Cold Steel

“I promised myself I would not cut it until we were reunited.”

I would have made a joke about it, but my heart was too full. He held me as I lightly stroked his chest, and after a while I thought he had fallen asleep.

“Catherine.” His whisper made me shiver as from a touch of winter. “Everything has changed, love. Everything.”

My wandering hand stilled. “What has changed, Vai?”

I wished I could see his face, and then, after all, I was glad he could not see me.

“You must have suspected when you were brought in to pour wine. That honor is granted only to the mansa’s wife or daughters. When you saw where I was seated. The mansa has adopted me as his son and named me as his heir.”

“But… what about… your village, and clientage, and Chartji’s court case, and Camjiata’s legal code, and Kofi and the radicals?”

“It’s not even that I’ve bested them, every cursed one of them. For all those years the mansa scorned me as the village boy. He never thought I would amount to more than a lamplighter who renews cold fire each night at mage inns. No matter what I did, it was never good enough. But now he knows. Think of the honor to my mother! I will become mansa of Four Moons House.”

Exhausted by his climb up Triumph Spire, he fell asleep in my arms. But every time I closed my eyes, I remembered the troll lunging to rip out the belly of the horse.

The mansa had trapped him in the most gilded cage of all.

35

In the gray light of dawn, the singing of birds woke me. I eased out of his embrace, pulled on his shirt for modesty’s sake, and crept to the table to pick my way through the untouched food, for I was ravenously hungry. He stirred soon after and propped himself up on an elbow.

“You look very fetching in my shirt, Catherine,” he said in a tone that fetched me right back to bed.

Afterward I fell asleep. He woke me some time later by pulling a cover up over us, and I pretended to be asleep while servants bustled about the space. When they left we washed each other behind a screen where pitchers and a basin were set out for our use. He presented me with a linen dressing robe dyed a sumptuous midnight blue, while he slipped on a dark-gold silk dressing robe embroidered in bold geometric designs. The table had been laid with sliced meats and cheeses, fresh bread, and berries smothered in cream. A cup of coffee woke me right up.

“Why is my dressing robe so plain and yours so excessively decorative?” I asked.

He fed me a spoon full of nothing but the sweetened and whipped cream, and smiled as my eyes rolled back in ecstatic delight at its melting goodness. “You may have whatever you wish, love.”

“Did you arrange for the clothes?”

“As it happens, I did. In the field, I received a report every week, so I knew you had recovered and that my mother’s health was improving. When I heard we were coming to Lutetia, I insisted you be fitted with clothing suitable to my station. I remembered the dressmaker’s measurements from Sala. Do you like the style and cloth I chose?”

“They’re exactly what I like. Andevai…” I hesitated, not sure how to start.

“Why is it you only say ‘Andevai’ when you’re annoyed with me?”

Daylight revealed the cloth walls as canvas embroidered with elaborate garden scenes. I peered out through the slits to make sure no attendants waited within earshot, then sat back down.

“Vai, my love, I’m not annoyed with you. Far from it. Can I have shown you my feelings any more clearly than I already have?”

Because it pleased him to do so and it pleased me to accept, he fed me another fat spoonful of the glorious cream. A bit smeared on my lip. He leaned over the table to lick it off.

I had to forge forward before he mistook the nature of my hesitation. “I know the mansa has shown you an unbelievable honor by naming you as his heir. But it troubles me. He told me last night that you belong to the House. To me, this looks not as if he is freeing you but as if he is binding you more tightly to him.”

He tapped the spoon against the rim of the bowl half full of cream and berries. A pure faint tone rang. “I know, love. But… you should have seen my mother’s face when I told her.”

He bowed his head and covered his eyes with a hand. He said nothing, did not move at all except to breathe. I dared not move for I felt to do anything would profane the tears I doubted he had ever let anyone see except perhaps his beloved grandmother.

At length he took in a deep breath and wiped his cheeks. I buttered a piece of bread and handed it to him wordlessly. He ate it.

“I think I comprehend a little of what it must mean to her. And to you. But I cannot be easy with it. In fact, I think it is a mistake.”

A frown flickered. “How much choice do you think I have in this, Catherine? What was I to say to the mansa?”

“Doesn’t the mansa have sons?”

“He has four living sons. None have more than a candle’s worth of cold magic. That’s the first test, you know. Quenching a candle’s flame without touching it. But consider the advantages. As heir to Four Moons House I can change the customs of the House. I’ve already written to Chartji to ask her to meet with me here in Lutetia to discuss how we might go about it. I can walk among the magisters and elders and speak to them of why clientage is wrong and how it harms the mage Houses more than it helps them.”

“Have you done so? What did they say?”

“It has only been one month! People are naturally fixed on the crisis created by Camjiata.”

“Whose legal code you were once so determined to champion!”

“Camjiata is using James Drake to fight his war.”

I grasped his hand. “Bold Melqart! You’ve seen battle, haven’t you?”

His eyes shuttered. Then he spooned up another mound of cream. The way he fed me, with his lips slightly parted and his body leaning toward mine so his dressing robe gapped to give me a splendid view of his chest, was as delicious as the cream.

“I was never in danger. As for the war, you heard a great deal last night. You may be surprised to hear I have seen Professora Nayo Kuti’s pamphlets being passed among the soldiers of the Coalition Army. The radical philosophies are being talked about in our army, not just theirs.”

“Our army? The last time we were together, we were running from ‘our army.’ When exactly did the mansa make you his heir?”

“After the battle of Lemovis, a month ago. He saw that no one else had enough imagination to realize what was going on, much less the discipline and intelligence to discover ways to counter it. Furthermore, I am the only cold mage in Four Moons House besides the mansa who can truly build and hold a thorough illusion. There are other forms of cold magic that take more reach, but for illusion you must marry intense skill and discipline with the ability to reach deep into the ice.”

“You are the only one besides the mansa? Even including the women?”

To his credit he paused, forehead wrinkling. “I suppose I don’t know about the women. Although honestly, Catherine, to hear that anyone besides the mansa could best me in this would surprise me.”

I leaned across the table to give him a kiss. “Of course it would surprise you. My point is that the mansa may yet sire more sons and choose to replace you with one of them. Furthermore, you said Five Mirrors House in Noviomagus is ruled by a mansa who is not as powerful as the magister who tested you. She happened to be a woman, and thus according to House custom ineligible. So let us say the mansa truly wishes for you to become mansa after him. If you do not have the support of the elders of Four Moons House, what is to stop them from demanding a more eligible if less powerful man once the mansa has passed on? Then you would have waited for all that time, perhaps for decades, only to find yourself just as powerless as you were the day you came to Four Moons House. All that time when you might have been working for a greater cause. It is the perfect means to keep