Cold Steel (Spiritwalker 3)

“Like all honorable men, I show respect to the mother who bore and raised me,” said Vai with just the right touch of sternness. “As for your own envy, you’d have done better to apply yourself in the schoolroom instead of drinking, gambling, and whoring. Anyway, I don’t see that you could have managed to win and keep such a wife even had you the courage and ambition to attempt the hunt.”

“You were chosen to marry her only because the mansa did not want to waste a real man on a low marriage to a Phoenician girl who is merely a bastard with peculiar magic.”

“You simply are incapable of comprehending the mansa’s subtle mind.” Vai nodded at Rory.

To my astonishment Rory stripped right there in front of everyone with an alacrity that needed no dreams of dragons to predict. When he was stark naked—and never the least ashamed to be so!—he smiled charmingly around the company and then looked at Vai. Given another nod, he changed in a smear of darkness from man to cat.

Of course there was a gratifying outcry as Rory prowled the tent’s interior. He did look so lovely and magnificent, so sleek and powerful. The big cat padded up to the mansa’s nephew and butted him so hard in the belly that the man tumbled onto his ass. No one laughed; they were all too cursed nervous.

Then the big cat turned around and sprayed him.

The harsh smell overwhelmed everything except the sudden silence. When Lord Marius burst out laughing, the rest felt free to join in. The mansa’s nephew boiled up with knife drawn, full into the force of a roar that shook the air and made every man stop laughing and cower. All except Vai, who casually walked up to the cat and rested a hand on the beast’s shoulder.

I approached Lord Marius. “My lord, I am truly sorry about Amadou Barry. Please remember that Bee did try to save him. I come before you to offer my services as a scout and spy.”

He examined me, then nodded curtly. “You may pour the wine, Maestra Barahal.”

Thus was my status restored. They were so enamored of their rank and privilege that they could not imagine I would reject it.

The men settled to places at the table. The mansa’s nephew had to leave because he stank. Rory padded behind a screen and returned all dressed and smiling, to be offered a seat among the younger men, whom he quickly had eating out of his hand.

Lord Marius addressed the table. “Once the three legions out of Rome arrive, our Coalition will be too large a force for the general to defeat, whatever weaponry he carries in his arsenal. However, we suffer from a lack of reconnaissance. In the last months not a single scout has reported in.”

The Roman legate gestured with his empty cup. “You cannot believe a woman spy can succeed where men have failed?”

“What have we to lose by trying?” asked Lord Marius. “It was a shepherd’s wife who brought us news that Iberian skirmishers had been sighted near Cena.”

The legate shook his head. “Camjiata’s outriders can’t have reached Cena so quickly. Such an ignorant woman most likely mistook our own skirmishers for Iberians. Women are not fit for war. More wine, Maestra.”

As I poured, I smiled. “Do you think not, Your Excellency? I can easily sneak into the Iberian camp and out again without being seen.”

He saluted me with his full cup. “A pretty young woman like you must always be seen and admired. The Iberians have stymied every attempt by the Coalition and our own imperial troops to spy. I cannot recommend you dress as an Amazon to infiltrate their camp because everyone knows the general merely entertains his troops with that battalion of prostitutes. No chaste, modest woman like yourself would wish to be associated with such unnatural creatures.”

Vai tensed, surely preparing to defend my mother’s honor. I shook my head to warn him off replying, for I did not care one fig about the legate’s opinion.

To my surprise Lord Marius retorted in a sharp tone, “You would not speak so if you had seen the Amazons smash the gate at the siege of Burdigala. One man will certainly out-grapple one woman, but train a battalion of women with soldierly discipline and superior rifles, and you will find them hard to break. I will never again speak slightingly of the Amazon Corps, let me assure you.”

But just as I was feeling in charity with him, he turned to me, proffering a smile tinted with the prick of petty revenge. “I have a troop of skirmishers departing just now to scout south on the Cena Road. You can leave at once, Maestra. We will provide a kit for you.”

Since I had brought my basket and cane, I could scarcely refuse. Maybe it was better to make the parting swift and sudden, for the pain of leaving first Bee and then Vai cut regardless.

We took a moment’s privacy behind the screen. Vai clasped arms with Rory and released him. I thought he would kiss me, but instead he held my face in his hands as he whispered, “Return safely to me, my sweet Catherine.”

I could not speak, for a throat-choking fear deadened my heart. Blind Fortune had us in her claws. Any terrible thing might happen.

We had to press on.

Rory and I left the tent at once to be given over into the care of a competent cavalry commander named Lord Gwyn, who was as white in complexion and hair as his name suggested.

Two main roads led south from Lutetia. To the east the Liyonum Road ran via Senones to the old city of Liyonum. The mansa had gone that way to meet the Roman army. Lord Gwyn and his troop rode down the central Cena Road past a fortified estate they called Red Mount, which overlooked the road and the prospect of the city walls a mile away. On golden fields, laborers were cutting hay. They measured our passing in silence.

We made camp for the night in a grove of trees.

I crept away to do my business in privacy, for the split skirt made riding easy but peeing difficult. As I was making my way back, I stumbled onto a footpath. Soft footfalls alerted me to the presence of someone else. A rushlight appeared, revealing a girl of perhaps sixteen years hurrying along with a sack slung over her back and her head down as she marked each fearful step.

I drew my shadows around me. That was why the soldiers did not see me when they stepped onto the path. “Here, now, lass, running away to meet a lover, are you?”

She bolted back, but a man stepped out on the path behind her as well. “What a pretty treat this is on a dark night!” he said in a tone I could not like.