Cold Iron

by Miles Cameron

  Aranthur had no real idea what was going on, although the entire tableau had passed in Liote, heavily accented the way Westerners from the Iron Ring spoke. Since he did not understand, he continued with his original plan and made his way to the front of the great wagon. Two men were perched high on the box, swaddled in heavy furs.

  He began to climb the steps, even as the near driver cursed. As he did so, his backwards glance crossed with that of the woman. Her face was lost in darkness and distance, only a pale smudge with dark eyes, but he thought her beautiful, or the paleness suggested great beauty. Something sparkled in her hair as if she had an aura – a flare of red-gold—

  ‘What the fuck, mate? He thinks we’ll drive him all the way to the City?’ The man paused, catching Aranthur’s movements, and turned. ‘Who’re you then?’

  ‘You want me to take your horses?’

  Aranthur was still warm, and standing on the ladder to the drivers’ seats was nice. It kept his feet out of the snow.

  The nearer man looked back.

  ‘What’s the duke up to? He gave the drive on.’

  ‘We need to change horses,’ said the far man.

  ‘Duke didn’t say nothing ’bout changing horses,’ said Near Man.

  ‘Ain’t ezactly duke any more either, is he?’

  A small window opened behind Near Man’s head – the travelling wagon had as much glass in it as the inn.

  ‘Perhaps you missed my thumping on the roof, idiots,’ a voice said. ‘Drive on!’

  ‘Your Grace, we have to change horses.’

  ‘Change at Amkosa or Lonika,’ said the voice. ‘Now go.’

  ‘You heard the man,’ Far Man said.

  Aranthur looked back along the wagon. The woman was still standing, her shoulders square, in the biting wind, watching him. Watching the wagon.

  She must be very cold.

  ‘I’ll take her travelling case,’ Aranthur said.

  Near Man looked at him. ‘What?’

  ‘The duke’s lady,’ Aranthur said, stringing the story together in his head, a little surprised to hear what he was saying.

  Near Man looked back, saw the woman, and started.

  ‘Glorious Sun in the Heavens!’

  Far Man twitched the reins, and the eight horses pricked up their ears. But they were horses – they could smell hay, and a barn, and warmth and food. They shuffled, but they did not push forward yet.

  ‘Where in all the Dark hells are we, boy?’

  ‘The Inn of Fosse,’ Aranthur said, hoping he sounded as smug as inn workers and ostlers always sounded to him. ‘He said to hand down her case.’

  It was a foolish risk to take, but his mind seemed to be running on its own, quickly and accurately.

  Far Man twitched the reins again, and snapped a whip in the air.

  The horses gave up their hope of food and leant into their traces, and the great wheels began to move, crunching the cold, dry snow.

  Near Man got up out of his furs with a grunt and leapt up on the roof. The great wagon swayed as one wheel dropped into a particularly nasty rut and then righted itself, and Near Man slipped, cursed, and tugged at something.

  The wagon was moving along now, as fast as a man could walk.

  Near Man got a foot back over the seat and dropped a heavy leather portmanteau onto Aranthur’s hands.

  ‘Here’s her case.’ Then he tossed another. ‘And she’d miss this one, I expect,’ he said with a smile. ‘I knew the duke would have her guts for garters. Tell her Lep the Wheel wished her well, eh, boy?’

  Aranthur nodded. ‘I will!’ he shouted.

  The wagon made a fair amount of noise – with half a dozen horses and six wheels and two drivers and all that tack, plus bells on the harness, and an axle that needed a man to look at it as it screeched like a Zanash and all.

  He was keeping his place on the drivers’ ladder with his weight, as he had a leather case in each hand. The wagon was starting to move faster still, and the snow was deep. For a moment, he was afraid that if he threw a case, it would vanish in the snow and be lost until spring. He wanted to serve the woman – serve her as best he could …

  So he turned and jumped into the dark.

  He landed in snow so deep that it went straight up to his crotch, as if a cold spike had been driven into his body from below.

  The wagon passed him, moving away faster and faster. The cold cut through into his brain even as the cavalry troop went by, their red surcoats only visible in darkness because the wain had lanterns lit. Their captain had a fur-lined gown over his plate armour. He turned and looked at the young man in the snow, the man’s heavy sallet gleaming with an eyeless menace in the near-perfect darkness. The knight didn’t look human, somehow, and the hairs on the back of Aranthur’s neck stood up even as the rest of him grew colder. Then the horsemen were gone in a clatter of steel-shod hooves and creaking, cold tack.

  Why did I do that? Aranthur wondered suddenly.

  He still had the two cases in his hands and he began to walk back in the darkness, pushing his way through the drifts. The inn was surprisingly far away – a stade or even more, and if it hadn’t been well lit from within, he might have been afraid. It was dark. Almost the darkest night of the year, save two – well into the season when evil could triumph easily, or so his people thought.

  Behind him, the lanterns on the travelling wagon vanished around a bend in the road, and he was alone, holding two heavy leather cases. He trudged into the wagon ruts where the snow was less deep, although there was water in one rut under the ice and his footing was uneven. The whole walk was difficult, cold, and …

  Outside the inn, the woman stood in the snow as if the cold had no effect on her. She was staring at him, her lips moving softly.

  Aranthur had an inkling, now, of what had just happened. He walked up to the woman, feet crunching on the more shallow snow of the inn yard.

  ‘Despoina,’ he said. He was prepared to remonstrate with her.

  She coughed, and a little blood came out of the corner of her mouth before she threw her arms around him, and fainted.

  His return with the woman in his arms threw the inn into a whirlwind of activity. As the value and cut of her gown had impressed Lecne’s mother, she was taken away, warmed by a fire, fed a posset, and then passed up the steps into a private room. Women of several ages appeared as if by thaumaturgy, and went to tend her.

  Aranthur went back into the snow once more to pick up the cases he’d dropped when she’d fainted. He carried them in, and then put them against the near wall, behind the priest and his acolyte, who both gave him civil nods.

  The priest even stood.

  ‘That was well done, especially at this time of year,’ he said. ‘When the Dark floods a man’s mind and culls his thoughts.’

  His young apprentice smiled. ‘Tiy Drako,’ he said.

  Aranthur took his hand. ‘Aranthur Timos.’

  Drako was a noble name. A very old one from the City. Aranthur wondered if it was real, or something religious, the sort of name a man took when he became a monk or a priest.

  ‘We’re of a size,’ Drako said. ‘Since I wasn’t brave enough to rescue the princess myself, perhaps I could loan you some dry hose and a shirt and braes?’

  ‘He has more of them than he should,’ the priest said with a forgiving smile. ‘He could improve your condition and his own as well.’

  Aranthur bowed to them both, and accepted.

  ‘All my clothes are wet,’ he admitted.

  Drako had a fine leather pack in a dark orange leather with green trim – a nobleman’s equipment, or a rich merchant’s. The pack was a tube like a quiver, but larger, and had a matching cover that would keep out rain or snow. It was not the travelling kit of a holy man’s disciple, vowed to poverty.

  Aranthur rather admired it.

  ‘My father was against my vocation,’ Drako said. ‘But in the end, he accepted and provided me with some good things. There – all I have is black.’<
br />
  He handed over a pair of black hose in a wool so fine and soft that they made Aranthur feel warmer just looking at them, and a splendid linen shirt with embroidery and a crest – and initials.

  L di D.

  The acolyte saw the direction of his gaze and flushed.

  ‘Ah, the vanity of my former life. Take it. Keep it. Lucca Tiy di Drako needs your prayers more than his soul needs the shirt!’

  Aranthur protested, but the young man was insistent.

  And something about Drako rang false. He explained too much. He was too charming, like a confidence trickster. But men said that Lightbringers could not be fooled, and no one sane would pretend to be one …

  He took the dry clothes anyway, with a bow.

  ‘Lecne!’ he called.

  The young man appeared from the kitchen.

  ‘Pater’s gone for the chirurgeon,’ he said. ‘She can’t see and her head’s pounding. She threw up.’

  Aranthur thought he might know why and found it hard to spare any compassion, but he nodded.

  ‘I need to change – and dry my clothes?’

  Lecne grinned. ‘Fair enough – if getting to carry that armful wasn’t its own reward, eh?’ He laughed. ‘Sorry – she’s so pretty! I hope that she recovers and spends a few weeks here. Where’s the wagon?’

  ‘Drove on.’ Aranthur shrugged. ‘Dumped me in the snow.’ He indicated his clothes.

  ‘Bastards.’ Lecne beckoned Aranthur into the kitchen and showed him the great fireplace. ‘All the women are seeing to the princess.’

  Aranthur had his wet clothes off before his new friend finished talking. He was instantly warmer, and he padded about the hearth hanging his things on drying racks placed there for the purpose.

  As he changed, he said, ‘I’m not quite sure what happened. But the wain – there was at least one – drove on.’ He looked at Lecne. ‘A man pushed her out and told the driver to change horses at Amkosa.’

  Lecne whistled. ‘That’s another twenty parasangs. In this snow? Almost Darknight? That’s a bold rascal!’

  Aranthur began to dress. ‘I think it was the Duke of Volta,’ he said.

  Lecne’s eyes widened. ‘But—’

  Donna Cucina’s voice cut through the door and a bell rang.

  ‘More visitors!’ Lecne said cheerfully.

  He passed back to the common room through the kitchen door, which had a small service window in it – really just a spy hole. Aranthur looked through for a moment and then went back to the kitchen fire. On the broad trestle table, a vast pile of knocci was already made, the dough broken up into spoonfuls. There was water on an enormous copper kettle over the fire. Steam was rising from it, but it was not aboil yet. The water smelled of oregano and something else, and it cleared his head.

  Dry, and much warmer, he pulled on linen braes like breeches that buttoned at the waist, and thigh-high wool hose which would have laced prettily to a doublet, had he owned such a thing. In fact, in his tiny garret in the City, shared with the three other young men, he owned one, bought from a used-clothing seller and carefully mended. But it was not for a journey like this one, and he’d left it in his trunk. Instead, he laced the hose to his braes and tucked in the beautiful shirt. It was the finest shirt he’d ever worn – and that was saying something, as his mother’s shirts were a byword.

  Lecne returned with a great cow horn and handed it over.

  ‘Grease for your shoes, or they’ll be spoiled by the fire,’ he said.

  ‘Sun bless you,’ Aranthur said. ‘The water’s almost boiled.’

  Lecne shrugged. ‘Pater will return soon enough – Master Sethre isn’t far.’

  He went back through the door even as the bell rang again. Aranthur took the grease and sat by the kitchen fire and began to spread it – it was good grease. Cow belly? Perhaps even goose fat. Something unctuous and fairly tolerable in smell.

  ‘A fine inn,’ he said aloud.

  By the chimney hung the family talisman, a fair-sized kuria crystal. With a good crystal, a person of very little talent indeed could still summon fire, or warm air, or clean water. That the crystal was of uncommon size and clarity, and hung unguarded by the chimney, spoke volumes about the stability of the inn. And its wealth. It looked like it was rose-tinted; the best kuria was rose-coloured, and sometimes called ‘Heart of the Gods’ or ‘Imperial Heart’. He touched it and felt its power, and took his hand away guiltily. Kuria crystal had become ever more expensive the last few years, and the rose crystals were almost never seen. Imperial Heart came from the Emperor’s estates on Kius, an island in the south. Most of the other kuria crystal came from other countries, like Atti and Armea, in the East.

  He began to work the grease into his boots – a pair of mid-calf walking boots with slightly curled toes, the most prestigious that he could afford, which was not much. Nonetheless, they were good boots, had lasted all of the week’s walk and salt water too, and were likely to survive the journey home, although not in the same fine red-brown colour with which they’d started life.

  He smiled. The brave new boots, now turning mud coloured, led him by some path of association to the woman he had carried in, who had smelled like … like the inside of a temple. Some exotic resin or perfume.

  The crystal hanging by the fireplace glittered, and Aranthur smelled the perfume again, and the two came together.

  She used power on me.

  He was sure of it – as sure as a student of the same art could be. He could still taste it on his lips and feel it behind his eyes – the most potent piece of work he’d ever experienced.

  She bent my will to get her travelling case, he thought to himself.

  It was the only explanation that fitted the evidence. He remembered that feeling of absolute clarity as he went up the side of the wagon … Yes. A fine manipulation. So fine, and so puissant, that it had exhausted her and made her sick, just as his Workings Master warned could happen.

  Who was she?

  The man in the travelling wagon had been called the duke. The world abounded in dukes, but the most likely one was the Duke of Volta, who was reported dead three days before in a riot in his home city.

  ‘Ain’t ezactly duke any more either, is he?’ Far Man had said.

  Aranthur realised with a start that he wasn’t hearing any sounds from the inn. He’d been working on his boots for a while now and Lecne had not reappeared.

  Aranthur listened. He couldn’t hear the drone of the farmers talking so he made his way to the door, feeling foolish, and looked through the tiny service window.

  And ducked back.

  Soldiers.

  The kitchen was lit only by the fire, and was otherwise dark. Aranthur stood away from the service window and looked again, cautiously.

  There were at least four of them. Angry. Demanding.

  Aranthur didn’t even think.

  Off to his right there was a doorway he hadn’t seen used. Aranthur made his way to it and, as he’d hoped, it led to the back stairway with a sort of alcove that also looked into the taproom from the far west wall. He leant his back against the wall and listened.

  ‘… you’re not understanding, boyo. I’ll have wine, and my friends will all have wine, and then we’ll have whatever else we fancy.’

  The man’s tone ill-suited his words – he sounded unsure of himself, a little wild, a little afraid.

  Aranthur moved very carefully along the alcove. It was dark, and there was no light in the stairwell, which was no wider than one man’s shoulders and curved sharply too. He moved so slowly he felt that he was a glacier in the mountains above his village, watching the people far below. He harmonised his breathing and began to sub-vocalise his ritual – carefully. So carefully. He raised saar, that infinitely difficult mist that hung at the edge of the immaterial world, the Aulos on which the Magi might write their will.

  His ritual was all to focus his will – to enable him to keep in his head the balance of forces that would allow him to manipulate
the material world. He fed the saar into his working …

  ‘Doesn’t this shithole have any women?’ a skinny man in a rusted maille shirt asked. ‘Wine!’

  Aranthur could see the man’s hand as he struck Lecne a glancing blow. He could also see that the man’s gloves were red-brown with blood. Fairly fresh blood. His strength in his ritual wavered; his feeling of writing in fire, his favourite image, paled.

  ‘I’ll have to get m-m-more from the—’

  The main door opened, letting a cold in, so cold that it almost snapped Aranthur out of his ritual trance. It was like a blow.

  ‘An’ who the fuck might you be?’ another man said.

  ‘It’s my inn, and I might ask you the same,’ said Don Cucino.

  He was not visible to Aranthur, but he was moving forward – the door creaked.

  ‘Not unless you want a foot of iron in yer guts,’ said one of the soldiers. ‘You don’t ask, fuck. We ask. Where are the women? Where’s the wine?’

  Cucino was an innkeeper, not a choirboy.

  ‘Keep a civil tongue and keep your blasphemy for your own Dark places,’ he snapped.

  He passed into Aranthur’s sight. Behind him was a heavyset man with stooped shoulders and a deep scarlet hood – the near-universal sign of a medical professional.

  Aranthur’s ritual steadied.

  Lecne said, ‘Pater – they …’ He paused.

  ‘She’s upstairs,’ Don Cucino said to the chirurgeon, who attempted to pass the soldiers. But an arm was put out to bar his way.

  ‘Who is?’ asked one of the soldiers. ‘No one goes anywhere.’

  ‘No one gives orders in my inn but me,’ the keeper said. ‘Sit down and you will be served.’

  ‘That’s it, fuckwit,’ said the nearest soldier.

  He had a red cloak over his arm and a vicious, hooked scimitar that locals called a storte at his belt. He had the light eyes of a man either drunk or mad.

  The soldier reached almost casually for his sword hilt.

  Aranthur had a little direct experience of violence and men of violence, and he knew from riots in the city that once blood flowed, events took on an inexorable rhythm. As the soldier drew his storte and exposed the vicious blade, Aranthur took a careful gliding step towards the chimney corner where all his possessions were. He was not just willing. He was strangely eager.