Spiritwalker 3: Cold Steel (19 page)

A line of drummers flew a rhythm along the street. Dancers wearing ram masks and ribbon-festooned
ram costumes stepped alongside. Behind drummers and dancers rode a troop of turbaned
mage House soldiers. Banners of light woven out of cold magic floated above them.
The streaming gold banners were meant to impress the populace, although I thought
them shabby compared to what embellishments Vai could manage. The magic whispered
my sword awake.

Behind the soldiers rode the Tarrant militia, and behind it marched infantry with
a legion’s eagle standard held proudly at the front of their ranks. The famous Roman
Invictus cavalry in their red-and-gold capes brought up the rear. Fourteen years ago
the Invictus had driven General Camjiata’s stubborn Old Guard into the river at the
Battle of Havery and forced the general to surrender. No wonder we had seen the Havery
tableau today.

In the shadows of alleys and under thresholds, folk with sullen expressions watched
the parade but did not cheer.

Bee tugged on my sleeve. “
Look!
”

The man riding at the head of the cavalry was a good-looking fellow with a clean-shaven
face, hawk’s eyes, and gold earrings gleaming against his black skin. Bee’s rosebud
lips mouthed his name.
Amadou Barry
. A blush rose becomingly in her cheeks, although I could not be sure whether it was
pleasure or anger that animated her countenance.

His roving gaze sought trouble in the crowd. Looking our way, he saw her. He rocked
back in the saddle. Recovering, he turned to demand the attention of the bluff soldier
riding next to him, his brother-in-law Lord Marius.

“Pull your scarf over your head and keep out of sight,” I said, wrenching Bee around
as I indicated the nearest alley with my chin. “That way. Meet me in Fox Close. Go!”

I wrapped myself in shadow and dodged into the procession. The pounding of drums and
blaring of horns washed over me. The masked dancers in their ram costumes spun as
if I were a wind blowing
through them. The men under the masks were blind except to the drums, but the ram
spirits who flowed within the masks saw me. Their eyes were mist and ice, gleaming
with power. They scraped the ground in a mocking greeting, and folk clapped and whistled
as if the sweep of bows were part of the dance.

Their rumbling spirit voices whispered in the air. “Cousin! What do you hunt here?
Why have you come?”

They could cut my concealing threads with their sharp spirit horns, but they let me
pass unmolested. I sidled up alongside the horses in time to hear Lord Marius shouting
to be heard above the drums.

“You need to give her up, Amadou! It’s been over a year since you saw her. You’re
seeing the ghost of what you wish you’d had, now that you’re betrothed. If you’d wanted
her that much you should have offered her marriage.”

“Against my aunt’s wishes and every sensible consideration? To an impoverished Phoenician
of disreputable birth? Who turned out to be an agent of General Camjiata all along?
I think not!”

“Then be sensible and let it go. You just saw someone who looks like her.”

“I’m sure it was her! We know the general means to return to Europa someday. Why not
now? Look! There she is! Bring her to me!”

As he pointed toward the alley, I darted to the head of Legate Amadou Barry’s fine
steed. Two slices ruined the bridle. His grip on the reins went slack. I ducked under
his mount’s neck to deal the same damage to Lord Marius’s tack, although the animal
rolled its eyes and pranced away from my scent. I cut my way through the troop, leaving
a trail of sheared girths and tack. The drumming beat a pulsing rhythm around us as
the dancing line moved on down the street while the beleaguered troop bottled up the
road. Soldiers had to dismount to steady their horses.

Lord Marius scanned the trail of my invisible passage through the troops and into
the crowd as a man follows the swirl of leaves. With gestures I could see and commands
I could not hear, he sent soldiers scrambling after me.

Still wreathed in shadow, I clambered up onto a barrel and shouted, “Have you let
yourselves be beaten down by fear? Shame! Shame! Have you already forgotten the words
of the Northgate poet? Was it
for nothing that he starved himself on the steps of the prince’s palace to demand
new laws for the common people? A rising light marks the dawn of a new world!”

A gun went off. I escaped along a side street. A clamor of rocks being thrown and
glass breaking serenaded me, but the sounds faded as I fled. I was winded by the time
I fetched up on Enterprise Road, panting loudly enough that passersby looked around
to see who was breathing like a steam engine. I leaned in the stoop of a closed shop
until I caught my breath, then made my way to Fox Close. There was something odd about
the neighborhood, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

The lane was lined with modern gas lamps, although naturally they were not lit during
the day despite the overcast gloom and smoky pallor. The lane lay deserted except
for a man loitering at the corner with a hat pulled low over his brow. I did not see
Bee and Rory.

I walked right past the law offices. When I retraced my path, no business sign met
my eye, only a boarded-up house where the sign of orange letters against a feathery
brown backdrop had once proclaimed
GODWIK AND CLUTCH
. The sign was missing; it had been taken down.

I mounted the steps. The door had been staved in with what appeared to be axe blows,
then repaired with planks hammered over the rents. I jiggled the latch and found it
unlocked. Cautiously I pressed it down, but remembered before I opened it that it
would look awfully strange if anyone caught sight of the door opening by itself. It
was quiet along the street, every window shut.

The man at the end of the lane vanished, stepping out of sight onto Enterprise Road.
I opened the door and slipped inside. A muted light filtered from streaked mullioned
windows above the door, illuminating the stairs that led up to the shadows of the
first floor above. A tall mirror had been set on the stairs to catch any movement
into or out of the house.

Trolls used mirrors in the complicated mazes they drew around their nests. I could
not walk in a troll maze, nor could the Wild Hunt enter one because the confusing
tangle of shards and glints woven into a troll maze cut the threads of shadow from
the spirit world. I had saved Bee by sending her to troll town in Expedition, where
the Wild Hunt could not reach her.

This was no part of a troll maze. This was a djeli’s mirror, like the one on the first-floor
landing of our old home. In such a mirror, a djeli could see into the spirit world.

My image stared back at me, caught in all my surprise and consternation. Shadows coiled
around me like living things leashed to my flesh. I resembled the spinning dancers
in their wreaths of flowing ribbons. A silver cord stretched from my heart into the
silent depths: the magical chain that bound me to Vai. I had never before seen it
so clearly. I took a step forward and brushed fingers over the surface of the mirror
where it seemed the glowing cord cut through into the other side. Where my fingers
touched, they slid as into water, pulling through a viscous liquid neither cold nor
hot but exactly the same temperature as my skin.

“Andevai’s bride! This I did not expect.” A djeli spoke from within the mirror.

I had walked right into his trap. A crash sounded from upstairs.

I bolted out the door and slammed into Bee.

“We’ve got to run!” I steadied her before she stumbled down the steps. Rory waited
on the street, looking alarmed. “The law offices have been abandoned. Someone has
set a djeli to watch the premises with magic. I’m afraid it’s the mansa’s djeli, Bakary.”

In such circumstances Bee never argued or questioned. “Where do we go?”

“We need to find out what happened to the law offices.”

At the corner of Enterprise Road and Fox Close, the loitering man had reappeared.
He looked our way as he deliberately took off his hat and replaced it with the cap
worn by the radicals. He’d seen us, so there was no harm in asking, since he already
knew we were there. I strode back to the corner. He touched two fingers to his forehead
in a welcoming salute.

I smiled saucily, for I had discovered at the boardinghouse that a flirting smile
was likely to get a tip, and right now we needed a tip badly. “May the day bring you
peace, Maester. How is it with you and your family? Well, I hope.”

The man measured me with a grin. “Better now you’ve come, lass!”

“Cat, really!” muttered Bee.

“Have you news of what happened to the law office?” I asked.

A pair of mounted men appeared far down Enterprise Road.

The man doffed the cap, tucking it inside his coat. His dusty blond hair hung to his
shoulders. “Those with feathers must flee the nest when predators disturb the tree.”

“Were the lawyers arrested?”

“Birds cry a warning each to the other.”

His cryptic utterances annoyed me. “By which I take it that the prince’s militia raided
them, but they escaped. How long ago did this happen, Maester?”

“If you want to know more, come in off the street.”

We followed him through the public room of a coffeehouse where shabbily dressed men
sipped at their brew. They watched us go into a private room furnished with a table
and chairs.

“Sit. Will you have food or drink? It’s already paid for.” The young man had the freckled
face of a pale man who has spent a good deal of time in the sun, and a bone-deep weariness
made his features melancholy. A woman walked in with a tray of bread and cheese and
a pot of hot coffee with four cups. She set it down and went out.

The coffee smelled delicious, and I hadn’t eaten decent cheese for months.

“I suppose it can’t hurt,” said Bee, seating herself next to Rory.

I plopped down next to our new companion and cut off a hunk of cheese to go with my
bread. The coffee was rich and sharp.

“To answer your question, the attack on the law offices happened right after the Solstice
riots three months ago. A march was held on the first anniversary of the Northgate
poet’s hunger strike. Why do you want to know, lass?”

“Why would I tell my business to the likes of you, a man loitering on the street like
any sort of scoundrel?”

“Whsst! You’re a fiery beast, lass. It will take a strong man to harness you.”

“It would take a strong man to not speak of harnesses!”

Perhaps I gestured aggressively with the knife, for his laughter ceased. His mouth
settled into a grin that twitched with both bravado and an emotion like anger. Men
didn’t ever like to look as if women frightened them.

“If you want information, lass, you might think a moment about
whether you want to antagonize a man who’s willing to tell you things. And to feed
you most generously, in a city where plenty of folk go to bed hungry and wake up hungry
with no hope of even a scrap of bread.”

I sighed gustily. “My apologies. We’re looking for the troll lawyers.”

“Not so difficult, was that? But I’m thinking you don’t recognize me. For I surely
recognize you two lasses, and the man with you, too. That’s why you’re in here and
not out there.”

He had two fingers missing on his right hand. Abruptly, I did recognize him.

“You were the one with the coal cart, Brennan Du’s man. You challenged Lord Marius,
to catch his attention so he wouldn’t find us. He had you arrested. Your name is Eurig.”

“That is me in truth, lass.” He flashed a more flirtatious smile, perhaps thinking
that a woman who remembered him so keenly had been struck by his looks and presence,
when in fact I had been trained in a household of spies and messengers to have a good
memory. “I remember the day as bright as yesterday even though it was over a year
ago.”

“We were never able to thank you for the sacrifice you made for us. What happened
after you were arrested?”

He glanced at his mutilated hand. “A lot of folk were arrested after the prince got
news that General Camjiata had walked into Adurnam and then escaped over the sea.
Black-haired Brennan and the professora barely escaped.”

“I was with them!” said Rory. “That was fun!”

He rounded on Rory. “
Fun!
One hundred men were executed for treason!”

“I didn’t see that,” said Rory indignantly. “We were already gone. I would never call
executions and arrests fun! I meant that the skulking and running were fun, and Brennan
Du taught me how to properly drink whiskey. Did you think I meant I am the kind of
person who laughs when people suffer?”

He looked suddenly about twice his normal size, with his chest puffed up and his lips
curled back. His braid, like a whip, seemed ready to snap.

Eurig scooted his chair back so fast that it squeaked against the floorboards.

Rory leaned forward. “A person can enjoy fun and be serious at the same time.”

“Gracious Melqart, Rory! You’re sounding more and more like Cat every day!” Bee pushed
him back into his chair and turned her most coaxing smile on Eurig. “What happened
to the Northgate poet?”

Eurig’s anger broke free. “Why, the Northgate poet died, lass. And our hopes with
him. The prince let the poet starve himself to death on the steps of the palace.”

I was too shocked to speak, for when we had fallen into the well, the Northgate poet
had still been alive.

“Died!” Bee set down her mug. “What of the shame that stained the prince’s honor?”

“Tyrants have no honor and therefore no shame. The prince will make merry at his daughter’s
wedding feast. He serves flesh to a princely Roman legate in exchange for the Invictus
Legion to guard his restless lands. Roman boots will walk the roads the empire built
in the days of our ancestors, back when we were free men. Every day we wake to see
our master the prince of Tarrant walk arm in arm like a brother with the cursed magister
who is the mansa of Four Moons House, although they were bitter rivals all the long
days before. We live under the law of the sword. They crush us under their boot-heels
like the vermin they name us, and so death makes cowards of us all. The prince ordered
that every troll must leave the city, and no person raised a voice in protest.”