Cold Steel (The Spiritwalker Trilogy)

by Kate Elliott

  I nodded. “Where your wife came from.”

  “Yes.” His smile had a bittersweet quality. “And there she was.”

  “Helene?”

  “Tara. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen. I thought she was a boy at first, for she was dressed in men’s clothing. She and her cousin and brother had been out hunting. They had come across remnants of the fighting and run back to warn the village with this mangy dog she kept for years and years—”

  “She kept a dog?”

  His gaze flashed up. I couldn’t be sure if my outburst had surprised him or if he was gauging the import of my expression before he went on. “As it happened, the village was a client village to Crescent House. The elders insisted I pay my respects to the mansa at Crescent House and explain how I and my troops had come into their territory. Tara accompanied us to give a report on what she had seen. Daniel came, because you could never stop him from doing what he wanted. There we met Helene.”

  He poured himself another glass of sack, but I refused a third. The lamp cast gold and shadow over the table. And I thought to myself that maybe, just maybe, General Camjiata was a little lonely, a man who had lost the people he loved best.

  He did not drink. He looked at me instead, his elbows braced on the table, his chin resting on his interlaced fingers. “You look so much like Tara.”

  I toyed with the glass, turning it around just for something to do. He leaned a little closer.

  “Catherine Bell Barahal.” A smile like regret wrinkled the corners of his eyes. “You should have been my daughter.”

  I inhaled sharply. There was no reply to that!

  He added, “Had she married me instead of Daniel, you could have been my heir. We might still manage it.”

  “Your heir?”

  “Like the didos of old, the queens of old Qart Hadast. Like Queen Anacaona. Is it so strange a thought? While it is true in these days most people in Europa would scoff at the thought of a woman ruling, that is purely due to local prejudice and current custom. You look surprised, Cat. You can’t believe a woman cannot rule just as well as a man. You met the cacica. You were raised in a Kena’ani household.”

  “To rule as emperor is the wrong thing to wish for. We must work for Assemblies like the one in Expedition.”

  He chuckled. “Do you believe you can demand Assemblies in every city in Europa and have them established overnight?”

  “No, of course one battle will not win the war.” He had trapped me.

  “It will take years, decades, more likely generations. Yet all might be accomplished swiftly if a single man could set it in place.”

  “And then what? Retire gracefully, leaving the happy subjects to rule themselves?”

  He sipped at his glass.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said.

  “You want to believe me.”

  “I want to believe a lot of things! I want to believe my parents are alive and soon to be reunited with me. Is this what my mother feared? That you would claim me and pass me off as your own child? I won’t be your heir, and I’m not your daughter.”

  In silence he studied me over the brim of his glass as if waiting for me to rethink my position and change my mind. But I was not to be trapped as Vai had been. I knew how to riposte.

  “Did you love her?” I asked.

  He drained the glass and set it down with a hard clunk. “You are not the only one to have lost those you held dear.”

  “I’m sorry they aren’t with us now,” I replied quickly, for his spike of anger startled me.

  “This is why you and I will never be done, little cat, for we are all that remains of them.”

  “Maybe so. Anyway, as this war goes on, it seems we need each other.”

  I went to the side table to slice bread and smear dollops of cheese on top.

  Many scribes and storytellers have recorded the history of the world, each colored by its author’s own interpretation and illuminating only the part of the tale she feels is important or wishes to reveal. Stories tell us what we think we know about the world. Sometimes they share truth and knowledge, and sometimes they propagate lies and ignorance.

  But words are only one road to change. The sword, which is not fighting but any form of action, is the other. Some cut a path that others may follow into the wilderness of possibility. The general saw not limits but unchained opportunity. I did not trust him, but I believed that, as Rory had once said, he said what he meant, and he meant what he said. At least in the moment he said it.

  “What exactly is it you need me for, Cat?”

  “Your legal code will release villages and clans from clientage. That’s what I need.” I offered him the plate. “Do you ever worry about your safety? Since I’m to be the instrument of your death.”

  “Will I die because of a deliberate action on your part against me? Might you be the tool someone else will use to destroy me? Or is your refusal to be my heir the death of my hopes to set in place a successor whose ideals will match my own and thus improve the destiny of humanity?”

  I laughed. “Oh, that was well played, General. But the answer is still no.”

  He took several slices of bread off the plate. “You can’t possibly believe that I believe you came to me because you have been seized by an overwhelming desire to join my army.”

  “We have a common enemy,” I said in a low voice.

  He glanced again toward the door, then smiled with a confiding look that drew an answering smile from me. Was I so starved for affection that I would rub up against any hand that offered a friendly pat?

  “So we do. It is the only reason you are not weighted in chains and thrown into the river to drown. I mean that in the poetic sense, you understand.”

  “When you offered to make me your heir, did you mean that in the poetic sense as well?”

  “Oh, no, Cat. I mean that with all seriousness.”

  “Even though you distrust my motives for coming here?”

  “Were I to truly gain your loyalty, I would know it to be sincere and unshakable. Do not dismiss my offer out of hand.”

  Unlike with Vai and the mansa, nothing in the offer tempted me. “Should you gain your empire, it should then die with you. I will not be the means to prolong it. I stand with the radicals, General. Each day we add to our numbers. You are strong, but in the end, we will be stronger.”

  He lifted his glass as if in toast to my speech, then drank.

  I drank with him, not in his honor but in honor of all those who fought. I could not help but see Bee and myself caught between the mansa and the general—just as, in another way, we were caught between courts and dragons. Vast forces battled, sweeping us up in their conflict. At first we had been ignorant pawns, able to run but never to stand. Alone we did not have the means or the strength to effect change.

  But in the midst of the monstrous assembly that is slave to fortune, each solitary small figure who linked her hand to another built a chain of loyalty and trust.

  We make ourselves into the net that we throw across the ocean.

  41

  Rory gave a copiously false yawn and rose to open the shutters. Roosters crowed. The creak of wheels and trample of feet and hooves drifted from the encampment as the army moved out.

  “Where are we going today?” Rory asked as he plundered the remaining bread and cheese.

  Aides and attendants clattered into the room to pack away the gear with impressive speed. The general personally escorted me to the latrines. Youths wearing the red jackets of fire mages hovered close all the while, like hawks waiting to dive on cautious rabbits. The truth was, I did fear their fire. Rory did not even try to flirt with them.

  Faster than I had thought possible, the headquarters staff was on the road in a column of horses, carriages, and dust. We were led by a company of Amazons under the command of Captain Tira. A battalion of Iberian infantry marched behind. The baggage and hospital train would follow at the rear.

  Rory chatted companionably w
ith the young staff officers, but I stuck next to the general. I did not like the look of James Drake, wearing yet another of Vai’s purloined dash jackets to spite me. What I least liked the look of was his squadron of thirty young fire mages. How many catch-fires he controlled I was not sure, for one of the carriages was locked, with caged persons inside, while a file of shackled catch-fires marched under guard of soldiers wearing Lady Angeline’s badge.

  We traveled hard all day on the main road, passing sections of the slow-moving baggage train. Columns of infantry marched away to either side, across fields, the army like locusts on the move. Messengers galloped up on spent horses with reports from the vanguard. In the town of Castra, where Lord Gwyn had died, we were met by cheering locals lining the road.

  North of town we stopped to water and feed the horses. Soldiers ate stale bread and took naps. I walked upstream to wash my dusty face and hands.

  Rory lay down on the grass and slid into a doze. I smiled to see his peaceful face lit by the sun. As for me, I was terribly hungry. The roofs of a farmstead rose nearby. I would have gone to beg food from them, but I had no money to pay for it and probably they had already had their granary emptied by a quartermaster.

  “I wonder,” I said to dozing Rory, “how a general who comes to liberate makes sure he isn’t just seen as a thief.”

  He snorted awake, rising up on an elbow. I turned. Lady Angeline approached along the bank. Downstream, horses muddied the waters.

  I made a pretty courtesy, for although as wife to the heir of Four Moons House I now ranked as her equal, I did not want anyone here to know of Vai’s new status. “Your Highness.”

  Her gaze grazed along the length of Rory’s body, and to my amusement she flushed when he winked at her. Unlike Drake, he did look good in Vai’s clothes, even when they were rumpled from travel. She turned to me. “What am I to call you?”

  “Maestra Barahal, as you wish, Your Highness. May I ask if you have been married long?”

  “Let me make myself understood to you, Maestra. Do not make an enemy of me. I am the only child of the prince of Armorica, he who stands as overlord above the Veneti dukes.”

  “Ah.” I surveyed her proud posture and confident stance. Her riding clothes suited her. Clearly she was a woman of taste, in most regards. “Yet if I am correct, by Gallic law you cannot rule in your own right because you are a woman. You must marry a man who will become son to your father and then prince in his place.”

  “You comprehend my situation astutely, Maestra. Unlike every other prince’s son, James has no interest in ruling Armorica and will leave to me the inheritance I have earned.”

  I knew how to dig for information. “I suppose his ambitions are set on recovering his ancestral crown in the Ordovici Confederation.”

  “You think he is volatile and angry, but that is because you do not know the circumstances under which he was driven from his rightful place. In fact, he has a philosophical temperament, one that prefers to gaze at the stars and plumb the mysteries of the universe. When the time comes, he will be perfectly happy to leave the administration of both principalities to me.”

  “Goodness! I can understand that the chance to rule two principalities would be an inducement for a woman of your princely birth and ambition. Yet if the law were changed to allow the daughter to inherit equally to the son, such a dynastic marriage would not be necessary for you.”

  I had misunderstood her.

  “The marriage suits me marvelously well.”

  “Ah. Well, then, a word of advice.”

  “Cat,” said Rory, warningly.

  I poked anyway. “Besides the bad fit, for the dash jackets are too loose and too tight in all the wrong places, the colors really do not benefit his complexion. Your attire is so exquisite in all ways that I cannot believe you have urged him to wear another man’s clothes.”

  Her right eye half winked shut in a flicker of irritation. “He has promised to burn them all when the cold mage is dead.” With that she returned to the main group. Drake came to meet her.

  Rory got to his feet. “Cat, will you ever learn to keep your mouth shut?”

  “Burn his lovely dash jackets! Think of the disrespect to the tailors who cut and sewed them!”

  “Cat.”

  My volcanic ire subsided before it spilled over into gouts of red-hot stabbing. General Camjiata beckoned. On we rode through the long afternoon. Fortunately our pace was slow enough that at intervals Rory and I could dismount to walk instead of riding.

  As twilight descended we entered the grounds of a lord’s estate with a long artificial pond graced with fountains and a terraced set of clamshell-shaped lawns leading to a stately house. Troops stretched out on the grounds, having not even erected tents. They leaped to their feet with cheers as the general’s entourage made its way to the big house.

  The general stood on the steps and raised a hand for silence.

  “I came ashore in a rowboat from my exile,” he cried. Back in the ranks, men called his words farther back yet, so all could hear. “You are the ones who had the courage and the vision to march! Let us not forget our ancient war with the Romans. Our grandparents did not forget! Our histories and songs do not forget! The bards remind us that from the northern shores of Africa all the way to the ice, we have all fought the Romans, sometimes alone, but on this day, together! We are the storm that will batter down the arrogance of our enemies! One sharp blow, and victory is ours!”

  How they cheered, for his presence had a bonfire’s glory. It warmed even me, although I knew better than to be smitten by a forceful man’s vision of what could be if only he and I could come to an accommodation. Look how that had turned out, when Vai had courted me!

  What had happened to the inhabitants of the lordly house I did not know, but a cadre of anxious servants set a hastily prepared meal before us in a once-magnificent dining room. Brass lamps were set out to replace richer fittings that had been looted. Young officers waited their turn to bring forward reports as the general and his staff ate through a leek soup, roasted mutton and turnips, pears stewed in wine, and several varieties of cheese.

  “It will give me pleasure to burn this place down as we leave,” said Drake, looking at me as he said it, for the man did need to boast constantly as he tried to intimidate me.

  I held Drake’s gaze as I speared a morsel of mutton, popped the meat into my mouth, and devoted my attention to enjoying its moist savor.

  Camjiata glanced up from the dispatch lying at his left hand. “I am so relieved you enjoy your food, Cat. As for the house, it shall be spared for the hospital train. Lady Angeline, if you will remain behind to await the hospital, I know I can safely put you in charge of administering all. Your father asked me to make sure you stayed well back from the scene of battle, since you are pregnant.”

  Pregnant!

  Drake’s leering smirk turned to a lift of the chin as he contemplated this signal triumph. I opened my mouth to ask if it was truly Drake’s, since all knew that fire mages were indifferently fertile. Rory’s foot pressed down so hard on my toes that I yelped.

  “What Cat means to say,” Rory said as he kicked my shin for good measure, “is how delightful she finds the prospect of actually being allowed to sleep in a bed. Me, too. For I swear to you, I hurt all over.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Especially my thighs, but not, alas, from any riding that would have pleased me.”

  The general chuckled, ignoring the blush of one of his younger officers. “You two will accompany me to the library, where I will spend the night. Perhaps there will be a chair for you to sleep in.”

  Several helpful orderlies dragged in a long couch on which Rory and I fit, curled up with our heads at each end and our feet commingling. I slept fretfully, for the general’s lamp burned all night as messengers came and went. Very late, I woke needing the water closet.

  “As soon as we have placed our line across the field,” Camjiata was saying to a collection of officers, “we will commence bombardmen
t with artillery.”

  A short, thin man dressed in the white sash of the Kena’ani sacred band—the famous Elephant Barca—spoke up just as I wrapped the shadows around me and crept for the door. “If the Roman army arrives while we’re engaged with the Coalition, we’ll be crushed between them.”

  “We will defeat the Coalition quickly, and pivot to hit the Romans while they’re still trapped in columns, before they have time to deploy across the field. The key is to draw out and then capture or eliminate their cold mages.”

  A chill seized my heart. Had I made a terrible mistake in coming here, in leaving Vai behind? The thought took hold in my mind and would not let go. Anxiety muddled me, for although I found the water closet easily enough, I lost my way going back. Instead of returning to the library, I found myself at doors opening onto a stone terrace.

  A solitary flame drew my eye. James Drake sat on a stool with five fire mages at his back, four catch-fires kneeling with heads bowed, and three people facing him like strangers brought before a prince.

  “I will not lie to you,” said James Drake in a kindly voice I scarcely recognized. “No fire mage is ever safe. If you wish to be safe, then learn from the blacksmiths how to lock away your fire and hope it never escapes.”

  “The blacksmiths would not have me!” said a stocky young man who stood with arms crossed belligerently.

  “What of you?” Drake asked the younger of the two lads.

  The youth was so thin he looked as if a breeze might blow him over. “We haven’t the apprentice fee to pay to the guilds, me and my people.”

  “If I gave you that fee, would you choose a blacksmith’s forge? For I will make you risk your life, right now, if you wish to join my company.”

  The lad stammered. “I wouldn’t mind the blacksmith’s guild. It’s an honorable life. In a few years I could give my parents a cow. Men will pay a bride price to marry my sisters, if I’m a blacksmith. My parents can’t afford to lose me. I’m the only son they have.”