Spiritwalker 3: Cold Steel (5 page)

I exchanged a mirthful glance with Luce, but something in Kofi’s expression killed
any desire I had to laugh. “Wearing fashionable clothes is a shield? From what?”

“Gal, in some ways I reckon yee understand that man well enough, but in another wise
yee don’ really understand him at all.”

Indignation spiked right up into my head, but then I realized Kofi was showing me
respect by speaking so plainly. “I suppose not. He was so awful to me when we first
met that it took a long time for me to realize it wasn’t me he disliked. That most
of the things he did, he did to protect himself from the way the other mages treated
him so contemptuously. I think he assumed I would treat him the same way. All right,
then. Luce, don’t neglect any items a man of Vai’s high-strung temperament might need.
I must say, you’re a man of hidden depth, Kofi.”

He chuckled. “I know how to get a man talking. Vai was a man
who was looking for a friend. I shall walk yee back to Aunty’s on my way, Luce. And
don’ be sneaking back here tonight, for Cat and Rory must share a room.”

As they made to go, Rory broke away from the elders to take his leave of Luce. He
drew her into the shadows to whisper in her ear so softly that even I had trouble
distinguishing words. Then she kissed him in a way that made me suspect the cursed
tomcat had kissed her more than once at the batey match, despite my having told him
not to do any such thing.

I had no chance to scold him, for we were swept off to eat the evening meal with the
entire family in attendance, some thirty people, including elders, adult cousins,
all the children, more distant relations who lived and worked in the household, and
two lads up from the country to work until they had earned enough to go home and marry.

“Now what do we do, Cat?” Rory asked later when we had retired to a tiny room and
its two cots. As I hung a lit lantern from a hook, he dragged a cot over against mine
and sprawled out across both. “I don’t want to go on the ocean. It scares me.”

“Move over! You’re hogging all the space.”

“I am not a hog!”

“Of course you’re not a hog, Rory,” I said soothingly, before I pounced for the kill.
“But don’t make me call you a lecherous seducer. Didn’t I tell you not to touch Luce?
She’s too young and very innocent.”

“Not as innocent as you think she is!” He sat up, crossing his arms as he frowned.
“I am not like that unpleasant fire mage, James Drake. I would never pet any person
without their full and willing consent—”

My throat tightened. “How do you know about my relationship with James Drake?”

“I lived with General Camjiata and his staff for three days before you came to retrieve
me. Remember?”

“Did James Drake
say things
to you? About me?”

“Goodness, Cat. Your skin is all blotchy.” He patted my flushed cheek. “And warm!”

“I see what you’re doing. You’re changing the subject. Luce is too young for you.”

“Both you and Luce are old enough to breed.” He sniffed several
times. “You’re not pregnant. In fact, you’re fertile right now. It’s very convenient
for me that human women are only fertile part of the time. That makes it easy for
me to—”

“Rory! This is not a subject you and I are going to discuss.”

“You started the discussion.” He ran a hand along his chin and lips like a cat about
to start licking its paw in a self-congratulatory fashion. Yet just as quickly, his
smirk faded. “As your brother, I ought to warn you. James Drake is a dangerous man.”

“I can handle James Drake. It’s our sire I’m worried about. What are his weaknesses?
How can I defeat him?”

“You can’t defeat him. We’re bound to him because we are his children.”

A tap shifted the door. I grabbed the hilt of my sword.

“Cat?” It was Kofi.

I let him in. Kofi’s plain jacket and trousers in the practical Expedition style and
his powerful build marked him as a hardworking laborer, but the crisp confidence in
his tone revealed him as a successful radical, a member of the new provisional Assembly
in Expedition.

“This is a rare commotion, Cat. Now that we Expeditioners have the chance to rule
we own selves, we don’ like to feel the Taino can tell us what to do. But yee running
have made the situation worse. Yee shall have to sail immediately for Europa.”

“I haven’t money to pay for our passage.”

“So Kayleigh told me. Expedition owe yee a favor for saving us from the Taino invasion.
I shall escort yee to West Quay at dawn. There yee shall board a Phoenician ship called
the
White Horse
, bound for Gadir. The tide turn mid-morning. Then yee shall be out of reach.”

“Thank you.” My legs gave way as an avalanche of relief crashed over me.

“Don’ thank me. Commissioner Sanogo arranged it.” He sighed. “I admit I had hoped
yee and Vai might settle in Expedition. There is plenty for him to do here. And I
reckon the wardens of Expedition should like to hire a gal with the peculiar talents
yee possess.”

“I would like to try that sort of work.”

“Warden’s work ’twould suit yee, for I reckon yee’s not suited for a quiet life.”

“I can live a quiet life!”

Kofi laughed. “Yee should last a month, no more, before yee got restless and found
some trouble to get into. I reckon Vai love yee for it, and for the knack yee have
of getting out of it. If anyone can fetch him back from the spirit world, yee’s the
one to do it.”

We talked a little longer about the logistics of our departure. After Kofi left, Rory
and I settled on the cots. I pinched out the wick but could not sleep for fretting
about Bee.

“Are you trying not to cry?” Rory whispered.

I sniffled. “I didn’t mean to get into trouble before Bee came back tomorrow. What
if I never see her again?”

“If it will help calm you, I can comb your hair, or lick your hands and face.”

“Lick my hands and face?”

“It’s very comforting, I’ll have you know!”

I managed a choked laugh. He tucked his back up against mine and began to sing the
oddest crooning lullaby in words I could not understand. The melody wound like a nest
around my heart, shielding me from the ills of the world.

I slept heavily and woke before dawn, determined to succeed. Luce arrived with the
chests. We walked in a trundle of carts through the predawn gloom toward the harbor.
Rory pushed a cart among the other men. I walked in the center to be less conspicuous.
Luce held my hand. The menfolk bantered in a half-awake, early-morning way. I could
not rein in my thoughts, which galloped from the impossibility of rescuing Vai out
of the jaws of the Master of the Wild Hunt to the pain of being sundered from my dearest
Bee. It was easier not to think at all.

West Quay was the farthest west of the wharves in the main harbor, mostly used by
Phoenician ships, and notably marked by a pair of tall wooden posts the locals called
Heracles’s Pillars for the famous straits at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea. On
the opposite side of the jetty was an inn called Nance’s, with a sprawling wooden
deck flanked by buildings. The edifice had a grand view of the harbor and of the monumental
arch that led into the walled confines of the old city. Almost two months ago, Vai
and I had been separated here by an unexpected meeting.

At tables along the railing, men ate with the concentration of sailors savoring their
last good meal before shipping out. Barrels were lined up street-side next to the
steps. A man leaned against a barrel with an open book in his hands. He met my questing
gaze with a polite nod of greeting.

“Blessed Tanit!” I released Luce’s hand. “Rory, we’ve got to run.”

The leaning man closed the book with an audible snap. Kofi looked around with a curse.
A piercing whistle cut through the hush of dawn. Rory dropped the handles of the cart
he was pushing, and the entire line of carts came to a juddering halt. Taino soldiers
trotted onto the jetty from where they had been hiding amid stacks of crates. The
men who had been eating clattered down the stairs to fan out onto the jetty, brandishing
the short swords known as falcatas that were famous as the preferred weapon of Iberian
infantrymen. We were surrounded.

The man with the book approached with a measured tread that drew all eyes. He had
height and breadth, the look of a man who fought in wars once and means to do so again.
Silver streaked his mane of wavy black hair. His face bore the stamp of his father’s
noble Malian ancestors in having brown skin and his mother’s patrician Roman lineage
in having a bold nose.

My enemy, General Camjiata.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Cat,” he said with the friendly smile the victor can afford
to give the vanquished. “I admire your plan for a bold escape, and your ability to
gather allies. But you’re going to have to come to the Council Hall to address the
charge of murder.”

“Shall I eat him, Cat?” murmured Rory.

“Rory, don’t move. They’ll shoot you.” I faced the general. “How did you find us?”

“You see, Cat, it isn’t that you need to have the dragon dreamer at your side at all
times,” said General Camjiata as he strolled up to me. “She does not dream the day
before of what will come to pass the next morning.”

“She doesn’t?” I asked, thinking of my dream.

He took no notice because he was too enthralled by the sound of his own voice. “Nor
can she walk by purpose into a dream that will tell her what she wishes to know about
a crossroads in her future. She may never even recognize what it is she has seen.
What you need to make use of a dreamer’s gift is a record of her dreams, so you can
study this record until you see patterns emerge and weave the pieces together.”

He opened the book.

“That’s Bee’s sketchbook!” I exclaimed. “The one you stole from her!”

The page was a jumble of images drawn in Bee’s vivid style: a winged horse galloping
across waves; the famous twinned bronze pillars known to stand in the temple of Melqart
outside the city of Gadir in Iberia; a black saber-toothed cat; nine half-moons. And
a pretty little portrait of me from the back, holding by the hair the decapitated
head of Queen Anacaona as I looked over my shoulder as if in flight from a pursuer.

“Gah.” I reached across him to turn the page, for the gruesome detail took me aback.

He pulled the book away from me. “The
White Horse
is a ship that will sail to Gadir from the quay known by its pillars of Heracles,
which to the Phoenicians are known to be the pillars in the temple of Melqart at Gadir.
On the Nones of November, the fifth day of November, which is today, the fugitive
accused of the murder of the cacica will arrive at the quay with her brother.”

“Why nine moons when November isn’t the ninth month? And why the half-moon?”

“In the early Roman calendar, November was the ninth month. Nones refers to the day
of the half-moon. If you don’t know that, you can’t make use of the dream.”

“You could just have guessed I might have tried to escape on a Phoenician ship leaving
before the tide turns.”

Taino soldiers parted ranks to allow a frowning Prince Caonabo to come forward.

The general indicated me. “Your Highness. I told you I would find her. With this one,
you really need to use a rope if you want to capture her.”

He whistled. In his first war his army had been famed for its Amazon Corps, women
who fought with more ferocity than men. My mother, Tara Bell, had been a captain in
his Amazon Corps, and she had been condemned to death for the crime of becoming pregnant,
with me. A woman dressed in soldier’s garb walked forward. Captain Tira sheathed her
falcata and unlooped a length of rope. It had a noose, to go around my neck.

“Yee cannot be serious!” said Kofi.

Rory snarled.

Camjiata smiled, as if he hoped I would do something reckless.

Luce, Kofi, and the men of Kofi’s household were fenced in. No doubt they would be
charged with aiding and abetting a fugitive.

“Your Highness, I’ll come quietly,” I said to Prince Caonabo, “if you will agree to
let these people go free, no questions asked, no grudge held, no charges brought.”

“So have I already agreed,” the prince replied. “All but your brother may go without
prejudice.”

“Kofi, just go,” I said, for by the gritting of his teeth I could see his frustration
building.

His eyes flared as he gestured for his kinfolk to depart, but he went. Luce flung
her arms around Rory, who peeled her off and pushed her
after the others. The soldiers made an opening for them to push out their carts. A
crowd had begun to gather on the jetty, mostly laborers headed for work or women carrying
wood or water to their homes.

“An ugly crowd,” said Camjiata. “Best we make our way to Council Hall quickly, Your
Highness. We need only leash the girl. The young man will follow her.”

No longer pretending to smile, he dropped the noose over my neck. The coarse sailor’s
hemp chafed my skin.

The prince’s open carriage rolled out from behind Nance’s. I clothed myself in as
much dignity as I could gather and stepped up into it. Rory walked behind the carriage
to keep an eye on everyone. I wondered if it was his usual position in the hunt when
he and his mother, aunt, and sisters prowled the spirit world in search of their next
meal.

Prince Caonabo sat facing me. Camjiata sat next to me, holding the rope.

As the driver snapped the reins and the horses moved forward, the Taino soldiers paced
in disciplined ranks. The general’s Iberian veterans had more of a swagger. Sailors
and laborers gathered at slips and quays to stare, and women and wagons moved aside
to let us pass. A gaggle of young toughs shadowed us.

“Why have you involved yourself in this inquiry, General?” I asked politely, even
if I really wanted to bite and claw.

“Cat, I am not your enemy. Please be assured that Tara Bell’s child will always have
a home with me if she needs shelter. I want only to protect you.” I had never met
a man who could speak in such sentimental platitudes and yet have it sound so genuine
and unforced. It was one of the most irritating things about him.