roused me. He was pulling skins and furs from the cupboards beneath the bed.
“This is a hunters’ refuge. A place men can take shelter if they’re caught out in bad weather. There’s bound to be a village within a few days’ travel. My village keeps the same sort of shelters.” He glanced at me. “Catherine, now you must take off your wet clothes.”
My fingers were too numb to unfasten buttons.
He undressed me, dried me roughly, and wrapped me up on the bed in the furs. Then he went outside with the kettle, brought it back full, and laid wood onto the hearth although obviously he could not light it. Our wet clothes and gear he spread over the table and bench.
He stripped and got in with me. His skin was so warm that after a while I began to hurt all over. Chafing my hands, my cheeks, my legs, he talked a stream of words that I did not fully understand except that I loved to hear him speak. I began to shiver, and at length the shivering subsided as a frail glow of warmth took root in my frozen heart.
Blessed Tanit! We had escaped the spirit world! We were going to live!
As I relaxed, so did he, and I slid into a sleep without dreams.
22
I opened my eyes to darkness. A night breeze whistled in the chimney, but nothing else stirred. The air was wintry cold except where we were bundled warmly together, skin to skin. I lay for a while, wondering about him. He had rowed and tramped for miles in wet clothes after being half drowned in the icy sea, just as I had. In all the time I’d known him he had never seemed particularly affected by cold. Hadn’t he once told me that magic fed him? I had thought it a figure of speech but now I wondered if it was true in a strange and secret way.
He shifted but did not wake as his hand settled on my hip.
My spirit exulted, and I was surprised at how amorous I felt. However, my throat was raw, my mouth tasted like a stew of brine and bile, and I wanted a bath. I was ravenously hungry and still tired, and well aware of how desperately we needed drink, food, and dry clothes. And then?
Then I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up as he moved, rubbing his head.
“I feel I’ve been hit by a hammer,” he muttered hoarsely. “My muscles ache, and I’m a little dizzy.”
He swung out of the bed. The shutters were closed, but I knew it must be day because my sword was a cane. As he shaped a globe of cold fire, the sword flared to life. I admired his backside as he stretched and then walked to the table to touch the clothes.
He winced. “Ah! Cold and clammy!”
“You’re a lot of trouble, Vai. I could have had a fire roaring all night.”
“I’ll keep you as warm as you could ever hope to be,” he said with a provocative look. “But not right now, love. I’m sure this headache comes from thirst and hunger. You must be starving.”
I tested the puffy, tender bruise where I’d bitten myself. “I’m so worried about Bee and Rory. We’ve got to get to Havery. The family won’t protect her from mages, princes, or generals, not if they’re offered an advantageous agreement in exchange for her person. Bee thinks she can scold powerful men into obeying her but that only makes them want her more… Noble Ba’al, Vai!”
I told him about Amadou Barry.
He whistled, shivering as he dressed in the damp clothes. “Washed away in the tide! What a fool! Anyway, we can’t go on until we’ve dried our clothes. You must light a fire. I’m going to see what’s in the shed. Maybe there’s something I can use to snare a rabbit or catch a fish.”
“You could stun some poor unsuspecting beast with your magic, couldn’t you?”
He kissed me on the forehead. “I already have.”
Clearly I hadn’t yet recovered from yesterday’s travail, because my mind had barely managed to trudge past several bland retorts before he returned to inform me that he was headed out to hunt and there was meanwhile a treasure-house of provisions in the shed. Then he was gone.
I gasped as I set my feet on the packed earth floor. The cold seared right through my skin. I ached all over, but I knew that would fade. With a blanket sewn of lusciously soft beaver pelts wrapped around me, I got the fire going and the kettle heating. The bench shoved right up against the brick of the hearth helped the clothes dry more quickly. Wool steamed, its scent rising. The worn cotton cloth I had stolen on Salt Island fluttered as the fire roared.
Shivering in wet wool, I ventured out of the hut and ransacked the shed. Right inside the door I found a large tin tub and a pair of wooden buckets. From the evidence of the frames and troughs, I supposed the hut and shed to be a haven where winter trappers and hunters could deal with their kills. Since the winter pelts of animals were thickest, it made sense that winter was the best time to hunt and trap for furs, and if villagers came there every winter, they likely stocked it late in the autumn. Crocks and baskets sat on frames out of the reach of rats. Parsnips! Barley! Lentils and broad beans! Nuts in the shell, already dried! Withered bunches of dried nettle and hoarhound hung from the central beams. Dried vetch for animal fodder was bundled in sheaves. When I discovered a stoppered jar of linseed oil, I almost wept.
Would the villagers who used this hut consider us thieves? It didn’t matter. Our canoe had hit the sand. We simply could go no farther right now.
Quite some time later I had barleynut-cakes baking on the bricks, a pottage of parsnips, lentils, and barley simmering, and a pleasing tisane of nettle and hoarhound at brew. I made a place for the cacica’s skull at the back of the table, against the wall, and set before her a slice of parsnip garnished with a drop of the tisane. After this offering, I drank the first infusion of the tisane to soothe my raw throat and gobbled down two bowls of soup.
Eating and drinking improved my mood and constitution immeasurably. I sorted out all our gear to repair later. It seemed prudent to carefully test the sheaths to make sure they hadn’t cracked from the cold, and to rub them with a little oil; if one was careful, perhaps they could be reused. I pinned up my braid and bathed using the lavender soap we had taken from our old home. Afterward, I washed out my filthy clothes, dumped the dirty water, and combed out my hair. The cotton from Expedition dried quickly, so I dressed in my bodice and a wrapped skirt. The tub was half filled with steaming water for Vai, and more was heating.
I was contemplating a rock-hard slab of dried whitefish when the fire flickered. With a disgruntled sigh the flames went out on a puff of ash.
I pulled on my boots and dashed outside. It took me a moment to spot him trudging along the shoreline with three dead grouse slung on a line. He was farther away than I would have expected, until I saw what trailed behind him.
A mage House troop of turbaned riders pursued him. They wore gray wool winter coats cut for riding, and their heads were wrapped in bright green turbans. The horses picked their way over the uneven ground. My heart pounded as I cursed under my breath, rage and frustration exploding. How had the mansa found us so quickly?
I counted forty men before I noticed Vai glance over his shoulder to measure the distance between them and him. A lance that had been nothing more than a long spear with a wicked steel point unfurled a banner marked with the four phases of the moon, the sigil of Four Moons House.
The moment he saw me waiting, the soldiers vanished in a patter of sleet that doused my rage. My heart fluttered as his step quickened. He was disheveled, dirt smeared like paint down one side of his face. His once- elegant clothes looked like a beggar’s chance-met rags. He dazzled me.
“I thought the soldiers were real!”
His face shone, dark and beautiful. “My magic is unbelievably strong here.”
“Didn’t Professora Alhamrai say cold magic is stronger when the mage is close to the ice?”
“Cold mages have always known our power lies in the ice. There’s so much nyama. I could do anything, love.” He laughed again as he hung the grouse from the eaves.
“Not that thinking poorly of yourself has ever been a problem for you,” I remarked.
His eyes flared as he looked me up and down. He had the dizzy good humor of a man who is half drunk. “Not only do you look clean and fed, but you obviously have no idea how beautiful you are, especially with your hair down and that mouth of yours talking. Are we going in?”
