Spiritwalker 3: Cold Steel (18 page)

After a glance at her stormy expression, I pulled a comb out of my sewing canvas and
handed it to her. She set down the sketchbook and began to comb out Rory’s snarled
hair.

I talked to fill in her silence. “Maybe it’s not so wise to choose a palace of gold
and silk over a humble cottage if the first comes with a knife in the back and a foot
on the heart and the second comes with a smile and a kiss.”

“Yes, that’s very sweet. I am not so sure the smiling and kissing will survive the
dreary struggling day in and day out. Or did you not live in the same house I did,
watching Mama and Papa with their polite indifference?”

“Bee…” My voice trailed off as she sniffed down angry tears. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault
that we were poor. Especially not Aunt Tilly and Uncle Jonatan.”

“You are so loyal, dearest, that even after they sacrificed you to try to save me,
you can’t bear to speak a word against them. I’m not talking about fault, even if
they did take uncounted imprudent financial gambles. I’m talking about bargaining
my beauty for wealth and position.”

“Was that why you were so angry at Amadou Barry when he merely offered you a position
as his mistress? Because it wasn’t a more secure contract?”

“No,” she said softly. “I was angry at myself. I almost said yes to him just because
his kisses dazzled me. What a fool I was! Desire is a foolhardy way for a young woman
to secure a livelihood.” She glanced at me. “Not that I mean to accuse you of falling
into love with Andevai just because of his looks, or his kisses.”

“I suppose I was dazzled by his looks from the beginning.” I tried to stop myself
from smiling and could not. “But he courted me with radical principles. And food.”

“This is a new expression for you, Cat. You were always so heartless and sensible
before. Now you look absolutely stupefied.”

I laughed, but quickly sobered. “Did you really trade yourself and your beauty and
your dream walking to the Taino for the security and wealth of the palace and a noble
station?”

“Of course I did. Our marriage was arranged for political gain. I didn’t go in expecting
to love him. But I liked him. He’s restful. I didn’t realize how pleasant it is to
be with a restful person.”

“Are you saying I’m not a restful person?” I teased, essaying a joke, for I hated
her tears and wanted desperately to make her laugh.

“I think you’re a restful person, Cat.” Rory brushed the corners of his lips with
the back of his hand as if smoothing down quivering whiskers.

“Not that I mean this in a critical way, Cat, but neither you nor your cold mage is
restful. Honestly, I can’t imagine how you two will get on once you have to manage
daily life together.”

I pressed a jacket to my cheek. “I will keep his dash jackets in good repair.”

“That’s a skill he will certainly appreciate!” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “Did
you know that in Taino country women can divorce men with the same legal rights as
men can divorce women? Now that we’re back in Adurnam I can’t help but reflect that
I would have been left penniless and ostracized if it had happened to me here. Strange
to think I should be glad it was a foreign man who divorced me instead of a local
one!”

I opened my mouth to make a joke, but no sound came out. My chest felt hollow, for
she had sacrificed her grand marriage for me. I could not throw that in her face as
a jest.

She kept combing, grip tight. “His relatives wanted him to denounce me in front of
the entire Taino court, but he refused to do it. He merely let people assume I was
returning with the general to Europa because I was Europan and obligated to serve
my people. ”

I said nothing, waiting for her to go on.

“He was so angry. Not like Papa gets angry, shouting and stomping, but distant and
formal.”

Her fiercely vulnerable expression tore my heart in two. “I’m so sorry it ended badly.”

“Ouch! Bee! You’re pulling my hair.” Rory stiffened, teeth gritted.

She released the death grip she had on Rory’s locks and began combing with such fixed
concentration I knew I was about to hear truth. “I felt so humiliated. Caonabo cutting
me off like that when I thought we got on so well, and I know he thought we got on
well,
too. But he took it so badly. I know it was a lie to draw that sketch. But surely
he had to understand I could not just stand by and see you threatened with death!
It’s as if he holds his honor higher than my love for you or any loyalty to our marriage.
Yet why would he not? He’s a prince in a powerful nation, and now its ruler. If I
did not walk the dreams of dragons he would never have acknowledged I existed. I married
him for the security and the position and the wealth, not in a mercenary way, mind
you—”

I laughed, and she made to throw the comb at me.

“You know what I mean! I didn’t marry him to make use of his rank and riches for my
own personal gain, but so you and I would have a rock to stand on in a stormy sea.
We have nothing.”

“I know,” I murmured as I trailed my hand through the silks, damasks, and cottons,
and the practical wool challis of my riding jacket. “Nothing but your jewelry, and
some expensive clothes with pearl buttons. I suppose we will have to sell them, starting
with the buttons.”

At the bottom lay winter coats, boots, Vai’s carpentry tools, and tiny carved wooden
boxes, containers for ornaments and toiletries, including the sheaths made of lamb’s
intestines Vai had obtained before the night of the areito. I smiled dreamily. He
had been so sure I would say yes.

Rory nudged Bee with his shoulder, and she resumed combing.

At the bottom of the chest I found two packets of fine white cotton cloth I had never
before seen, wrapped around three heavy bundles, each about the size of my forearm,
that had the solidity of metal. I sighed. “I’m glad you escaped with one chest, at
least. I suppose the other chests are on the ship with the general, if Drake hasn’t
burned them. What’s wrapped in the cotton?”

“Caonabo asked me to give some items to Haübey, in secret. I hid them with your things
so no one would suspect I had them.”

“Caonabo divorced you because he was offended that you lied about the sketch. And
then asked you to carry out an errand for him?”

“He trusted me to do it.”

“I am indignant on your behalf. Of course he trusted you! You’re a trustworthy person!
Yet he threw you off for what he took as a personal slight. Young men see everything
reflected in their own honor.”

She chuckled. “Now you’re talking about Andevai.”

I smiled. “That’s better. I like to hear you laugh.”

Rory relaxed as Bee’s hand lost its death grip on the comb and her strokes grew lighter.
“Caonabo intends to change some of the old laws, like the strict one on quarantine.
The worst of the old epidemics burned themselves out several generations ago. The
behiques can treat illness more effectively now. But people naturally fear bad things
will happen if they don’t do everything exactly as they always used to do it. Change
frightens people.”

“Or threatens them,” I said. “That’s why the mage Houses don’t like technology. It
threatens their power. That’s why they defeated and imprisoned General Camjiata, because
his legal code threatens their power, too…”

We took possession of Cook’s bedchamber next to the kitchen. Bee and I shared the
bed while Rory slept on the floor beside it, resting on the pallet our man-of-all-work
Pompey had used in the kitchen at night. “I never sleep alone,” he said, “it makes
me nervous.”

“Hush,” said Bee, pinching out the lamp.

In the darkness the memory of Cook’s scent settled over me: She had always smelled
of flour and onions, but in a comforting way, not an unpleasant one. Home rose around
us, although it was dark and abandoned. We could stay the night but never truly return.

Yet the house embraced us. With Bee slumbering beside me in the old familiar way and
Rory snoring softly on the floor, I slept soundly.

I was awakened in the morning by Bee crawling over me to get to her sketchbook. I
slid deeper under the blankets as she perched on the edge of the bed and sketched.
Just enough gloomy light leaked through a basement window for her to see the paper.
When she had finished, she ran out to use the privy. I followed. Gray clouds promised
rain.

She left me to stir the slumbering fire back into a blaze and make the morning porridge
while she sat at the kitchen table, studying the sketch. In a modest tailor’s shop,
two men sat cross-legged on a platform raised off the floor. Glass-paned windows spilled
light over half-made garments draped across their laps. A cat sat under the platform,
barely visible in the shadows. Bolts of cloth were stacked on a table next to a privacy
screen. On the opposite side of the street, buildings housed a row of shops. Seen
through the window directly opposite, beneath a sign that read
QUEEDLE AND CLUTCH
, a troll was being measured for a coat. In the distance, above snow-dusted roofs,
rose two slender, square towers, each topped with what looked like a huge golden egg.

“Here we see the problem exactly as General Camjiata described it to me,” I remarked,
gesticulating with the wooden spoon. “You have to recognize an actual place or piece
together the meaning of disparate images to form a message. Then you have to fix a
date to it. The cat in the shadows could be me. The most likely person we know who
would be in a tailor’s shop is Vai. The snow suggests some time between October and
April.” I allowed myself to hope that I would rescue Vai and thus end up in a tailor’s
shop waiting for him.

She flipped through the pages, scrutinizing several sketches of the academy. “The
general told me the same thing. He is better at interpreting my dreams than I am.
The Taino behiques were going to teach me what they know about dream walking after
Caonabo became cacique. But of course instead I had to leave. Ah! Look.” She displayed
a drawing of the headmaster’s study, with its mirrors, bookshelves, and chalkboards.
The long table was usually piled with books and scrolls, but in the sketch the tabletop
was set with five place settings, as for dinner. Seen from the back, I was dressed
in a fashionably cut jacket and skirt. Bee pointed to a murky reflection of me in
a mirror that also showed a red wreath hanging on the back of a door. “Here is a festival
wreath with the sword of Mars, today’s festival. There is a lit lamp. Five people
will be invited to dinner in the headmaster’s study after dark this evening, and you’ll
be there.”

“I don’t recognize the clothes I’m wearing. Still, I suppose this will act in the
nature of an experiment. We’ll have time to go to the law offices first.”

Rory strolled into the room wearing nothing but a towel and a smile. “Mmmm. I like
porridge! Can we have some more of that sugar on it? Someday I want to pour sugar
all over an attractive body and then lick it off—”

“Rory!” cried Bee, clapping her hands over her ears.

“Blessed Tanit!” I muttered as my cheeks flamed, for my thoughts did stray to my husband.
I busied myself handing over a sober waistcoat and jacket of an ambivalent but sophisticated
gray. “You’re not to wear any of Vai’s other dash jackets unless you ask me first.
You can wear this one and the one you ruined.”

He gave me a look as reproachful as if I had called him a dog. “I’m not carrying that
cursed chest if I’m not to be allowed to wear any of the extra-fine jackets.”

“Hush, you two,” Bee said. “While we’re gone, we’ll hide our things under the floor
in the carriage house.”

We tidied up, closed down the stoves, and set the pot to soak. After explaining our
errand, I returned the head of the cacica to the basket so we could take her with
us.

We left the house by the back gate. Mid-morning delivery carts rumbled through the
residential district, but otherwise the lanes were
quiet. The farther east we walked, the busier the streets got. People hurried past
with their faces painted red, headed for the festival procession. Many wore ribbons
of the colors of the Tarrant princely clan, while others wore red-and-gold tabards
to mark their allegiance to the god. Instead of looking excited and delighted, many
appeared grim and even belligerent. Strangest of all, no one in the crowd was wearing
the laborer’s cap that was the mark of radical sympathies.

Caught in the middle of a clot of people, we found ourselves pushed onto Old High
Street. The wide thoroughfare led toward the district called Roman Camp where lay
the main temple dedicated to Mars Camulos. With a clash of cymbals and a blast of
trumpets, the festival procession marched into view. The sting of fire magic tamped
down like buried coals gave spice to the air.

It was traditional for the guild of blacksmiths to lead the way, marching in ranks
in their leather aprons and carrying nothing in their hands except the power of a
blacksmith’s magic, which contained and channeled fire and thus transformed crude
metals into the god’s weapons of war. Onlookers shifted back with suspicion and fear,
for a conflagration might break out at any moment. Few of the blacksmiths were old,
and all were male. I studied their stern faces with new eyes. No one talked about
fire magic in Europa because it was considered too dangerous and volatile. Blacksmiths
guarded their people and their secrets so securely that I had never truly understood
what a fire mage could be until I traveled to Expedition.

Had James Drake tried to join a guild of blacksmiths, only to be turned away? Or had
his family refused to allow it because as nobles they thought guild work beneath him?

A man in the last rank looked at me, his brow creasing as he dropped a puzzled gaze
to my cane.

Blessed Tanit! It hadn’t even occurred to me to protect the cane from the sight of
blacksmiths, who could see its cold steel with their fire-limned sight. We worked
our way down until we found a place where we could dodge across the street. Carts
passed, decorated with festival tableaux that included actual people standing in martial
poses made famous by the old tales: Caesar’s victory at Alesia over the Arverni princes;
the death of an Illyrian prince who had rebelled against Rome; the surrender of General
Camjiata to a mage, a prince,
and a Roman legate after the Battle of Havery. Certainly the festival had taken on
an overwhelmingly Roman air! The usual tableau of the Roman legions kneeling in defeat
at the battle of Zama before the Dido of Qart Hadast and her general Hannibal Barca
was nowhere to be seen!