Spiritwalker 3: Cold Steel (64 page)

He meant the accusation I had thrown after him. “I spoke my worst fear, that you would
become one of them.”

With a frown he wedged the back of the chair under the latch and sat on it to wrestle
off his boots. “I am one of them.”

“You are not like your tormenters!” I sat on the bed, searching out the words I wanted
to say without beating him over the head with them. “You are vain, my love. And you
stand a little high upon your pride. I think Rory is right, that you are a tiny bit
ashamed of where you come from and who your mother is, and then naturally because
you are at heart a good son and a good man, you are ashamed of being ashamed.”

He set the boots against the wall, not looking at me, but I knew Rory’s words had
made an impression on him. I also knew that as much as he struggled to control his
worst impulses, he would never be a restful person to deal with. Rather like Bee,
no matter what she thought about herself! Yet he had come back to face censure rather
than walk away to a life he could easily lead without me.

“I do see what is going on among the mages, love, but that does not mean I will let
it deter me. I never did before, and I will not now.” He examined me in the most searching
way. “I do see you cannot live within the mage Houses as they are currently run. Even
if I asked you to, I see that you will not. What do you mean to do, Catherine?”

“Kill James Drake. Camjiata believes he controls Drake, but Drake must be using catch-fires.
If Drake becomes as powerful as Queen Anacaona, do you believe he will behave as she
did, with respect for the law and the ancestors? What will happen to the general’s
legal code then?”

He held my gaze. “You must promise me you will not challenge him unless there is absolutely
no risk to you.”

“Like stabbing him in the back?”

“You have no way to defend yourself if he uses you as a catch-fire!”

“Even fire mages have to sleep. Of course I will be prudent.”

“It would be the first time,” he muttered. “I would feel better if you took Rory with
you to watch your back.”

“I will. Vai, you must promise me you will not become the mage the mansa wants you
to be.”

“I will not become that man. No matter how it may seem, I have had no change of heart.
It always has been Kofi and the radicals of
Expedition I stand with, since the day I met him. Just as it has always and only been
you for me, Catherine, from the moment I saw you. But above everything, you and I
must trust each other.”

Let kisses fall where they may: Desire may flourish or wither in the space of a breath.
Trust is a rock that will withstand every storm.

I extended a hand. He took it between his. “I give you my trust, Vai.”

“Always,” he echoed. Releasing my hand, he rose to begin unbuttoning his waistcoat.
“But next time, love, warn me beforehand so I can be prepared, or we can work out
some better scheme.”

The practiced way his fingers worked the rounded pearl buttons distracted me.

“Catherine? Had you something to say?”

“Oh! Yes. Why not tell the mansa I escaped so as to prove what a valuable spy I can
be?”

“Why would they believe such a story?” He tossed his waistcoat on top of the jacket.

“They won’t know for sure, will they? If the mansa truly means you to be his heir,
then he must allow you to prove yourself. As an explanation, it may serve to put them
on the defensive…”

As he pulled off his shirt, I forgot what I was going to say.

“Go on,” he said.

At the dressing table he poured water into the basin and set in on his evening ablutions,
washing his face and teeth and then using a damp cloth to wipe down his bare torso.
In the midst of this he paused, wrinkling his brow as he pretended to be puzzled by
my silence.

“Catherine? Had you more to say?”

A wave of aggravation swept me. Curse the man for being so attractive. “Andevai, those
are gorgeous clothes and you look very handsome in them… or out of them… but if you
do not hang them on the clothes rack they will get creased and rumpled.”

He pulled me up off the bed and into his arms with such strength that my toes briefly
left the ground. He was not minded to be subtle or coaxing or patient. I floated,
the heady pleasure of his kiss like ambrosia, as it always was.

When we paused he spoke in a murmur against my cheek as his hands began to wander
their familiar paths. “What makes you think I care?”

I slapped his hand. “Of course you care! Anyway, I can’t bear to see such expensive
clothes treated so carelessly. I shall do it, if you will not.”

He sat us on the bed and undid the double row of buttons on my cuirassier’s jacket.
“Very well. Did you repair this, love? This is what you were wearing when you were
shot. I would have thought it must have been cut off you.”

“I did not want to throw away what they had almost ruined. It felt too much like defeat.”

“It’s beautiful work, making something new out of what was torn.”

“They always think they are about to defeat us. For so long we have been at their
mercy.” I grinned. “But now we are going to fight back.”

“Truly, now we can.” He slipped me out of the jacket. “Only your bodice beneath! I
see you have not forgotten the Expedition style of dressing, for I must say that you
in a simple bodice and wrapped skirt waiting tables on a hot night is what I love
best, however beautiful you look in your other clothes. Or out of them.”

He undid the lacing on my bodice. The white pucker of scars on my shoulder he kissed
as he began on the fastenings of my skirt.

I reveled in the caress of his lips on my neck and the playful wandering of his hands.
“Vai, this is no time for me to risk becoming pregnant. Do you have…?”

“No need, love. Rory gave me the sign that you’re not fertile right now.”

I pulled out of his arms. “You and Rory have a
signal arranged
?”

“If you’d rather not, we shall stop here.” By the crinkling at his eyes and the wry
cut of his lips, he was laughing silently at me. “I can sleep on the floor.”

“You will not be sleeping on the floor!”

“In truth, although I am sorry to have to say this to you, every night at Two Gourds
House I returned ready to tell you everything that had happened. But you would drag
me to the bed first and make it clear what you wanted before I even had a chance to
talk. Naturally, given our exertions, I would fall asleep afterward. Then I was always
called away early before we could converse at length.”

“That’s not how it happened!”

“It is!”

Blessed Tanit. Maybe it had been. “I was so very bored all day long.”

His smile faded as he leaned forward to embrace me. “I did listen to what they said
to me, love. I do hear you. I want you to know that, before we are parted.”

“I know.” I held him close, for the thought of tomorrow filled me with excitement
at the challenge, and yet also with dread at leaving him and Bee.

“All will be well,” he murmured, as if by sheer stubborn effort he could make it so.

I raised my lips to his and, after all, we forgot about the clothes until much later,
at which point they were all rumpled and creased.

He was gone when I woke in the morning.

I hurriedly dressed and ran down to the courtyard to discover him in his rumpled clothes
facing off with Bee across a table. A pot of coffee and her open sketchbook sat between
them.

“Broken cups are little enough to go on,” Bee was saying to him, tapping the sketch
on the open page. It depicted a porcelain coffeepot and cups shattered into pieces
around a tipped-over chair. Fortunately it was not the pot on our table.

I slipped onto the bench beside him, not sure of their mood because his eyebrows were
raised and she wore a broody frown. His look acknowledging my arrival shared our night
all over again. I smiled in answer.

Bee muttered under her breath, “Blessed Tanit, spare me,” then, in a normal voice,
“Do you really know what this is, Andevai?”

He looked at the sketch as his eyes narrowed. “I know exactly what it is. This is
Gold Cup House at Lemovis. The Coalition army was retreating north out of Burdigala
after we suffered a crushing defeat there. The Iberians were right behind us. The
Coalition halted at Lemovis. The mage House called Gold Cup House lies at the edge
of the town, on the river. The mansa and I went to them to warn them they should evacuate,
because the mage House in Burdigala was burned to the ground during the battle, almost
certainly by Drake. Even to that point, the mansa wasn’t quite sure he believed me
about fire magic. It’s impossible to make people here in Europa understand, for all
such magic has always been strictly contained and controlled by the blacksmiths.”

“But wouldn’t they notice when people died as catch-fires? When the mage House in
Burdigala burned?” she asked.

“How do you distinguish a fire lit by a mage from one lit by tinder? In war, it is
hard to believe in the deaths of catch-fires when dead people are everywhere. The
mansa and I were having coffee with Gold Cup’s mansa when Iberian skirmishers arrived
in advance of Camjiata’s main army. Drake specifically meant to strike at the mage
House. He did not know the mansa and I were there. He threw his fire into Gold Cup’s
mansa, who was entirely unprepared to act as a catch-fire, and meanwhile set the whole
cursed compound on fire. Children and elders trapped inside as if they were so much
refuse!”

He looked away. Bee extended a hand to touch his arm, but she withdrew it and pressed
her palm to her chest instead.

He shook himself. “That was when I discovered that to be a catch-fire is not just
a passive thing, when the fire mage throws the backlash into you and you must endure
it. In desperation, hoping to save the Gold Cup mansa’s life, I found out it is possible
to pull the backlash out of another person and into myself. Any cold mage can do it
if they are strong enough. It was too late for the mansa of Gold Cup House, but working
together the mansa and I were able to quench the fire. I am certain I almost got that
cursed fire mage to burn himself up. Lord Marius had time to deploy his army on the
best ground. It was a bloody battle, but against Camjiata, they say a draw is as good
as a victory. Anyway, all that expensive porcelain shattered in just this arrangement
when the old mansa toppled over. I remember it exactly.”

“That’s when the mansa named you heir, isn’t it?” I said softly.

“Yes. That’s when he finally believed me.” He let out a breath. “Beatrice, I recognize
the trust you have shown by sharing these sketches with me. I thank you.”

“Most never mean anything to me. Yet the general could always find their meaning.”

I shrugged. “So he claims. He could easily have guessed I would try to escape on a
Phoenician vessel just as the tide turned that morning in Expedition. I suspect the
sketches remind him of connections he then sews together. He doesn’t need dreams for
that.”

“You’re the last person who should be such a skeptic, Cat.” She displayed a sketch
of three hats: a half-crushed tricorn hat pinned by a
badge in the shape of a lion’s head, a fashionable shako like mine that was ornamented
with peacock feathers, and a humble cloth cap with a shard of glass caught in its
crumpled folds. “What can anyone possibly make of this?”

“The shako is what Camjiata’s Amazons wear,” said Vai. Under the table he hooked his
foot around my ankle. “I thought the style would look well on Catherine. The lion’s-head
badge is the token of the Numantian League of Iberia, where Camjiata was born. The
other is a farmer’s cap.”

“Yes, but what does it mean? Besides something to do with the war?” Bee refilled his
cup and poured one for me. “Cat, dearest, do stand up and let me see those clothes.
This isn’t what you were wearing yesterday.”

When I rose she examined my split skirt, jacket, and jaunty hat as Vai’s somber expression
lightened at her exclamation of delight.

“What a splendid outfit! I adore the shako, although I could never wear it. Goodness,
Andevai, I shall have to ignore all your roostering about in the hope you will take
me to a dressmaker and get me an entire new wardrobe, too. We are sister and brother
now, are we not?”

He smiled. She smiled. A spark of connection flashed between them.

A server brought a bowl of porridge and a platter of bread as well as another pot
of coffee. Rory plopped down, stifling a yawn, and waited for Bee to pour him coffee.

“Where are the others?” I asked as I dug into the porridge.

Bee said, “They have all left already for a meeting with the underground council of
radical leaders. I’ll follow after I have said goodbye to you, dearest.”

Vai touched my hand. “We must go, love. I promised Lord Marius I would bring you to
pour the wine at his midday dinner today.”

“Did you?” demanded Bee. “Were all those fine speeches false coin, Andevai, just to
make sure she would go back with you like a trophy on a rope?”

He met her gaze with a flicker of annoyance. “No. And you know they weren’t, don’t
you? Maybe you just don’t like that she is the center of people’s attention for once,
instead of you.”

Rory looked up from his porridge. “I promise you, Cat, I will bite
their heads off if they do not behave, for it is a sunny day today and I am in too
good a mood to have it ruined by their jealous posturing.”

I laughed and, after a fraught pause, fortunately Bee and Vai did as well.

It was harder than I’d thought to leave Bee. Vai and Rory waited at the gate with
the saddled horse and our gear.

“I wish I could come with you, dearest, as Rory can,” she said.

“Camjiata will never let you go if he gets hold of you again, nor will the mansa.
I do believe Kehinde and Brennan would let you walk away if you choose to do so.”

“That is why I trust them.” She bent a frown on me. “You must not let Vai bully you.”