Spiritwalker 3: Cold Steel (68 page)

Rory snarled, causing Drake to startle back.

“You are too late, Drake. I have already been tried and acquitted by the Taino court
of ancestors, in the spirit world.” I swung the basket around and pulled out the skull.

Drake’s nose wrinkled up. He brushed a finger along his clean-
shaven chin, glanced at the pretty blonde, then looked back at me. “There is something
very wrong with you, Cat. Put that skull away, if you please, for it does not impress
or frighten me. Indeed, you do nothing but poke at people with your impertinent questions
and your outrageous tales, and all to no purpose except to annoy.”

He had never figured out that there was something odd about my answering questions
with questions, not as Vai had immediately. Blessed Tanit! What an ass!

The thought made me smile mockingly, and of course my smile roused his temper.

“Enough! I am now wed to the daughter of the honored Armorican prince who is overlord
of all the Veneti dukedoms. Such an honor is due me as a son of the Ordovici kings
of old.”

“The Ordovici kings of old? Of what are you trying to convince me, Drake?” I asked,
for this boasting, defensive mood puzzled me. “That because you are highborn I ought
to overlook your boorish behavior? You cannot think I regret the way we parted, or
the choice I made.”

He laughed nastily. “You’ll soon be sorry you didn’t take a princely crown when it
was offered to you.”

Camjiata stepped into the breach. “My steward has been at pains to signal that our
dinner is ready to be served. Let us not delay the repast, for my command staff is
waiting. Lord Drake, will you and Lady Angeline join us?”

She answered for Drake in a cultured, formal voice. “We would be pleased to join you,
General.”

She smiled soothingly at Drake—rather, I supposed, as Bee might say I sometimes smiled
soothingly at Vai when he had climbed up onto his highest horse of intemperate disdain.
Only, of course, Vai was no murderer. Was she a smart woman who had learned to manage
him, or a frightened one eager to assuage his fits and starts? Her gaze flicked my
way as she hooked fingers along his elbow.

“Come along, Cat,” said Camjiata with an unusual hint of asperity. “I think you have
made enough of a scene for the moment.”

“Me?”

He steered me commandingly toward an interior door. In a side chamber, a table had
been laid with settings. Eight people waited, expressions brightening with interest
when they saw me and Rory, and
darkening when Drake and his bride—and the six catch-fires and the four young fire
mages and the six soldiers—entered. Among the command staff I noted the one-eyed proprietor
of the Speckled Iguana in Expedition, the man who had once fought alongside my mother
at Alesia.

A woman stepped forward. She wore a sober brown skirt and jacket, fitted with a second
cutaway sleeve on her left arm in the same green fabric and silver braid worn by the
Amazon Corps. Her black skin was remarkably unlined considering her hair was half
gone to silver.

“Proud Diana! You must be Tara Bell’s child. Even with that hair and coloring, I would
know you to be hers.”

“Doctor Asante,” Camjiata said, “I would like to introduce to you Catherine Bell Barahal.”

She took my hands between hers and stared for the longest time in a way that made
me dreadfully uncomfortable. Her dark eyes shone with unshed tears.

“You knew my mother?”

“I loved your mother very dearly, Catherine Bell Barahal. Besides that, I midwifed
you into the world. Tara was weak from her terrible injuries. I trusted no one else
to make sure she came through the ordeal alive. It was a frightful day.” Her fingers
tightened on mine. “Not that your life was ever at issue, for you came out squalling
like so many cats fighting in an alley.”

“You were there when I was born?” I repeated stupidly.

“Quite the noisiest newborn I have ever heard.” She chuckled, then sobered. “I am
glad to see you well, little cat, for I never heard of what became of you after Tara
and Daniel fled.”

“Yet now is not the time of speak of such things, Doctor,” Camjiata murmured.

“Anyone would think you were trying not to anger Drake,” I said in a low voice.

He casually stepped on my foot to silence me, then smilingly introduced me to his
command staff, soldierly men with self-assured expressions. The one-eyed innkeeper
was in reality the infamous Marshal Aualos, called by the Romans “the butcher of Zena.”
Captain Tira entered with a cadre of Amazons who arrayed themselves along the wall
as the command staff took their places. Camjiata sat me at his
left hand and Drake to his right. By the number of glances at the red-garbed youths
and by Drake’s smirking expression, I could tell the fire mage made everyone uncomfortable.

When wine was poured, Camjiata toasted the gathering.

“Here we have Captain Tara Bell’s child, come to join our cause.”

“And my bed,” said Drake with a laugh. “Where is that cold mage, Cat? The one you
claimed was dead, when in fact you spirited him away in order to keep him safe from
me? Now you are come to spy for him.”

“I came here to ask for help,” I said. “He’s being held prisoner.”

“Which must explain why we have seen him riding with the Coalition forces. He quite
spoiled my efforts to burn down the mage House in Lemovis. Do you think we’re fools,
Cat?”

Again, Camjiata’s foot pressed on mine, unseen beneath the table.

It was a good thing he was seated between us.

“I think you are not in possession of all the facts,” I retorted. “His family and
indeed his home village is being held hostage for his behavior. He supports the general’s
legal code, but if he does not serve the mansa, they will all be put to death.”

Drake’s blue eyes sparked as a tendril of fire laced from him into one of the catch-fires.
“If the general would release me to ride west, I would be happy to rid Four Moons
House of its chain on Andevai Diarisso by burning the House to the ground. Then he
need not be held hostage. Anyway, your excuses stink like lies. You can’t possibly
expect me to believe he was born into a rabble of unwashed, illiterate slaves. Or
that he would risk his power and rank to help such people.”

As he gloated, hoping to needle me into a burst of rash action, I watched the others.
Marshal Aualos wore the blank mask of a man suppressing his feelings. Others—hardened
soldiers!—looked nervous, as if they feared the whole chamber might roar into flames.
Only Lady Angeline appeared unruffled. I admired the calm way she demolished her leek
soup. I wondered if she, like Drake, found it so very unbelievable that a powerful
cold mage could be born in a humble village.

Camjiata sighed. “Given that we have a war on, I thought we might discuss our plans.
I believe that is the usual business of a command staff.”

“In front of her?” Drake objected. “When she will certainly steal away into the night
and spill every word she hears back to the mages?”

“The mages who tried to kill me, do you mean?” I retorted. “Truly, you have no idea
of my history, to think I might ever wish to aid them!”

“I know something of your history, Maestra.” Marshal Aualos broke in as if making
a flanking movement to turn the tide of a skirmish. He had the breadth of a man gone
stout with age but still packed with muscle, well prepared for soldiering. “Your mother
was one of the best soldiers I ever served with. She was tall, like you, but heftier,
very strong. Absolutely up to the mark in every way. But of course the Amazons always
had to be better than the men just to prove they were fit for the task. Most folk
in Europa say women ought not be engaged in war.”

“If a war is being fought, surely women are engaged whether they wish to be or not.
The only difference is whether they can defend themselves.”

He smiled. “Spoken like your mother.”

His words pleased me. “Thank you. As it happens, I read the words in my father’s journals.
The ones he wrote when he was collecting intelligence for his family in the service
of the general’s first war.” I pressed my own boot atop Camjiata’s rather harder than
I needed to. He did not flinch.

“We may hope the daughter will prove as valuable as the father.” Camjiata slid a glance
at me that cut like a surgeon’s scalpel. “As it happens, I left the journals at the
Hassi Barahal house, in Gadir, with Daniel’s next of kin. Yet some Hassi Barahals
travel with the army, among my clerks and intelligencers. I’m sure my chief of intelligence
will have some idea of how to make use of you.”

Frowning, I stared at my plate. The moment of choice was upon me. Did I admire Camjiata’s
legal code more than I distrusted him? Did I stand with the radicals? Yes, I did.

I captured his gaze. “The Coalition army is camped outside Lutetia, under the command
of Lord Marius of the Tarrant clan. A Roman army is marching north via Senones along
the Liyonum Road, three legions in all plus a fourth already with the Coalition. Hard
to see how you can defeat such an allied force.”

“It is always hard to see victory if one does not have vision.” His nod made me think
he spoke in code, warning me, but he smiled impartially around the table. “My thanks,
Cat. Your timely arrival and this intelligence gives us just the advantage we need
at this juncture. Let us consider what this means. This army has the discipline and
speed to reach Lutetia in two days’ march. Our army is smaller than the combined alliance
of Coalition and Romans. But if we reach Lutetia before the Romans do—something they
won’t expect we can manage—we can defeat the Coalition and immediately turn to face
the Romans as they come up from the south. That gives us the advantage in both battles.
Once we win Lutetia, I will proclaim the Declaration of Rights on the very steps of
the prince’s palace, where it was first proclaimed twenty-two years ago. My proclamation
of a new and more expansive legal code will embolden many a prudent Gallic lord to
abandon the Coalition and join our cause, just as it will rally the guilds and laborers
and all those trapped by clientage to our side. Justice will be the reward gained
by all.”

“Now that I think of it,” Drake said, “I haven’t asked for any prize of war to this
date, have I? All I want is the cold mage. I need him alive so he can acknowledge
my long-awaited victory.” He sipped at his wine with a musing smile. “People do feel
envy when they must admit that another is better than they are. As your husband will
soon discover.”

Sadly, I laughed. I shouldn’t have, but I did, nor did I trouble to hide my scorn.
“Oh, he already knows he’s better than you.”

A thread of fire spun out of Drake and into me. Its heated touch made me gasp, half
in fear and half with the cruel grasp of magic-borne lust. My fingers lost the strength
to hold the utensils, which clattered onto the plate.

“Cat?” Rory pushed back his chair.

A second catch-fire shimmered, catching the backlash as one of the girls spun a candle
flame above her cupped hand and took a threatening step toward Rory. He drew up short,
to the girl’s sarcastic laughter.

The girl hadn’t Drake’s finely honed control. Her catch-fire moaned, “It hurts.”

“Stop it!” I shouted, leaping to my feet. My chair crashed to the floor behind me.

The sliced folds of roasted beef caught fire on my plate as heat scalded through me.
I coughed, fumbling at my cane, for by the gods I would crack his head open before
he killed me.

The heat ceased. The girl’s dancing flame vanished. The catch-fire slumped to the
floor, and not one person moved to help him. Yet I could not help but notice how Captain
Tira had arrayed her soldiers, giving them clear shots at Drake and the four young
fire mages. Lady Angeline cast me a look that would have murdered a lesser creature.

“Come now, Cat, don’t make me angry.” Drake brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes.
“I just want you to watch when your husband begs me not to harm you because he’s not
strong enough to kill my fire. Or perhaps, better yet, when he’s brought before me
in shackles, and I ask you to choose between me killing him or you becoming my concubine
for him to see.”

I cast a disbelieving look at Camjiata, but he was watching Captain Tira in a fixed
way that made me think he was ready to blink an order if need be. Melqart’s Balls!
Who was in charge here?

With curled lip, I addressed Drake. “Obviously to save his life I would do what I
must.”

“That would make you a whore.”

“No, Drake. It would make you a coward. For this is the coward’s way, to boastingly
strut when there is no real threat to his own self.” I turned my attention to the
chamber at large, in disgust. “Have we played this scene for long enough? James Drake
insults me, hoping to degrade me in your eyes, and I defend myself. Is there a hope
for an end to this mockery? Or am I merely his latest victim…?”

I trailed off to let my thoughts catch up to my mouth. Fiery Shemesh! Vai had warned
me to be prudent. But it was just so hard when Drake sat there lording it over them,
him and his deadly fire magic and his young acolytes and their captive catch-fires.
All of them could die. Captain Tira’s pistol and sword were fast, but fire outraced
steel.

So I smiled and laughed, stepped around Camjiata, and kissed Drake on the cheek as
I had kissed my sire to take him off guard. He recoiled as if I had knifed him in
the gut.

“You’re so clever, all of you! I see what you’re about. You don’t trust me, me appearing
so suddenly and with such a tale, so you have appointed Drake to carry out a cunning
interrogation. But I assure
you, everything I have told you is true. My husband’s mother and sisters were dangled
as hostages before him so he had no choice but to bow his head to the mansa’s yoke.
His radical sympathies have not changed.”

I righted the chair, nodded at Rory, and sat down. My fingers trembled only a little
as I considered the smoking ash of my beef. The mood in the chamber shifted from a
knife’s edge to blunt wariness.