Cold Iron (Masters & Mages)

by Miles Cameron

  ‘I killed someone,’ he said. He wondered what it meant for his power.

  Lecne shrugged. ‘He was a bad man. You helped us.’ He grinned. ‘Although the other man, Master Sparthos – he was incredible! He killed – what – three of the men? Four?’ Aranthur nodded. ‘Turns out he’s a master swordsman from the City. I guess he’s the best swordsman in the world.’

  Aranthur had a sharp memory of the man in brown’s face as the crossbow was levelled at him.

  Anger. Failure.

  ‘Anyway,’ Lecne said, dismissing anyone’s quibbles about the morality of the killing in one word. ‘Cook’s kept breakfast hot for you in the kitchen, and Mater wants to speak to you. So do some other people. Iralia has been asking for you since she woke up.’

  Aranthur was dressed in Lecne’s Liote clothes, very like Arnaut clothes – flowing trousers, light shoes, a shirt, and a red wool vest over a fustanella that had forty tiny buttons on the front and fitted at the shoulders but fell away to his knees like a giant wool bell. It was comfortable, warm, and rather dashing.

  ‘That’s my best coat,’ Lecne confirmed. ‘No, you wear it. You look good in it. I hope I look that good in it. Listen, can I ask you something?’

  Aranthur smiled. ‘Ask me anything.’

  ‘Will you give me some sword lessons?’

  Aranthur knelt beneath the window and said a very tardy prayer to the Sun. And then, because he was thinking in Liote, he said a prayer to the Eagle.

  Thanks, source of light, for my life, and the lives of Lecne and his family. Take to your warmth the man I … killed. The man I killed.

  His mind skipped over the idea like a rock skipping across water.

  To the Eagle he said, Allow me the chance at glory, that I may return it to your splendour. Amen.

  He rose.

  ‘Are you very religious?’ Lecne asked.

  Aranthur shrugged. ‘At the Academy we go to temple every day.’ He realised that was not an answer. He frowned. ‘I’d say it was a habit, but I think the Sun became real to me when I began to work with ritual.’ He met the other boy’s eye. ‘I’m not sure what I believe.’ He looked around. ‘Do you have cloth for a turban?’

  Lecne laughed. ‘We never wear them, but I can find you something.’ He shrugged. ‘There – you sound like me. I never know what I believe. Listen, will you give me sword lessons?’

  Aranthur wrinkled his forehead in an attempt to fight the headache.

  ‘I need to go, Lecne. I only have three weeks for holidays and I’ve already used more than one. And Darknight is tomorrow night. I was supposed to be home today.

  ‘Can you ride?’ Lecne said.

  Aranthur considered for a moment. ‘Yes, all Arnauts can ride. Oh, not that well, but I have ridden my uncle’s mare and mules for ploughing, and my patur had a horse when I was a boy. Before I went to school.’

  ‘Come and eat,’ Lecne said.

  The two of them went down the stairs to the common room. The attic turned out to be a floor above the guest rooms, and for the first time Aranthur appreciated the sheer size of the inn. It had perhaps fifteen rooms along the balcony of the first floor, even if most of them were nothing more than a bed and a washstand.

  The common room was abustle with activity. A party of merchants were being regaled by two maids with the events of the night before, while two older women washed at the bloodstains in front of the bar. The whole front window was ablaze with light, and the priest sat there with a scroll. His smile when he saw Aranthur was as bright as the sun behind him. Aranthur bowed his head in respect and followed his new friend through the alcove and into the kitchen.

  Lecne’s father lay on a settle between the great fireplace and the back door. He raised his head and managed a smile.

  ‘Ah, my hero!’ he said weakly. He raised his left hand and it gave a feeble twitch. The hand was, however, fully attached, and a red line ran almost halfway round it.

  The chirurgeon was sitting by the bed. He smiled at Aranthur.

  ‘It will probably never regain full mobility,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘But it is there.’

  Aranthur was surrounded by praise and congratulations, which he attempted to refuse.

  ‘You are too modest!’ said Lecne’s mother.

  Aranthur shook his head. ‘The praise should go to the lady. She performed the art – the working. I only provided—’

  The chirurgeon was shaking his head.

  ‘Boy, these are not educated people,’ he said softly. ‘And the lady is receiving as much praise.’

  ‘You must be a great sorcerer!’ Thania Cucina proclaimed, and made the sun sign with her hand.

  The chirurgeon gave Aranthur another just as I told you glance and shook his head. ‘Among the scholars, Donna, a “sorcerer” is a servant of the Dark. A master of Light is called a “Magos”, or perhaps, if I am not too pedantic, a “Magas” in the case of our lady, and all together they are “Magi”.’

  Aranthur was none too sure of the doctor’s etymology, but it seemed plausible.

  ‘I am merely a new scholar.’ Embarrassed by the continuing praise, he said, ‘I really must start walking. I have twenty parasangs or more to go to reach my father’s village.’

  Lecne sat him down at the great table and two girls put plates in front of him – festival food: a massive plate of bacon and another of fried eggs, and a cup of pomegranate juice. The nearer girl lingered after putting down the plate of eggs.

  ‘It’s hot,’ she said helpfully. And then, even more boldly, ‘I’m Hasti.’

  Hasti was short, lithe, and had large eyes – that was the only impression Aranthur could form. The morning was passing in a haze. He could not seem to see or hear anything properly.

  Lecne was sitting across from him, taking bacon and nodding. His mother sat, and so did the chirurgeon, and the girls leant against the walls or settled on stools.

  Lecne leant forward.

  ‘I’m sorry I have to be so quick, but there are still travellers coming in. Remember yesterday we spoke of stasis in Volta?’

  Aranthur nodded. ‘And that was the Duke of Volta in the great wagon last night.’

  Lecne nodded, as did his mother.

  ‘And those soldiers were Voltains,’ Lecne added. ‘Two merchants who came in this morning say that one of their leaders – the sell-sword Cursini or maybe the Pennon Malconti – is fighting to take the city even now, or has taken it already – that the mob killed many of the old duke’s soldiers and the rest fled. The traders say …’

  Donna Cucina leant across the table and took Aranthur’s hand.

  ‘My sweet, my son is saying the west road is packed with refugees and vagabonds in this mortal cold. The traders are afraid to go west.’ She shook her head. ‘And we’ve already had all the Easterners we can take, the poor things. Too many refugees. What’s the world coming to?’ She frowned. ‘Surely your own mother would want you to stay here until the trouble passes.’

  Lecne gave his mother the look that adolescent boys give cautious mothers in all the great wheel of the world.

  ‘All the soldiers had horses, Aranthur. We gathered them in last night and most of them had loot in their saddlebags – they’d pillaged something. Perhaps the duke’s palace?’ He grinned. ‘We’re giving Master Sparthos four horses and whatever is on them, and you two, if that suits you.’ He grinned. ‘I think that with two horses, you could ride home.’

  ‘That’s foolish and dangerous,’ Donna Cucina said. ‘There has been enough ill luck already, and this is the season of the Dark.’

  Aranthur felt as if a new sun had risen.

  Horses? Two horses?

  He could ride from the City to home in a matter of days – could make home that very night, even with a late start.

  ‘Come!’ Lecne said. ‘Let’s look at the prizes.’

  Aranthur – as a student – was in the habit of self-examination, and it was with some surprise that he went out to the inn’s stone barn without a qualm f
or the man he’d killed. That is, the killing sat like a horror on his shoulders, and yet the thought of taking the dead man’s belongings troubled him not at all. Among his people, dividing loot was a matter of course; what the gate guard at Lonika had said was very true. They were a tribe of thieves and killers and sell-swords, or had been in the past. Lately they were farmers on land that they’d stolen, or so people said.

  The horses were not magnificent. They were a mismatched assembly of nags and brutes with a few smaller horses of much better colour and shape. The man in brown – Master Sparthos – was taking a brush to one small mare even as they entered, while another man, small and blond and very pale, curried another. The barn was not warm, but neither was it nearly as cold as the snowbound world outside, despite the immense vaulted ceilings. It was like a comfortable temple to animals, and smelled of horse and cow and pig and hay.

  Master Sparthos looked up from his work and surprised Aranthur with a slight smile.

  ‘I’m glad you survived, boy,’ he said. ‘A good day’s work for a student, I’d say.’

  He waved a hand at a dozen horses tied to posts in the central bay of the great barn.

  Aranthur gave him a proper bow. ‘I am honoured to know you, Magister.’

  In the City, the absolute masters – three or four men and women whose work was beyond question the best from each guild – were honoured with the same title as the masters of divinity at the temple, and the masters and mistresses of the Ars Magika in the Studion of the Academy. Sparthos was not well known – Aranthur had never seen him, for example – but his name was famous. He was the paramount master of the sword in the City, and thus, to Aranthur, in the world.

  Sparthos nodded, as such was only his due.

  ‘How many horses are they giving you, boy?’ he asked.

  Aranthur bowed. ‘Two, Magister.’

  The master nodded, as if this seemed just to him.

  ‘I have already made my choices. May I guide yours?’

  Aranthur bowed again. ‘I would be most pleased, Magister.’

  The man in brown smiled thinly.

  ‘I have taken one fine Nessan horse – this little mare. She is worth as much as all the rest, or most of the rest, but I’ll leave her in this barn until the weather clears. She’s unsuited to the snow, and too pretty to ride to death. But her sister is right there – almost as pretty. I recommend her, as long as your second choice is a nice practical plug like this gentleman, who seems solid, if a little old. I’d say he’s seven or eight. He has some scars from the wars, to say he’s got a good temper, and those heavy haunches promise work.’

  The horse in question would never have won a beauty contest, but he was big and powerful.

  ‘If my man, Cai, was bigger, I’d have taken him,’ the magister added. ‘But he’s a pipsqueak and needs a little horse.’

  ‘Any horse is better than walking, maestro,’ the blond man said in Liote.

  Lecne nodded. ‘My lord has good horse sense, if I may say—’

  ‘I’m not a lord, nor should you refer to me as one,’ Sparthos said. ‘My title is earned – I am the best sword in the world. Keep the word “lord” for those whose qualities are less obvious and more,’ he smiled nastily, ‘inherent.’

  Lecne smiled broadly. ‘Ah, no offence meant, my lord – that is, Magister. A master swordsman! Of course – your fighting was brilliant!’ He paused. ‘I’ve always wanted to learn to use a sword.’

  Magister Sparthos did not have a long nose – in fact, he had a nondescript face and a short, almost pug nose – and yet he managed to look down it with something very like disdain.

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  Lecne looked puzzled. ‘I don’t know. We have a sword, and I love the feel of it in my hand. And—’

  ‘You are an innkeeper,’ Magister Sparthos said. ‘Take one of the stortes that the dead men left, and practise cutting with it – no one even needs to teach you. A strong arm with a storte will overcome any threat that might come to an inn.’

  His contempt for the profession of innkeeping was obvious.

  Lecne could not help but be stung, and Aranthur put his hand on the other young man’s arm.

  ‘When I come back, I’ll give you a lesson,’ he said.

  The magister laughed. ‘In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.’ He laughed again, clearly pleased with himself.

  Aranthur was not impressed with the man’s manners, but after a review of the horses tied to various posts and pillars, he agreed with his suggestions and accounted himself fortunate to have two such fine animals. The Nessan was not, perhaps a pure breed – she was a little too big and her head was a little too square to be perfect. Her dam or her sire had been a Nessan, and the other parent had been a military horse, and the combination was very pleasing. She had nice manners and took food like a lady.

  ‘I won’t own you long,’ Aranthur told her. ‘You are not a student’s horse.’

  She had a fine, plain saddle on her and no bags. Lecne, who recovered quickly, told him that they’d all agreed that morning that each of them – the inn, the lady, the priest, the swordsman, and the student – would take their choice of horses and have whatever was on the horse as well.

  ‘The swordsman took the two most heavily laden horses as his first choices,’ Lecne said. ‘And the acolyte, the one who’s slumming? He said that all the stuff is loot from Volta.’

  ‘So Master Sparthos passed on Ariadne because she had no loot,’ Aranthur said.

  Her saddle alone was worth all the fees for a month of classes – a light riding saddle. It had neither silver nor gold, but the leather was the best, and the stitching was very fine, with decorative whorls, all done doubled so that every pair of awl-cut holes had a heavy thread between them, instead of every other hole as cheaper harness and tack was made. In this Aranthur had an advantage – he worked in a leather-maker’s shop from time to time. Any country boy or girl knew how to wield an awl and a needle, but in the city such skills were rarer. He could no more make a saddle than cast heavy magik, but he knew good work when he saw it.

  The big military horse had an old and ill-used military saddle, high-backed and with a heavy base – the sort of saddle any horse might dread, more like a chair mounted on a horse’s back. But there was a pack – a long cylinder – strapped to the back of the saddle, and a sort of truncated cone like an inverse dunce’s cap hanging from one side of the pommel. The big horse was fretting, and Aranthur, who had grown up with animals, if not with horses, guessed the poor beast wanted rid of the heavy saddle.

  Lecne poked him in the ribs, half in fun and half seriously.

  ‘Would you choose?’ he asked. ‘The lady chooses next, and then the priest.’

  Aranthur made a cursory transit of the other animals, but he’d already given his heart to the mare, and the conical leather case on the big brute held his attention. And the big brute … Aranthur already liked him. Something about how he held his head.

  ‘I assume we can’t look in the packs until we choose,’ he said, more in banter than in earnest.

  ‘That’s right,’ Lecne said.

  There was another fine half-Nessan horse, but she was smaller yet and seemed timid, or perhaps merely tired. The rest of the military horses were tired plugs with most of their grace beaten out of them, vicious spur marks on their sides as semicircular white scars on bay horsehair, and badly tangled manes. Aranthur suspected – as a farmer – that most of them would clean up well enough with food and rest. As to plunder, the habit soldiers had of putting their stolen goods on the worst horses and riding the best meant that the two horses with the largest packs were sway-backed brutes.

  The prospect of horse ownership opened vistas of ease and comfort to Aranthur: home every holiday and not once a year; the ability to take courier jobs in the City; even to get a place on a nobleman’s staff for the summer. He suspected it would cost almost as much to keep a pair of horses in the City as he could make by owning them,
but the whole idea was itself an adventure. Either way, he wanted the horses for themselves, and was uninterested in taking the goods – stolen goods, in fact, although he’d have had a hard time explaining how he thought all these things through.

  In the end, he took the two horses recommended by the magister. He was a student, easily swayed by expert opinion, and the man in brown had, in fact, a good eye for horseflesh. As soon as he made his choice, he took the big gelding into a stall, tied him to a handy hook and unsaddled the poor brute, who all but shivered with pleasure. With iron resolution, he began to curry the horse, who needed care desperately, instead of rifling the pouches of the military saddle, opening the conical case, or the cylinder of new leather on the back of the saddle.

  Magas Iralia came in next. Aranthur heard the higher music of her voice and the low response from the magister, and they laughed together. The sound made Aranthur curiously jealous. He tried to analyse that feeling and found nothing there but bottomless irrationality, but the feeling lingered through the whole of his new horse’s rump and back legs. He decided to name his gelding Rasce, after a character in a play who behaved badly for comic effect, and Rasce seemed to accept the name in good part. He ate placidly from a manger full of valuable oats, and seemed at peace with the world.

  The lady appeared outside Rasce’s stall, and she leant against the door frame. It was the first time that Aranthur had fully given her his attention – or rather, sensing something was different, looked at her carefully. She was different this morning – she almost looked like a different young woman. Her silver hairnet was gone, and her fine silk gown, for one thing.

  ‘Not so beautiful without my make-up, eh?’ she asked.

  Aranthur knew that some women painted their faces, but he’d never met one before. Since only courtesans, whores, actresses and queens did such things, his face flushed. He stammered something inadequate about her face and appearance that was so quiet he couldn’t hear it himself.

  She laughed. ‘You are such a boy. I see you are in good health – no spiritual hangover this morning?’