Cold Steel (Spiritwalker 3)

“My thanks, Your Excellency,” I said. He stood a head taller than me, big-boned and meaty without being ungainly. He went beardless in the Celtic fashion, which made him look younger than he probably was. His praise made me nervous. “That is a very fine damask. The color suits you.”

He chuckled. “Flattery may work on your husband, but it does not work with me.”

We halted before a set of doors carved with scenes of wolves leaping upon hapless deer. Attendants ushered us into a private parlor and shut the doors, leaving us alone. Dusk had settled over a garden outside. The mansa casually pulled a spark of cold fire from the air and let it grow to the size of his head. The chamber had gilt wallpaper and a ceiling painted with running gazelles and turbaned horsemen in pursuit. A second set of double doors, also closed, led to an unknown chamber on the right, while a single door on the left marked another unseen room beyond.

“You are an interesting creature, Catherine Bell Barahal. What do you want?”

“Your Excellency, do not think I am being disrespectful when I admit I am startled to be asked such a question by a man who previously sought to have me killed.”

“I am not often wrong, but now and again I make a mistake. You have many strange talents, and a command of magic outside my knowledge. As well, quite unexpectedly, I have seen changes in Andevai. It is true you brought him to defy me, when he never had before. But in showing complete loyalty to you, he has comported himself with remarkable discipline. A mansa would be well served with a wife like you.” My wince made him chuckle. “Do not misunderstand me. I have no interest in you on my own behalf.”

He clapped his hands thrice. The single door opened. A dignified and beautiful young woman entered. She wore a truly magnificent purple boubou with patterns of white roundels and a matching head wrap elaborately towered and knotted. Beside her, in my worn skirt and village tunic, I looked like the drab girl I was.

“What is your wish, Husband?” Her voice was elegant and cultured, her black complexion flawless, her wrists weighted with gold bracelets. “Ah, yes, as we discussed. I will take charge of you now, Maestra. I am Serena. You are Catherine. Please come with me.”

She offered a hand not to shake but to clasp in a sisterly greeting as she drew me into a woman’s sitting room decorated with low couches heaped with embroidered cushions on which people might comfortably relax and converse. Under one window stood a table with a chess set. Attendants hustled me behind a screen. They stripped me, washed me in scented water, dressed me in new underthings, and combed and braided my hair. Last they dressed me in a burgundy challis skirt, cut for striding, with a short jacket in thin stripes of rose and burgundy. I was no peacock, but then, I had never wanted to be. These well-tailored and sober clothes suited me perfectly.

Serena led me back through the parlor and through the double doors into a splendid dining room decorated in the old style, a long table surrounded by twenty-four cushions. Past another door I saw a staging area where male servants were arranging a veritable army of platters. At a side table an elderly steward supervised the decanting of multiple bottles of wine. After washing and drying our hands in a brass basin, we waited by the wine.

“I am told you are not House-raised, Catherine. In the mage Houses, when the mansa presides over a meal with important guests, it is customary for his wife to pour the wine and keep the glasses of the guests filled.” She sighed with a hint of exasperation. “I told the mansa it would be best to give me time with you to instruct you in the proper handling of the carafe and how to pour. Under the circumstances he cannot wish you to stumble, but…”

The far doors opened and the mansa entered. In his wake men streamed in, chatting as stewards showed them to their seats and brought bowls and towels for them to wash their fingers. No doubt the mansa had his own reasons for throwing me straight into the fire. Well! There was a lot about me he did not know!

As host of the gathering, the mansa naturally sat at one end of the table. The older guests were placed next to and then down from him in, I had to suppose, declining degrees of importance. The younger men were seated at the other half of the table. I recognized the mansa’s nephew, who had tried to kill me at Cold Fort and whom I had met again in Adurnam. When a steward directed him to a place midway down the table, close to neither end, the nephew cast me such a hostile look that I flinched.

Serena patted my hand. Under cover of the men’s talk she whispered, “Be gracious and silent. You must expect hostility from those who expected they were to be raised highest.”

To my surprise Mansa Viridor entered. He was seated in a place of honor among the younger men, to the left of the empty end cushion. Viridor saw me, then glanced toward the door.

Just when I realized Vai had not the status to be invited to such an exalted gathering of august magisters and princely allies, he walked in, last of all. His beard was freshly trimmed. He had let his hair grow out a little. He wore a long black-and-gold riding jacket trimmed with soldierly red braid, slim trousers, and gleaming boots. Possibly, I might have sighed longingly.

Serena’s fingers caught mine as she whispered, “You are staring at him. Do not. It makes you look like the cheapest sort of serving girl in a tavern where laborers congregate after work.”

Vai glanced at the mansa, already seated, and dipped his chin respectfully as he looked down at the only cushion left, the place at the opposite end that faced the mansa down the length of the table. He paused there for long enough that every man had to acknowledge that Andevai Diarisso Haranwy would take the seat that mirrored the mansa’s. His gaze flashed up to mark me, the message in his beautiful eyes so searing in its intensity that Serena sucked in a sharp breath. Maybe he meant it to be a private intimacy shared between us, but he hadn’t my years of experience in effacing myself in order to let Bee absorb all the notice. Every man at the table turned to look at us two women.

“I serve the elder men, you the younger,” Serena murmured, careful not to look any of them in the eye. “Be graceful and serene.”

With an aplomb I admired, she picked up a carafe and swept over to the mansa. The steward indicated another carafe, which I carried to the other end where Vai was seated. This was no different from serving drinks at Aunty Djeneba’s boardinghouse, except any mistake here would reveal me as a waddling duck pretending to be a swan and allow every mage who hated Vai the chance to laugh at him.

I watched Serena kneel behind the mansa to pour into the offering cup and then his cup. She poured for the older men in a zigzag order according to their proximity to the mansa. A steward hovered at her right hand to replace the emptying carafe with a new one. Only when she had finished did I kneel just behind and to the right of Vai and reach past him for his wineglass. My arm brushed his, and his eyes closed briefly. After filling his cup, I poured for the young men in the proper order, copying her movements in reverse, and retreated to the side table. Serena’s approving nod saturated me with an unreasonable amount of satisfaction.

I could be serene!

Male servants carried in platters of delicacies never seen in our weeks in custody: chicken simmered in onion and mustard, fish cooked with tomatoes, a haunch of peppered beef, and skewers of grilled goat on beds of spinach, a constant stream of dishes. The men set to their meal.

Young men drink faster than their elders, and my job was to anticipate before any glass was emptied. Conversation flowed as steadily as the wine, the older men in serious discussion and the younger men jesting in quiet voices among themselves, for they had not the right to interrupt the older men’s conversation. Vai spoke rarely and only in answer to questions put directly to him. Not that I was looking at him all the time. I was too busy pouring wine.

How the men did stare at me as I moved around the table! Not in the flirtatious way I had enjoyed at the boardinghouse but as a man may measure an ill-fitting suit of clothes he is surprised to see offered to him as one of good quality. The mansa’s nephew and several cronies seated beside him were the worst, calling me over before their cups were empty as if to suggest I had not noticed. I did my duty in as patient a manner as possible, for I was determined not to shame Vai. Furthermore, at last I had the opportunity to spy in the mage House.

Confined in the chamber and garden, I had heard no news at all for over four months. Now I heard every word they said.

War had come to Europa.

General Camjiata had united the Iberians and marched an army over the Pyrene Mountains. In a series of running battles he had pushed north and, with a mastery of strategy and tactics that utilized his modern rifles and cannons to best effect, he had defeated every force sent against him. Worst, several Gallic princes had declared neutrality or even shifted allegiance to support the Iberian Monster. Inflamed by radical agitators, towns and villages had risen up against their masters and welcomed the general’s troops.

st of the gathering, the mansa naturally sat at one end of the table. The older guests were placed next to and then down from him in, I had to suppose, declining degrees of importance. The younger men were seated at the other half of the table. I recognized the mansa’s nephew, who had tried to kill me at Cold Fort and whom I had met again in Adurnam. When a steward directed him to a place midway down the table, close to neither end, the nephew cast me such a hostile look that I flinched.

Serena patted my hand. Under cover of the men’s talk she whispered, “Be gracious and silent. You must expect hostility from those who expected they were to be raised highest.”