Cold Fire (Spiritwalker 2)

With him walked his brother by marriage, the young Roman legate Amadou Barry, whose father was both Roman patrician and West African prince and whose mother had been born into a noble Malian lineage. His Roman ambassadorial cape and the cut of his old-fashioned uniform certainly flattered him, although he had a frown on his handsome face.

“I admire his bravado,” Lord Marius was saying. “But I’ll have to have him fined for disrespect. I can’t challenge a laborer to a duel.”

“You Celts argue too much over fine points of honor. This seems like a chase after a wild goose, as you say up here in the north.” His gaze flowed right past me as he scanned the room. “Jupiter Magnus! Have you ever seen such a mess?”

Lord Marius had a hearty laugh. “Perhaps it merely belongs to a mind whose idea of tidiness isn’t the same as ours. It’s no worse than your sister’s dressing room.”

Amadou Barry halted three steps into the room. I eased back to the bed on which lay the peacock jacket. “Sissy was ever so. I’m amazed by the resourcefulness of those two girls.”

“Everyone has underestimated them, that is sure. Not least you, Amadou. Were you just that sure she would accept the—ah—position as your mistress?”

“I am a prince and a legate. Her family is impoverished and not respectable. She can’t ever hope to receive a better offer.”

Unless it was an offer to throttle him. As if a fire had been laid in the hearth and lit, my temperature rose.

“Quite so. I’m surprised to hear a Phoenician refused a lucrative contract—” Lord Marius broke off, gaze tightening. “Did you see something?”

Calm. I had to remain calm.

“In Beatrice? Faithful Venus, Marius! Even you must see something in her. She is the most delectable—”

“If I have to hear you praise her shining eyes and cherry lips one more time, I will have one of my men shoot me to put myself out of my misery.”

“She will not sigh when I am dead,” said Amadou.

“Nor will she lie with you for gold, it seems, which is the next line in the famous poem by the Thrice-Praised poet Bran Cof.”

Amadou sighed. “I misplayed my hand. I was too accommodating.”

Lord Marius paced the chamber, passing an arm’s length from where I stood with my buttocks crushed against the high metal frame of the bed, holding my breath. “Women are hard to please. I could have sworn I saw a flicker of movement. Must have been the light.”

“How do we know the girls are anywhere near this district? Much less in this house?”

“The mansa specifically told me to follow the cold mage. We’re not to trust him. If he says to go left, then we go right.”

“Ah, so that’s why you turned this way when he wanted to ride back to Enterprise Road.”

“That’s right. Then one of my soldiers saw the cold mage see someone up on this roof, and my man thought it was a female, so here we are.” Lord Marius paced to the door and glanced into the hall. He gestured to someone before turning back. “You know, Amadou, whatever you think about your Beatrice’s raven-black ringlets and bonny curves, this business of hunting down girls makes me uneasy. It’s beneath us. Meanwhile, that commoner in the hall is right, curse him. The Northgate poet sits on the steps of my cousin’s court. Each day the poet does not eat, he heaps more shame on my clan’s honor. I fear we are not getting out of this without a bloodbath.”

“The plebes will mob and riot. It’s in their breeding. We’ve known that in Rome for centuries. The sooner the militia drives the rabble off the streets, the better for all. If more blood were spilled, there’d be less trouble.”

“Do you suppose so?” drawled a far-too-familiar voice. “I would think a timely hailstorm would drive people inside without causing undue harm.”

Andevai walked into the bedchamber. I could not call his expression a smile.

“That’s an interesting thought, Magister,” said Marius. “Can you manage such a storm?”

Andevai’s cool vanished like frost under the sun. “Of course I can!”

“I meant no offense, Magister. It would be a cursed sight better way to restore order than cutting people down. In my experience as a soldier…”

Gaze straying from Lord Marius to the bright disorder of clothing and fabric strewn across the beds, Andevai saw me.

He saw me.

Lord Marius had broken off. “Magister? What’s wrong?”

Andevai blinked. “I was…just…stunned…” His gaze flickered to the bed. “That jacket. Orange bars. Blue scallops. Peacock-winged spectacles. And a ruff?! Quite stunning. You would have to really…wear colors…and lace…to pull that off in a jacket.”