Spiritwalker 3: Cold Steel (40 page)

“Beware lest you find yourself in trouble for disseminating radical literature and
censored news,” said Vinda. “The ghana arrests radicals and throws them in prison.”

“The ghana will not be so eager to arrest ones who make the swords and rifles with
which he arms his troops.”

“No, indeed, it seems unlikely,” I replied, amused by her blunt assessment.

“Regardless, the ghana has not decreed a minister to approve or censor all printed
materials, such as the emperor has in Rome. Our consortium tried to set up a printing
establishment in Rome. Our petition was refused.”

“Fiery Shemesh! I never heard there were trolls migrating to Rome!”

Tewi bobbed again, making me wonder if it wasn’t after all her way of showing amusement.
“We people like to stay busy and see new things.”

After Tewi paid me my share of the profits from the week’s sale of the first two pamphlets,
we took our leave.

Vinda shook her head as we walked along. “There will be trouble when this news becomes
known on the street by every rough laborer and laundress, but the troll is right.
The ghana will not wish to offend those who make the weapons he needs.”

The rain had stopped. Wheels slicked through puddles as carts and wagons passed. Through
a window I glimpsed a man seated in a coffeehouse reading my first pamphlet aloud
to his companions while they laughed and commented. Well! That was gratifying!

“I shall leave you here,” I said as we reached an intersection. “The tailor sent me
a note asking me to come by at the same time Andevai has an appointment. The tailor
has never specifically asked before, so I really must see what he wants.”

“You are brave to venture into such a lion’s den. I should not like to come between
the magister and his clothes. He is strict about how he likes things done.”

“Have there been complaints of his teaching?”

“Only by the weak-willed and lazy. He can be exacting, it is true, but he always shows
deference to his elders and asks us, we few elders who are left in White Bow House,
to share our knowledge. His manners are so very good that I should like to meet his
mother!”

Since Vai had never mentioned his village-born origins, I wondered what Magister Vinda
would say if she knew the well-mannered young man had been born to the same rank of
people as her own lowly servants.

“I will send two attendants with you,” she added.

“My thanks, but I would prefer to go on my own way, if you don’t mind, Magister.”
In truth, the tailor’s unexpected summons had raised an unreasonable hope in my breast.

Vinda’s smile was both gracious and skeptical. “You’re a bold girl. The young women
in the House think you quite the most exciting person they have ever met and wish
only to have adventures like you, but I have told them a hundred times in the last
two weeks that the tale gives more delight than the living of it.”

Her words made me think of Luce. Was Luce resigned to helping her mother at the boardinghouse?
Had she decided to take a factory job, maybe in the hope of saving up enough money
to buy an apprenticeship into a troll consortium that might offer her a chance to
travel?

“True enough, Magister. I hope you do not consider me a bad influence.”

“I like the way you speak up, even if I do not always agree.” To my surprise she kissed
me on the cheek as she might a niece. “Go on. It is certain you can take care of yourself.”

Sala’s central district was not large, so it did not take me long to reach Cutters
Row and the tailor shop opposite Queedle & Clutch. The bell jangled as I entered.
Two men sat cross-legged on a raised platform in front of the shop window. The straw-haired
man was sewing buttonholes and the black-haired man was finishing a collar. They greeted
me with friendly smiles before glancing toward a screen that concealed the other occupants
of the room.

“No, the cuffs should not come to the crease of the wrist,” Vai was saying in a tone
whose self-indulgent fastidiousness might provoke a less patient man into taking scissors
to every garment within reach. “They should be a finger’s width longer—no more!—so
the wrist is
not exposed when I extend my arm to its full length. You see how that ruins the look.”

I shook out my cape and hung it from a hook at the door.

“I can’t possibly wear this! Please tell me you have not cut the other two to this
same length.”

“I have not cut the third one yet, Magister, for I am not sure of the fabric.”

“I have already told you which fabric I want. Did I not make my wishes clear?”

I smiled at the two men, who smiled knowingly back at me. They had obviously endured
many of these harangues; I quite wisely never stayed long in the shop when I did come
with Vai.

“Of course, Magister, I have already taken care of the problem with the other dash
jacket, if you would like to try it on. Let me help you. Just a moment, if you will.”

The tailor emerged from behind the screen to see who had come in. He was a bent old
man with the wry demeanor of a person who has for his entire life successfully done
business with overly particular customers. “Salve, Maestra,” he said. “Thank you for
coming.”

“You are a patient man, Maester,” I said in a low voice, with a glance toward the
screen.

He inclined his head, thankfully not denying the sentiment. Like me he kept his voice
low. “He holds others to the exacting standard to which he holds himself. The first
dash jacket I made to his specifications he wore when Magister Viridor introduced
him at the ghana’s court. In the ten days since, my custom has tripled and I have
had to advertise for more sewers and cutters.”

Through an open door I could see into a sunny room in back, where men bent over garments
in various stages of assembly, conversing in a merry rumble of masculine voices.

“The work out of your shop is very skilled.”

“So it is, Maestra, and my thanks for mentioning it. But men will believe the illusion
that if a well-formed man looks good in a garment, then they necessarily will also.
It takes all my power of persuasion to convince some of these new customers that a
different style of clothing would suit them better. Which brings me to my purpose.”
He indicated bolts of cloth unfurled across the cutting table. A length of dove-
gray woolen broadcloth covered the other bolts; it was exactly the sort of sober fabric
Vai despised. “He was insistent about the green floral print but I cannot think the
color suits his complexion. Now he has brought in a fabric that is too, ah, decorative
for the style he prefers. I intend no offense, but perhaps you could persuade him
to a less flamboyant…”

Vai stepped out from behind the screen. The top five buttons of a tepidly green dash
jacket were undone. It was indeed not his best color. “Catherine? What are you doing
here?”

“Just passing by,” I lied, to protect the tailor. “Goodness, Andevai, you look like
a fern.” To give myself something to do before he exploded, I twitched aside the gray
cloth to see the fabric hidden beneath. “Gracious Melqart!”

Distracted, Vai looked down, then smiled. “It’s perfect,” he breathed so ardently
that the sewers had to conceal snickers.

The cloth beneath was finest wool challis, dyed a deep blue in which whispered all
the soft promise of a twilight sky, which subtlety was entirely overwhelmed by its
being embroidered with flagrant sprays of bright color depicted as flowers bursting
open like fireworks. A person might call it
decorative
as a euphemism for
gaudy
.

But what shocked me was that it matched the fabric of the dash jacket worn by the
man meant to be Vai in the false dream sketched by Bee to convince Caonabo not to
arrest me.

The bell jangled as the door opened. A swirl of chilly, damp air shivered into the
shop like a big cat with a cold nose nudging your cheek. A remarkably attractive man
with blond hair, a thick mustache, and scarred knuckles stopped short.

“Bold Diana! It is peculiar to find you exactly where I was told you would be.”

“Brennan!” Elation throbbed through my chest. Brennan Touré Du was the first man who
had ever truly flirted with me, however mild a flirtation it might have been that
night at the Griffin Inn when I had met him, the trolls Godwik and Chartji, and Professora
Kehinde Nayo Kuti. I had understood at the time that he was being kind, for a man
of Brennan Du’s experience and reputation was quite out of the reach of a girl like
me.

Vai’s hand settled possessively on the small of my back as he stepped
up beside me. “I believe we have not been formally introduced,” he said in his most
coolly belligerent tone. “I am Magister Andevai Diarisso of Four Moons House. Perhaps
you will be so kind as to inform my wife and me why you are here.”

The infamous radical called black-haired Brennan had a history of fighting, whether
in taverns or in the service of his radical philosophy. He also had a brilliantly
charming grin, which he deployed with blinding good humor as he approached Vai with
an outstretched hand in the radical manner, man to man as an equal.

“Magister! It is an honor to make your acquaintance formally. You must have quite
a rousing tale to tell, if everything Beatrice has told me is true.”

Good manners won out, as they always did with Vai when it came to the point. He shook
hands, but watched like a wire strung taut as Brennan shook my hand.

“She told me to look for the tailor shop opposite Queedle and Clutch.”

I just could not stop grinning. “Where are Bee and Rory? Can I go to them right away?”

“Immediately!” When Brennan turned that smile on me, I realized he was striking in
large part because he was at ease in himself. He was not burdened by the insecurities
and vanities that plagued Andevai.

“Let me finish here before we go,” said Vai, again settling a hand against my back.

“No need to accompany us if it’s any trouble for you, Magister.” Brennan examined
Vai with a distinct crinkle of laughter about his eyes. “I will return your wife to
you by nightfall.”

“It is no trouble for me to accompany you,” said Vai in a fruitless attempt to sound
unconcerned: His tone came off as threatening. “Indeed, I insist on it.”

“You can’t wish to wear that dash jacket in public,” I said.

Unfortunately the tailor sailed into the breach. “I have the other dash jacket ready,
Magister, if you will just come back with me to try it on. I assure you, it will fit
exactly as you wish.”

I followed Vai back behind the screen, where we chanced to have a few moments alone
as the tailor went to the wardrobe to fetch the other garment.

“I don’t know that I would call him the handsomest man I ever met,” he muttered with
such ill temper that I was tempted to smack him. “But the enchanting smile has a certain
stark effect.”

“Jealousy ill becomes you,” I whispered as I unbuttoned his jacket.

He glared.

“Also, I don’t like it.” I slipped the fourteenth button free and pressed my hands
to his shirt, beneath the jacket. “It makes it look as if you don’t trust me.”

His chest heaved. “Of course I trust you.”

“Do you?”

The tailor returned with the finished dash jacket, this one sewn out of a fine damask
dyed the color of a ripe peach. I stepped back hastily.

“Had you some remark upon the floral fabric, Maestra?” the tailor asked with a hopeful
bow.

“I think by all means it is entirely appropriate for a dash jacket,” I said as the
old man strove to contain his unprofessional wince at my unprofessional judgment.

Vai was too preoccupied by his own struggle to notice our aside. His tone could have
been chiseled from granite, it was so hard. “Go on, Catherine. I don’t need to accompany
you. Will Beatrice and your brother be returning to stay with us at the mage House?”

I took his hand. “It might be best to join them for supper at their domicile.”

The bell tinkled again as the door opened. A familiar voice said, “You’ve been in
here a long time, Brennan. You said to come in after you if there was trouble. Is
there trouble? Cat! I can smell you’re in here! Begging your pardon, Maesters. I didn’t
see you there. I’m Roderic Barr. It’s a pleasure to meet you. You’re sewing! I do
admire people who can sew. They have such nimble fingers!”

“Rory!” I shrieked, dashing out from behind the screen and into Rory’s arms. I looked
up into his smiling face. “You’re all right, both you and Bee?”

He kissed me soundly on each cheek in the traditional Kena’ani way. Still close, he
sniffed. “Goodness, Cat, that man has put his scent all over you!”

My cheeks must have flamed red, for the sewers turned their heads to hide their chuckles.
Brennan looked past me with a warning lift of
his chin. I released Rory as Vai stepped out from behind the screen in his unbuttoned
jacket.

“So she did rescue you!” Rory walked up to Vai and stared him down eye-to-eye. Rory
was a touch taller and he had puffed himself up in that odd way he had of making himself
seem bigger. “I am her brother. I look out for her.”

Vai did not budge. “Catherine is capable of looking out for herself.”

“You have sisters. You know what I mean.”

“How do you know I have sisters?”

“Cat tells me everything.” Rory made the words a challenge.

Brennan put a hand on my arm to keep me out of it. The tailor put a hand on the screen
to steady it in case there was an altercation.

Vai took in Rory’s black hair and golden eyes, and the badly mended and faded dash
jacket he was wearing. “Lord of All! That’s the jacket I wore the night of… it’s ruined!”

Rory’s smile was almost a wink. “It was this, or go naked. Not that I mind going naked,
but it does get cold. Be assured Cat already scolded me for ruining it and scolded
Bee for letting me wear it in the first place. I do like it when Cat scolds Bee, because
no one else does and I can assure you that nothing is more tiresome than Bee let loose
in the world with no one to scold her.” Without asking permission, he smoothed the
sleeve of the jacket Vai was wearing as Vai’s eyes widened in disbelief at the familiarity.
Rory practically purred. “I really like this color. You have the most beautiful clothes.”