Cold Iron (Masters & Mages)

by Miles Cameron

  The thing screamed like a fiend from the Twelver hell. It was massive – ten times the size and weight of a horse, with massive hind legs covered in green scales and sabre teeth in a long narrow mouth. It hung from a pair of heavy straps around its midsection between its colossal legs, and it did not enjoy the process of being unloaded.

  The engineer in charge of the crane was giving orders, carefully, to an army officer. A dozen men and women in the red coats of palace functionaries stood in various attitudes of excitement and boredom.

  The monster hung suspended over the fondemento, swaying very gently back and forth on the huge crane.

  The crane rotated and Aranthur couldn’t decide where to look. The crane was the largest he’d ever seen. The monster was a drake, a near-mythical creature Aranthur knew had once lived in the Soiliote Hills; there were still stone nests on the highest peaks. Now the only drakes were in the East, or so people said.

  Across the Grand Canal, Aranthur saw a coach, a rare sight in the City where the streets were too narrow. The coach itself was gilded, and had windows of glass.

  He looked at the coach for a moment and then back to the drake. People around him discussed the monster and the good fortune it would bring the city. They began to crowd forward, trying to touch the magnificent thing.

  A dozen soldiers armed only with staves were keeping the crowd back. Aranthur’s mare gave him a better sightline than almost anyone else, and he sat and watched while Ariadne fidgeted and informed him of how little she liked crowds … and monsters. She’d begun to remind him of Nenia, because she was brave and calm, but now she was more like Kati, who had been much on his mind of late. To very little purpose …

  The ship appeared to be from Atti. Or at least, many of the men on the dock were soldiers and sailors of Atti, in tall, conical red hats or turbans, bigger or smaller depending on taste and expense. The Academy was full of Attians, and although they drank no wine, at least in public, they were otherwise virtually identical to their cousins in Megara – light-haired, light-eyed, with pale skin that took a deep tan in summer. The saying went Between Byzas and Atti there is only wine. Attians did not drink wine.

  But among the Attian soldiers was a man who had to be from Zhou, the fabulous kingdom of the East. He stood apart, in a short robe over heavy silk pantaloons and gaiters. He wore a long, curved sword unlike any of those from Atti or the Empire; his hair was tied back so tightly that it seemed to stretch his eyes. His khaftan was a lurid blue-green silk and his teeth were painted black.

  The Zhouian soldier’s eyes met Aranthur’s twice. They were only twenty paces apart, and Aranthur was sitting up above the crowd. The second time, Aranthur smiled, and the Zhouian flashed a black-toothed smile in return. Behind him, ten paces away, the coach window opened and the Duke of Volta leant out, a look of anger on his face. He was watching the drake.

  He made a motion.

  The monster screamed. It was a long, angry sound. The man with the black teeth whirled and raised a hand, and a spray of crystal rose from it as if he’d thrown a glass of water in slow motion. The droplets, or crystals, caught the brilliant sunshine and Aranthur could feel the power, the raw saar, displayed.

  Aranthur glanced back at the duke as the man slammed his window shut after throwing something into the street.

  The crowd cheered as the monster’s feet touched the ground, and they shuffled back, but the drake got his feet under him and stretched like an enormous cat. He tossed his head and gave a shrieking cry that terrified the crowd all over again. The drake looked pleased with himself.

  But the handlers were not alarmed. Two women and a man in Zhouian trousers and short robes came forward with metal wands in their hands, and they laughed and clapped. The shortest woman fed something to the monster, putting her hand right in his mouth. He sat back and gave a series of very polite belches, and the crowd, calmed, laughed.

  The drake rolled his neck and breathed fire. The monster was twice as tall as a warhorse, with lustrous green scales almost too green to be real, like a lurid dream. There was a jewelled collar on his neck and his talons, each as long as a man’s hand, were gilded.

  The Zhouian soldier came forward and spoke to the engineer, and then to one of the palace officers.

  ‘That’s the show, friends,’ the palace herald bellowed. He was a big man with a thick beard, who wore the green tabard of the Heralds’ Guild with a red border for the palace, and his voice was augmented with power. ‘We don’t want our new guest to panic on the docks. Please disperse. The Emperor will have open days to come and see this honoured guest in the Imperial Palace. Please disperse.’

  Citizens in Megara didn’t need to be told twice; the wooden staves hit hard, when the soldiers were ordered to use them. The crowd melted away. Because Ariadne hated crowds, Aranthur held her still until most of the people were gone, and then dismounted. She was trembling, her whole attention focused on the monster.

  He fed her an apple, which she took daintily around her bit.

  ‘Time to move on, son,’ a soldier said.

  ‘My horse is scared,’ Aranthur said.

  The soldier made a face. ‘Smart horse. Move on.’

  Ariadne relented at the sound of some calming words and the taste of the apple, and condescended to be led up the ramp to the first square, which was lined in taverns and stables. Richer students at the Academy kept their animals there.

  Aranthur needed to check the prices of stable hire, but first he rode across the big bridge and down the fondemento to where the duke’s coach had been. He dismounted, watching the Zhouians leading the drake away to the east towards the palace. The gangplank went back up into the ship and the great crane was being dismantled.

  He walked Ariadne along the waterfront, looking at the edge of the street. He stooped and found what he sought – a dirty scrap of parchment with a hint of gold leaf on it.

  It looked like a complex evocation chart, the sort of thing a relatively amateurish caster would use to cast a complicated working.

  Aranthur folded it neatly and put it away in a saddlebag and went back to his self-appointed task of finding a stable. He spent half an hour determining that he could not afford ten nights stabling at any of them, and the social distinction of owning a horse in the City was brought home to him. His father resented the cost of keeping a ‘hayburner’ on a farm. In the City, the cost was exorbitant, more than a bed and dinner at the Inn of Fosse.

  He had just emerged from the Sunne in Splendour, the best-known hostel on the square above the waterfront, when he saw the soldier from Zhou emerge from the Rat, across the square. Their eyes met.

  Aranthur smiled again and the Zhouian crossed the square to him. It was only twenty paces across, with a bridge running across the Grand Canal to an even smaller square.

  Aranthur could tell the young man was coming his way. He dismounted, and bowed holding his horse, the court bow that was taught to all new Academy students – the bow that the Courtesy Master said was never wrong.

  The Zhouian stopped five paces away, put a hand on his sword hilt, and returned the bow, duplicating Aranthur’s exactly. He never took his eyes off Aranthur, which gave the bow a different flavour.

  ‘Aranthur Timos,’ he said.

  The other man was younger. His eyes were remarkable, both in shape and colour, and he looked very young, with smooth skin and delicate features, thin lips, and black teeth. He raised one thin black eyebrow but a very small fraction.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, as if considering the matter for the first time. ‘A name, of course. My name, to be precise.’ He smiled, as if at some private joke. ‘You may call me Ansu.’

  He offered his sword hand, somewhat hesitantly, to shake, and Aranthur took it. Both noblemen and farmers shook hands but it was not a City custom.

  ‘Timos, I need a favour and I know no one here.’

  Ansu bobbed, as if making a bow, but his face was frozen; it gave away none of the little cues that the Masters had taught Aranthur to
look for in conversation.

  ‘At your service,’ Aranthur said. It was odd to be addressed by his surname, the way noblemen did.

  ‘I need a place to stay. I …’ The young man looked away. ‘I don’t have any money, and your people seem to require money.’

  Aranthur nodded. ‘All of the inns and taverns will require money,’ he agreed. ‘No matter how important you are.’ He smiled to try to intimate that he was making light of the situation.

  It was a little like the duel, and the bandits in the woods. He could walk away and disclaim any responsibility. He was, after all, a penniless student.

  He shrugged. ‘I am only a penniless student. However, I have a small room at the Academy, and I can no doubt find you a bed.’

  ‘Ah, you are Student?’ Ansu bowed. ‘I hope to be a Student. I have some power. How hard would it be?’

  Aranthur grinned. ‘Not so hard. I saw you cast on the docks.’

  Ansu’s brow furrowed, almost theatrically.

  ‘Yes. Someone in the crowd sought to arouse my guest-friend.’ The Zhouian raised an eyebrow. ‘Drakes, when angry, are … difficult to control.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Aranthur asked.

  Ansu shrugged. ‘I cut the emanation off from its source. What would you have done?’

  Aranthur just smiled.

  Cut off from the source. What a brilliant idea.

  ‘Will you teach me that trick?’ Aranthur asked. ‘Is that Zhouian magik?’

  Ansu laughed. ‘I suppose it is. Of course, but it will only work against a very uneducated person.’

  ‘You may be surprised.’

  In fact, the greatest crisis awaiting him was that Kati had returned from her distant homeland to find that her penknife wasn’t returned. However, the slim young man with the enormous sword seemed to delight her. Aranthur promised to run back down the stairs to her room and return the knife as soon as Syr Ansu was ‘settled’.

  ‘I am very sorry,’ he said.

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘The beautiful boy is your friend?’

  Aranthur was painfully aware that another young woman was shrugging into a gown behind her in the room.

  ‘I just met him. He arrived with the drake,’ he said, and left her in her doorway.

  None of his three room-mates had returned. The room was just that: an attic room, with blankets hung to hide each of the three beds that stood in the gabled windows; a big work table set up under the fourth gable; a tiny flue going into the external chimney, and the small hearth. The room was large enough for four men who got along very well, but bitterly cold.

  Aranthur got the brazier lit while Ansu looked out the window.

  ‘Where are the servants?’ he asked.

  ‘There are no servants,’ Aranthur said as he searched for the penknife.

  Ansu nodded. ‘Ah. It is cold. Do you have something I could wear?’

  His Liote was perfect – too perfect. He had been thoroughly trained, but his enunciation was alien.

  Aranthur fetched him one of Daud’s robes. The man was a Byzas and his parents lived in the City. He was likely to be the last one back from holidays.

  ‘I would also like to have sexual intercourse,’ the young man said. ‘Can you tell me where to find a woman to perform sex for me?’

  Aranthur paused; his thoughts were full of warming his room, and finding a stable for his horse, and Kati’s roommate and her naked, beautiful back, and the missing penknife.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘I do not know the word. For a person who performs sex. For money. I want one.’ He paused. ‘I have been at sea for a long time.’

  Aranthur smiled nervously. ‘You have no money.’

  ‘I will borrow it from you, I hope,’ the young man said. ‘Fear not! I would never cheat such a woman.’

  Aranthur dropped into one of their reading chairs.

  ‘Syr Ansu,’ he said, using the Byzas honorific, ‘we are forbidden to make use of prostitutes at the Academy, just as we are forbidden meat.’

  ‘Prostitute!’ Ansu said. ‘That is the word! Or Porne in Ellene.’ He struck his head, quite hard, with the palm of his hand – hard enough that his face flushed. ‘No meat?’

  ‘Meat is the product of death,’ Aranthur said.

  Ansu smiled knowingly. ‘So is death. Have you killed?’

  Aranthur felt as if the ground was dropping away beneath him – as if he was on Ariadne and she was galloping away and he could not control her.

  He met the Zhouian soldier’s eye. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I knew it,’ the young man said. ‘So. What is meat, then?’ He smiled, and showed his black teeth. ‘It is a rule. That is what you tell me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The young man pursed his lips. ‘So – I will go somewhere. Tell me where?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Aranthur admitted.

  He could imagine the Aqueduct, and the ribbon of desperate refugees. Some of them had been prostitutes. He was sure of it. He thought of the man in the brown robe, with his gentle eyes and harsh words.

  ‘Bah, I am ungracious. I will wait until you want to go with me, and we can buy sex together.’ He smiled.

  Aranthur smiled back uncertainly.

  ‘I need to stable my horse.’

  ‘Ah,’ Ansu said. ‘I thank all of my ancestors that you were mounted, so that I knew you were noble, and a warrior. It is difficult for us to tell, among you …’ He paused, and smiled. ‘Among you Westerners.’

  Aranthur rose. ‘I am a warrior, of sorts. But I am only a farmer’s son.’

  Ansu bowed. ‘Many of our greatest would say the same, and you speak like a gentleman.’

  Aranthur surrendered. ‘Of course. I’ll be back.’

  ‘Could we have food?’ Ansu asked.

  Aranthur took a deep breath.

  ‘Of course,’ he said.

  On his way down he knocked at Kati’s door and handed over her precious penknife.

  She looked different. He couldn’t exactly spot how, but she looked tired and worried.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Everything is wrong at home. Everything. I may not even be able to stay here.’ She looked into her room. ‘I can’t talk now.’

  Aranthur was absurdly happy that she flashed a smile before she closed the door.

  The next week passed in a torrent of crises. The horse went to a stable owned by the brother of Aranthur’s sometime employer in the leather trade. Aranthur worked four shifts, finished a project for his fine arts class, layering gesso he’d made himself on an oak board, and took two fencing lessons from Vladith, his master. His room-mates stayed wherever they were, which complicated his life. Syr Ansu had moved in, and now sat in the best reading chair for most of each day, although on Fifth Day, Aranthur returned from the library to find Kati and both of her Eastern room-mates sitting cross-legged on his floor, playing Kho against Syr Ansu. He was leaning on one elbow, lying full length on the floor and smoking bhang from a pipe, which was strictly forbidden in the room – in any room.

  Kati rose and kissed his cheek and introduced him to the other two women, who were both from Atti. Aranthur chose to ignore the smoke, and tried to hide his astonishment when the three women lit their own pipes.

  ‘You said it was bad at home,’ he said to Kati.

  She shrugged; her features relaxed.

  ‘There is war. Northerners, nomads. But perhaps something worse. My brothers have gone to fight and my mother wants me home.’ She shrugged. ‘Safi is not as it used to be. Everyone fears the nomads. And their masters, the Pure.’

  ‘Pure what?’ Aranthur asked.

  She smiled. ‘That is a good question,’ she said languorously. ‘But I am smoking bhang and I don’t want to go there.’

  Aranthur let it go.

  The next day Daud appeared at mid-morning. He bowed to Syr Ansu and reclaimed his robe.

  ‘Good job,’ he said. ‘Fast work.’

  ‘Fast work how?’ A
ranthur asked quietly.

  ‘Del went home and he’s not coming back. We needed a fourth to make rent.’ He looked at the Zhouian. ‘Must he wear that sword all the time? He looks ridiculous. And the place stinks of stock. And bhang.’

  Aranthur shrugged.

  Daud shrugged. ‘Fine, I don’t really care.’

  Aranthur captured the reading chair at midday and was deep in reading Kleitos, one of the most ancient philosophers, who, luckily for first year students, wrote in very simple, very clear Ellene. His Words were brief and sometimes pithy, sometimes deep, sometimes incomprehensible. ‘War is the King and Father of All; some men he makes kings, and others, slaves,’ for instance, seemed obvious but dated from the Time of Troubles. ‘All elements come to man from Fire,’ was another, and it was so odd that he went and searched up the verb to make sure he had it right. ‘Time is a river, and no man can dip his foot in the same place twice,’ took Aranthur half the afternoon.

  He looked up to realise that Syr Ansu was standing patiently by the reading chair.

  ‘I didn’t want to interrupt your reading,’ Ansu said with a little bow. ‘I need clean body linens and some clothes for court. I meet the Emperor tomorrow.’

  ‘We wash our own clothes,’ Aranthur said.

  ‘Do we?’ Ansu looked out of the window, his face blank. ‘I do not. I wouldn’t even know how.’

  Aranthur eventually surrendered. He was washing his own clothes, and he added the Zhouian undergarments, which were at least simple. He washed them in the courtyard, in hot water, with one of Kati’s room-mates, Atima. She giggled too much, but she was a good companion, and the time flew by, and he hung the washing on the line for both of them, being taller. Then he ambushed his silent room-mate, Arnaud, and asked him if he knew anyone who owned court dress.

  Arnaud shrugged.

  ‘Syr Mikal Kallinikos?’ he suggested, and went back to reading.

  Arnaud was a Westerner, from the barbarian islands west of Volta, but he was courteous and quiet and a good student.

  Aranthur nodded and then went across the narrow street and knocked at the door of his richest acquaintance from first term.