Cold Iron (Masters & Mages)

by Miles Cameron

  Aranthur rose and put his writing materials together. For the first time he was taking his writing kit home. He wiped his nibs and put them in their slots, capped his ink bottle carefully, and gathered it all in a bag.

  ‘I’m assuming you want to see me again,’ Dahlia said.

  Aranthur grinned. ‘Oh, I suppose,’ he said, and she swatted him.

  ‘You might ask me, or ask me to dinner, or something. I’m doing all the work here.’

  Aranthur followed her, tongue-tied. Then, after an internal conversation, he shrugged outwardly.

  ‘I’m too poor to take you to dinner. And my rooms are …’ She stopped under the Founder’s statue and he shrugged. ‘My rooms are in a terrible state and I went out last night instead of cleaning them.’ He made a face. ‘I have about forty hours of work to do in the next day, and right now, I’d happily follow you anywhere.’

  She smiled. ‘That was very well said,’ she quipped. ‘Why don’t we clean your room, and then perhaps I’ll buy you dinner.’

  ‘I don’t want you buying me things.’ He said it before he thought it.

  She tilted her head like a cat.

  ‘But you have no money.’

  He shrugged. ‘I know where we can have Zhouian noodles in hani broth.’

  She shrugged. ‘Try me. I like a good noodle.’

  Dinner was satisfactory.

  ‘I’ve never been in one of these,’ Dahlia admitted about the noodle shop. ‘I pass them every day. How much were our noodles?’

  ‘A few obols.’

  Aranthur was uneasy speaking of money. He’d only had the change from lunch with which to buy this beautiful aristocrat dinner.

  She shook her head. ‘You bought the General a beer last night. What did that cost you?’

  He thought, and then was bold.

  ‘All my money,’ he admitted.

  She shook her head. ‘Are all Arnauts this crazy and proud?’

  ‘Yes,’ he answered.

  At the top of six flights of stairs, Dahlia was less sanguine. She looked at the dried blood, the flies, and the mess.

  ‘Damn,’ she said. ‘You’re not that good looking.’

  She flashed him a smile and went in.

  ‘I can do it,’ he said.

  ‘Good. I have servants to do this sort of thing.’ She shrugged. ‘No, I don’t. I mean, my parents do …’ She paused. ‘I’m sure it will be a good experience. My father often tells me I need to learn what work is.’

  Over the course of washing the floor, Aranthur learned a great deal about the lives of the lower nobility. The Tarkoi family was both ancient and poor; the combination was deadly, at least for Dahlia, trapping her in a social world she could not afford. And yet her idea of poverty was riches to him.

  ‘I love that place,’ she said, about the sword tavern. ‘My principal entertainment. But I can’t really afford to spend much time there.’ She winked at him. ‘You were an expensive treat.’

  ‘You paid for the room,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I like to be mistress of my own destiny. And I knew you couldn’t pay.’

  Somehow, that comment hurt, even through his haze of new affection.

  When the blood was gone, Aranthur began on the wreckage of his leather case, and Dahlia shook her head.

  ‘What in Darkness happened here?’ she asked. ‘Your room-mate was attacked and someone searched—’

  There was a knock at the door.

  Aranthur went and opened it, and Tiy Drako came in.

  ‘Tarkas!’ he said. ‘I’m not at all surprised.’

  ‘Drako!’ She kissed him. ‘I noted that you knew my lover.’

  There was something … artificial about their words. Aranthur glanced back and forth, measuring them.

  ‘One night, and he’s your lover? Sunlight, you move fast, Timos.’ He looked around. ‘Damme, Timos, do you mean to say you have this sprig of the nobility washing your floors?’

  ‘I will kill you. Dead. With a sword. If you use that phrase out in the world,’ Dahlia said brightly.

  ‘My lips are sealed,’ Drako said. ‘Dahlia, I’m sorry to say that I need a word alone with Timos on a private matter. Eh?’

  ‘A boy thing?’ she asked. ‘His last lover is waiting outside the door?’

  Aranthur said, ‘I don’t have a last lover.’

  Drako barked a laugh. ‘Never admit such a thing, my boy.’

  ‘I’m damned if I’ll be thrown out after washing the floor,’ Dahlia said.

  ‘Stay here and we’ll go,’ Drako said with a laugh. ‘Five minutes,’ he added.

  He hauled Aranthur out of the door and down the steps.

  ‘If I’d imagined that you were going to be friends with half of the aristocracy, I’d have concocted you a better story,’ Drako said bitterly. ‘The Prince of Zhou, no less. The General.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s not why I’m here. Listen, Aranthur. You joined the Selected Men?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Drako nodded. ‘Well, expect to be called to duty soon. Maybe three days, maybe a week.’

  Aranthur stiffened. ‘What?’

  Drako shrugged. ‘I have reason to believe that all the militia will be summoned for duty.’ He smiled. ‘Iralia says hello. You saw her last night?’

  ‘She does?’ Aranthur was confused. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Dahlia must have more baraka than I have credited her with, if you cannot remember seeing Iralia,’ Drako said.

  Aranthur tried to look worldly.

  Drako snorted, and then shook his head.

  ‘Do you know what goes on at that tavern, young Timos? People who fight … They go off and have sex, many of them.’

  ‘Really?’ Aranthur asked, imitating Dahlia’s sarcasm.

  ‘Yes, you are quick enough, for a country boy. Listen, be careful, that’s all. They are my people, so to speak, and yet I find them …’ He shrugged. ‘The thing I really came to say is, please start wearing a sword. All the time. We’re having a hard time tracing the people we’re up against. And I will be uncommonly honest with you, old boy … That piece of parchment? Volta’s. You were right. And it put the wind up all of us.’

  Aranthur shrugged, almost uninterested in the politics of the City compared with the immanent magnificence of Dahlia.

  ‘Listen to me. You have a writ. Use it.’ He reached into his purse and handed over a folded square of parchment. ‘A little contribution. Don’t get all proud on me, my friend. Buy a small sword or something you can wear in the street. Wear it. Act like a bad arse. Understand me?’ He paused. ‘I saw you last night, with all those people … Do you even know what the sides are?’

  ‘You are scaring me,’ Aranthur said. ‘No. I don’t even know you are what you say you are.’

  Drako flashed him the smile of the trickster, the mountebank.

  ‘Good. Feel free to doubt me, as long as you doubt everyone else. Well – not Dahlia. I’ve known her since she was young and hit boys with sticks.’

  Aranthur could imagine that. ‘I have a sword …’

  Drako glanced at the heavy sword hanging by the window.

  ‘A collector’s item from the First Empire. You need a nice sword that you can wear, not a killing machine like yon that you can’t even draw in a crowd.’

  Aranthur had never even thought of drawing a sword in a crowd.

  ‘The Festival of Iron is coming – perfect day to buy a sword. When you are called for duty, go! No place safer for you. Understand?’

  ‘I’m in over my head,’ Aranthur said.

  ‘You and me both. Kiss Dahlia for me.’ He put a hand on Aranthur’s shoulder. ‘We have a password. Cold Iron.’

  ‘You are mocking me,’ Aranthur said.

  ‘Not any more,’ Drako said, and walked into the alley.

  Aranthur was reluctant to take money from Drako. On the other hand, he could, and did, tell himself that he had rent due and no room-mates, and that was at least in part due to circumstances beyond his control.
His conscience was elastic to the extent of a good dinner at the Sunne in Splendour tavern with Dahlia to celebrate the lines full of laundry in his yard and the clean floor and tidy spaces in his rooms, and his first successful casting of the Safiri shield spell from the Ulmaghest. It was one of the best, and most expensive dinners he’d ever had, but he fell in love with the Sunne in Splendour, not least because they treated him like a prince.

  ‘You need to be rich,’ Dahlia said. ‘I think you might be good at spending money.’

  She didn’t ask him where his sudden wealth had come from.

  The next day they studied, made love, studied more, fenced, and he still managed to find time to restitch all the linings on his travelling cases, which delighted Dahlia.

  ‘You are so handy,’ she said.

  He tried not to hear that as an insult.

  He had to try not to look at her, because she was wearing a mended (and clean) man’s shirt that showed her muscles and her legs to their advantage.

  ‘Make me something,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘Give me a few days,’ he agreed.

  Then they went out to the gates of the leather-worker’s keto, where a priest of the Twelver’s craft god Draxos gave an invocation and blessed shops. A cake was shared, an ancient ritual, and in the cake were quaveh beans. One of them fell to Aranthur, to his confusion, and he found himself an incense bearer in the religious procession. Dahlia taught him how to use the censer – Dahlia, of all people.

  ‘My father is very pious,’ she said. ‘I’ve done this before. Trust me.’

  She taught him to light the censer and swing it, and the priest nodded approvingly. They moved through the keto of the Kipkaks, an ancient neighbourhood that had once been owned by people from far north of the Sea of Moros. Now it was a mixed keto – Byzas and prosperous Attians and Armeans – and leather-work and tanning and associated industries were located along its filthy canal and cleaner upper streets. He and Dahlia processed with men and women in masks chanting prayers. There was a play about the death and rebirth of the Sun, and another play about the Lady. Another told how poor lame Draxos was thrown from the heavens by the Eagle and had to crawl to his workshop to make the Heart of the Gods, the jewel that earned him the Eagle’s praise and his place among the Twelve. Every shop was blessed, including the one where Aranthur worked. Manacher embraced him.

  ‘First Iron Day in the guild, and look, you’re almost a priest already!’ he said.

  The next merchant on the street, Rachman, was staring at Aranthur as if he’d never seen an Arnaut before. His jewels were on flashy display for the guilds, but his shop looked dirty and his glass windows were dusty. He caught Aranthur’s eye and smirked. Instead of responding to the censing, he ogled Dahlia. Aranthur lost the swing of his thurible and glared.

  ‘Ignore him,’ Manacher hissed. ‘He’s a crook. He sells stolen things and ghat. Maybe even thuryx.’

  Manacher walked with them for ten streets. The three of them enjoyed ginger cake together after Aranthur passed the thurible to the next winner at the gates of the more prosperous Keto l’Aquilei. Aranthur was delighted by Dahlia’s pleasure in the street scene, and her openness with Manacher. If she was an aristocrat, she didn’t play one on the street. But her eyes were everywhere, and sometimes he found it difficult to gain her full attention.

  ‘I may have a girl of my own,’ Manacher admitted. ‘And since my blessed mother thinks I’m with you …’ He finished his chai and waved. ‘I’m off.’

  He and Aranthur embraced, and Manacher skipped off into the crowds.

  ‘I like him,’ Dahlia said.

  ‘He is a very good man,’ Aranthur agreed.

  Even in saying this, he learned that he did, indeed, like Manacher. He’d never really thought about it before.

  At the very end of the day, the two of them, a little tipsy from a dozen street parties, walked out of the keto and into the Festival of Crafts, the day of makers. All the guilds were in the streets, with floats and parades and stalls, and most of the skilled trades had shops open to sell the very best of their wares. It was accounted lucky to buy almost anything on the Day of Craft. The two of them roamed the city, eating fish pies and drinking cheap wine as darkness fell out at sea and rolled swiftly up the city.

  About the ninth hour, they came to the street of sword smiths, and together they went from booth to shop. Arming swords were all the rage; they came in a dozen shapes with plain hilts, complex hilts, short blades, wide blades, narrow blades …

  The street was full of revellers: dozens of young men and women, and older people, and families. Well down the street, almost three blocks from the fashionable Cutlers’ Corner, they passed a blue door. It was open.

  ‘Do you know who that is?’ Dahlia asked.

  Aranthur shook his head. ‘I don’t know anything.’

  She laughed. ‘You really don’t know anything. That’s Jate Palko. The greatest sword maker in the world.’ She leant over and whispered, ‘He’s from Thule. Or beyond!’

  The door was open. They stood, indecisive for a while and then, encouraged by the sounds within, they went through the gate and into the courtyard. There, dozens of apprentices drank at tables on the stone-flagged yard and there were three Dhadhi playing for dancing. Dahlia tipped the Dhadhi, and the tallest of them flipped back his hood so that his ears and eyes showed clearly, and bowed. Aranthur returned his bow.

  They danced, with each other and with some of the apprentices. People wandered in; Aranthur went to the shop and played with a dozen swords left out, as was the custom on Iron Day.

  A big man with a long beard came in, drinking hot mead.

  ‘Yarl,’ he said an old Northern expression.

  Aranthur had a cup of hot wine, and he raised it. He saw movement in the yard behind him and he looked.

  His heart slammed against the inside of his chest several times before full comprehension struck the rest of him.

  There was Iralia. She looked like a goddess, in a white gown trimmed in fur and with jewels in her hair lit with power. Everyone in the yard was down on one knee, or at least clutching their companions in drunken panic.

  The big man with the mead brushed past Aranthur and out into the yard. He bowed deeply, and then knelt by a man in a blue half-cloak. Then he rose into a warm embrace, and the two men pounded each other’s backs.

  Aranthur went out to Dahlia, disappointing an apprentice enormously by appearing.

  She beamed at him. ‘You know who that is?’

  He nodded. ‘I assume that’s Master Palko himself.’

  Dahlia shook her head. ‘You are the most pig-headed …’ She paused. ‘No, you are not. That’s the Emperor. With Master Palko. I have heard they are close, but to see it …’

  Aranthur was watching Iralia, who looked as if she burnt with a magnificent inner fire – like the thurible of bronze he’d lit in the parade. Her eyes sparkled; her body all but glowed, at least where her skin showed at throat and hands.

  ‘I suppose that’s his current lover. Some Western courtesan,’ Dahlia said.

  ‘Her name is Iralia.’ Aranthur was looking at her, willing her to turn her head.

  ‘You know her?’ Dahlia asked, incredulous.

  Iralia turned her head. Her gaze passed over the two of them and swept on to the Dhadhi and then suddenly came back to them. Her smile, as permanent as a tattoo, suddenly focused on Aranthur. She let go of the Emperor’s arm and swept forward.

  ‘Aranthur!’ she said. ‘I was just speaking of you!’

  Aranthur was like a moth caught in a volcano. This was not the woman of the Inn of Fosse. This was a force of nature – a sun whose beams were focused just on him.

  ‘Uh …’ he managed. ‘Um …’

  She nodded. ‘You are at the Academy?’ she asked, her voice rich with pleasure.

  He felt her release the compulsion she was using – a light one, and some of it tied to her jewels. She had emeralds around her neck – a dozen or fifteen of the
m, big enough to matter.

  ‘Yes,’ he heard himself say. ‘Yes, I’m working to enter the Studion.’

  ‘And who is this?’ Iralia asked, extending a hand to Dahlia.

  Aranthur had an odd thought, as the two women were almost the same age – Iralia perhaps a year older, and yet she seemed much older still. And far more beautiful, so that Dahlia, who he found captivating beyond his wildest dreams of women, seemed drab and plain.

  ‘My … lover. Dahlia Tarkas.’ He had never used the fashionable word, lover, in public.

  ‘Oh my,’ Iralia said. ‘At Fosse I rather thought you didn’t know what a lover was.’ She smiled to take away the sting. ‘Tarkos? From Nika?’

  Dahlia was not happy. ‘Yes,’ she snapped.

  The man in the blue half-cloak took Iralia by the elbow.

  ‘A friend of yours, my dear?’ he asked.

  He was, close up, a very ordinary man: perhaps sixty or sixty-five, with cold blue eyes and a strong face; middling height. All his clothes and leather were the very best that could be imagined, although nothing was ostentatious – plain wool with very discreet embroidery, superb, rich leather with very little metal.

  Aranthur gave his best bow, and Dahlia executed the amazing complex court reverence that he had seen at the fencing tavern.

  ‘Yes,’ Iralia drawled. ‘Aranthur and I saved a tavern full of people together. I have told you the story,’ she said, turning her head and flashing her smile at the Emperor. ‘This is the young man …’ she said carefully.

  The Emperor. Aranthur didn’t even know what he thought of the Emperor. It was fashionable at the Academy to view the Imperial House as a relic of the past, a holdover from the world before the Revolution. And yet, Tirase had himself saved the Imperial family, and Giorgios, the imperial legatus who had saved Tirase from execution and engineered much of the military part of the Revolution, had insisted on their continuation and direct participation in the politics of the City. And the outlaw, Rowan, but that was another story entirely.

  So Aranthur looked at the man with unhidden curiosity. The Emperor surprised him with a quick smile, and then he kissed Aranthur on both cheeks, the way two apprentices might greet each other. Then he smiled at Iralia.