Cold Fire (40 page)

“Did yee not get yee full payment because yee did not deliver up the fire bane?” Like storm clouds, she swelled in indignation as I cowered under the tumult of her anger. “How did we not see it, yee washed up with yee hair unbound on the jetty in the company of another man? With yee magics and yee hair like a net to catch him in? How yee blinded him, poor lad. I must wonder if any of it were true, or if yee even went so far as to bite yee own arm to make him worry for yee. Just get out, maku. We have no more wish to ever see yee again nor hear that lying voice.”

I slammed into the edge of the gate and, with eyes blinded by tears, groped onto the street. Yet I had not gone twenty paces when my legs gave out and I collapsed into heaving sobs. The worst of it was that the few folk out on the street passed me by and, recognizing me, walked on as if I weren’t there. Whispering.
Look at she, that whore in the pay of the wardens. They say she is really a witch and shall drink yee blood and eat yee heart as she did to the poor deluded maku.

“Cat?”

I looked into Luce’s tear-streaked face. Ashamed, I looked away. I could not bear her scorn.

She pressed a bundle into my hands, my worldly goods as scant as the goodwill left to me. “Tell me why yee said that yee did not know. Please.”

Words shook out of half-controlled sobs. “It’s true James Drake found me on a beach…”

“Salt Island. So Gran’ tell me. But no one can leave there, and yee’s no fire mage.”

“I never lied about that! The Barr Cousins did bring me to Expedition from Salt Island. It’s true I knew Drake was working for General Camjiata back in Adurnam. But I didn’t come to the Antilles with the general. I wasn’t part of his organization. When Drake dumped me on the jetty, I didn’t know it was because they hoped Vai would find me and then they could find him by tracking me. I know it sounds impossible, but I didn’t know anything about it. Oh, no one will believe me, Luce. Why should they? I wouldn’t believe me. I have to find him, or the general will kill him.”

“After everything yee said to him and the way yee acted, I wonder why him dying should matter to yee. If yee’s really a witch, yee shall want him dead.”

My face was slobbery with self-pity and self-loathing. I could not get over the way Aunty Djeneba had looked at me as if I were a noxious vile cockroach crawling back into sight. But I owed Luce the truth. I wiped my eyes and nose, and I looked up into her solemn gaze.

“I am not a whore or a witch. I know it seems like Kofi was right, that I’m two-faced like a star-apple tree. But I was just confused. I meant to leave here, to take a room elsewhere, but I couldn’t bear to leave him. I said yes to him the night of the areito. I meant it, Luce. I love him. Then everything happened so fast.” Pain was a knife in my heart. I bit my lip rather than moan.

Her hand brushed my arm. “Venus Lennaya forgive me if I have made the wrong judgment, but I believe yee. He came that night, took he things, and left to go hide. Kayleigh live down by Kofi-lad’s people now. She and he is to marry. That is all I can say because it is all I know.”

She hurried off, back through the gates where I was no longer welcome.

Blessed Tanit, watch over your heartbroken daughter.

I yanked the threads of shadow around me to hide my shame. Clutching the bundle to my chest, I stumbled back to the old city and through gates guarded against fire banes by lamps. I took a wrong turn, and in retracing my steps found a stone gate overgrown with jasmine and hibiscus and marked by a modest stone column carved with the sigil of Tanit, the protector of women, She who is the face of the moon, sometimes bright and sometimes dark according to Her aspect.

I crept inside to find the place seemingly deserted, dense with flowers and fragrance. I washed my hands in a lustral basin fed by water trickling from a pipe. At the center of the open-air sanctuary, an arcade of pillars ringed a marble altar worn as smooth as if it had been polished for centuries by the hands of petitioners. I pressed my palms against it.

“What must I do, Blessed Mother? How can I be a better sister to Rory? How can I protect Bee without becoming a monster? How can I find him and win him back? How do I not despair? How do I look beyond my own troubles, as he does, to a path that makes a difference not just for our own selves but for others?”

The busy noises of the city had faded. A rain shower mizzled through, stippling the stone walkways. I rested my forehead on the marble.

Perhaps, through sheer emotional exhaustion, I dozed. Perhaps I dreamed that a woman with a brown Kena’ani face, clothed in robes the color of the balmy sea and wearing a crown as pale as the moon, cupped my face in her hands and kissed my lips as a seal to her promise.

Be heartened.

A cold touch on my cheek snapped me awake. I sat back on my heels to find an orange tabby cat nosing at me, tail lashing as it prowled the altar stone. With a disdainful flick of its tail, it leaped away and vanished into a hedge thick with white and purple flowers.

I found myself facing a votive stone I could have sworn had not been there before. A trellis arched over the stone, woven with a flowering vine resplendent in falls of purple flowers. Beneath the flowers, the peaceful stone face of the lady stared into the distance. She asked no questions. She waited with the patience of one who has all the time of passing centuries, as the ice creeps south and retreats north, and seas fall and rise and fall again, and volcanoes slumber or waken.

A five-petaled flower floated in the rainwater gathered in the shallow depression at the center of the altar stone, reminding me that it was proper to make an offering. I had come to the Antilles with nothing but the clothes on my back—and them shredded and since remade—the locket, and my sword. The last of my wool challis, two pagnes, a spare bodice and blouse and drawers, the boots, a comb, and the needles, thread, scissors, thimble, and pins I had purchased with my hard-earned coin were all I possessed besides the little coin purse. I fumbled at the purse’s tie to make an offering of coin, but my clumsy fingers could not get it loose.

Coin was not the offering she wanted.

I offered my voice. I gave her the truth.

“My sire is the Master of the Wild Hunt.”

In the isolation of the sanctuary, with only the stone to hear, his magic could not stop me.

Be heartened.

There will be a way.

The next morning I pretended to sleep late so I could explore the house without being seen. I found Bee sketching on the covered patio that faced the garden. The general lounged on a Turanian sofa next to her, reading aloud from a black book.

“‘…The phrase “the span that binds the shores that flank the torrential waters that weep from the ice” likely refers to the bridge at Liyonum. Therefore, move Aualos’s division to take that bridge.’” I crept up behind him only to discover that the neat, blocky letters on the page spelled nonsense syllables. “‘Jovesday, sixth day of Maius. Aualos advances into Liyonum. Skirmishers report open road to Avarica. If march my divisions north, will split Tene forces and be able to fight each flank separately with full assault. So ordered.’”

“That was the battle of Ariolica?” Bee asked, not looking up from her sketchbook.

He had written a record of his campaign in code. “Yes, although my soldiers called it ‘When we shoved that stick up between Tene ass-cheeks.’ One might think it easier to recognize places from a drawing than from within the obscure words of a half-blind woman’s poetic utterances, but both create a challenge. The words must be interpreted for potential meanings. The images must be recognized and then placed in a season or day. Look how long it took us to find Cat. Your dreams gave hints of where she was, only neither you nor I knew how to interpret them.”

“I’m not sure I want them interpreted, now that I see what came of it!”

“Beatrice, if I do not save the cold mage, he will be captured and sold to the Taino.”

“If the Taino can hold him!”

“You have met the cacica. Do you doubt her power?”

Her rosy lips pinched so hard they paled. “No, I suppose not.”

He chuckled. “Queen Anacaona even proposed marriage to me.”

Bee’s gaze flew up, her pencil halting in midair. “She did?”

“There is an old custom among the Taino of a stranger king who marries into the royal lineage, but I am not to be that man. It would place me in a subservient position. Also, I promised Helene I would not marry again.”

She chewed at her lower lip, her gaze too intent on him. “Why would you promise that?”

He smiled with the expression of a man who means to gently let you know you have gone too far. With a blush darkening her cheek, she set pencil back to page. I sidled over behind her. She had brought life to the leaves, flowers, and branches of the garden so lovingly that a blank spot within the sketch stood out like a wound. I glanced up to identify the spot she’d not drawn in: A man dressed in a sober dash jacket and European trousers stood with his back to us, one foot up on a bench and a hand holding a stub like a little tube whose end glowed with heat. He had black hair in a braid down his broad back.

Bee cleared her throat. I looked down. She had written:
I feel your breath on my neck. You are quite the noisiest breather. I wonder I never noticed before. I said you were feeling poorly.

The general rose as the Amazon appeared on the patio. “Ah, Captain Tira. Yes, I’m coming. Beatrice, you will join us for supper. Cat, too, if she is feeling better.”

“Of course.”

He followed the Amazon into the house.

The man at the bench turned.

The shock of seeing Prince Caonabo made me almost lose hold of the threads that veiled me. He set the stub to his lips. Embers flared as he sucked in air. Even at this distance, the smoke made my eyes water and my nose sting. Bee took in a sharp breath, for the man was staring at her with an air of accusation, young men being annoying in that particular way, thinking you owed them something just because they admired you.

Prince Caonabo tossed the stub to the earth, ground it out with his heel, and with a shake of his shoulders walked toward us. He wore knives strapped across his chest, glimpsed where his dash jacket flashed open. Rising, Bee snapped shut her sketchbook. Still in shadow, I stepped back.

He halted. Bee’s shoulders squared in a way I knew presaged battle.

“Is it the truth, Bee?” he asked in heavily accented Latin. His voice was nothing like as courtly and measured as Prince Caonabo’s. His tone had all the subtlety of a fencer who attacks straight on without feinting. “You are betrothed to my brother? You will marry him?”

“What did you offer me?” she asked coolly.

“What I could! You know how I am situated!”

“I do not have the luxury of joining your exile. You know how I am situated.”

He was the one trembling, not her. “Do you cherish any affection for me at all?”

Heartless Cat had never stared down an overwrought man with as much detachment as Bee did now. “Feelings cannot protect me or feed me. Although I daresay I envy my dear cousin for inadvertently falling in love with a suitable man. Not that it helped her, did it?”

“Yes, we have all heard quite enough about the maku fire bane. Will your wedding areito be held in Sharagua?” He made no attempt to touch her, yet I felt I was eavesdropping inappropriately on a most intimate conversation because of the way his gaze caressed her.

“No. It will be held at the festival ground at the border.”

His lips quirked up mockingly. “The better for the people of Expedition to be bought off with bread and circuses, as the Romans say. What date have the behiques set for the ceremony?”

“The areito will begin on the thirtieth day of October.”

“In the calendar of my father’s people, that is the month of the goddess of birds and butterflies. The beautiful woman who brings fertility and desire. It must be thus, must it not?”

She blushed prettily, accepting the compliment without words.

He went on. “I know Romans and Hellenes have odd notions about a woman’s knowing no man before she is first wed. But I assure you it will not be what my brother expects.”

Bee had gone quite pale although her voice remained steady. “What are you suggesting?”

A grim smile played on his lips. “You know where I sleep.”

Without saying more, he walked away on a path that led him out of sight around the kitchen wing. I examined the leafy foliage, the nearby windows with blinds drawn down against the late afternoon sun, and the guards at their stations along the high boundary wall. We were unobserved.

I sank onto the sofa. “I begin to have some sympathy for the head of the poet Bran Cof ! ‘She is the axe that has laid waste to the proud forest.’ You seem to be leaving a trail of felled trees.”

She set fists on hips. “Besides Legate Amadou Barry, pray inform me what other man I have admired in
that way
.”

“Where do I begin? Your youthful infatuations at the academy were legion.” I picked up her glass of pulpy juice and drained it thirstily. Then my face was pulled inside out, for she had not sweetened the lime with pineapple juice or, it seemed, any sugar at all.

“Serves you right! Anyway, that seems a hundred years ago.”

“Do you care for this man?” I flipped through the sketchbook but found not a single sketch of the Taino prince. “I see by the blank expression on your face that you are attempting to think. No wonder Prince Caonabo looked familiar. The resemblance is uncanny.”

“They are twins. He was exiled for the crime of refusing to live as his brother’s catch-fire.”

I whistled. “What is his name?”

“Haübey. He fled to Expedition and joined the general’s army in exile. That’s why he was in Adurnam. Everyone here calls him Juba.”

“Juba? Isn’t that the name of an ancient Numidian king from North Africa? What happened between you?”

She sighed. “I was quite overcome by the heat of the moment. I am afraid I have come to discover I am susceptible. I begin to worry that more than anything it is the attention I desire.”

A year ago I would have teased her. Now, I remained silent.

She sank down next to me and took my hand. “I thought I might as well experience everything life has to offer before my blood soaks the ground and my head is cast into a well.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And the truth is, his was the face I saw in the Fiddler’s Stone. In Adurnam. But now I think it must have been Prince Caonabo’s face I saw, not Juba’s.”

“I recall him now, standing in the entryway of the law offices staring at you. I comprehend he conceived an ill considered and violent infatuation for your beautiful face and blunt speaking.”

“Actually, he was quite levelheaded in dealing with my puking on the sea voyage.”

“That would certainly endear a man to an impressionable young female.” But I thought of how solicitously Vai had taken care of me.

She chuckled. “Why, Cat, you’re blushing.”

I turned the page: batey players keeping the ball in the air, faces creased with concentration; the masts of ships in the harbor; baskets of fish on the jetty, pargo and cachicata by the look of them. “I wasn’t puking, if that’s what you’re asking. But after Drake dumped me on the jetty and Vai found me, I got sick. He saw the bite mark. The landlady brought in a behique that very night. The man proclaimed me clean, so they let me stay. Vai took care of me, for nothing in return.”

“Nothing?” Her eyebrows arched.

“He comes from a village where women can be taken against their will by the mages. He refuses to act that way himself. You have no idea how people fawn over that man. I had no idea he could be so charming and thoughtful.”

“Your husband? The cold mage? Thoughtful?
Charming?
 ”

“What other husband do I have?”

“Kena’ani women are according to ancient custom able to acquire two husbands if it is for the good of the family trade. Maybe you found a charming, thoughtful one to go with the obnoxious, self-important one, like a matched set of opposites.”

I trapped her with a smirk. “Like Prince Caonabo and his brother?”

“I shall bury the blade in your skull, just above your right eye.”

“That’s what I love about you. Your precision.” I turned the page, and my heart hammered as if caught in a carpentry yard among busy laborers.

Bee leaned to look. “That’s from one of my dreams. Two trolls walking along. I like how their crests are each raised to a different height, as if one is indifferent and the other amused. See here there are two boots. So there is a man walking with them, only their bodies obscure his. I imagine that the man is the one talking, only we can’t see his face. Trolls are so interesting. They speak perfectly well, but their own language is all whistles and clicks. There is a course at the university here where people try to learn it, but I heard no person can use it properly.”

My mouth parted, as if to receive a kiss. “It’s Vai, with the Jovesday trolls. Kofi said Vai would have to leave Expedition.”

“Who is Kofi?”

I placed my finger on a small portrait of a young man with a mop of locks and jagged scars on his cheeks, pushing a cart heaped with baskets of fruit. “This is Kofi. Vai’s friend.”

“The arrogant cold mage has
friends
?”

I pinched her arm.

“Ouch! I meant, friends who are common laborers.”

“There’s a great deal the general doesn’t know about Vai. Kofi is going to marry Vai’s sister. Strange to think you’re dreaming about Vai.” I ran a finger across an arch decorated with four phases of the moon, then paused at a sketch of a wooden bench with a slatted back sitting in front of a brick wall adorned with falls of the flowering vine I had seen in Tanit’s bower. “What is this?”

“I don’t know. I just sketch what I dream.”

“The Jovesday trolls,” I murmured. “Could you lie down at night with a specific thing in mind to dream about?”

“I’ve tried. I can’t. I am not dreaming my own dreams. I am walking through the dreams of someone who is already dreaming.”

“A dragon.”

“Yet I still haven’t seen a single plump deer, much less one running exceedingly slowly.”

My smile at her jest twisted into a considering frown. “Keer must know where Chartji’s aunt lives. Chartji’s aunt knows Kofi. There’s the link. I have a plan. Well, as long as Keer doesn’t eat me for not coming back when I said I would. We have to go to the law offices, in the harbor district.”

“There’s a statement to send stark fear through my bones.”

“My being eaten?”

“No. You’re not plump enough to tempt them. I meant, going outside the city walls.”

“Where do you think I’ve been living? Haven’t you explored the rest of Expedition?”

“Of course not! Everyone says it’s much too dangerous!”

“I’ve staggered drunk through the streets without being molested and felt ever so much safer than I did in Adurnam! Anyhow, I think it’s possible Vai is hiding in troll town. Tomorrow morning I’ll go to the law offices. I want anyone watching me to see I’m not living under the general’s protection. I could get a room there, too. Could you live with me there?”

Her eyes flared, then tightened as she looked away. “No. I am required to begin learning Taino and also to take lessons in the complicated court etiquette I will be marrying into.”

“Then I stay with you here. If he will not believe me, then he is not worth suffering over.”

She embraced me, staring into my eyes as if she could pierce the veils that masked me. “Cat, when Hallows’ Night comes, are you going to try to sacrifice yourself in order to save me?”

“What makes you think I could?” I whispered.

“Because I won’t allow it! I read Uncle Daniel’s journals. If you have to answer questions with questions, then when you were in the spirit world without me, you must have been forced to become a servant of the night court. You must promise me you won’t sacrifice yourself. Promise me!”

I wanted to say, “
Alas, he will not let me
,” but my lips seemed to freeze together, knit by ice.

“Sit down, Cat.”

I sat.

“That was an interesting reaction,” she said, chafing my hands.

After a bit, I could speak. “When do you go to Taino country?”

“It’s complicated, because the wedding is a series of ceremonies that takes place over many days. It all culminates with a five-day areito that begins on October thirtieth.”

“I have to be with you when you go to the Taino. Promise me you won’t leave me behind.”