Cold Steel

27

My growling stomach woke me. Both bed and window curtains had been pulled back to admit the light of a sunny winter morning. Vai sat at a dressing table in front of a large mirror, shaving. He wore trousers but nothing else, so I ogled his back, with his workman’s muscles. There was an old scar across his mid-back, as well as a fading bruise on his left shoulder that he had acquired during our escape. I admired the way he turned his head by degrees to get a new angle, and the methodical way he trimmed using a comb, razor, and tiny pair of scissors.

Then I got bored.

Was the man trimming hair by hair to get the exact look he wanted?

“Gracious Melqart, Vai. How much time do you spend on your grooming? Wouldn’t you rather come back in bed with me?”

He met my gaze in the mirror. “Of course I would, love. But I’m meeting Viridor and the lads for breakfast. They’re going to show me the schoolroom—”

“The schoolroom?” Dumbstruck, I contemplated a new side to his character.

“They lost most of their older mages in an epidemic of cholera ten years ago. They’ve had to rebuild their schoolroom without the teachers. I told them I would outline the lesson plans used at Four Moons House so they can institute a rigorous curriculum.”

“I thought the secret belongs to those who remain silent.”

“The mansa always says that every mage, no matter how young or old or how he came to Four Moons House, must be educated in mage craft. To instruct every mage helps all mages regardless of what House they belong to. Anyway, if we mean to speak of freedom as if we believe it is a right for our communities to claim, then we must mean it for all communities, not just our own. The children here deserve the same education I received, don’t you think?”

With a startled frown he paused to examine his face in the mirror, as if he had just discovered an impertinent flaw. He slid the comb into his beard and trimmed hairs by shaving the razor along the comb.

A plain linen dressing robe lay folded by the bed. After slipping it on I padded over to stand behind him. The floorboards breathed a comforting heat. I felt truly relaxed for the first time since the morning he and I had woken up on the bed he had built for us, after the night we had consummated our marriage. How I missed that bed!

I traced the angled scar on his back. “How did you get this?”

His hands tightened as he caught in a breath. After a moment he blew away the hairs on the razor with an exhalation. “In the youth hall at Four Moons House.”

“Bad enough they were allowed to taunt and bully you with words. They were allowed to actually beat you and harm you? This looks like a knife cut! No one put a stop to it?”

His frown sharpened to an arrogant sneer as he fastidiously wiped off the shaving kit and packed it away into a tiny wooden box in which each tool fit exactly. “I was the village boy, remember? Did Magister Vinda really think I was here on a Grand Tour? Viridor said nothing about it.”

In the face of this uncomfortable shift of mood, it seemed wise to calm him. “Vinda is a diviner and can tell perfectly well how powerful a cold mage you are. She can’t have known you would see it as an insult. To her it would seem a compliment. There was a time you didn’t refuse.”

“Because I was young and ignorant. I boasted about how women offered themselves to me. For the longest time I thought I was so irresistible that women would travel to Four Moons House for a chance at my bed. What a fool I looked to everyone! How they laughed and mocked me.”

“Yes, and that’s all in the past now, love. White Bow House has been very hospitable. It’s not fair to be angry at them.” I fetched his shirt and jacket, thinking that clothes would distract him.

His frown faded as he pulled on his shirt. “I’m not angry at them. Viridor has been more than generous. He’d like to have us stay as guests for as long as we wish. I know you want to get to Havery as soon as possible, love, but I do think it wise for us to recover from our arduous journey before we go on. Just a week or two.”

“Yes, of course we must stay. We need to find a tailor’s shop.”

“That’s already arranged.” He buttoned up his much-abused jacket. “After breakfast and the schoolroom, Viridor and the lads and I will be going down to Cutters Row. That’s what they call the tailors’ district here. Viridor offered to see that I have decent clothes to wear.”

I managed not to burst out laughing. “That’s exceedingly generous, especially since he can have no conception of what you mean by ‘decent.’ But I meant that we need to find a particular tailor’s shop, one that’s opposite a troll-owned shop called Queedle and Clutch.” I explained about Bee’s dream.“I’m hoping it might be her I’m meant to meet. Just as she dreamed she and I would meet at Nance’s that night in Expedition after the areito.”

He smiled as if our fierce misunderstanding at Nance’s had attained the glamour of a fond memory, for he was the sort of person for whom an unconditional triumph quite eradicates any troubling defeats. “Well then, my sweet Catherine, I shall insist we patronize whichever tailor shop sits opposite Queedle and Clutch. Come here. I don’t have to leave quite yet.”

White Bow House’s hospitality could not be faulted. With plenty of food and a comfortable bed we regained our strength quickly. The hypocaust system built under the well-appointed house made it easy to weather a short but ferocious cold snap that would have killed us had we been caught out on the road.

Yet fourteen days passed, the weather warmed up, and still there was no sign of Bee. I busied myself earning a little money by writing pamphlets for a troll-owned printer. Vai took for granted that the mage House would provide for all our needs, but I wanted funds of my own in my purse.

On a cloudy afternoon I trudged through sleet along Printers Lane with a sheaf of papers tucked in a satchel. Magister Vinda accompanied me together with two male attendants as guards and two young women to hold umbrellas over our heads. I was sure the four servants were slaves in all but name, clientage-born as Vai had been. But since they were country-born youth who could not speak anything but the garbled rural dialect, I had been unable to hold extended conversations with them.

“I must admit, Magister,” I said to Vinda, “you are the last person I thought would embrace so enthusiastically such radical principles as an elected Assembly and the right of women within a community to stand for Assembly just like men.”

“Why should that surprise you?” she asked. “I see no reason women should not act in the same capacity as men. Is the mage craft within a woman’s body worth less than that in a man’s? Has the Lord of All not given both women and men voices with which to speak and to sing?” She paused. “You look surprised.”

“I thought the mage Houses objected to anything new, like the combustion engine or airships or any sort of radical philosophy. In Adurnam, it’s only been in the last fifteen years that girls were even allowed to attend the academy college. Of course we sat upstairs in the women’s balcony, or at separate tables on the other side of the room from the boys. I thought mages must therefore also object to educating women.”

“Where do you think the fashion of educating girls alongside boys comes from, if not from mage Houses? We have always trained our girls as well as our boys.”

As we arrived at that moment at the establishment Pinfeather & Quill, I had no opportunity to reply that my own people had done the same. A bell tinkled as we entered the front room. Its counter was covered with printed pamphlets, and a press thumped in the back. The smell of ink and dust pervaded the air. A drably feathered troll pushed through the curtain separating the two rooms.

“Magister Vinda. Maestra Bell Barahal.” Tewi had the facility of all trolls to mimic human accents exactly and had quickly adapted her speech to mine, so she was much easier for me to understand than were most of the residents of Sala. “How is it with you this day?”

We shook hands. She had a bitter scent, like aniseed, not unpleasant but not attractive. Her head swiveled almost back-to-front to mark the entrance of a second troll, a shorter, brightly plumaged male. He gave a bobbing courtesy, but his gaze tracked us in a most alarming way. With ink-stained talons he poured out tea and uncovered bowls to reveal nuts and dried fruit, then stood by the door measuring the four nervous servants as for dinner. Tewi paced through the formalities in a rote way different from Chartji’s or Keer’s, as if she had taught herself rules for how to deal with humans rather than having grown up among them.

After the preliminaries Tewi indicated the papers. “You are finished with the third article? The pamphlets describing the Taino kingdom have sold well so far.”

“This is my description of how Expedition’s radicals overthrew the Council and instituted an Assembly and charter. General Camjiata figures prominently in the tale.”

“Timely!” Tewi paged through the text. I liked watching her taloned fingers shift each sheet with a flick that stubby human fingers could not match. “We have just received news from Iberia.”

“You have news of General Camjiata?” This was the first I had heard of the general since the mansa’s declaration—almost a year ago, in Adurnam—that Camjiata had made landfall at Gadir.

Tewi went on. “A coalition of southern Gallic princes marched into northern Iberia. They hoped to take the general by surprise before he could consolidate his allies and raise an army. However, the general defeated the coalition in a battle near the city of Tarraco. We’re printing a broadsheet with the sensational news now.”

Vinda leaned to look at the broadsheet with its screaming headline “Iberian Monster Devours His Enemy!” Her sudden motion caused the male troll to take an assertive step forward with feathers fluffed out. I grasped at my cane just as Tewi whistled. The male checked himself and flattened his crest.

Vinda was so intent on the broadsheet that she did not notice. “I thought Camjiata was killed fifteen years ago when the Second Coalition defeated him at the Battle of Havery.”

“No, they took him prisoner and held him on an island,” Tewi answered. “He escaped over two years ago and found refuge in the Antilles before returning to Europa.”

Hard to believe it had been over two years ago that Vai had walked into my life! The spirit world had stolen so many months from me.

“Maestra Tewi, where do you get the news?” I asked. “The princes and mages who oppose Camjiata will wish to suppress such tidings, lest discontented folk think to quarrel on his behalf.”

Tewi did not bare her teeth in an imitation of a smile as Chartji did. She bobbed her shoulders in a movement perhaps meant as a show of agreement but which I found threatening. “What the ghana of Sala knows, he keeps to himself. But other rats travel the roads, and other rats talk.”

“Beware lest you find yourself in trouble for disseminating radical literature and censored news,” said Vinda. “The ghana arrests radicals and throws them in prison.”

“The ghana will not be so eager to arrest ones who make the swords and rifles with which he arms his troops.”

“No, indeed, it seems unlikely,” I replied, amused by her blunt assessment.

“Regardless, the ghana has not decreed a minister to approve or censor all printed materials, such as the emperor has in Rome. Our consortium tried to set up a printing establishment in Rome. Our petition was refused.”

“Fiery Shemesh! I never heard there were trolls migrating to Rome!”

Tewi bobbed again, making me wonder if it wasn’t after all her way of showing amusement. “We people like to stay busy and see new things.”

After Tewi paid me my share of the profits from the week’s sale of the first two pamphlets, we took our leave.

Vinda shook her head as we walked along. “There will be trouble when this news becomes known on the street by every rough laborer and laundress, but the troll is right. The ghana will not wish to offend those who make the weapons he needs.”

The rain had stopped. Wheels slicked through puddles as carts and wagons passed. Through a window I glimpsed a man seated in a coffeehouse reading my first pamphlet aloud to his companions while they laughed and commented. Well! That was gratifying!

“I shall leave you here,” I said as we reached an intersection. “The tailor sent me a note asking me to come by at the same time Andevai has an appointment. The tailor has never specifically asked before, so I really must see what he wants.”

“You are brave to venture into such a lion’s den. I should not like to come between the magister and his clothes. He is strict about how he likes things done.”

“Have there been complaints of his teaching?”

“Only by the weak-willed and lazy. He can be exacting, it is true, but he always shows deference to his elders and asks us, we few elders who are left in White Bow House, to share our knowledge. His manners are so very good that I should like to meet his mother!”

Since Vai had never mentioned his village-born origins, I wondered what Magister Vinda would say if she knew the well-mannered young man had been born to the same rank of people as her own lowly servants.

“I will send two attendants with you,” she added.

“My thanks, but I would prefer to go on my own way, if you don’t mind, Magister.” In truth, the tailor’s unexpected summons had raised an unreasonable hope in my breast.

Vinda’s smile was both gracious and skeptical. “You’re a bold girl. The young women in the House think you quite the most exciting person they have ever met and wish only to have adventures like you, but I have told them a hundred times in the last two weeks that the tale gives more delight than the living of it.”

Her words made me think of Luce. Was Luce resigned to helping her mother at the boardinghouse? Had she decided to take a factory job, maybe in the hope of saving up enough money to buy an apprenticeship into a troll consortium that might offer her a chance to travel?

“True enough, Magister. I hope you do not consider me a bad influence.”

“I like the way you speak up, even if I do not always agree.” To my surprise she kissed me on the cheek as she might a niece. “Go on. It is certain you can take care of yourself.”

Sala’s central district was not large, so it did not take me long to reach Cutters Row and the tailor shop opposite Queedle & Clutch. The bell jangled as I entered. Two men sat cross-legged on a raised platform in front of the shop window. The straw-haired man was sewing buttonholes and the black-haired man was finishing a collar. They greeted me with friendly smiles before glancing toward a screen that concealed the other occupants of the room.

“No, the cuffs should not come to the crease of the wrist,” Vai was saying in a tone whose self-indulgent fastidiousness might provoke a less patient man into taking scissors to every garment within reach. “They should be a finger’s width longer—no more!—so the wrist is not exposed when I extend my arm to its full length. You see how that ruins the look.”

I shook out my cape and hung it from a hook at the door.

“I can’t possibly wear this! Please tell me you have not cut the other two to this same length.”

“I have not cut the third one yet, Magister, for I am not sure of the fabric.”

“I have already told you which fabric I want. Did I not make my wishes clear?”

I smiled at the two men, who smiled knowingly back at me. They had obviously endured many of these harangues; I quite wisely never stayed long in the shop when I did come with Vai.

“Of course, Magister, I have already taken care of the problem with the other dash jacket, if you would like to try it on. Let me help you. Just a moment, if you will.”

The tailor emerged from behind the screen to see who had come in. He was a bent old man with the wry demeanor of a person who has for his entire life successfully done business with overly particular customers. “Salve, Maestra,” he said. “Thank you for coming.”

“You are a patient man, Maester,” I said in a low voice, with a glance toward the screen.

He inclined his head, thankfully not denying the sentiment. Like me he kept his voice low. “He holds others to the exacting standard to which he holds himself. The first dash jacket I made to his specifications he wore when Magister Viridor introduced him at the ghana’s court. In the ten days since, my custom has tripled and I have had to advertise for more sewers and cutters.”

Through an open door I could see into a sunny room in back, where men bent over garments in various stages of assembly, conversing in a merry rumble of masculine voices.

“The work out of your shop is very skilled.”

“So it is, Maestra, and my thanks for mentioning it. But men will believe the illusion that if a well-formed man looks good in a garment, then they necessarily will also. It takes all my power of persuasion to convince some of these new customers that a different style of clothing would suit them better. Which brings me to my purpose.” He indicated bolts of cloth unfurled across the cutting table. A length of dove-gray woolen broadcloth covered the other bolts; it was exactly the sort of sober fabric Vai despised. “He was insistent about the green floral print but I cannot think the color suits his complexion. Now he has brought in a fabric that is too, ah, decorative for the style he prefers. I intend no offense, but perhaps you could persuade him to a less flamboyant…”

Vai stepped out from behind the screen. The top five buttons of a tepidly green dash jacket were undone. It was indeed not his best color. “Catherine? What are you doing here?”

“Just passing by,” I lied, to protect the tailor. “Goodness, Andevai, you look like a fern.” To give myself something to do before he exploded, I twitched aside the gray cloth to see the fabric hidden beneath. “Gracious Melqart!”

Distracted, Vai looked down, then smiled. “It’s perfect,” he breathed so ardently that the sewers had to conceal snickers.

The cloth beneath was finest wool challis, dyed a deep blue in which whispered all the soft promise of a twilight sky, which subtlety was entirely overwhelmed by its being embroidered with flagrant sprays of bright color depicted as flowers bursting open like fireworks. A person might call it decorative as a euphemism for gaudy.

But what shocked me was that it matched the fabric of the dash jacket worn by the man meant to be Vai in the false dream sketched by Bee to convince Caonabo not to arrest me.

The bell jangled as the door opened. A swirl of chilly, damp air shivered into the shop like a big cat with a cold nose nudging your cheek. A remarkably attractive man with blond hair, a thick mustache, and scarred knuckles stopped short.

“Bold Diana! It is peculiar to find you exactly where I was told you would be.”

“Brennan!” Elation throbbed through my chest. Brennan Touré Du was the first man who had ever truly flirted with me, however mild a flirtation it might have been that night at the Griffin Inn when I had met him, the trolls Godwik and Chartji, and Professora Kehinde Nayo Kuti. I had understood at the time that he was being kind, for a man of Brennan Du’s experience and reputation was quite out of the reach of a girl like me.

Vai’s hand settled possessively on the small of my back as he stepped up beside me. “I believe we have not been formally introduced,” he said in his most coolly belligerent tone. “I am Magister Andevai Diarisso of Four Moons House. Perhaps you will be so kind as to inform my wife and me why you are here.”

The infamous radical called black-haired Brennan had a history of fighting, whether in taverns or in the service of his radical philosophy. He also had a brilliantly charming grin, which he deployed with blinding good humor as he approached Vai with an outstretched hand in the radical manner, man to man as an equal.

“Magister! It is an honor to make your acquaintance formally. You must have quite a rousing tale to tell, if everything Beatrice has told me is true.”

Good manners won out, as they always did with Vai when it came to the point. He shook hands, but watched like a wire strung taut as Brennan shook my hand.

“She told me to look for the tailor shop opposite Queedle and Clutch.”

I just could not stop grinning. “Where are Bee and Rory? Can I go to them right away?”

“Immediately!” When Brennan turned that smile on me, I realized he was striking in large part because he was at ease in himself. He was not burdened by the insecurities and vanities that plagued Andevai.

“Let me finish here before we go,” said Vai, again settling a hand against my back.

“No need to accompany us if it’s any trouble for you, Magister.” Brennan examined Vai with a distinct crinkle of laughter about his eyes. “I will return your wife to you by nightfall.”

“It is no trouble for me to accompany you,” said Vai in a fruitless attempt to sound unconcerned: His tone came off as threatening. “Indeed, I insist on it.”

“You can’t wish to wear that dash jacket in public,” I said.

Unfortunately the tailor sailed into the breach. “I have the other dash jacket ready, Magister, if you will just come back with me to try it on. I assure you, it will fit exactly as you wish.”

I followed Vai back behind the screen, where we chanced to have a few moments alone as the tailor went to the wardrobe to fetch the other garment.

“I don’t know that I would call him the handsomest man I ever met,” he muttered with such ill temper that I was tempted to smack him. “But the enchanting smile has a certain stark effect.”

“Jealousy ill becomes you,” I whispered as I unbuttoned his jacket.

He glared.

“Also, I don’t like it.” I slipped the fourteenth button free and pressed my hands to his shirt, beneath the jacket. “It makes it look as if you don’t trust me.”

His chest heaved. “Of course I trust you.”

“Do you?”

The tailor returned with the finished dash jacket, this one sewn out of a fine damask dyed the color of a ripe peach. I stepped back hastily.

“Had you some remark upon the floral fabric, Maestra?” the tailor asked with a hopeful bow.

“I think by all means it is entirely appropriate for a dash jacket,” I said as the old man strove to contain his unprofessional wince at my unprofessional judgment.

Vai was too preoccupied by his own struggle to notice our aside. His tone could have been chiseled from granite, it was so hard. “Go on, Catherine. I don’t need to accompany you. Will Beatrice and your brother be returning to stay with us at the mage House?”

I took his hand. “It might be best to join them for supper at their domicile.”

The bell tinkled again as the door opened. A familiar voice said, “You’ve been in here a long time, Brennan. You said to come in after you if there was trouble. Is there trouble? Cat! I can smell you’re in here! Begging your pardon, Maesters. I didn’t see you there. I’m Roderic Barr. It’s a pleasure to meet you. You’re sewing! I do admire people who can sew. They have such nimble fingers!”

“Rory!” I shrieked, dashing out from behind the screen and into Rory’s arms. I looked up into his smiling face. “You’re all right, both you and Bee?”

He kissed me soundly on each cheek in the traditional Kena’ani way. Still close, he sniffed. “Goodness, Cat, that man has put his scent all over you!”

My cheeks must have flamed red, for the sewers turned their heads to hide their chuckles. Brennan looked past me with a warning lift of his chin. I released Rory as Vai stepped out from behind the screen in his unbuttoned jacket.

“So she did rescue you!” Rory walked up to Vai and stared him down eye-to-eye. Rory was a touch taller and he had puffed himself up in that odd way he had of making himself seem bigger. “I am her brother. I look out for her.”

Vai did not budge. “Catherine is capable of looking out for herself.”

“You have sisters. You know what I mean.”

“How do you know I have sisters?”

“Cat tells me everything.” Rory made the words a challenge.

Brennan put a hand on my arm to keep me out of it. The tailor put a hand on the screen to steady it in case there was an altercation.

Vai took in Rory’s black hair and golden eyes, and the badly mended and faded dash jacket he was wearing. “Lord of All! That’s the jacket I wore the night of… it’s ruined!”

Rory’s smile was almost a wink. “It was this, or go naked. Not that I mind going naked, but it does get cold. Be assured Cat already scolded me for ruining it and scolded Bee for letting me wear it in the first place. I do like it when Cat scolds Bee, because no one else does and I can assure you that nothing is more tiresome than Bee let loose in the world with no one to scold her.” Without asking permission, he smoothed the sleeve of the jacket Vai was wearing as Vai’s eyes widened in disbelief at the familiarity. Rory practically purred. “I really like this color. You have the most beautiful clothes.”

“Roderic, why don’t you accompany the magister so you can bring him along this evening,” said Brennan in a hearty voice as he grabbed my cloak and tugged me out the door.

I resisted. “But I… what if…?”

He cut me off as the door shut. “Nothing Rory can’t handle. Better to leave the two of them to get acquainted without you there, for I perceive they are each in their own way a bit… shall we say… protective of you, Maestra Barahal.”

“Call me Cat, please,” I said, for I perceived it was time to turn the subject entirely.

“So I shall, Cat, for that is what Bee calls you, and since she talks about you a great deal, I rather feel I know you better than I ought.”

“Oh dear,” I muttered.

He indicated a ramshackle carriage waiting at the intersection, driven by a young man burly enough to be a boxer, who was accompanied by a scarred fellow armed with a stout cudgel. The driver acknowledged us with a nod. The carriage started forward the moment we settled in the seat. Grimy glass windows rattled as if likely to shake right out of the frames.

“Are you the rats who brought news of Camjiata’s victory to Pinfeather & Quill?” I asked.

“I mean no offense, but before I take you into my confidence, I must know if the magister means to support the radical cause. Bee has repeatedly assured me that in Expedition the magister declared his intention to break from Four Moons House. Yet you are guests at the local mage House.”

“If you were a cold mage traveling in winter, you would stay at a mage House, too, or else you would freeze to death!”

He chuckled. “I am not accusing the magister of anything, Cat, although I appreciate your spirited defense. I am sure he would appreciate that defense, too, if he were here, for I have a suspicion he was a little reluctant to allow you to leave with me.”

We pulled into the heavier traffic along a main thoroughfare. Enchanting as Brennan Du might be, I was not about to discuss Andevai’s character with him!

I changed the subject. Ahead rose dark clouds, the surly smoke of iron furnaces and bustling manufactories. “I am surprised to see so many trolls in Sala.”

“The trolls see forests that need to be managed and mines that have been left untapped. Laborers who owe their service as a tithe to their prince or House masters travel here for the chance to be paid a wage for their labor.”

“And you’ve come to agitate for revolution among the laborers. Never in all my childhood dreams did I imagine I would one day conspire with radicals!”

His answering grin kicked me right in the gut, for he really was quite attractive.

“Yet you’ve grown up, Maestra. You were a girl when I met you at the Griffin Inn. I would say you are a woman now.” He reached inside his coat and withdrew a printed pamphlet. “Did you write this account of the Taino kingdom? As Beatrice would say, it’s splendidly engrossing. Especially the bit about the shark.”

I accepted his compliment with a calm, sensible smile. “It is true I have had some unexpected adventures.”

I had not set foot in the easternmost district of Sala because it was known as a rough-hewn laborers’ camp where restless men congregated. As Brennan had explained, many came from principalities to the west, escaping indentured servitude in the hope of finding employment in the manufactories. A Venerday market had been set up under shelters. Braziers heaped with wood burned merrily to cast a bit of warmth on passersby. I was grateful for my cloak.

The carriage rolled along lanes where butchers and bone-boilers hung their signs. We pulled up by empty livestock pens. On one side stood trolls like berries on a bush; no troll stood alone, and most stood in clusters of three or four, while each group kept at least three arms’ length from any other. They wore garments that mimicked human fashions, but their clothing was so adorned with bits and baubles of polished metal, glass, and beads that I had to look away or get a headache.

On the other side, the fences were crowded with men shoulder to shoulder on the rails and in the pens. They had the unwashed look of men who haven’t the coin to pay for a tub of water in which to bathe. A few shawled and cloaked women moved through the outskirts of the crowd, selling food or, judging by the furtive movement in the shadow of a half-hidden alley, their own bodies.

The heat of so many people had churned the frozen dirt into a mire. Yet despite the crush, and the occasional bark of a dog, the crowd seethed in a remarkable silence. All stared at a barrel on which a petite young woman stood giving an impassioned speech.

Bee had raised her voice in the cry for revolution.