Cold Steel

26

Sala’s wide avenues, packed districts, and tall houses spoke of prosperity. Coffeehouses with big glass windows were crowded with chattering men. A market bustled with women in head wraps and winter cloaks.

I tugged on Vai’s sleeve as I looked out the carriage window. “Look! An airship!”

Vai leaned over to follow my gaze. Ahead rose three scaffoldings. Taut lines tethered a gleaming airship to one of the towers. Figures moved on the tower with a grace that was not human.

“Fiery Shemesh!” I pointed. “Those are trolls! Did I tell you the prince of Tarrant expelled all trolls from Adurnam? It’s strange to see trolls—and airships!—here in the eastern wilderness. I wonder where they came from.”

We rolled along a street lined with offices whose signs advertised solicitors, architects, and civil engineers. A door to one of the offices opened and a pair of trolls dressed in drab dash jackets stepped onto the sidewalk. One looked as we passed. Quite unthinkingly I met its gaze directly. Its crest flared as threateningly as if I had challenged it, and it lunged. I slammed the shutter closed.

“Catherine?”

“Nothing.” I eased open the shutter.

All the main streets converged on the prince’s palace, a building ornamented by two towers surmounted by huge gilded eggs. Eggs? I stared at the towers until the gates of White Bow House cut off my view.

Our arrival in the carriage yard of the mage House brought first a startled groom and then a steward who took one look at us and hurried back inside. A bevy of young women emerged from the depths of the House, giggling behind painted fans in a fashion fifty years out of date. A coterie of young men strutted into view as they sized up Vai and then me. Last, children were marched out as if we were glorious visitors come for a festival who had to be greeted by the entire community. They had the mixed look typical of mage Houses, with complexions ranging from pale to dark, and hair all shades but none as straight as mine. By their expressions of delighted interest, it was obvious White Bow House did not get many visitors.

An old woman appeared carrying a bowl of water, which she offered to us in the traditional greeting. A pair of modest youths held basins so we could wash our hands and faces.

“Be welcome to White Bow House, home to the Cissé clan,” the old woman said. “Be sheltered and fed here, as our guests.”

“I am Andevai Diarisso, of Four Moons House,” he said. I was surprised he erased his village origins. “This is my wife, Catherine Bell Barahal. Your hospitality honors us.”

A man not much older than Vai stepped forward with an assertive smile. “Let me greet you, Magister Andevai.” His accent softened Ahn-de-vai to Ah-theh-nay. “I am Viridor Cissé, grandson of Magister Dyabe Cissé, who founded White Bow House. I am mansa. I welcome you, my slave.”

As surprised as I was to find so young a man as mansa, I was more shocked when Andevai laughed at this blatant slur with the greatest good humor.

“Ah, you thieves! What do you mean to steal from me?”

“We will steal you away to the men’s courtyard, for you are come just in time for the Feast of Matronalia. A good feast for young married men to celebrate, with its hope of fertility and fruitful childbirth,” Viridor added with a sidelong look at me.

Vai grasped my hand, leaning close to whisper, “We’re safe, love. We’re safe here.”

With a parting smile he abandoned me, tramping off with the menfolk to the tune of a great deal of manly joking and laughter.

Whether out of politeness or because she sensed my consternation, the old woman took my right hand in hers, not to shake but to hold. “I am Magister Vinda. We have a modest suite of rooms for visitors, nothing like what you must be accustomed to at Four Moons House, but I will see you made comfortable.” Her speech was cultured, burred by old-fashioned pronunciations.

The “modest” rooms luxuriated in richer furnishings than anything I had grown up with. Blue fabric embroidered with sprays of silver stars upholstered the couches. The bedchamber was decorated in lovely shades of yellow.

“Everything is very lovely and of the finest materials,” I said, quite honestly. She looked so pleased I wondered if they had ever received any guests at all in this frontier town.

“These are all your belongings?” she asked with obvious surprise.

“We met with unexpected difficulties on our road and were separated from our companions and the rest of our things,” I temporized.

“It is clear by the state of your clothing that you have traveled an arduous path,” agreed Vinda. “By which I mean no disrespect, Maestra.”

“None taken!” I smiled. In my experience, smiles had a great deal of utility when it came to smoothing over an awkward question. “I was surprised when the men called each other slaves and thieves.”

“The Cissé and the Diarisso are cousins who may joke with each other. Are you only recently come to the mage House, to not know this? I find it curious that a young mage of such rare potency has been chained to a woman not Houseborn and with no magic.”

She was no djeli, to see the threads I wove so easily. “No one could have been more shocked than I was,” I agreed politely. “How do you know he is so… potent?”

“I can divine cold magic in others.” My blank expression prodded her into an enigmatic smile. “Diviners like me seek out blooms of magic among people not born into the mage Houses. When we find them, we bring them into the House to strengthen our lineage. Have you any children yet?”

I blinked, not sure how to answer this without seeming acerbic. “Why do you ask?”

“It is not usual for a young man to be sent on his Grand Tour with a young wife accompanying him. I thought you perhaps had borne him children already and sought a child by another magister. But if you’ve as yet had no children with him, then there can be no reason for you to seek to be impregnated by any of our men. Perhaps you are of the Sapphic persuasion, in which case I can let you know which women of the House may be interested in your attentions.”

I stared at her in confusion, as bewildered as if she had started to speak in a foreign language.

Her brow wrinkled. “I beg your pardon. Some people have no interest in sexual liaisons, nor is there any reason they should. Perhaps you prefer to choose for him from among the women who seek a child? I assure you that we keep careful records so no near relatives inadvertently mate.”

“Choose for him? I don’t understand…” Then, of course, I did. My eyes must have gotten very round, and then very narrow. She took a step back. I reined in my temper, trying not to snap, for I sensed no hostility. If anything, she seemed puzzled. “Is this the way you greet every male visitor? By offering to let him impregnate the women of your House?”

“Yes. It is the custom among the mage Houses when the visitor is a powerful cold mage.” She studied me as if I had sprouted antlers: a surprising turn of events but not yet a threatening one.

“What do you mean by the Grand Tour?”

“You truly have no idea.” She folded her hands at her waist in the manner of a governess about to launch into the day’s lesson. “Exceptionally potent cold magic is vanishingly rare, despite how it seems to people outside the mage Houses. Promising young men are commonly sent all around Europa, visiting other mage Houses and offering their services to young widows and to married women who have already had several children out of their husbands. Many years ago some wit called it the Grand Tour, and the name stuck.”

“You send them around like you would breed livestock.”

“Not at all. No one is forced to the task. It is a sensible way to attempt to increase the number of cold mages born within the Houses.”

I remembered a thing Vai had told me on the night we had consummated our marriage. “Might women travel to a mage House where it is said a promising young cold mage resides? To see if they can get pregnant by him?”

She smiled with relief, at last assured my intelligence was not wanting. “Yes, that also happens, but only among those Houses who have both wealth and prestige enough to make such visits. Please excuse my plain speaking, since I comprehend I have surprised you. We are a small House, very isolated and not rich, a trifling country cousin compared to Four Moons House. We have struggled for over fifty years to survive here in the frozen north among savages. Our mansa is unseasonably young because we lost all of our experienced magisters in a cholera epidemic ten years ago. Our djeliw died as well. For us the arrival of a powerful cold mage is a precious opportunity to strengthen our lineage.”

I did not want to get us tossed out into the cold, and furthermore, she had a point. “My apologies if it seemed otherwise to you, but we are not here on a Grand Tour.”

She seemed more curious than annoyed. “Your ignorance of mage House customs and that blush in your cheeks suggest you are newly come to the marriage bed and that your husband pleases you, as well he might, for he is certainly handsome. I shall not press you further on this account. It would be an inauspicious time.”

Apparently without having taken offense, she changed the subject to practical matters. Not that cultivating a new generation of mages wasn’t, at root, a practical matter among people whose wealth and station depended on the presence of intimidating magic.

“Let me take you to the baths. We’ll launder your clothing and fit you with clean things. I can see the magister’s clothes need replacing. There are a number of good tailors’ shops here.”

A tailor’s shop called Queedle & Clutch. Towers surmounted by gilded eggs. A cat waiting in the shadows. Bee had drawn these things! As the memory struck, I gasped out loud.

“Maestra, are you well?”

Palm pressed to my chest, I smiled, made tremulous by hope. “I hope and pray we might stay here a few days to rest,” I said, a little hoarsely. “It has been a long and difficult journey.”

“Of course. Come along. The women are eager to welcome you. We have turnip stew.”

Having become accustomed to the free and easy manners in Expedition, I had to remind myself that I once would have found it unexceptional for men and women to dine in separate chambers. Anyway, I was grateful for the friendly greeting I received in the women’s hall. The young women plied me with so many questions about Vai that I prudently entertained them instead with tales of Expedition and the Taino kingdom. They demanded to know if it was true that a woman had ruled the Taino kingdom, and that the new Expedition Assembly would include women as assemblymen, with the right to speak and vote just like the men.

“Of course it’s true. No troll clutch in the city of Expedition would support the Assembly if females did not have the same rights as males. Do you not speak to the trolls who live here? As we came into town I saw trolls and airships. Where did they come from? Does your mage House support their presence here?”

“Of course,” said Vinda. “Our House and the ghana work hand to glove to cultivate all the riches of this territory and in that way encourage more people to settle and work here.”

“Truly? I had always understood that the technology of combustion is anathema to cold magic. Why, you are quite at the forefront of the tide of change!”

They were shocked their tedious backwater could be seen as a place where interesting things were happening. Twelve years ago the first trolls had arrived from North Amerike. They had petitioned at the ghana’s court—ghana being the local word for the prince—for permission to mine and log in the mountainous regions near the sister cities of Sala and Koumbi.

“What do they mine?” I asked.

Vinda said, “Iron and silver. The early settlers fifty years ago got rich on silver, but the trolls brought in more efficient methods. They’re building manufactories. They pay wages by the day.”

“Yes, but you have to live in one of their settlements,” objected a girl. “Who wants to live out there in the wild where they might eat you if they felt like it?”

“Have you heard rumors of trolls eating their employees?” I asked.

“No,” said the girl, her cheeks flushed with excitement, “but we hear bloody tales of trolls gone out to survey the land who get into violent altercations with local tribesmen. The tribespeople are angry that foreigners are disrupting their hunting and trapping. Are you well acquainted with trolls?”

“I have been adopted into one of their clutches.” It was remarkably gratifying to see how they quieted, quivering with anticipation.

Really, I could have talked all night, but I wanted to tell Vai about Bee’s dream. At last I retreated to the guest suite to discover Vai not there. Gracious Melqart! How late did the men intend to celebrate? Had he let down his guard too easily? Had we fallen into a trap?

Knowing White Bow House had lost all its djeliw made me bold. I drew the shadows around me and went in search of the men’s courtyard, even though I knew I ought not to venture there. The corridors lay empty. Elsewhere in the compound, children were being sung into their sleep, the youths were reciting their lessons before bed, and an old man was snoring. Drums tapped a festive rhythm. The scent of liquor spilled through the air as the seal of friendship. Like a hunter I followed its trail.

An open door admitted me into the mansa’s formal audience chamber with a carved stool and several cushions. Past another door I entered a formal dining chamber with a table and about thirty chairs, all undisturbed. Past that lay an informal receiving chamber. Here the remains of a generous supper littered the low tables, cushions all awry. Beyond glass-paned doors lay an inner courtyard lit by cold fire. Snow glittered on the shrubs and trimmed hedges.

Four drummers laid down a rhythm. Every dance has a story, every rhythm a meaning, through which it converses with the pulsing heart of the world. Like the other men, Vai had stripped off his winter coat and his dash jacket. They were all very fine, for they were men who had grown up with dancing, but he had a supple and energetic way of moving that naturally drew my eye as I admired him. Although normally he would have known I had crept close, he showed not the least sign his thoughts lay anywhere except within the rhythm and the camaraderie of the men laughing and egging each other on to show off.

This courtyard was not meant for my eyes. I was trespassing.

I padded back to the lonely refuge of our rooms. In lamplight I set out the cacica’s skull and poured her a little wine. As I cleaned and sorted my sewing kit, I told the cacica about my evening with the women of White Bow House. I had stayed away from discussing Camjiata or radical philosophy and stuck to a theme of women speaking out and taking a place in governance. Everyone had paid attention, even if most had been skeptical that such a thing could ever happen. Maybe there really were times when words were more effective than a sword.

Men’s laughter gusted up the hall. I grabbed my sword as the lamps guttered out and the door swung open. Vai slammed it behind him as he stamped snow off his boots. Baubles of cold fire bobbed erratically over his head. He shed his coat and tossed it over a chair to reveal his dash jacket unbuttoned and disheveled as if he had carelessly dragged it on.

“I could just eat you up,” he murmured, pressing me back against the wall to kiss me.

I wrestled free. “Blessed Tanit. You are drunk!”

“Given my previous experience with you when you were drunk, I can’t help but wonder what you will be like in bed when…” He noticed the skull sitting on a side table. With a visible start he recoiled a step. Then he grabbed his coat and draped it over the skull. That he looked inordinately pleased with his cleverness confirmed my belief that he had imbibed too much liquor.

“I felt it prudent to maintain my wits in a strange household. Why were you outdoors?”

“We drummed the festival dance in the courtyard. It started to snow.” He tugged me into the bedchamber, steered me to the bed, and grappled me down on it. “Since it is the Feast of Matronalia to honor the Roman goddess of childbirth, they all wanted to know if I have gotten you pregnant yet. I had to tell them it was not yet the auspicious season for us.”

“They do seem inordinately interested in your fertility. Magister Vinda asked if you were here on your Grand Tour.”

He stiffened, and not in an amorous way. His mood lurched from lasciviousness to fury as he sat bolt upright. “Our offspring is not the mansa’s to sell or trade as he wishes.”

“I set her straight, I assure you,” I said soothingly, stroking his arm.

He leaned against the headboard, looking away from me and thus forcing me to contemplate the beauty of his eyes and strong cheekbones. The sulky set of his lips made me want to kiss them. “Do you have any idea how insulting it is to be treated as if you are nothing more than a highly regarded stallion with desirable conformation?”

Several jesting comments raced against each other in an effort to reach my tongue first, but I yanked on the reins and tried another tactic to calm him. “When I was waiting tables at the boardinghouse, some men treated me as if I were nothing more than a womanly form they’d like to fondle and take to bed.”

He glanced sidelong at me with a swift measure to take in exactly those conforming attributes. His thunderous frown eased slightly. “They surely did.”

I bit down a smile. Levity would be fatal at just this moment. I chose a feinting attack. “Magister Vinda wondered if I was looking to dally with one of their women. Or get pregnant by one of their men.”

He put an arm around me. “Why would they think you would be interested in anyone else when you’re married to me?”

That he could speak such conceited words with such humble sincerity never failed to delight me. “I suppose it would depend on whether I can get satisfaction. If I must dash the hopes of the many, then you must accommodate the desires of the one.”

“Must I, Catherine?” He had a way of saying my name that made it seem like the most burning caress whose touch inflamed my entire body.

“Yes. You certainly must.”