Cold Magic (46 page)

“No. I expect you did not.”

A trooper ran past, carrying a bundle of clothes. He, too, vanished past the angle where the ramparts opened.

“He saved my life just today,” I added. “I wasn’t sure he was still alive—”

I pressed a fist to my mouth, unable to speak. My companion wisely held his tongue. Had he said one cursed sympathetic thing right then, I think I would have clawed out his eyes.

I heard men talking and talking, laughing and joking. It took forever and a day exactly as if they were conducting a party and had forgotten me entirely. I would have run to find out what was taking so long, but I thought of crossbow bolts and did not. At long last strode a half dozen men into view with Rory among them, limping a little—his feet were still bare but he was otherwise decently clothed—and his head thrown back as he laughed at some soldierly quip.

I might have moaned first, as despair fled my heart, entirely routed. Then I shrieked. “Rory!” I ran, and I flung myself at him so hard he staggered back at the impact and got an arm around me as I pressed my face into the coat he was wearing.

“You’re safe,” I cried like a player in the theater. “I thought you were dead.”

“They were too startled to manage an effective counterattack. And the remaining horses went wild. All but one bolted.”

I glanced up just as he licked his lips, looking suspiciously pleased with himself.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” I said with a glance at the soldiers now watching us with the sentimental expressions of men who pretend to be big and tough but in truth dandle babies on their knee with the greatest tenderness and affection.

“Neither did I!” he replied with a grin. “It just… came over me.”

We both started laughing, and I broke away and wiped my eyes. “Are you hurt?”

“A shard of bone cut one paw. Nothing important. Now who are these fine fellows who have given me these fine clothes? And is that
beef
I smell?”

I introduced him as my brother Roderic without offering a single detail more, and our hosts graciously had another platter of food brought as well as a fourth camp stool. Rory chatted and laughed with Marius and Amadou, ever so charming, pausing at intervals to try on boots that soldiers brought in, none of which fit.

I stared at him, scarcely able to believe he had survived. His features, his gestures, his long black braid: All these had become as familiar to me as if I had known them my entire life long, yet I had first encountered him only a few days ago. I did not understand it. Was this what kinship meant? A sense, deep in your bones, that the person next to you is part of you? Inextricable from what you are? That you could not be who you are without their existence as part of the architecture of your very self?

We are none of us one thing alone and unchanging. We are not static, or at rest. Just as a city or a prince’s court or a lineage is many people in one, so is a person many people within one, always unfinished and always like a river’s current flowing onward ever changing toward the ocean that is greater than all things combined. You cannot step into the same river twice.

“Philosophizing over there?” asked Rory, as if he could hear my thoughts. “You don’t usually stay silent for this long, Cat. Unless you’re deliberately ignoring me, I mean.”

I shook off my reverie. “Just worrying,” I said.

Lord Marius rose. “It will be a long night. I suppose the company pursuing you may take it into their heads to attempt a night raid, so I’ll keep half my men awake and half asleep in their boots.”

“I’ll take the second watch,” said Amadou.

“My thanks,
Legate
,” I said with what I hoped was a biting smile.

He had the grace to look shamefaced. He and Lord Marius left the tent to us.

“What is a legate?” Rory asked.

“A very important man in Rome. I cannot figure it. It seems true that he and his sisters and aunt fled from Eko—”

“Eko?”

“You don’t know anything, do you?”

“No,” he agreed cheerfully. “Not a thing! That horse meat was tasty, though.”

I laughed, and then grimaced, realizing he was not speaking of our supper. “You stopped to eat not knowing if I was alive or dead?”

“I discovered, dearest sister, that I am not entirely myself when I am in my natural shape here in the Deathlands. It took me a while to come to myself. Once I had, I followed your trail immediately. And am very glad to have discovered you alive and unharmed. What is Eko?”

“It’s a place very far away from here on the coast of a land where once rose a rich empire. A terrible plague devastated the country. Those who could, fled and made homes elsewhere, but of course their descendants never forgot where they had come from. In recent years, some intrepid settlers rebuilt the old port of Eko, thinking to return to their lost homeland. But they were attacked and overrun. The survivors returned here to Europa to the families and clans from which they had come. I thought Amadou Barry was just a young man from a well-to-do Fula banking family, who happened to be among those who attempted the resettlement and ended up making a new life in Adurnam after the disaster. Now I hear him addressed as a legate, which means he is connected to Rome! In what capacity he could possibly carry the title of legate I cannot be sure, nor why he was masquerading as a student…”

Rory yawned. “He smells clean. He and the other one mean us no harm, not like those hyenas waiting out beyond the old earth walls.”

“Hyenas? What is that?”

“Never mind. Foul creatures. I hate them. Hyenas, I mean, not our rescuers. I’m tired. I need a nap.”

He took possession of one of the cots and pulled the blankets up over his head. His breathing slowed immediately. Could anyone fall asleep that fast?

A cough startled me; a soldier poked his head in and gestured. “If you would like me to turn down the lamps, maestressa? Stoke the braziers?”

“I thank you.”

He did what needed to get done, chores I would have performed in my own house. In the house I had thought was mine. The confusion that boiled in my heart made me restless. Aunt and Uncle had betrayed me, and yet they
had
made an attempt to save me before giving up and letting Andevai take me. What had they thought would happen when the deception was discovered?

For no matter how hard I stared at the outcome, I had to believe they had not known they were sending me into mortal danger. Merely into lifelong servitude. The Barahals knew how to serve; that’s how they made their living. Had Daniel known of the contract? Why had he and my mother left Adurnam right after the capture and imprisonment of Camjiata? Thirteen years ago. The same year, it seemed, that the Barry refugees had fled the disaster at Eko—1824 had been a very eventful year, hadn’t it?

I rose, thinking to walk outside to calm my tangled thoughts, but as soon as I stood, my legs quivered and I almost collapsed. I staggered over to the empty cot and sat hard, trembling. I barely had the strength to lie down and pull the blankets up over myself as I shivered with exhaustion. I shut my eyes and plunged into sleep.

A man sang in my dreams, and the plucking of harp strings opened a path between this world and the other side, a shimmering ribbon of pure sound that ran as a river of silver fire. Rory was chuckling, or purring, and then a scattering of shouts and a clattering of weapons pulled me from the depths and into the night-bound tent. It was dreadfully cold but for a ghost of warmth drifting up from the last banked coals. The red gleam gave me just enough light to see that the other cot had no one in it.

Had I only dreamed Rory’s return?

As if my thought were a call, he came into the tent. He was chuckling softly in that purring way he had, and he was sneaking, clearly unaware I was awake and perfectly attentive to his prowling. Where had that cursed fool gone this late at night? I meant to rise and speak, but try as I might, I could not rouse my limbs or move my lips to ask what was going on.

“Sleep, little sister,” he said as he stretched out on the other cot, back among the blankets. “The magister and his troops made an attempt to attack over the ramparts, but they were sent scuttling with tails between their legs.”

I woke suddenly into dawn’s gloom, eyes open and legs twitching, and inhaled a lungful of exceedingly cold air. Rory slumbered on the other cot. Shuddering with cold, I slid out from under the blankets, pulled on my boots and gloves, and hurried outside as under my breath I cursed soldiers who had no need to carry chamber pots for their morning relief. In a company of men, they could just pee wherever they wanted. Last night’s wine pressed against my bladder.

Outside, I paused to get my bearings. Sentries ringed the ramparts. Lamps ringed the tent behind mine, and I heard men talking in low, intense voices. I scanned the scatter of buildings huddled within the ramparts. The temple stood at the height, where its pillars could catch the first rays of sun, not that there would be any sun today, given the glowering drape of clouds. The outdoor hearth under its roof, a fire still burning; the kitchen shed shuttered tight; the priests’ cottage with a thread of smoke rising from its chimney; the military tents. Feeling awkward in a camp where I was the only female, I dug down for the glamor and slunk unnoticed to the privy. After I had done my business, I emerged into the lingering gloom of an overcast winter dawn.

“Cursed cold mage! Him and his thrice-cursed cold steel!” Lord Marius strode into view in an exceedingly Celtic fury, like a storm cloud in full spate. “I’ll have them in court. I’ll be sending a solicitor to Four Moons House, I tell you, to demand blood price. One cut. One cursed cut. His spirit cut from him. How I hate them!”

He passed by without seeing me. A trooper led up two horses, one burdened with a figure wrapped in a blanket and tied onto the saddle: a dead man.

“Marius, is this wise?” called Amadou, jogging up. A stain marred his jacket sleeve and his back was covered with flecks of grass, as if he had been pushed onto the ground. “You’ll be riding alone. An easy target.”

“They’ll not attack the cousin of the Prince of Tarrant in broad daylight, knowing that if I turn up as a corpse, Four Moons House must accept full blame. That ass-biting turd of a cold mage took a fool’s reckless chance. I can’t imagine what possessed him to think he could crawl into
my
camp with his soldiers and kidnap a person to which I—
I!
—had given my protection. I’ll ride to the manor and send reinforcements. They’ll see what they’ve woken by offending one of the Tarrant kinsmen!”

Without any indication he had seen me, he mounted and, with the other horse on a lead behind his own, rode off alone through the ramparts.

“Break down the camp,” said Amadou in a voice accustomed to command.

The men obeyed with alacrity. At the academy, I had thought him charmingly modest. If I had called him the vainest youth I had ever met, I had only done so to twit Bee for her infatuation. Certainly compared to a man like, say, Andevai, he had no vanity to speak of.

He walked over to the tent I had slept in just as Rory emerged. They spoke briefly. Amadou swung around and surveyed the camp, his gaze passing over me before he turned back to my brother with a puzzled shrug. Rory did not point me out, although he obviously knew right where I was even if no one else could see me. I had forgotten my glamor.

I sat by the hearth and brushed off my skirts, shaking off my concealment.

“There she is,” said Roderic.

Legate Amadou Barry walked over. “I hope your rest was a peaceful one, maestressa.”

“What happened to that soldier?”

“Blooded by cold steel. We had a few minor injuries, but he alas is dead. We’ll leave immediately after the camp comes down. You’ll ride at the center of the formation lest their crossbowmen decided to take a shot at you. However, it seems we’ve driven them off, for they are nowhere to be seen this morning.”

A man had died on account of me.

Blessed Tanit, make his passing gentle and his journey an easy one. Give peace to his family.

The low-hanging clouds made gray of the world. Our mood as we set out had the harsh tone of untuned, jangling strings. Later, it began to rain.

The next day in the late afternoon, without further incident, we reached Adurnam.

No one had warned Bee. A servant opened a door, and I entered the sitting room behind Amadou. At first, his body shielded me from her view. I beheld a spacious chamber lit by many lamps against the encroaching dusk. The walls were painted with chevrons and angled stripes in red, black, and yellow. An oak mantel carved with lizards capped a brick fireplace inset with a circulating stove; the fire within radiated so much heat that I began to sweat, and to think about how filthy I was. I could not catch my breath.

On one of the Roman-style couches sat a proud-looking woman no older than Aunt Tilly, wearing embroidered damask robes whose vivid orange and green shone. Her elaborate coiffure of braids was complemented by gold earrings shaped like hoops that dangled to her shoulder. She was an elegant, graceful, beautiful woman of Afric ancestry; Amadou resembled her. The twin sisters were seated on stools on opposite sides of a table, stringing beads and coins and other small objects onto a chain. Both set down their work and glanced up with bright smiles.

“Amadou!” they cried, and then they glimpsed Roderic, behind me, and looked away.

As Amadou walked forward to greet his aunt, I saw Bee seated on the other couch holding a sketchbook on her lap and a pencil in her left hand. Her thunderous frown, directed at the open page, made me giggle, in some part with delight but also because after all this time I was so desperately relieved to see her alive and well. Yet what was she so angry about?

She heard my chortle. She looked up. With a deafening shriek, she flung sketchbook and pencil halfway across the room as she leaped up. Her expression entirely transformed, she charged across the space between us and threw herself into my arms. I would have wept, but Bee’s embrace was so crushing I could barely get air into my lungs much less find breath for sobs.