly in that purring way he had, and he was sneaking, clearly unaware I was awake and perfectly attentive to his prowling. Where had that cursed fool gone this late at night? I meant to rise and speak, but try as I might, I could not rouse my limbs or move my lips to ask what was going on.

  “Sleep, little sister,” he said as he stretched out on the other cot, back among the blankets. “The magister and his troops made an attempt to attack over the ramparts, but they were sent scuttling with tails between their legs.”

  I woke suddenly into dawn’s gloom, eyes open and legs twitching, and inhaled a lungful of exceedingly cold air. Rory slumbered on the other cot. Shuddering with cold, I slid out from under the blankets, pulled on my boots and gloves, and hurried outside as under my breath I cursed soldiers who had no need to carry chamber pots for their morning relief. In a company of men, they could just pee wherever they wanted. Last night’s wine pressed against my bladder.

  Outside, I paused to get my bearings. Sentries ringed the ramparts. Lamps ringed the tent behind mine, and I heard men talking in low, intense voices. I scanned the scatter of buildings huddled within the ramparts. The temple stood at the height, where its pillars could catch the first rays of sun, not that there would be any sun today, given the glowering drape of clouds. The outdoor hearth under its roof, a fire still burning; the kitchen shed shuttered tight; the priests’ cottage with a thread of smoke rising from its chimney; the military tents. Feeling awkward in a camp where I was the only female, I dug down for the glamor and slunk u
nnoticed to the privy. After I had done my business, I emerged into the lingering gloom of an overcast winter dawn.

  “Cursed cold mage! Him and his thrice-cursed cold steel!” Lord Marius strode into view in an exceedingly Celtic fury, like a storm cloud in full spate. “I’ll have them in court. I’ll be sending a solicitor to Four Moons House, I tell you, to demand blood price. One cut. One cursed cut. His spirit cut from him. How I hate them!”

  He passed by without seeing me. A trooper led up two horses, one burdened with a figure wrapped in a blanket and tied onto the saddle: a dead man.

  “Marius, is this wise?” called Amadou, jogging up. A stain marred his jacket sleeve and his back was covered with flecks of grass, as if he had been pushed onto the ground. “You’ll be riding alone. An easy target.”

  “They’ll not attack the cousin of the Prince of Tarrant in broad daylight, knowing that if I turn up as a corpse, Four Moons House must accept full blame. That ass-biting turd of a cold mage took a fool’s reckless chance. I can’t imagine what possessed him to think he could crawl into my camp with his soldiers and kidnap a person to which I—I!—had given my protection. I’ll ride to the manor and send reinforcements. They’ll see what they’ve woken by offending one of the Tarrant kinsmen!”

  Without any indication he had seen me, he mounted and, with the other horse on a lead behind his own, rode off alone through the ramparts.

  “Break down the camp,” said Amadou in a voice accustomed to command.

  The men obeyed with alacrity. At the academy, I had thought him charmingly modest. If I had called him the vainest youth I had ever met, I had only done so to twit Bee for her infatuation. Certainly compared to a man like, say, Andevai, he had no vanity to speak of.

  He walked over to the tent I had slept in just as Rory emerged. They spoke briefly. Amadou swung around and surveyed the camp, his gaze passing over me before he turned back to my brother with a puzzled shrug. Rory did not point me out, although he obviously knew right where I was even if no one else could see me. I had forgotten my glamor.