Cold Fire

5

Let him go his way, and me mine. Our lives led down different paths. I was well rid of him and the way he was contemptuous one moment, a proud cold mage from the top of his well-groomed head to the tips of his gloriously polished boots, and then the next might be mistaken for a staidly polite and provincially traditional-if unusually good-looking-village lad who was trying too hard to fit into a world where he was not welcome but could not be turned away.

Impatient with these niggling thoughts which like bad-mannered visitors simply would not leave, I ran downstairs. That idiot Bee had not left, although she had put on her coat. Seeing me, she opened her mouth, perhaps to comment on the way my eyes were red from unshed tears or that I had been parading around in my unkempt bodice and skirts like an overworked scullery maid. Then she closed her mouth and instead handed me my riding jacket. Rory was lounging by the fire as might a cat sunning itself on a rock.

We were not alone.

Kehinde sat in a chair opposite Bee, holding a parsnip. Brennan leaned against the wall beside the door, so perfectly at ease it took a moment to realize how quickly he could block the door. The contrast between them was striking. He was muscular, blond, and white-skinned, with the look of a man used to waiting until he had to explode into action. Small-framed, she was fidgety, touching each unsliced parsnip as if her hands needed something to do while her mind worked; her skin was black, and she wore her long black hair in locks.

“We need to talk.” She pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose.

“I didn’t say anything to him about the general being here!”

“Sit, please.” Kehinde spoke without force or anger. I sank onto the bench, all energy drained. “Why did you come? To seek our help to return to the Hassi Barahal motherhouse in Gadir?”

“No,” said Bee, with a glance at me. I let her talk. “We’re not returning there.”

“Why not? They are your community. What are we, if we have no community and no family?”

“‘ We ’ are left to fend for ourselves,” said Bee. “Let me just say that our family betrayed us and we no longer trust them. We hoped to find refuge with radicals. We thought you of all people would understand why we don’t want to be bound into clientage, practically legal slavery, to a mage House or a prince’s court…or some patrician household from Rome.” Her voice fell to a whisper, but she recovered. “We can be useful to the cause. We are not without skills.”

“The Hassi Barahal house is known to be employed in the business of selling information,” said Kehinde. “You might be spying on us. After all, after you came, the cold mage arrived.”

I was getting annoyed. “Turn that around! Why would Chartji make an appointment for a cold mage to come to your office at the same time the most wanted man in Europe is to be here?”

Brennan laughed. “An unfortunate case of bad timing, and close calls. Rather exciting, don’t you think?”

“For you it will always be a game, Du,” said Kehinde, measuring him with a frown. “The more you skate onto the thin ice, as you say here in the north, the better you like it.”

He shook his head, watching her closely. “Oh, no, Professora, you know it is not a game to me. Risks must be taken if we mean to get what we want.” He flashed his enchanting smile at Bee, and then at me. “I think the girls are a risk worth taking.”

“Maybe we’re the ones who should be asking if we can trust you,” said Bee. “Like Cat said, you’re the ones meeting with the general. And the cold mage!”

“She’s got us at knife’s point there,” said Brennan, still looking amused.

Bee’s brow furrowed and her gaze darkened as if storm clouds had swept down. We were in for a blow. “It’s easy for you to laugh. You’re a man. Maybe you’re entirely legally free, or maybe your northern village is entangled in some kind of clientage to a mage House. I don’t know. But you, Professora, surely you as a legal scholar will understand our situation. Even though my cousin and I are twenty and legally adults, the Hassi Barahal elders in Gadir can dispose of us however they wish simply because we are female and unmarried.” She flashed me a glance to remind me to keep my mouth closed about the unfortunate fact that I was already married. As if I wanted to brag about it! “So you can see that radicals who speak of overturning an oppressive legal code might interest us.”

“I understand perfectly.” Kehinde glanced at Brennan. To my surprise, he looked away, biting his lower lip. She toyed with the ends of several of her locks. “We dispute the arbitrary distribution of power and wealth, which is claimed as the natural order, but which is in fact not natural at all but rather artificially created and sustained by ancient privileges. Of which marriage is one. Yet we still have a problem. It appears you are being pursued by the same mage Houses and princes who wish to capture the general. Until Camjiata leaves Adurnam, you cannot stay here.”

“You’re turning us away,” said Bee wearily.

“Not at all. I have been formulating an idea that our organization might have a use for two young women trained by the Hassi Barahal clan. Godwik agrees with me. Indeed, Maester Godwik finds you to be of the greatest interest. I consider his judgments to be based on sound reason.”

“Unlike mine,” murmured Brennan.

She did not by so much as a flicker of the eye indicate she had heard this. “It was odd to hear the general say his wife had had a vision that he would meet a Hassi Barahal daughter who, as he declaimed so poetically, will walk the path of dreams. And then of course there was the oracle about Tara Bell’s child. Such oracles being clouded and obscure exactly so that any outcome can be acclaimed as the prophetic one.”

“I wouldn’t discount such words,” said Brennan. “But I am no city-raised sophisticate. I’m just a miner’s son who has seen too much death.”

“When people die in troubling and violent ways, we seek a story to explain it, however far-fetched.” She raised a hand to forestall Brennan’s retort. “That forces exist in the world which we cannot account for is manifestly true. Through observation and experience, scholars seek to describe the natural world and plumb its depths. I have for years been in correspondence with a well-regarded scholar who lives in Adurnam. I have now had the chance to speak with him in person, and I find him every bit as impressive as his letters indicated. He will shelter you until such time as it is safe for you to join us. You must ask to share a shot of whiskey with Bran Cof-”

“Everyone knows the poet Bran Cof is long dead,” said Bee. “If you can call that death, when your head is stuck on a pedestal and everyone is waiting for you to speak.”

“I like that whiskey stuff?!” said Rory, sitting up.

Kehinde eyed him as if trying to decide whether his insouciance was an act that disguised a razor-sharp mind and will, or if he was exactly as he seemed. “The name is a code to show you are part of our organization.”

“Wait,” I said. “Why Bran Cof?? Where do you mean to send us?”

“There is an academy in Adurnam. Its headmaster will shelter you.”

Bee slanted a glance at me, and I scratched my left ear, and Rory stood to stretch with an exaggerated yawn, because he understood we were speaking with gestures, warning each other and him. Bee and I had attended the academy for over two years. We knew the headmaster well. We had trusted him. When Bee had stayed behind in Adurnam after her parents and family fled on a ship bound for Gadir, she had gone to him for shelter. And he had turned her over to the custody of Amadou Barry, whose home had been a gilded cage that dazzled Bee until the legate made his insulting proposal, offering to make Bee his mistress. But Kehinde and Brennan didn’t need to know any of that.

I took a step back to leave the stage to Bee. With her black curls, rosy lips, and big brown eyes, she looked entirely adorable and innocent and trusting. “It is so generous of you to take an interest in us. But you know the risks we face. The factions hunting us. Why help us?”

Kehinde extended a hand, and to my shock Bee handed her the knife. The professor used the tip to investigate the ranks of sliced parsnips. “It is quite remarkable how evenly they are each sliced, as if each cut were measured beforehand by something other than your eye. Unless you find an isolated barbaric village, perhaps in the wilds of Brigantia”-she glanced at Brennan-“you must see you have entered the conflict whether you wish to or not. If it is true your dreams reflect a cryptic vision of the future-and I assure you I will need evidence-then you will never be let alone. Never. I am no different than anyone. I can think of ways to employ your gift to benefit the cause I cherish. But I will only ever approach you as a partner, and you will be free to leave our association at any time. It is your decision.” She set down the knife.

“What about your alliance with the general?” I asked.

Brennan smiled wryly. “Harsh conditions make for odd bedfellows. Our organization has its own reasons for considering an alliance with the general.”

I nodded. “That makes sense. He’s a soldier. You’re only radicals. He must be better able to fend off princes and mages than you are.”

“You will have to decide whether swords and rifles, or words and ideas, are more likely to win the day,” said Kehinde.

“I’m all for swords and rifles,” I said.

“Do not discount the power of words and ideas,” she said with a smile I dearly wished I could trust. “Their touch seems soft at first, but you’ll find it can be lasting.”

“Well, then,” said Bee. “We’ll take you up on your offer. We’ll leave right away.”

Rory collected the two bags as I pulled on my riding jacket, coat, and gloves.

“I’ll arrange for someone to escort you across the city who knows the backstreets to keep you out of sight of the militia,” said Brennan. “And may I ask, what is in the bags?”

My father’s journals, our sewing baskets, some clothes and diverse small necessities. What coin we had was sewn into Bee’s gown, with a few coins tucked into my sleeve. He had such a charming smile, but I hardened my heart against confiding even such innocuous information.

“Our things,” I said.

Kehinde rose. “I’ll come to the academy when it is safe for you to return. It would be best to go out the front so it looks as if you came for an appointment and left. If you’ll excuse me, I must prepare for my negotiations with the general.” She shook hands with Bee and me.

“Rory,” I said.

He stared at me with those golden, innocent eyes. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Shake hands. It’s the custom, among radicals.”

He set down the bags and shook hands with Kehinde. She left.

With a lazy grin, Rory gripped Brennan’s hand a bit too hard and a bit too long. I felt a shift in the temper of the air as Brennan took his measure, like coiling up rope in readiness to snap it out.

Bee said, “Rory, stop that.”

With a put-upon sigh, he let go, leaving Brennan to shake our hands.

He leaned toward me-too close, for I flushed-and murmured, “Is he really your brother?”

After all, I just could not resist. I daringly drifted close enough for my lips to brush the tips of his hair as I whispered, “What confuses you is he’s really a saber-toothed cat who followed me home from the spirit world.”

I expected him to laugh, but instead he pulled back and gave first a very searching look at Rory and then, less comfortably, a long and intent look at me.

“Well,” he said, ambivalently, and with his forehead creased thoughtfully, he went out.

“That was naughty.” Bee shut the door so we could have privacy. “Are you smitten?”

“Men like that don’t look at girls like me.”

“I think he likes the professora. It’s almost tempting, isn’t it, to join the cause just to fight near him. Or it would be, if we didn’t now know they are in league with the headmaster! Who handed me over to Amadou Barry. Who is a Roman legate. And the Romans are allied with the mage Houses against Camjiata. Who has come to this house to negotiate with the radicals. It doesn’t even make sense!”

Rory circled back to the stove. “Are we going back out into that awful cold? I’m starving.”

“So am I,” I said, “but we’ve got to go.”

“Camjiata knows something about walking the dreams of dragons,” mused Bee. “Maybe we should ally ourselves with him.”

“An alliance with him comes with a price.”

“I think he says what he means,” said Rory, “and means what he says.”

“Yes, and so does any lunatic.” Bee stirred the parsnip slices with the knife. “Alas, all I see right now in my future is dismemberment.”

I crossed to embrace her. “I’ll never let the Wild Hunt take you, Bee. Never!”

She sniffled, and put down the knife to hug me. “I love you, too, Cat.”

I released her. “There is another choice. I don’t know where my mother came from, so there’s no use seeking her kin. But Rory and I have a common sire. Someone Tara and Daniel encountered when they were part of the First Baltic Ice Expedition. The expedition was lost, and the survivors were only found months later. It’s certain that’s when she got pregnant. My sire must be a creature of the spirit world. How else could he impregnate both a human woman from this world and a saber-toothed cat from the spirit world?”

Bee grimaced. “I don’t like the way this conversation is going.”

I smirked. “Oh, come now, Bee. Nothing we saw in anatomy class ever made you blush.”

“That’s not what I meant, although now that you mention it, how could that be managed? Gracious Melqart, Cat. What an unseemly shade of red you’ve turned!”

“I’m going to pour a handful of salt in your porridge for a month, you monster. Don’t distract me. The coachman and footman who conveyed Andevai and me from Adurnam to Four Moons House were not…human. The footman was an eru. She addressed me as Cousin before I ever had any idea that Daniel Hassi Barahal was not the male who sired me. I have kinfolk in the spirit world. My kin are obliged to aid me. Isn’t that right, Rory?”

For an instant, his upper lip began to curl back, and I thought he was going to snarl. He spoke instead. “As I am bound, so must those bound to me as kin come to my aid. That is the law.”

“Cat, you think you can call your sire once you are in the spirit world.” Bee’s smile had a frightening effect on me: a tingling rush through my body that made me boldly wish to engage in a reckless act. Perhaps being exhausted and feeling cornered made us more reckless than usual. “If he is anything like Rory, he can cross back into this world in the shape of a man. That would bring a new piece into the conflict no one expects. How do we get to the spirit world?”

“When my blood was shed on a crossing stone, I crossed from this world into the spirit world. Once in the spirit world, I crossed back through a different gate. The hunters of Andevai’s village crossed likewise, so I was told. How would you get back, Rory, if you wanted to go?”

“My existence was very boring before you came, Cat. I lazed about, hunted a bit, sunned myself, ate, slept, and rested. I never had any fun. I don’t want to go back, and neither should you.”

“Oh, Rory.” I went to the door and put an arm around him. “You’ve asked for nothing. You’re the best brother I could ever have. But our situation here is impossible. We can’t keep running. You don’t have to come with us. We’ll give you money and you can wait with the bags at an inn. We’ll come back, I promise.”

Because he tended to laze about and look as sleek and indolent as any healthy cat, it was easy to forget he was a dangerous predator. He shook off my arm in a way that made Bee grab the knife as if she thought she might have to defend me.

His voice reverberated like the warning clangor of a bell. “Beware what you call, lest you be devoured by a creature hungrier than you. To drink from the fountain of mortal blood is to drink the essence of power. Every step in the spirit world is a perilous step.”

I did not fear him. He was my brother. I grabbed his hand. “What choice do we have?”

He seemed to get smaller, as if his fur were flattening. “It’s a bad idea.”

“To bring the knife, or not to bring the knife,” said Bee, “that is my question.” She set a denarius on the table before tucking the knife in her coat. “Where do we go?”

I said, “To the plinth that marks the foundation stone of the first Adurni settlement. Where two ancient paths met, according to the history of the founding of Adurnam. If any place in this city opens on a crossing into the spirit world, that must be it.”

“I don’t know, Cat. That part of town is filled with taverns, dogfights, and fatheaded young guildsmen seeking any excuse for a duel.”

“That sounds promising!” said Rory with a cocky grin that made me think he’d already forgotten his frightening words and our bad idea.

I fastened my cane to its loop and buttoned my coat as Rory picked up the bags. A saber-toothed cat, cold steel, and dreams that revealed the future. That would have to be enough. As we headed up the stairs, Bee began to hum under her breath the famous aria “When He Is Laid in Earth” from the recently staged opera The Dido and Aeneas, in which the queen of Qart Hadast, after defeating the Roman prince who sought to subdue her rule through marriage, presides over his funeral procession.

The Amazon waited in the entryway, shoulders against the door and arms crossed. “So here yee is,” she remarked in an odd accent. “Already, the general know yee lot shall leave.”

But instead of blocking our path, she opened the door. A blast of wintry air swirled in, numbing my face and chilling my heart. The history of the world begins in ice, and it will end in ice. So sing the Celtic bards and Mande djeliw of the north whose words tell us where we came from and what ties and obligations bind us. Here, we dare not forget the vast ice sheets and massive glaciers that cover the northern reaches of Europe. In the old tales, the ice is called the abode of the ancestors. Brennan hadn’t mentioned the phrase in his story of gruesome death, but Daniel Hassi Barahal had written it in his journals. I steeled myself, for wasn’t I seeking my ancestors?

The winter wind stirred the hem of the Amazon’s knee-length jacket. She wore a soldier’s boots, kept polished not to a fashionable mirror gleam but with an attention to cleanliness and wear, so they would last longer and support her when she hit rough ground.

“If yee wait with the door open, then the cold air come in. Make up yee mind. Go, or stay.”

“You’re not going to try to stop us?” Bee asked.

“They who fight with the general, fight of they own will. One thing I shall tell yee before yee walk. If ever any of yeen wish to contact the general, go to the tavern called Buffalo and Lion, in the district called Old Temple. Yee shall say the words ‘Helene sent me.’ We shall see yee again.”

“Our thanks.” Bee touched gloved fingers to her chest like a great lady of the theater about to make an exit. “And yet, farewell.”

She swept out the door and down the steps. Rory took in a breath as if scenting for danger, then followed, swinging the bags as if they weighed nothing. I could not stop myself from looking toward the closed door of Chartji’s office. Whatever went on there between the lawyer and Andevai was no longer my business. I had to leave that part of my life behind.

Yet I hesitated on the threshold. The clamor of the city assaulted me with the noise of rattling carts, ringing handbells, market-folk calling out their wares, and men crying the morning’s news: The Northgate poet begins fourth day of hunger strike on the prince’s steps! For a moment, I reveled in the sweet familiar sounds, the ones I had grown up with.

Then, out of nowhere and with no warning, a clangor shook me down to my boots. The sister bells, Brigantia and Faro by the river, rang to life with their alarm: Fire! Fire! Call the watch!

Doors opened all along Fox Close and people crowded onto their front steps, their breath like white mist in the air as they looked into the sky for the origin of the trouble.

“The war begin,” said the Amazon. “But the princes and the mages don’ know. Not yet. So, gal. Go, or stay?”

“Cat?” Bee’s plaintive voice called from the street. In the house, I heard footsteps, people moving toward doors that were about to be opened.

“I’m going,” I said. And I went.