Cold Magic (40 page)

“Why did you call me Cat? You cannot have known that is the pet name I’ve been called by my”—
family
—”by others.”

“But you are Cat.” He clearly seemed to expect I would treat him in the manner of a long-lost relative, when in fact he was just another chance-met stranger on the road. “You don’t believe me,” he added. “Why else would we come to aid you, and be able to find you, if you did not call for us?”

“We?”

“My mother and aunt and sister and cousins and niece.”

“I met your mother already?”

“Of course you did.”

“She was the djeli?”

He laughed. “Cat, you are not stupid. So I wish you would not pretend to be.”

I cast my gaze at the sky. Clouds softened the horizon; the sun sank, and soon it would be night and deathly cold even for a denizen of the spirit world masquerading in human form in the mortal world. The cold air congealed my words, or maybe I did not want to say them, because saying them would make it true. Or make me believe it could be true.

“Are you saying you are one of the saber-toothed cats who came to my rescue?”

He sighed as if, having told me all along there was a view to the outside, he was forced to confirm it by opening the shutters himself.

“Are you saying my father is a saber-toothed cat?”

He waved a hand dismissively. He had the most absorbing way of moving, like beauty made flesh. “Oh… him. What does anyone know about him? My mother once called him a… How would you say it?” He tapped his chin. “A tomcat?”

“If you mean to say he roams around to satisfy his base desires, fighting with other males and impregnating females, then, yes, he would be called a tomcat.”

“Yes. That’s it.”

“That’s not a flattering portrait of the man—the creature—who sired me!”

“No,” he agreed without heat. No doubts or unmet dreams about his sire tormented him! “Didn’t your mother tell you anything about him?”

“She’s dead.”

“Oh,”he said. “That happens here in the Deathlands, doesn’t it?” He broke off to eye the heavens with a squint, frowning briefly. “The day is not much longer meant to brighten us here, is it? Will it be warmer at night?”

I glanced toward the road. The fields wore a cloak of snow, the kind whose surface has grown hard from days exposed to sun and wind and bitter cold. Traffic passed at intervals; on such a day, not many folk cared to be out and about. A man leading a laden donkey glanced our way, and a party of armed men dressed in tabards to mark their service to a nobleman’s household clattered past.

“No, it will be colder, and we will freeze to death. So the first thing is, we’ve got to travel without drawing notice to ourselves.” How quickly I proceeded from “I” to “we.” I made the calculations in my head. I had to reach Adurnam and warn Bee. I was alone, and young, and female. He was male, definitely that, and it appeared he felt obligated to protect me. Also, I was beginning to really shiver. “We will walk into Lemanis. You will keep your mouth shut. I will find us a modest room in a modest inn. There, you will remain while I hunt clothing for you.”

“Mama will approve of you. Out hunting for me already!”

“Be serious! You must say nothing until I have devised a suitable story that people may not believe but will accept.”

I started to walk, and I was relieved that, as he strode beside me, he had the prudence to keep the cloak pulled shut with one hand so as not to display any more of himself than he had to. His bare feet flashing below the hem looked frightful enough, padding across the snow. We reached the road and clambered up onto its pavement, an artifact of the old empire.

“First of all, you must have a name.” I frowned at him. He did look like me; no one would think it exceptional if I claimed him as my brother. The most singular difference was in our complexions, mine lighter and somewhat golden, not uncommon among the Kena’ani, while he had that reddish brown coloring. “Roderic,” I said, “for your complexion. I’ll call you Rory for your pet name.”

“I like to be petted.” His smile startled a pair of women beating rugs outside the gates. They simpered as he slowed to eye them very much in the manner of a tomcat thinking of going on the prowl.

I elbowed him hard in the ribs. “Move on, you imbecile. Beyond anything, we must not attract notice.” With him sauntering beside me, it was too late for that.

The surrounding gardens and fields and copses lay bare under winter’s hands. The view opened westward across the Levels to where the sun sank into the high country of Anderida.

We passed under the unguarded gate. What was there to guard against? The princes and mage Houses kept the roads and towns at peace under their rule, and while a few cohorts of restless youth might ride in small bands in the countryside pretending to raid cattle, or hiring themselves out to a lord or a mage House for a season or two, most such bands had long since been absorbed into the great households of the noble and the wealthy.

Lemanis bore the stamp of better days. Its streets did not bustle. Some of the stone buildings had fallen into disrepair, and gardens lay fallow in generous yards where, by the evidence of mounds of dirt and decayed piles of debris, other structures had once stood. A pair of competing inns always stand close by any town gate. Both appeared modest and reasonably clean. Trained by merchants, I felt no compunction in asking to see the available rooms in each establishment and then afterward playing the one off the other given that few travelers could be expected in this cold season to warm half-empty coffers. Young and shivering as we were, we might even have awoken sympathy in the breasts of these robust innkeepers. As odd as a barefooted and clothing-less man in winter would appear, the tale that he had been robbed and stripped of all his belongings, including baggage, carriage, and horses, while his beloved sister cowered in protective hiding behind a hedge of yew offered a fine incentive for luring in locals for a drink in the days after we had gone on our way.

By the time I had settled on a night’s stay at the County Members, with its gracious hearth and a small but respectable upstairs room for which I bespoke all four beds, I realized Rory was also his father’s son in one regard at least. In a quiet town where no excitement beckons in the depths of the winter season, he had attracted an audience of appreciative females. Cursed man! He was still smiling at the women who had trailed into the common room in his wake. Clearly he was going to be a terrible nuisance. They tittered and whispered among themselves but fortunately did not follow us up the narrow stairs. I pushed Rory into our room, untied my cloak, removed my gloves, and shoved them into his arms. Then I shut the door in his face before turning to face the innkeeper.

She chuckled, her rosy face crinkling with laugh lines. “A rare handful, that one. I know the type. Who’s the elder between you?”

The question startled me, but I am nothing if not quick to find my feet. “He is, of course, but I have always had to act the role, ever since our parents—” Here I broke off, not sure if we had decided our parents were alive or quite dead. Best to keep it as close to the truth as possible. “We have the same father but different mothers. There has been trouble.”

“Ah. Folk do say it is better to be quarreling than lonesome, but two women in the same house are like pepper and honey in the same pot.”

“Yes, indeed. I was wondering if you know where we could find clothing for him.”

“My cousin lost her eldest son just a year back. She kept his things. It’s respectable clothing that might fit him. Although it’ll be nothing as elegant as what you must be accustomed to,” she added as she looked over my fine cloak.

“We would be grateful for anything, and will pay what it is worth,” I assured her.

“Will you come downstairs so I can enter you in my ledger?”

I cast a glance at the door, a serviceable slab of wood showing the wear of years; it had been patched around the latch, as if rough handling some time in the past had broken the latch and needed repair. Like everything else, it was scrupulously clean. As the innkeeper descended the stairs, I paused to listen, but all I heard was Rory prowling in the confines of his cage.

When I reached the common room, the innkeeper was just sending one of her daughters out to the cousin for the clothes.

“I’m sure we can find something for you, too, dear,” she said as she sat at a table and opened her ledger. “A clean shift, perhaps. It will be easy enough to clean your outer clothes with a brush so you can be ready to travel in the morning, although I am not sure how you can do so having lost your conveyance. The warden is out on a complaint in the countryside. Sheep stealing, of all things! That hasn’t happened for years! He’ll be back in a day or two and you can make your report then.”

I flushed as it belatedly, and too late, occurred to me that our tale of woe would bring keener attention to our persons. All because of Roderic and his cursed nakedness!

“We can’t wait so long. We’ve got to be on our way in the morning. But a clean shift and a bath”—I sighed, not playacting at all—”would be glorious.”

“Poor thing,” she said in a kindly way that would have made my heart cringe if I had not in fact been a poor thing, running for my life even if the robbery was itself a lie. Yet was it? Hadn’t Aunt and Uncle, and Four Moons House, stolen my life from me? “It would be little enough trouble to heat up some water for you, maestra. And for the young man, too, although I must warn you I intend to keep my daughters away from him.”

“Well you should! I make no defense for his flirting ways!”

We laughed companionably as she paged through the ledger. The large bound volume had been in use for some time, as the earlier pages were yellowing and filled with names. She reached a half-finished page; the most recent date recorded, 4 November 1838, had a single line written beneath:
Captain of Diarisso, with four men at arms.
The Diarisso lineage had founded Four Moons House. It was not a common name.

“Are soldiers staying here?” I asked as casually as I could, looking around so as to spot them before they spotted me.

She shot me a startled glance, and she also looked toward the door, then back at me. “My dear, no. They are since gone, of course. Lord Owen doesn’t like to have House cavalry riding about roads he oversees, does he? But even a lord cannot say no to the magisters for fear they will call in a cold spell just when the fruit trees are budding and the wheat sprouting. As long as the cold mages can hold the threat of famine over the rest of us, the princes have to do what they say, do they not? Now, maestra, if you’ll just give me your names so I can record it here.”

My heart stuttered, but I calmed myself. Cautious and watchful I must become.

“Catriona,” I said, choosing the local version of my name, “and Roderic Bara—” I bit my tongue.

“Barr?” she asked, nib poised above the ledger.

“Barr,” I agreed as she carefully wrote the name two lines below, and then went back and filled in a new date: 10 December 1838.

“Not that I can complain about the custom, even from House soldiers,” she went on, “for you see how little traffic we get in this season. The mines are closed down for winter, although the forges are now lit, but none of them will travel until spring. Crops and cattle are long since taken to market. Folk do not travel this time of year. You were fortunate to escape traveling in that terrible blizzard. Those soldiers came galloping in on its wings and were forced to bide here four entire days, although they were so very well behaved I’d like to meet their mothers. You’d think a cold mage had raised such a storm, wouldn’t you?”

December tenth.

Five weeks had passed while I argued with Andevai, told stories to the djeli, and slept in the spirit world. Four Moons House could easily have reached Adurnam and taken Bee. But could they have forced her to marry Andevai without a legal ruling that I was dead? Might they try to force her to marry a different magister with a legal ruling that my marriage was fraudulent? Uncle would fight in court, although it was most likely he and the family had fled the city the night I’d been taken.

Two girls bustled past with heads ducked low, making for the stairs. One held a bundle of clothing in her arms; the other was biting her lower lip and trying not to giggle.

“
Where
are you going with those?” demanded the innkeeper without rising.

The girls halted, blushing. “These are for—”

“I know who they are for. And
you
, missy, are not taking them upstairs.”

“I’ll take them up,” I said, for anything would be better than trying to carry on a conversation with the innkeeper while that date pounded in my head. “If a bath—”

“It will have to be in the kitchen out back,” said the innkeeper, “which is where we keep our tub, but we’ve a screen to give you privacy. Nothing fancy.”

I smiled at the girls as well as I could manage and scooped up the clothes. “My thanks, maestra. Just let me know when all is ready.”

“And what don’t fit,” the innkeeper called after me, “I can tailor to measure.”

The girls giggled.

I took the steps two at a time, rapped once to give him warning before flinging open the door and charging in. The room was exceedingly narrow, more of a long corridor from door to window, with two beds lined along one wall, a side table between them, and two along the other. Decently swaddled in the cloaks, he lounged on the bed to the right of the door. Warmth drifted up from the hearths and stoves below. I dumped the clothing on the bed opposite and began shaking it out. It was quite serviceable, nothing in the height of fashion: loose trousers in the Celtic style, a town jacket with a hint of dash but well made enough to weather many years’ wearing. This was not garb for heavy labor but for town work; perhaps the deceased had helped serve drinks at the inn.

I walked to the window. “We have eleven days to reach Adurnam before the solstice,” I said, walking back to him. “If I recall Uncle’s maps correctly, it must be about one hundred miles from Lemanis to Adurnam as the crow flies.” I returned to the window to look out over the inn yard. “We can’t afford to hire horses. I’m not sure we can walk so far in ten days.”