by Kate Elliott
My husband had not come in after me.
Despite the cold outside, the chamber breathed warmth, but of course I saw no hearth, no fire, no coal-burning stove.
“You will want to change for supper,” said the woman.
“I will?”
Her smooth countenance slipped, and she looked at me as if I had turned into a toad. Then she smiled without a sliver of sincerity and, with the same frigid courtesy, indicated the sleeping chamber. I rose, trembling, and followed her past the bed and into a closet almost the size of the bedroom I shared with Bee. There lay my trunk. An unknown hand had opened the lid to reveal the hastily packed garments within. Two dinner dresses lay draped over the back of a dressing chair.
She considered my perfectly respectable clothing as she might a serpent. “You will have to use one of these garments. And no time to iron out the wrinkles. Still, with such a costume, wrinkles are the least of the offense. I will send a girl to help you dress.”
She left before I could punch her with the strong left hook noble young Maester Lewis of the red-gold hair had taught to Bee and me. Tears pricked and burned, so I thought of ice and did not cry. Waiting, I tugged off my boots to stand barefooted on the plank floor, expecting its cold pinch to shock away the last of the tears. But the floor oozed heat. Ah! It was glorious.
The door clicked open, and I turned with a start.
The girl had strawberry hair and blue eyes, a blandly pretty face as uninteresting as the blandly tasteful décor, and most importantly she had deft hands with buttons and laces. I tried to draw her into conversation, since she looked about my age, but she might as well have been mute. Or she might actually have been mute. Given what Bee and I heard about the cruelties and whims of the Houses, it would not have surprised me if they had cut out her tongue. I chose the celadon crepe, my best dinner gown. It was not perhaps at the height of fashion, but it had good line, as Aunt would say.
Aunt, who had handed me over without blinking.
The woman entered and shooed the girl away. She eyed me critically. “I suppose that is the best you have. I can see why the mansa did not wish to saddle his nephew with you.”
Better not to reply. I stared at her, hoping she thought I was stupid.
“We will take supper now,” she added.
I kept silent as I walked behind her through the sleeping chamber and the parlor, into the hall, and across it to a finely appointed room whose windows looked out onto the lit courtyard. She sent me in ahead of her, alone.
A table set for four with china, silver, and glass graced the center of the room. Two bowls hanging from brass tripods poured cold light on the scene, and two pairs of candlesticks bled threads of cold light from their placement on each sideboard. A small side table placed beside the window held a platter on which rested an unusual, large-veined stone and a glazed earthen vessel scored with a geometric pattern in whose belly rested a spray of white flowers.
I turned as my husband walked in. He now wore a long dinner coat tailored from stunningly expensive “king’s cloth,” the color so rich a gold that the eye melted in ecstasy just to look upon it. According to my father’s journals, a mystic symbology was woven into the very pattern of the cloth, but because the Houses guarded their secrets with firmly closed mouths, no outsider knew what these signified. He sported also a knotted kerchief at his neck in the style known as “the diaspora,” so complicated in its magnificent folds and falls that I blinked in admiration.
His dark eyes narrowed. “I thought you brought appropriate clothing.”
“I did!”
“Why are you wearing this, then? To appear so, when they already think me—”
He broke off before I could further lose my resolve not to speak, for the two proud attendants—I knew no one’s name here except my own—entered the supper room, looking, like him, as pleased as if they had been asked to drink salt water. He walked to the sideboard, where we all washed our hands in a bronze basin. He poured from an open bottle into five cups, then took the offering cup to the window, poured a few drops onto the stone, and set the cup on the table beside the vessel. Returning to the sideboard, he handed out the other cups, first to me and then to the others.
We drank. The mead was honeyed and rich, burning down my throat to my empty belly.
“Not promising. I expected better.” He set down his cup and, before I realized what he meant to do, plucked the cup out of my hand. “You won’t want that, Catherine.”
My mouth opened, and then I remembered Aunt’s words and closed it. Our companions pointedly said nothing, but neither did they drink more.
A young male servant pulled out the chairs. We sat. The first course was carried in by four silent servers: a clear-broth fish soup, several lamb and chicken dishes swimming in bright sauces, platters of gingered beans, gingered rabbit liver, roasted sweet potato, and a pair of savory vegetable stews fortified with millet. How I wanted to display my offended dignity by spurning the food, but I was so very, very hungry, and it smelled so very, very good.
They set down the plates, and the woman spooned lamb in red sauce onto his plate for his approval. He tasted it and winced.
“Absolutely not.”
The chicken with an orange sauce.
“I can’t be expected to eat this.”
“I would be willing to try it,” I said in a low voice, but although the woman glanced at me, my husband ignored my words.
The lamb in gravy, the gingered rabbit liver, the beans, and the vegetable stews met with the same scorn.
“Is this all your kitchen can manage? It is not what we are accustomed to at the estate, but perhaps you’ve been so long away tending house here in the city that you’ve forgotten.”
I winced, trying to imagine what Aunt would say if she ever heard me speak so ungraciously. The servers carried away the offending dishes. I wanted to weep. I would have scraped the smears of sauce off his plate, just to get some flavor on my parched tongue. He considered the clear soup and the bland orange potatoes with disdain.
“These are so simple they can, one hopes, offend no discriminating appetite. Very well. Can I hope there might be a suitable wine, a vintage better than that sour mead? A cheese, perhaps, and sliced fruit?”
The woman’s expression was as emotionlessly correct as his was disdainful. “I will ask personally in the kitchens, Magister.”
She deserted the chamber.
“I have certain things I need,” said my husband.
“All that was requested is ready,” said the man in a tight voice.
“Is it?” my husband replied in a tone thoroughly insinuated with doubt. “I’m relieved to hear it, after this supper.”
The room lapsed into an awful silence. For the longest time he merely sat, looking out the frost-crackled windows into a dark courtyard. The heat rising from the floor warmed my feet and legs, but my shoulders were cold as I stared at the bright slices of potato and the cooling soup with its pure broth and moist, white fragments of fish floating among scraps of delicate cilantro. I thought I might really and truly start crying when my stomach rumbled.
“But after all,” said the man abruptly, as if his chain had finally snapped, “I’ll just go to the workshop and make sure.” He rose and left.
Without looking away from the window, my husband hooked the bell and rang it.
The young man who had maneuvered the chairs entered the chamber, quite flushed, and touched the fingers of his right hand to his heart. “Magister?”
His voice softened slightly. “Serve the soup and potatoes to the maestra, if you please.”
“Yes, Magister.” The attendant looked relieved.
So I supped on potatoes and on soup, which even lukewarm was spectacular, subtle and smooth and perfectly seasoned, although my husband did not deign to touch it. Afterward, the woman returned wearing a mulish expression and carrying a tray with six bottles, eight varieties of cheese, and fruit. He sampled the wines—pouring a few drops into the offer
ing cup before each tasting—and the cheeses and rejected them all, while finally accepting a single apple, sliced at the table and shared between us, and one precious hothouse mango, prepared likewise.
Yet when he rose, thereby announcing that our supper was complete, I was still famished.
“If you’ll show me to the workshop,” he said to the woman.
“Of course, Magister.”
They left the dining chamber as if they had forgotten I existed. I sat there too tired to rage, and just as I had begun to contemplate actually stealing the bits of food placed as an offering on the platter next to the stone, the girl appeared to save me from an act so disrespectful I was ashamed even to have thought of it. She escorted me through my parlor and into the sleeping chamber, where she helped me out of my celadon supper dress and into my nightdress.
“Maestra,” she said at last, an utterance that offered neither question nor answer except to remind me bitterly that I was now a married woman, with all that implied.
She left me sitting on the edge of the bed with a bowl of light to keep me company. Heat drifted up from the floorboards. My toes were warm, and my heart was cold. In all the years I remembered well, I had never gone to sleep without Bee beside me to whisper to before slumber overtook us. Now I was alone.
The light dwindled, and when its glowing dome dulled and collapsed into a wisp, I tucked myself under the bedding.
I lay there in dread for hours, hearing the rumble of carriages gradually fade as the city fell into its late sleep, hearing the occasional cry of the night guard on his rounds: “All quiet! All quiet!” I recognized the droll bass of Esus-at-the-Crossing and Sweet Sissy’s laughing alto as they sang the changeover, the death of the old day and the birth of the new. The beat of festival drums rolled faintly and was quickly stifled, or perhaps that was when I fell asleep and dreamed of happier times, dancing koukou.
I woke from an uneasy doze with my forehead wet with sweat. Somehow, the chamber had grown horribly warm. I got out from under the heavy covers, swung my feet to the floorboards, and padded over to the shutters. I found the clasp, turned it, and pulled the shutter aside, then unclasped the expensive paned window and opened it to take in a lungful of blessedly cold air. Then I coughed, having sucked in a huge breath of wood smoke, coal dust, and sewage stink. My eyes stung as I caught a whiff of ammonia.
The door behind me opened.
I gasped, turning, my hand still grasping the window’s handle. A figure moved into the chamber; light formed into a luminous globe beyond his left hand. After a moment of complete incomprehension, I realized I was staring at my husband.
My husband! Come at last and very late to the marriage bed. Possibly drunk. Probably appalled at the necessity of consorting with an unwanted and unfashionable wife. I wanted to throw myself out the window, only I remembered Aunt’s parting words: Go with your husband.
My duty was clear.
Strangely, he was fully dressed in practical traveling clothes that were dirty and torn. A moist substance streaked his cheek. He looked as if he’d been in a fight.
“Catherine, close that window,” he said in an angry voice, as if by opening the shutter I had done something to personally offend him. Me! Torn from my home, hauled through the city, and then starved and left to cower like a beaten dog in a trap!
There came on the wind a sound, or maybe just a tremor in the air, a bitter kiss on my lips. My Cat’s instincts flared. I turned to the window, wondering if I really was going to have to throw myself out and run through the garden to get away from his cold fury, now sparking.
“Down!” he shouted.
A huge explosion flashed mere blocks away, and the entire inn shuddered as the boom hit. Glass cracked; panes shattered. I was flung backward and lay stunned on the floor as I watched through the window, now above me, sheets of flame rise into the night sky above a bedlam of screaming men and barking dogs.
10
“Get up! Get dressed! Riding gear, if you have it.”
He made no move to help me. Instead, he strode to the doorway and called impatiently back into the parlor. “No! You must all leave. You should have left already, as your masters have evidently abandoned you. Hurry.”
I staggered up and stumbled to the dressing closet. His mage light followed me but he did not, so I had light and privacy as I stripped out of my nightdress and fumbled into fresh undergarments, a chemise and a soft wool tunic that fit close against my torso, and after that a split-skirted riding skirt and a blouse. I hurried back into the bedchamber, buttoning my jacket so fast I came up with one extra at the top and the jacket askew.
The conflagration rumbled like thunder that never faded. The reflection of flames flickered in the shards of broken glass strewn over the floor. Acrid smoke made my eyes water. There was blood on my hand, but I felt no smarting cut. I swiped my eyes and began to undo the buttons.
“Leave it!”
In the inn’s courtyard, a cacophony of voices howled in concert. A splintering crash raised shouts of triumph. Then a woman screamed, but the sound was brutally cut short.
“Out the window.” His voice was curt. “If they catch you, they’ll kill you.”
“Won’t they kill you first?” I retorted.
A weight thudded against the closed parlor door, throttling my anger into fear. I bolted for the bed, yanked off the coverlet, and threw it over the lip of the window to protect against splinters and glass. I swung my legs over. The inn was raised considerably off the ground, so I had to jump, but cats land neatly, knees bent.
“Move!”
I ran into the garden, looking over my shoulder in time to see him drop to the ground. He pulled the coverlet down behind him. Cloth ripped where it caught on jagged glass, but he shook it free. Trampling through dead flower beds, I raced toward the far wall, measuring its height with my gaze. It was too high to clamber over, so I scanned for footholds or anywhere I could grip with my fingers. A tree grew next to the wall with a bench resting beneath the canopy. I jumped up on the bench seat, gathering myself to make a leap for the upper branches.
“Don’t,” he said, grabbing my wrist to stop me. He wasn’t looking at me; I followed his gaze with my own.
Sweet Tanit in her bower!
A man with a rifle stood framed by the broken window, taking aim.
I tried to make a sound; at first no word came out. Then they flooded. “That’s a rifle! Those are illegal!”
My husband raised his other hand as though flicking away a fly.
I tugged, but he did not release. He just stood there, as if we were poised in a park on a peaceful night to breathe in the scented air. “Rifles are far more accurate than muskets, or didn’t you know that?” I pointed out.
“I’m surprised you do, since rifles are illegal.”
I have good vision, even in the dark. The man in the window tensed and released. Fire!
There was no sound. No flash. No percussion.
The man turned and shouted into the interior. “We’ve got a mage! Bring the crossbows!”
“Up,” my husband said.
I clambered over a big branch like I was mounting a horse. He shoved the mass of the coverlet, now shedding feathers, into my face.
“What—”
“Take it! Must you question everything? While it’s true the rifle won’t fire, I likely won’t survive a crossbow bolt.”
I took it. He climbed after me. A pair of men appeared in the window, lifting crossbows to sight. On the branch, now at the same height as the window, he ripped the coverlet from my hands and, just as the men released the bolts, flung it outward as if rich fabric and the feathers of a rumpled and now-dirty coverlet, however finely made, could stop two iron bolts.
The coverlet billowed open and began to unravel along the rip. I stared as the cloth unwove, becoming a cloud of threads, some racing out in front while others lagged behind with the mass of downy feathers, all of it slowly drifting toward the window as if on unseen wings. As the two
bolts pierced the cloud, they unaccountably slowed and began to wobble. Surrounded by the cloud of feathers, they simply dropped heavily to earth, all their momentum sucked clean away. The threads and feathers meanwhile accelerated toward the men hurriedly cocking new bolts into place, as if they had fed on the speed of the bolts and turned it into their own energy.
A yank on my braid pulled my head around.
“Move!” He went up.
I scrambled after him, easing out on a thick branch to the top of the wall. As he swung his legs over, the branch he was on snapped off and it—and he—dropped out of sight with a thump into the alley. Straddling the wall, I looked back to see the men in the window flailing in a storm of down.
“Catherine!” He was rising, dusting off his clothes with one hand as he raised a cold bubble of illumination in the other.
I lowered myself until I hung from my arms and then let go. Naturally, I landed with perfect grace and straightened immediately to scorn the hand he offered, since he had been expecting me to tumble to earth as clumsily as he had.
“Who are they?” I asked. “Why do they want to kill you?”
“Why do you suppose it is me they want to kill?”
My heart was racing and my thoughts were churning and my mouth lost that tight leash Aunt Tilly had bound it with. “How much time do I have to answer the question?”
He took a step back from me. “I was warned that Barahals would have little conversation and fewer manners, coming from a clan of spies and mercenaries. Can we go now? Or must we duel in the Celtic style with more pointless insults?”
On the other side of the wall, men shouted orders. No doubt they were sending men the long way around to cut off both ends of the alley.
“Which way?” I asked.
He measured the sky. I had no trouble seeing in the light made by the fire, hazy and red and tangled with streamers of smoke, but he seemed to be looking for something else. Temple bells came alive, first one and then the others joining in, ringing the fire chase: Awake! Awake! Awake! Their thundering rhythm drowned out his answer. With a grimace of annoyance, he gestured more broadly than necessary, as if he thought my vision was as poor as most people’s would be: this way. As he turned to run, he stumbled over the broken branch lying across the narrow alley. I snorted. Didn’t mages possess spirit sight, as I did? He took one dragging step, righting himself with a shake, and took off at a run for the eastern end of the alley, the one that lay farthest from the inn’s gated entrance. I ran after him. Maybe the Barahals were now spies and mercenaries, if you felt obliged to use those words, but that meant Barahal children, male and female, were trained in the family business. By the time we got to the end of the long alley, he was breathing hard and I wasn’t.
