Spiritwalker 3: Cold Steel (36 page)

The glimpse into my mother’s heart stunned me.

“I told her she would come to a bad end,” he went on in a rheumy whisper. “The hunter
never stops hunting. His children belong to him only. Blood binds them forever and
always.”

He shut his seamed old eyes, pressing fingers onto the closed eyelids.

“I see the Hunt in the cauldron every Hallows’ Night. I saw Tara and the Phoenician,
dragged down into the river. I saw a child torn from their grasp as Tara reached for
her with the only hand left to her. I saw the water choke them and kill them. ”

“Enough!” snapped Vai. “I do not fear you, holy one, although I respect your age,
as it is proper for the young to respect the old. You have poisoned your own well
with fear and hate.”

The priest opened his eyes. Unlike Tara and Devyn he had dark eyes, and in the firelight
they seemed to gleam with a golden brown almost like mine.

“They tell me you walked out of the north, Magister. Surely on the road here you passed
Crescent House frozen by the breath of the Wild Hunt. That is not fear. That is truth.
Take her, if you must, for you are young and arrogant and you believe all will bow
before you and your magic. But you are nothing but dust and salt, and less precious
than salt. Go, as did my daughter Tara. Go, as did the Phoenician, Daniel, who believed
he could stand beside her. Go, as did the captain who thought he had found a woman
whose dreams would deliver up Europa to his ambition. The hunter will crush your defiance
and destroy all that you love. The hunter cannot be defeated, because he is death.”

“Come, Catherine. We are leaving this cursed place.”

I followed Vai past the dead lamps and out of the sanctuary to where the village waited
in silence. Snow drifted like frozen tears. I feared that the villagers meant to abandon
us on the road to die of exposure, but even in this isolated place, respect for cold
mages was akin to awe. Hot wine and a platter of warm porridge awaited him, which
Vai forced me to share although I was neither hungry nor thirsty. Vai was presented
with two pairs of fur-lined gloves and two voluminous fur-lined cloaks. He helped
me into mine before wrapping himself in the other. Fresh horses were brought as well
as a donkey to haul our gear. Devyn was assigned to accompany us with three older
men, grim fellows bearing spears in a way that made me think they had once been soldiers
in whatever war had brought Captain Leon to the north, before he became General Camjiata.

People stood with breath misting to watch us depart. I couldn’t tell if they expected
a calamity to befall us before we left their sight, or if they wished to store away
the memory to tell as a tale over and over again at the winter hearth: how they had
seen the lord magister and the beast ride away into the night. It was as quiet as
if death had blown a kiss over the world. The only sounds were the crunch of hooves
on crusted snow and the moan of the wind. I could not stop shaking.

Our road was a broad cart track glistening with a lacework of frost under the moon’s
light. We halted at daybreak in a hamlet of two farmsteads to feed and water the horses.
Vai suggested I go indoors to warm myself at a hearth. The women hustled their children
out when I came in, so I went back out again, not wanting the children to get cold.
My hands hurt, and my lips were numb, and worst of all, a pair of crows now followed
us. I was sure they were my sire’s spies.

It was a long, silent, cold day as we rode south. At midday, when we halted in an
abandoned shelter for a short rest, Vai sat next to me on a crude wooden bench. I
huddled in a shawl of misery, as mute as if the priest in the temple had cut out my
tongue.

Vai addressed Devyn. “Is there no mage inn in your village? Surely magisters ride
through your village every year or two to claim their tithe in servants and in furs.
Now and again a child must bloom with cold magic. Why would Crescent House have built
in such a forsaken northern place if there was not something they deemed valuable
there?”

Devyn stared at his hands as he answered. “To our village, no magister is now coming.
The death of Crescent House has to us brought the curse of the god. Each year after
the night of bonfires when the sun turns south, we bring our trade goods and our children
to the trade fair at Kimbri. There will you be finding House lodging, Magister.”

“It was the ice, wasn’t it?” said Vai suddenly. “The mages of Crescent House wanted
to be close to the ice. Because our power is strongest here.”

Devyn gestured a sign to wipe away the secret knowledge he had unwillingly overheard.
“If we wish to be reaching Kimbri before nightfall, then we must be riding, Magister.”

Afternoon shadows lengthened. We passed fields covered with rotting straw against
the cold. As twilight sank down over us and the moon rose, a substantial village rose
like illusion in the evening mist. Past clusters of thatched huts rose wood buildings
with glass windows through which lamplight shone. We turned aside and rode to an ice-rimed
meadow. Two cottages posed picturesquely on the bank of a stream, linked by a long
enclosed walkway. Smoke rose from the
chimney of one cottage. Devyn led us to the cottage with no chimney and thus no fire.

Lamps, seen through glass windows, guttered out as we approached. The door opened
and men hurried out who had clearly been making everything ready for us. Their faces
looked ghostly in moonlight. They made a deep courtesy.

My body ached, stiff with cold and with emotion I dared not claim.

Vai touched my arm, his forehead wrinkled with concern. “Catherine, let’s go in.”

Yet then my mother’s brother spoke. “Was there ever peace for her, before the hunter
came to kill her?”

My gaze flashed to him. “They knew peace for a few short years.”

“The magister calls you Catherine. Is that the name Tara gave you?”

“Yes. She named me Catherine.”

His mouth was creased with sorrow; his weathered face held many lines, and none made
me think he had ever laughed much. “Catherine,” he repeated. “Named after Hecate,
the goddess of gates, who guards the threshold between the living and the dead. True
it is, that the hunter sired you. But it is sure you are my sister’s, for I see Tara
in every line of you. I loved her once. But she left us and she never looked back.”

“They loved me,” I said hoarsely, for I needed him to know that. I clasped the hilt
of my sword in one hand and pressed the other to the locket hanging at my breast.
“She was pregnant again with another child, with Daniel’s child, who would have been
my brother or sister. They didn’t mean to leave me behind. They meant us to all be
together.”

His words slipped into an older rhythm, as if only he and I were awake in the whole
wide gloaming. “From what cloth is longing woven? Is it silver? Is it gold? Yet even
fine garments wear out, while longing still clads me.”

His words caught in my heart and, on an impulse I could not control, I extended a
hand toward him. He reined his pony away as if even the thought of my touch might
contaminate him.

“Catherine, let them go,” said Vai, grabbing my mount’s bridle.

I was too stunned to protest as Devyn and his soldiers rode into the
village for the night. Vai sent the local men away, then drew me inside the cottage
and shut and latched the door.

The cottage had two chambers, one on each side of a central passage. A back door opened
onto the enclosed walkway that led along the hypocaust to the attached cottage, where
the stove burned. Heat poured up from beneath the floorboards.

In the parlor a knotted carpet had been rolled back to leave space for a tub of steaming
water, buckets for rinsing, and a bench heaped with linen towels. Our gear had been
set on a table next to a folded stack of clean clothes. By the light of cold fire
Vai closed the curtains while I stared at the unexpectedly luxurious surroundings,
feeling as if I’d found silk in a ragged shepherd’s hovel.

“Love, come here.”

He undressed himself and then me, pinned up my braid, and coaxed me into the tub with
him. As the water warmed my numb limbs, he just held me. My thoughts had hit a wall.
I could only comprehend the lap of water sloshing against the side of the tub, the
steady rhythm of his breathing against my back, and the pressure of my head resting
along his cheek.

In the other chamber waited a spacious curtained bed with an astounding feather quilt
of exquisite construction. Dressing in the linen bed robes they had laid out for us,
we snuggled together under a wool blanket on a settee. We shared a tray of honeycakes,
a bowl of porridge garnished with butter, and a bottle of bold red wine. A part of
me was hungry, but it all tasted like sand.

He spoke at random. “I can only figure one reason they thought me a magister the moment
they saw me. Most people here have the pale skin and hair of Celtic ancestry, although
some like your grandfather are more obviously mixed, likely the bastard descendants
of Crescent House. To their eyes I must be a magister and thus a nobleman.”

“Why would cold mages want anything in this terrible place?” I said angrily.

His lips crimped down. He pressed a hand over mine. “Love, you’re very tired. We both
need to sleep. Some things are better examined in the morning.”

“I don’t even know what day it is. We don’t even know what year it is…” Days and years
were not the pain clawing up out of my bruised
heart. “First Aunt Tilly and Uncle Jonatan gave me away. Now the man who is my uncle
fears me and my grandfather wishes I had been smothered at birth. My mother and father
are dead. My sire is a monster. And I miss Bee. I don’t even know where she and Rory
are or if they’re all right.”

Tears welled out of the pit exposed by the half-remembered whisper of my mother’s
voice in my heart. She had reached for me. She had cherished me despite everything.

Vai tucked us under the bedcovers and let me cry in his arms. He said nothing, and
when my tears at long last dried up, I knew there was nothing he needed to say. Any
man or woman can speak words and not mean them, or mean them and not have the strength
to carry them through. Instead he kissed the tears from my cheeks and sighed with
weary satisfaction as he settled me comfortably against him. Strange it was how his
silence brought a measure of peace to my heart. We had traveled such a long way, and
even farther if one measured from the first day we had met.

“Vai?” Seeking another form of comfort, I dropped kisses along the curve of his neck.

More worn out than I had guessed, he had already fallen asleep.

Vai’s twitching and muttering woke me. He was slipping in and out of his village patois,
obviously dreaming. He was very warm, possibly feverish, trying to throw off the blankets
and quilt as if they were weights he had to free himself from.

In a rough, desperate voice he said, “Ah kill ’ee.” Then, more clearly, flat with
rage, “I will kill you.”

“Vai. It’s me. It’s Catherine. I’m here with you. You’re safe. We’re safe.” I stroked
his hair and face until he relaxed.

He sighed, barely awake. “My sweet Catherine. You’re safe. I’ll keep you safe.”

Between one breath and the next he dropped back into sleep.

The air was pleasantly warm, heat rising from below. I slipped on the linen dressing
robe and peeked out the closed curtains to see the sun almost at zenith. Gracious
Melqart! We had slept a long time. Voices murmured in the passage. I opened the door.
Men were in the parlor, tidying up. When they saw me they averted their gazes.

“Salvete,” I said, speaking slowly. “May we have food? Broth and porridge to start
with, and a heavier meal later. Wash water, please. Also, if you can clean our clothes
and gear…”

Our things were taken away and food delivered. I ate, but Vai did not wake. He tossed
and turned, shivering and then sweating. I washed him down repeatedly with cool water.
Once I was able to wake him for long enough to get some broth down his throat, but
he fell back asleep as in a stupor. It frightened me that he had driven himself to
collapse and I hadn’t noticed. To pass the day I mended his dash jacket, ate, washed
my hair, and enjoyed the comfort of a furnished
and heated domicile, although I kept a chair shoved under the door latch as a precaution.

Without his cold fire to light the evening, I crawled back into bed at dusk.

What woke me I did not at first know, only that I came awake groping for my sword.
The hilt shivered in my hand as I drew it out of the spirit world. Vai was sprawled
across half the bed, dead asleep but breathing comfortably. The door’s latch jigged
down, and the door bumped against the chair. Veiled in shadow, I padded to the door.

A male voice muttered to his companions in words I understood well enough to get the
gist: The mage was ill, the black-haired beast was alone and trapped in the body of
a woman, so the cursed magister could be slaughtered like the pig all mages were and
his possessions shared among men bold enough to take action.

A hand groped through the crack where the door gapped open, seeking to shove away
the chair. I stabbed, pinning the hand to the wood.

“I never sleep. After I kill you, I’ll paint my face with your blood and come after
the rest.”

I pulled the blade out.

Whimpering in fear, the men stumbled out the front door. I grabbed the linen dressing
robe, tied it around myself, and went after them. By the time I reached the open door,
my attackers had vanished into the night. A lamp carried by a single person approached
across the snow. With sword raised, I waited. A middle-aged man halted at the bottom
of the stairs. His lime-whitened, spiky hair glittered with snowflakes. In his ears
shone the gold earrings of a djeli. He spoke with an educated accent as he measured
me with a tale-teller’s curiosity and an icing of fear.

“My apologies if the magister was disturbed. I heard too late that ruffians were up
to mischief. They will be punished.” There drifted from the village a shout, followed
by a scream. “Do you wish to kill them yourself?”