Cold Steel (The Spiritwalker Trilogy)

by Kate Elliott

  I thought I might as well take the bull by the horns. “I am newly married, Maestra, and I was not raised in a mage House. As you must surely know, I am only recently released from confinement in another wing of this magnificent establishment. If you could assign me an experienced and patient woman to help me make my way, I would be grateful.”

  She nodded. “Yes, you must learn to do things in the proper way. There was some talk in the servants’ quarters about the unseemly way you laced up your skirt and bounced a ball around the back courtyard. Yet Magister Serena said you acquitted yourself well when you poured wine for the men’s supper last night. So you cannot be unversed in all aspects of a woman’s duties.”

  I just could not resist. “The game with the ball is called batey. I would be happy to teach it to anyone who wishes to learn, boys and girls alike, for everyone plays in the Antilles.”

  She sighed. “I will be blunt, Maestra. It is my understanding that his origins are very low. The honored mansa of Four Moons House and my own cousin, who is mansa here, believe your husband to be crucial to the effort to defeat the Iberian Monster’s greedy ambitions. For him to be raised to such a position of honor is an unexpected act that speaks to his exceptional promise. If you will allow yourself to be guided by me, then you will avoid doing things that could shame your husband. As it is said, a well-behaved wife will bear well-behaved children.”

  My lips closed over several imprudent retorts. I plied a different stitch. “Goodness, Maestra, I am only thinking of my husband and future children when I play batey. In the Antilles, they encourage girls and young women to play so as to strengthen themselves for childbirth.”

  She frowned. “In that case, I suppose it must be seen as unexceptionable.”

  Servants were assigned to guard, serve, and clean our suite, and a steward was on duty at all times to advise me in matters of propriety. No mirror graced the suite. Except when Vai and I were in the bedchamber, a djelimuso would sit in formal attendance, so it was clear the mansa did not trust me.

  Playing batey along the garden wall distracted me from the intense boredom of the next many days. When I asked for books and newspapers to read, I was brought accounts of household management and plates of the current fashions, which I would have enjoyed had I had companions to share them with. The attendants kept a formal distance from me at all times despite my efforts to draw them out. In the end I sat next to the skull and browsed the books while keeping up a one-sided conversation with the cacica about my reading.

  I saw Vai only at night in the intimacy of the summer cottage and our gauze-curtained bed, where he was diligent in his attentions. Afterward he fed me scraps of news before falling asleep, and kept promising we would talk more the next day. But the next day never came because after we had eaten our breakfast of rice porridge garnished with berries and cream, he would be called away. Everyone in the women’s hall treated me politely, but they weren’t friendly and confiding, and no one was interested in my stories of Expedition and the Taino or even my store of tales from my father’s journals. Two Gourds House had an ancient lineage and a vast treasure-house of wealth and power to give it consequence in the world. One thing I did not have, in that world, was anything but borrowed consequence. It was pretty clear they thought I talked too much. When I thought of how the gals in Expedition had taken me in, it made me want to cry.

  Fortunately I was allowed to sew in the women’s courtyard, under the eye of the steward, who counted out needles and pins and collected them at the end of each day. I amused myself by piecing together the cut-up parts of my ruined cuirassier jacket into a serviceable garment.

  One day one of the younger women ventured a personal question. “Is it true you are Phoenician, Maestra? That your marriage contract restricts him to only one wife?”

  “I was born and raised in a Kena’ani household,” I replied, aware that this point was of particular interest to the unmarried woman, for a mansa’s heir might normally expect eventually to take three or four wives. “But naturally I knew nothing of the contract or the marriage until the day it happened. It was all properly arranged for us by our elders.”

  In a whisper I could hear perfectly well, a sour-faced young woman murmured, “A shame the man is wasted on a trifling girl like her. You know what they say about Phoenicians. They sacrifice their children to their bloodthirsty gods, and whore out their daughters.”

  “No matter, I suppose,” her friend replied with a scornful smile, “for as soon as the Iberian Monster is dispatched, they’ll send him on a Grand Tour.”

  I stabbed the needle into the wool, pretending I was sewing tongues together. If only Bee had been with me, we could have demolished them.

  With the first flight of barbs unleashed, they were not done with me.

  “Yet I have heard a strange tale from the servants, Maestra, which I cannot believe could possibly be true. They say you strip down to almost nothing and bounce a ball on your knee. Like a savage. Or a man.”

  My gaze flashed up. I was glad to see their hesitation as I took notice of them. They were right to be scared of me! Their trembling made me pounce. “Did no one tell you? My father is a spirit beast who stalks the bush but walks in this world in the shape of a man. No man can tame me, and only one man has enough strength and charm to coax me into loving him.”

  The benefit of telling the truth, as Rory had once said, is that no one believes you.

  The young women tittered and smirked. The steward frowned, her gusty sigh a whip of disapproval. But the older women looked thoughtful, and an elder abruptly declared she had it in mind to have a story. A djelimuso sang the tale of Keleya Konkon’s prodigious cooking pot, which was, in truth, an exceedingly grand story. I did not get to hear the end of it, for a male steward arrived.

  I had been summoned by the mansa of Four Moons House.

  I thought I would be asked to pour wine for the mansa’s noonday dinner, where at least I would get to see Vai even if I was not allowed to speak. But the steward escorted me instead to the most splendidly decorated suite of rooms I had ever seen, all gilt trim and ceilings painted in a distinctive style that intermarried Celtic knotwork with the arcane symbols of the Mande hunters. An armed attendant locked me into a small antechamber, where I paced rather than sitting on the cushioned bench. A latticework window overlooked a parlor, from which double doors opened onto a larger audience room beyond, where men circulated, talking. I looked for Vai but did not see him.

  The mansa entered the parlor together with the Two Gourds mansa, an elderly man with a seamed face and black hair shot through with white. They stood by a window overlooking a garden, too far away for any ordinary mortal to overhear, but I cast my threads through the tangling magics of the House and listened.

  The mansa of Two Gourds House spoke in a low voice. “His birth is low but his power is clear, so I have not questioned your plans. But now Lord Marius returns and tells me the girl has been working with Camjiata. That she was the general’s agent all along, and seduced your young magister into doing the general’s work. Are you certain this course is the wise one?”

  “Leave him to me. I have him coming along just as I wish. He will guard his mother’s honor with his own.”

  “And the girl?”

  “She is part of my plan. He is badly infatuated with her.”

  The Two Gourds mansa clucked his tongue disapprovingly. “A woman is wet clay. If he does not shape her to obedience now, he will have trouble later.”

  “Lord of All, my brother, you must have felt ardent about one woman or another in your youth! Never mind. What matters to us is that for all he is the most cocksure of young men, he desires above all things to seem a man in her eyes.”

  “Yes, yes, I vaguely recall how it was to be young and led by my passions. I suppose he will get her pregnant soon enough. But a Phoenician mercenary house is not a worthwhile ally. I understand it was your council’s only way to bind the Hassi Barahal clan back when they had information about th
e general at the end of his first campaign. I can see why you married her to him when you thought he was of little utility to your House. But now he is your named heir! If you mean to follow through with it.”

  “Despite every hesitation, there is no better candidate. You know what he did at Lemovis. It would be better to kill him than to see him defect to the general. But to kill one as powerful as he is would be a terrible deed we would all regret. He belongs to Four Moons House, and now I have made sure of it.”

  A chill of horror spun through my bones.

  The Two Gourds mansa went on, “Is it true the marriage contract constrains you? I would give you my youngest daughter for him, even as a second wife. She has seen the boy and approves.”

  “It was a chained marriage. Magic binds our hands in this regard.”

  “Is the Phoenician girl truly worth that much to you?”

  “You will soon see.”

  A steward appeared at the far doors. “Your Excellencies, if you will.”

  The men flowed away into a room I could not see from my unlit prison. I heard men’s laughter and the clink of utensils as they sat down to their meal.

  “You will soon see.”

  That sounded ominous.

  Footsteps scraped the corridor. The lock clicked, the door opened, and a steward led me into the dining room. Two Gourds was a traditional household. The old mansa’s young kinsmen served their elders while his wives and daughters poured wine for the more than thirty men in attendance. Vai was describing how a cold mage might defuse a square of riflemen without getting killed.

  “The risk to the cavalry will be great, but that risk arises regardless. If the cold mage is placed at the center of the horsemen, the riders can sweep in and out at speed. The proximity of the cold mage to the combustion will kill their shot. If it is coordinated properly, then a second cavalry charge can break the enemy square during that interval when the riflemen and cannon cannot fire.”

  “An excellent idea,” said Lord Marius, “but horses will not break a wall of infantrymen.”

  “Lancers? Mounted crossbowmen? Longbowmen can surely do damage from a distance. The point is that Camjiata relies on superior firepower, and we can render his guns impotent in bursts. And then take advantage of their weakness.”

  The entire table might as well have been feeding him fruit with their own hands, the way they were seducing him with their respectful attention. The young woman who had made slighting comments about Phoenician baby-killers and whores offered him more wine. He glanced up with a smile that stabbed right through me, until his gaze flicked past her and I realized the smile was for me. The Two Gourds mansa raised a hand for silence.

  Every person in the room turned to look at me. Six djeliw were present.

  “So, young Andevai,” said the old Two Gourds mansa. “Let us see what your wife can do.”

  Vai’s smile vanished. People whispered as they cast glances at me. It took me a few moments to realize my expression must have matched my heart. I was no actress, to pretend to a bland, agreeable character that wishes nothing more than to jump through hoops like a trained dog. My gaze raked the table, for I was determined that these high-and-mighty men would not see me cringe or smile to please them.

  It was a high-and-mighty gathering indeed! Six mansas were present: Four Moons, Two Gourds, Five Mirrors, and Viridor of White Bow House, as well as two others I identified by the tasseled whisks hanging from their robes. A Roman legate wearing the purple stripe of his rank was flanked by four fawning young tribunes. Lord Marius sat at the other end of the table beside an ornately dressed man who was surely the Parisi prince. At least ten other Celtic-born princely lords with their thick mustaches filled out the august assembly.

  “She’s just a girl,” said the legate. “She doesn’t even look like a Phoenician, if you ask me. But it would be like them to cuckoo a child into a nest of magisters, would it not?”

  Lord Marius raised his glass of wine mockingly, as if toasting me with Amadou Barry’s blood. “We dare not bring in a mirror, for fear she will cut a door and through it flee with the young man in tow. But let us see what else this strange creature can do.”

  “Eh? What manner of creature is she?” demanded the Parisi prince, lifting a pair of spectacles to his eyes to peruse me more clearly. “Bold Hunter! My grandaunt was northern-born, up in the princedom of Carn. When I was but a little lad she used to frighten us with stories of black-haired beasts who had eyes the color of amber. They crept out of the ice and turned into lads and maidens to tempt the willing and then rip out their throats.”

  My hands curled into fists. My chin came up.

  Vai said, coolly, “I cannot sit and listen to my wife being spoken of with disrespect. I will not tolerate it.” He paused to survey the table. No one spoke. The legate coughed. Lord Marius set down his glass with the nod of a man who has just won a bet with himself.

  Vai’s gaze settled on me. The tension in his shoulders spoke more loudly than words. “Catherine?”

  I was not a dog to perform tricks.

  But I could not be the means by which he lost face in front of all these men.

  So I wrapped the shadows around me, and vanished.

  In the eruption of commentary and astounded exclamations, I padded over to the table, snagged Lord Marius’s wineglass, and drained it. The wine rushed down my throat, pear essence kissed with a faint rind of peppery oranges. I flung the glass into a corner, where it shattered most pleasingly while I skated over to where Vai sat.

  My lips brushed his ear as I muttered, “Don’t push me too far.”

  Last I walked to the djeliw, who watched my perambulations with astonishment as our mansa watched them watch me. I composed my furious expression into something meant to resemble placid affability, for truly I was an amiable person who preferred to get along with everyone! The moment I unwound the shadows and reappeared, several of the men chuckled as if they guessed exactly my sentiments from the defiant set of my head.

  “It explains how the girl escaped,” said Lord Marius. “What of her cousin and brother?”

  “There are more like her?” demanded the Parisi prince. “What fine spies such creatures will make!”

  Vai kept his gaze on me to remind me to keep my lips closed. As if I would talk! I almost laughed as I realized he and the mansa had kept secrets from their allies: They had not told their allies that my cousin walked the dreams of dragons.

  “A difficult woman to bind and chain, as you may imagine, but we managed it,” said our mansa, as if binding and chaining me into his House had been his intention all along! “Lord Marius, I am sure you already have a scheme or two in mind with which to usefully employ the woman.”

  He caught my eye and gestured, flicking his fingers toward the door. Falling as I was into a red-hot fulmination, I strode out as proudly as I might. Let Andevai enjoy his little triumph! I was so angry I could not sit down even once I returned to our rooms. All I could bring myself to do was bounce the ball from wall to knee to wall to elbow, counting how many times I made the pass before I dropped it. At dusk I had to stop, by now sweaty and a little sore. I asked for a tray of food and a bath. I got what I asked for but not what I wanted.

  Very late Vai came hurrying in to rush me back to the summer cottage.

  “You were magnificent, love. They couldn’t stop talking about you the rest of the day!” His smile glittered. “Some of them said they envied me—”

  “I had far more freedom at Aunty’s boardinghouse than I do here! It seems to me the women of Two Gourds House are too elegant and rarified to ever leave these walls, or perhaps it would just be considered shameful to do so. Certainly they scorn me too much to ask me to come along on their shopping trips and their tours of the famous landmarks of the famous city, of which need I remind you I have not seen a single paving stone nor a single vendor’s umbrella.”

  “If they are treating you with disrespect, I will have a word with—”

  “Yes! You will
have a word. Everything I am here is due to my marriage to you. I might as well have allowed Prince Caonabo to arrest me! Whatever you may think, I am still being held like a prisoner as surety for you.” I repeated the conversation I had overheard between the two mansas.

  “Yes, yes, that is how they talk, that is how they see things. But they can be brought to change. What matters is that they know they need me, that I am the best. Do not forget that Camjiata is letting James Drake do as he wills. You cannot want that to continue, Catherine!”

  “Of course I understand that James Drake has to be stopped! That is not my point. The locked room in the servants’ wing was better than this because I had your mother and sisters to keep me company. I should have gone with them!”

  “My sweet Catherine,” he murmured, nuzzling me in just the way I liked best, “you know it makes all the difference to me to have you here. You have been so patient. I see how it chafes you.”

  “I dislike this coaxing manner, Andevai, with your wiles and caresses.”

  “We’ll make a child.”

  Trembling, I shoved him to arm’s length. “Is this the same man who swore we would bring no child into the world until we’re free of clientage?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Not to mention my sire.”

  “Yes, love, but—”

  “I would be very careful what you say next.”

  He sighed.

  “They won’t even let me sew, except under their eye. As if they think I can effect an escape with a needle.”

  “My love,” he murmured. This time I let him embrace me, because I was so tired of being alone all day that to feel the press of his hand on my back and the warmth of his chest against mine was the nectar I wished to feed on. “I promise you, we will go out tomorrow and promenade along the Sicauna River. We’ll take coffee at one of the little cafés, as people do here.”

  Yet this night, finally, the kisses of a handsome man were not enough.

  “If this is what it means to be wife of the mansa, I cannot live it. You would do better to marry the daughter of Two Gourds House and let her pour your wine!”