Cold Fire

“Why would I have told it otherwise? Do you think I am a liar??”

Perhaps my voice rose sharply. Bala touched my arm. “I see many a shadow at guard.”

Belatedly it occurred to me that the wardens might have staked out the Speckled Iguana, if they knew it for a haunt of radicals and troublemakers. Instead, the local men had staked out their ground, flanking the area with clusters of men bearing muskets, pistols, and machetes, the favored blade of the countryside. Lamps burned on the porch and in the windows of the inn, by which I knew Vai was either not there, or was dead.

I ran up onto the porch, colliding with an older man who was no taller than me but twice as wide. A patch covered his right eye, and a horrendous starburst wound had turned his right cheek into a pitted and scoured puckering of ropy white scar tissue. He yanked me to a halt.

“I’ll be smited by Bright Reshef if you aren’t the daughter of Lieutenant Tara Bell. For you look very like her, but for the hair and the color of your eyes.”

“Ja, maku,” said Bala, who with Gaius loomed behind me. “What is with the hand on the gal?”

“Is the maku bothering yee, Cat?” asked Gaius.

I stared at my interlocutor. My mind seemed caught in a roof-shattering gale. He saw the stamp of my mother’s face in my own. I wanted to demand of him how he knew her, but as I tried to focus the splintering spray of my thoughts, I hung on to one concept: Tell no one. Keep silence.

“Drake is here,” he said, as if he had gleaned my mind with a rake and pulled forth a nugget. “He’s in the back room with the wounded. He has been wondering where you fetched up.” He looked over my companions, unimpressed by their stature. “I see you found protectors.”

“Let me go.”

He raised his eyebrows as if to suggest I was being overly dramatic, but he let go. “Do not say you shall deny whose daughter you are? I fought beside Lieutenant Bell.” His Iberian lilt pitched out like the ring of a trumpet. “In the Parisi campaign, when we took Alesia.”

Blessed Tanit, how my heart wished to hear the tale! But I was too cunning to reveal myself to him! I drew myself up, matching him eye to eye.

“I came for a drink, for the walk has made me uncommonly thirsty. Bala? Gaius? I quite forgot my coin, so you shall have to buy me a shot of rum.” I swept past the man and into a spacious common room crammed with noisy, sweaty, angry men.

“Yee stick close by us, Cat,” said Gaius as Bala pushed to the bar. “I don’ like this crowd. Yee should be getting home and not drinking any more, for I reckon drink make yee reckless.”

The situation would have struck me as amusing—my admirer and his skeptical friend turned into watchful guard dogs—had I not just then seen a flash of bright red hair where a door opened behind the bar.

The old soldier came up beside me and raised a hand to draw James Drake’s attention. “He shall want to talk to you, lass. I hear you may be carrying his child.”

I slapped him.

He grunted, but although I had slapped him hard, he’d barely been staggered.

I thought: That wasn’t very effective. So I slugged him, right beneath the curve of his ribs. He doubled over, gasping and—strangely—gurgling as with choked amusement. As a shocked murmur spread out like a ripple, he said, “Your mama taught you to hit, did she? Oof?!”

His laugh was a booming chortle whose mirth made me want to strangle him. Gracious Melqart! James Drake! If he had seen me, he would come out. I did not want Vai humiliated by the whole world—or at least every man now staring at me—seeing me with Drake. When in doubt, attack.

I shoved up to the bar, heedless of the men I elbowed aside, and tweaked Bala’s sleeve. “I have to go back and check the wounded. Wait for me. I don’t want to go home alone.”

His interested smile sharpened gratifyingly, and I smiled, for he really was an appealing fellow, but I had to get past that door before James Drake walked out of it, so I hopped over the bar, grabbed a shot glass clear with white rum and drank it down in one swallow, then sidestepped the surprised bartender and thence past him through the still-open door. I shut the door behind me to see a long room filled with shapes lying all a-tumble on the floor or atop long tables on which, on kinder nights, folk might dine and chatter on about politics and batey. Tonight I heard only moans.

By lamplight, Drake bent over a man whose stomach had been opened by a gash, its gaping lips revealing the moist mire of intestines. An old woman with blood splashed across her apron and a serious-looking Taino man whose age I could not guess worked side by side at another table, she sewing shut a gaping shoulder wound with needle and thread while he pressed the ragged flesh together with steady hands. For a moment, I was sure I saw sparks trembling at his lips and a smear of ember light, but when I blinked, I realized I was just reeling. I braced myself with a hand on the door, in case any cursed fool tried to barge in after me.