Cold Fire

by Kate Elliott

  After a pause, Caith called out, “Brennan! There’s a rat here who says you’re expecting a messenger. He says a rising light marks the dawn of a new world.”

  Brennan said sharply, “Get him in fast and shut the door!”

  We all spilled into the hallway, me with my hand on my cane. If the others were armed, I could not see their weapons. I nodded to Rory, and he went partway up the stairs to get the advantage of height. Three armed men surged through the open door and into the entryway like soldiers clearing a path for their captain. I recognized them, for I had met them on the road not ten days earlier. All three were foreigners, and one was actually a woman dressed as a man. She stepped back outside, and a moment later a middle-aged man walked up the steps and came in.

  He was tall and imposing, with brawny shoulders, black hair streaked with silver, and the features of a person born of mixed Iberian, West African Mande, and Roman ancestry. In other words, he had a prominent hook nose and a face long and broad and bold enough to carry it off. He wore a shabby wool greatcoat and a faded tricornered hat rather the worse for wear. Although he had the bearing of a man accustomed to wielding weapons, he wore none except the expectation that he was in command.

  His gaze fastened immediately on the petite, bespectacled woman even though, of all of us standing in the entryway, she certainly looked the least physically imposing. “Professora Kehinde Nayo Kuti, I presume,” he said.

  They eyed each other like dogs trying to decide whether they’ll have to fight over a bone.

  “I expected you would send an ambassador to open talks between our organizations,” she said.

  “I am my own ambassador. As I must be, in these troubled times.”

  Blessed Tanit! I had first met this man on the road, where he had been traveling in the guise of a working man named Big Leon. I could not imagine how I had ever thought him merely a retired soldier no different from any other man who has survived an old war.

  “You walked into Adurnam alone except for three soldiers?” Brennan was saying. “With all the mage Houses and every prince in northwestern Europa hunting for you? That seems rash!”

  “And irrational,” added Kehinde in a calmer voice. “We could turn you over to the prince of Tarrant for a significant reward.”

  In disguise as Big Leon the humble carter’s cousin, he had hidden the crackling strength of his gaze and the coiled power of his presence. No longer. “But you won’t. For you see, I am never alone. The hopes and ambitions of too many people are carried on my back.”

  “You’re Camjiata,” I said.

  The man born Leonnorios Aemilius Keita had earned the name Camjiata, lion of war, by leading armies to victory. Everyone knew the Iberian Monster believed it was his destiny to unite the fractious principalities, dukedoms, city-states, and backward tribes of Europa into one glorious empire. He had tried once, and he had almost succeeded.

  “Of course I am Camjiata. Who else would I be? At last, after the patient work of many years and many hands, I am free.”

  Chartji stepped forward, offering the bowl of water.

  He doffed his hat and drank it all in one gulp. “And now we have business to do and no time to wait.”

  “Did you come looking for me?” asked Bee. I could not tell if she was terrified, or exhilarated, or making ready to punch him in the face, but she had her sketchbook open to a page where she had at some point in the last few months drawn a picture of him standing exactly where he was now, in front of the closed door in the entryway of these law offices. “Did she tell you how to find me? Your wife, I mean? The one who walked the dreams of dragons?”

  “Yes. It was the final thing Helene said to me before they killed her. She told me that the eldest daughter of the Hassi Barahal clan would learn to walk the dreams of dragons. Find her, she said, because you will need her, as you have needed me.” He lifted a hand in the classic orator’s gesture used by the Romans in their ancient empire. It was simply impossible not to stare at him if he wanted you to do so, as he did now. “Helene said that the eldest Hassi Barahal daughter would lead me to Tara Bell’s child.”

  “B-but I’m Tara Bell’s child,” I choked out, for I felt my heart had lodged in my throat.

  “Of course you are. You could be no one else but who you are. So must we all be, even Helene, who knew that the gift of dreaming would be the curse that brought death to her.”

  I alone heard Bee whisper, “Death? ” as she went pale.

  He had gone on. “Even at the end, the gift compelled her to speak. Those were the very last words I ever heard her say. She said, ‘Where the hand of fortune branches, Tara Bell’s child must choose, and the road of war will be washed by the tide.’”

  I was not too stunned by these portentous words to miss the way Kehinde glanced at Brennan, or the way he gave a shrug in reply as his gaze flicked toward Bee.

  “A fanciful turn of phrase,” said Kehinde to the general, “but as I have a pragmatical turn of mind, can you tell me what you think it means?”

  A longcase clock standing beside the coat rack ticked with each swing of its pendulum. A carriage rattled past outside. Camjiata watched until we were all looking at him and waiting for him to speak. He smiled softly, as if our compliance amused him.

  “Why, the depths of the words are easily sounded. She meant that Tara Bell’s child will choose a path that will change the course of the war.”

  The gazes of seven humans and three trolls left his face and fixed on me.

  “Which means you, Catherine Bell Barahal. Because that child is you.”

  2

  I am not a young woman who craves attention. Unlike my beloved cousin Beatrice, who is my dearest and most trusted friend in all the world, I make no effort to bring myself to the notice of all and sundry in the most forceful and spectacular way imaginable. I have the sort of character that prefers the shadows where it can bide quietly or, as Bee might say, sneak about without being caught.

  So I did not at all like to find myself with every pair of eyes—except of course for my own since that would have been impossible—staring at me. Words usually come easily to me. But I had seen carnage on the streets. I had been awake all night. I really just wanted to close my eyes and sleep.

  Instead, I stood for a moment as mute and seared as if I had been struck by lightning. Then I got angry.

  “You may believe that because I am Tara Bell’s child that I mean something to you and your schemes and plans. But I came with my cousin to these law offices to get help with our own private legal matters. Not to aid an escaped criminal!”

  The door rattled softly at his back. He stepped away as it opened a crack. The woman dressed as a man squeezed in. As everyone relaxed, the general chuckled. His amusement made the air change quality as if holding its breath before the sun—or a storm—breaks through.

  “Some call me a criminal, while others call me the Liberator,” he said in the rich Iberian lilt he had not lost despite thirteen years confined on an island prison. “Like you, I came to these law offices on an entirely different matter. I truly did not expect to meet you here, Catherine.” He nodded to acknowledge Bee. “Nor did I expect to meet your cousin, the young woman who walks the path of dreams. Not so soon, and not in Adurnam. And yet, why not here? Why not now? That we meet here and now merely reminds me that destiny directs our paths. We cannot escape what we are.”

  “That may be, but we can escape those who try to imprison us.”

  “Have I said anything that makes you think I am trying to make you my prisoner?”

  “You must forgive me if I don’t seem very trusting right now. For the last two months, I’ve been running from people who want to kill me. My cousin and I just escaped from house arrest. So I don’t see how I can really trust you.”

  “If we are both being hunted, doesn’t it make sense for us to become allies?”

  “Allies in what?” I demanded. “Isn’t your war over? Didn’t you lose? Weren’t your armies dispersed, and
your allies punished? Didn’t your enemies in the Second Alliance march home satisfied with their victory and your imprisonment?”

  I wasn’t sure how a man of his infamy would parry such a reckless attack, but he merely smiled drily. “A worthy salvo. It reminds me of the prickly unanswerable questions I would hear from your father Daniel when we were young. The struggle for liberation is never over as long as the old order crushes those who seek freedom. I intend to reform the laws of Europa and free the population from the oppressive rule of princes and cold mages. You could do worse than to join my army, as your mother did.”

  “We’re not your soldiers,” I said as I glanced at the woman who stood beside him.

  A black-haired foreigner, she wore a man’s jacket and trousers. A falcata, a short sword in the Iberian style, rode low on a belt loop at her left hip. Her eyes had the epicanthic fold of a person whose birth or ancestry rested in the mysterious lands of the Far East, but the most striking thing about her was the ragged two-tined white scar that forked across her right cheek. Was she one of his famous Amazon Corps, as my mother had been?

  “Just because my mother was an officer in your army doesn’t mean I am under any obligation to you,” I added.

  “You are mistaken if you believe nothing binds me to you.”

  Snow poured down my back could not have made me more cold. A horrible premonition seized me, together with a throat-clawing curiosity. I had to know. “What do you mean? You’re not going to claim to be…”

  “Oh, la!” Bee pressed the back of a hand to her forehead in a gesture worthy of the cheap sort of theater. “I am overcome by these confrontations and alarums! All these revelations and unexpected meetings are simply too much. If I do not sit down this instant, I shall collapse.” She had perfected a throbbing quaver with which to soften the listening heart, but her voice retained an edge of determination that suggested her collapse would be accompanied by a tantrum no sane person wished to endure. When she grasped my elbow, her grip was like the clamp of a trap. From the cutting look she gave me, I could tell she wanted to have words with me.

  The general touched a hand to his heart. “I am at your disposal, Professora Kuti. With you, I assume, is the legendary Brennan Touré Du. Tales of his daring exploits reached even my lonely prison cell. I have been assured your connections are legion, your intellects first-rate, and your commitment to the cause of justice and reason unparalleled.”

  Although Kehinde appeared to be nothing more than a petite woman with a quiet demeanor and an enthusiasm for technological puzzles, she met the general look for look. “You will understand that our chief concern is to assure ourselves of your dedication to the cause of justice and reason.”

  He nodded. “Alliances can only be formed where trust is assured.”

  “Let me then defer to our host, Maester Godwik.”

  Godwik raised his feathered crest of black and green. “It is our custom to offer a chance to wash, drink, and eat before any negotiation commences.”

  The general laughed. “As I well recall. The first of your kind I ever met were gunrunners. It took a cursed long time to get down to business though we were in the midst of a battle waged over a hill. I would be honored to wash, drink, and eat with you, Maester Godwik.”

  All three trolls showed teeth in an expression that mimicked a human smile. Given that they had fearsome teeth bristling in predatory snouts, the effect was more unsettling than reassuring.

  “Caith,” said the old troll, “please go join the watch at the corner.”

  Caith whistled an answer and went out the front door, accompanied by Brennan and the older foreign soldier. The younger soldier took up guard at the front door. By the way he kept glancing at Bee and then away, it was obvious he was taken with her voluptuous figure and magnificent beauty.

  Maester Godwik gestured to Bee, Rory, and me. “We have not yet greeted you properly either, my young friends. Await us in the kitchen, if you will. General, this way.”

  Along the right wall were two staircases, one of which ascended to the first floor above us while the other, tucked beneath it, descended to a half basement. Godwik limped down the basement stairs while Chartji went upstairs past Rory. After a glance at Rory, the Amazon followed Godwik downstairs, the general and Kehinde at her heels.

  “Look at those knives!” whispered Bee admiringly, still clutching my arm.

  The young foreigner had unbuttoned his greatcoat. Beneath, he wore a harness of knives buckled over a quilted jacket of dull twilight blue. A belt strapped around his hips braced a pair of illegal pistols. He had straight black hair not unlike my own, and a brown complexion that resembled Rory’s. The cast of his features, his wide cheekbones and high forehead, gave him the look of a man far from the house where he had been born and none too impressed by the place he found himself now. He met Bee’s bold stare with a challenging one of his own.

  “You’re not of Mande or Celtic or even Roman ancestry,” I said. “Where are you from?”

  He measured me up and down and without replying looked back to Bee.

  She lifted her chin in imperious dismissal of his rudeness. “Rory, bring the bags.”

  She tugged me toward the stairs, but when we were halfway down to the basement, alone on the dim stairwell, she yanked me to a halt. “Cat! You were about to ask Camjiata if he was the man who sired you! In front of everyone. Don’t you remember anything we were taught at home?”

  “I know! I don’t know what came over me. I forgot myself in the heat of the moment. I just couldn’t help but think that since he knew my parents, he might know who it was.”

  “Of course you want to know. But if Rory doesn’t even know who your and his sire is, why would the general?”

  “My mother might have told him.”

  “Your mother Tara Bell? Do you know the only words I remember her ever saying to us? ‘Tell no one. Not ever.’ I doubt she told him anything, even if she was under his command. Also, you definitely shouldn’t have mentioned we were under house arrest.”

  “I know!” I agreed grumpily. “But the radicals already know we’re trying to escape the mages. And since Camjiata knows what you are, he’s surely guessed the mage Houses want you.”

  “It doesn’t matter what he would guess. Tell no one.”

  “Keep silence,” I echoed, a phrase that had been drilled into us by Bee’s mother and father.

  “That would be too much to ask from you, I agree!” she exclaimed, but then she hugged me. “I know you’re tired, Cat. You’ve traveled so far and learned such shocking things, not to mention escaping certain death and saving me from what would have been an exceptionally unpleasant marriage. So babble nonsense, which you do so well, and leave me to negotiate.”

  “I can keep silent!”

  She laughed, and we clattered down the rest of the steps and along a narrow passageway past an empty bedchamber, a pantry, and a scullery. At the end of the passageway, a half flight of steps led up to a back door. We turned into the kitchen. A cast-iron range was fixed under the stone arch of an old fireplace. Its burning coal soaked the kitchen in heat.

  I set my black cane across the big kitchen table. A cutting board and knife sat atop the work-scarred surface next to a heap of parsnips, a bowl of dry oats, a pot of freshly churned butter, and an empty copper roasting pan. Bee set her sketchbook on the corner of the table, then dragged off her hat, gloves, and winter coat and threw them over the back of a chair. She crossed to the long paned window set high in the wall and got up on a stool to look out into the back. Being taller, I could see out the high window without using a stool; the view looked over the backyard, a long, narrow court enclosed by high walls and paved in flagstones. There was a cistern, a pump, a stone bench dusted with snow, and a carriage house abutting the high back wall next to a closed gate. Godwik was leading Camjiata, the Amazon, and Kehinde across the back court to a peculiar little building. It reminded me of a domed nest because it looked as if it had been constructed from feathers
and sticks and wreathed with ribbons and wire from which hung mirrors, glass, and bright shiny things. A solitary crow perched on the jutting center post.

  Bee sighed gustily, shoulders heaving, as she hopped down. “Oh, Cat! I thought by coming here we would have a chance to rest and decide what to do next at our leisure. Instead, it’s as if we’re caught by a tempest at sea. We’re blown hither and yon without ceasing by the gods’ anger.”

  “I don’t think the gods have anything to do with this. I think it’s all these cursed people who won’t leave us alone who are the problem. Why did I think lawyers and radicals would be a safe harbor? Is there anyone we can trust?”

  On the ground floor above, footfalls made the floorboards creak. The front door opened and closed, and someone descended the basement stairs. Bee grabbed the knife off the table. I picked up my cane.

  “Here you are.” Brennan entered the kitchen with that impossibly friendly smile, which I could not help but return even as I flushed, lowering my cane. An important and glamorous radical who traveled across Europa to foment revolution could not be interested in a callow young female like myself. Even if he was carrying our carpetbags. “What’s in these?” he asked with a laugh.

  “Gold bricks,” said Bee, at the same time as I said, “Pig iron.”

  “I would have said books, but what do I know?” He set down the bags by the door and indicated the window with a lift of his chin. “No need for knives. Godwik could eat the general if he really wanted to. Even at his age.”

  Bee snickered. I clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle a laugh.

  Rory sauntered into the kitchen. His slender build made his strength easy to underestimate until he leaped for the kill. “So nice and warm! At last! A nap by a proper fire.”