Cold Magic

"A " "

Again.

With a gasp, I dropped beneath the surface, eyes open.

Diviners pour water on a flat surface and see true visions within.

I saw Bee, striding down an unknown street on her short legs in a haste of anger and weeping, her mouth moving in full furious spate. She was yelling at someone, but it wasn't a street after all; it was a canal of rushing light, and she was walking all unaware into the mouth of a golden dragon whose fire flowed like water to obliterate her.

I flailed to the surface, except that the air seemed still and sticky, as though it were not air at all. As through a long tunnel resonant with echoes, I heard female voices speaking far away.

"Poor Esi was very disappointed. It's all she's talked of this year, a betrothal for her with Andevai. She%ould never accept being second wife to an outsider like this one, so I wonder why the mansa did not have his nephew take this one as his third wife and let Esi marry the young man? That would have solved the problem."

"Prohibited in the contract, so I heard. That the girl could not be brought in as a secondary wife. It is Kena'anic custom, I believe, that states a man may marry one woman only."

"That can't be true!"

"It's said a Kena'ani woman may marry more than one man, if she chooses. What would you think of that, eh?"

Their laughter swept like waves.

"When I was young, maybe! It's just as well, for Esi's sake, that she was not allowed to marry Andevai. Youth is handsome, but youth fades. His upbringing, his people, will always drag him down. Sss! Why do you think he was sent to the duty of this contract? If harm comes of the binding, better it fall on him than on one of the precious lads."

"Maybe. Maybe not. The high magisters say little, but you know it's whispered Andevai has as cold a reach as they've seen in three generations. Maybe they thought he was the only one strong enough. Is she still under?"

I was still under, arms flailing and groping upward, and yet my hands never broke the flashing surface. My lungs were empty. There was no floor to push off of, nothing under my feet, only an abyss of black water like my future into which I was sinking.

Drowning.

I am six years old and the water closes over my head and my

mother's strong hand slips out from mine as she is wrenched away by the furious current. No amount of clawing at the rushing liquid aids me. I have to open my mouth for a breath of air, but all that rushes in is water, filling my lungs and dragging me down into the depths.

The spirits that guarded the House did not want me. They were dragging me down into my worst memory, the one I had tried so hard to block out.

We are drowning in the Rhenus River, and I have lost both Papa and Mama.

"Daughter," a male voice says urgently. His powerful arms push me up.

I breached, heaving and coughing, and there I stood in the tiled pool, the water up to only my shoulders as I shook in the grip of memory, blinded by tears.

"Once more," they said.

I was afraid.

After that I was always afraid of deep water, which is shameful for the Kena'ani.

But I had no choice.

I pretended that a mother's bracelet ringed my wrist, giving me my mother's courage. I pretended that my papa was waiting with his stories and his cheerful smile. He would never let anyone harm me. I took in a huge shuddering breath and dropped down under the water.

And came up again, water streaming down my face. I glanced around, fearing it had been too easy, that I had drowned in truth and emerged as one of the rephaim into my stone tomb.

The sleep of the dead was not likely enlivened by men singing crude songs about male anatomy and sexual prowess or its particular lack, which I heard from beyond the curtain separating life and death or, at least right now, woman and man. I was warmed through from the heated water bin shivering in my

heart as I dripped up onto the stone. Yet, after all, memories cannot kill you. My companions roughly toweled me dry, although my thick hair remained damp. It had to be combed out wet, no easy task, although they seemed happy to fuss over my hair as they plied me with questions.*'

"He'll not have approached the marriage bed until the mansa has accepted you into the house."

A pause, pregnant with intention. I cleared my throat. When they saw I didn't mean to answer this impertinent comment, they went on.

"Is it true you Kena'anic women can take two husbands?"

I was thankful to find something to feel annoyed about, because now I could talk. "It's not common but not unknown. If a woman of stature is head of a trading house in a foreign city, she would, of course, marry a Kena'ani man who would spend much of the year traveling for trade. Then she might choose to take a secondary husband from among the local families, someone whose connections would bring benefit to the house."

"How can it be that men would put up with such an arrangement?"

"Why do some people demand it of women but not of men? It is just another way of doing things. As my father would have said, folk will have their customs according to their nature and their surroundings."

"You're a bold speaker, young one. I would advise you keep your lips pressed firmly closed when you meet with the mansa."

But they were not unfriendly as they pinned up my hair and wrapped it in a scarf according to the fashion of the House. I heard no hostile edge to their voice, unlike what it seemed Andevai was enduring over on the other side under a litany of songs, laughter, and taunting jokes. Of his voice, I heard no whisper.

"Is it your custom that his attendants should speak so cruelly to him?" 1 asked.

"Young men will taunt," said the tawny-haired woman. "It's their way."

The other continued. "It isn't that surprising, Fama. He is not in his rightful place."

"Honestly, Brigida, you and I both know they resent him because he received abundance where they received scant. Still, they should not hold these grudges. It brings conflict and trouble upon all of us."

"Sss! Best speak of such things later." They exchanged glances that spoke of shared knowledge. The House was like a sea of hidden currents and shifting whirlpools ready to suck me down.

They examined my travel-worn riding clothes with frowns. "You'll need fitting clothing. In time. In time. Go softly. Be respectful. And don't speak?

Out I was hustled down a corridor whose walls were woven patterns. I caught a glimpse of a room with a vast hearth and many seats, but my chest was too tight for me to be able to see. It was all I could do to place one foot before the other, to be given coat and cloak and gloves, to be shown a door and step into the overcast day where I walked as stiffly as a sun-struck ghoul along the twisting garden path and over the gravel to a waiting landau.

I halted, staring at the unfamiliar equipage.

The harnessed team consisted of four good-looking horses chosen for build rather than matched by color, a detail of practicality that gave me the courage to accept an attendant's arm as I climbed the steps into the carriage. The magister, warden of the gate, already sat in the seat facing the four-arched gate.

What had happened to our carriage? My sword? The eru and coachman who had accompanied us all this way, whom I had come to feel were my only allies? Like me, they were bound to Four Moons House. Servants might pity me, but they had no power to change what was now happening.

I climbed into the carriage and sat facing the magister with my back to the gate, trying to breathe normally and not in gasps and bursts. Andevai strode out of the house looking like he was eager to leave or eager to arrive or eager to be shed of all this, and I supposed he had come later because he was dressed yet again in a flattering jacket, tailored to his form and ornamented by a thin gold necklace. I looked away.

"Magister," he said from the base of the carriage.

She gestured to give him permission to enter.

I had not asked to enter! One humiliating mistake after the next! I had to behave Is my father would have, observing, recording in my mind, and remembering so I could write it down and try to make sense of this bewildering rhythm of rules quite unlike the pragmatic customs of my own people. That's what I would ask for, first of all, when I dared ask: notebooks, ink, pens. If I kept my father's spirit in my heart and imagined his hand guiding mine, then I could behave as he had behaved, a steady walk down turbulent, storm-ridden roads.

Three footmen perched on the back, faces without expression.

A command spoken. A song for our passage. As we crossed under one of the arches, invisible threads caught on me, strings binding my lips and fingers and knees. Then we came clear of the shadow and the pressure released. We rolled to a halt. The warden of the gate descended, Andevai moved to the seat opposite me, and we two alone continued on our way. The horses shifted into an easy trot down a wide avenue that curved first around one slope and then around a copse of black pine and then around a wide pond dense with reeds. We drew up at a ring where the avenue circled a crude stone pillar and split into five paths. Andevai descended and poured water from a flask at the base of the pillar. He turned and looked at me, and for a moment 1 felt as uncomfortable as 1 had when Fama and Brigida

had examined me when I was naked, as though he were inspecting me and deciding whether what he saw was adequate to the purpose. I did not understand his expressions at all; he was remote from me, and yet must a man not hold back a part of himself if he is to learn how to kill?

He made an impatient gesture. Aei! Of course, I was to make an offering as well. I must copy what he did. Had I already forgotten?

The servants' expressions did not flicker by even one twitch as I clambered down, crunched across the gravel, took the flask from him, and poured water at the base of the pillar. What a fool I must look!

We took the second turning and for some while drove through a vast expanse of orchard. I caught sight of field-workers walking in groups, carrying huge sheaves of straw that they heaped at the base of sapling trees planted among their elders. He leaned forward, scanning the laborers in their humble shawls and simple woolen tunics.

"Stop!" he said. A smile obliterated his habitual mask of annoyed hauteur.

He flipped open the landau's low door and leaped out before the carriage came to a complete halt. By now, the field-workers had seen the carriage. He strode beneath the trees, and a young woman hurried over to greet him. She was tall and, I suppose, handsome, although that was difficult to tell from this distance. Her complexion was much like his, her hair wrapped in a scarf the color of clay. They embraced, then parted, but stood close together, speaking in the flood of words that betokens close knowledge, much to relate and much to hear. The other field-workers trudged away under the trees.

I shut my eyes.

Obviously, this was not Esi, whoever she was, for Esi had been spoken of as a woman born into the highest ranks within

the House, descendant of those who had founded Four Moons House long ago, or of those who had married in accompanied by wealth or other valuable connections, or of those who had bred magisters and thus gained prominence.

A mere field-worker, given attention by a House mage, can hope only to become a concubine, if a woman whose status is little more than slave can even be given so high and mighty a title.

What did I expect? Handsome men are likely to find lovers, and how much more easily they may find them when they are also powerful and rich! It was best to face the truth.

I opened my eyes.

She stepped away from him and took three paces toward me before he caught her wrist and pulled her to a halt. They exchanged heated words. She scolded him; he retorted. Even so, they parted with another embrace. He strode back to the carriage as she ran after the other field hands.

He swung up in one huge stride and sat down hard on the seat opposite.

I could not help myself. "Who is she?"

His gaze struck with such fury that I flinched.

But I wasn't to be cowed. I had already drowned, hadn't I? I was already dead to my old life. "If there's some arrangement I need to know about, best you tell me now."

He stared into the orchard as the field-workers walked away into the trees, a song rising as they walked. He spoke so low I thought he was hoping that the footmen, seated behind him, would not hear what he must now confess.

"That is my sister. Seven years ago, walking among those field-workers, that would have been me."