Cold Magic

The old man followed Andevai’s dark gaze with his own. “Eh, maestra. This is no fitting room for a woman. Get you back to the supper room, now. We’ve men’s songs to sing.”

I skittered back, chased by their hearty laughter and Andevai’s glower, although what it portended I could not guess. Was he angry at me? Irritated at them? Frustrated at being stuck in a common inn for the night? Or was that annoyed arrogance just a quality inherent in his nature?

Hard to say, and, anyway, I was not about to ignore the words of an elder. As the fiddler’s bow pulled a tune from the strings and the drums answered in a counter-rhythm, I kicked the brick away and pulled the door to the supper room shut. At the table, I ladled more soup into my bowl.

“So, Maester Godwik,” I demanded as a song broke into full flower beyond the closed door. “What transpired in the villages to make you young bucks eager to leave?”

13

Godwik’s tale wound down many tributaries. He and his thirty-five compatriots were reduced to twenty-seven after battles with vicious saber-toothed cats, foaming rapids, a marauding troo, gusting winds, and a party of belligerent young bucks from a territory whose boundaries they had violated. But, at last, they reached the great wall of ice that marked the southernmost reach of the glaciers on the troll’s continent. Here, alas, Kehinde assaulted him with so many detailed questions about the color, texture, weight, height, volume, and consistency of ice that he never got to the sleigh of eru. Brennan and I by unspoken agreement rose to take a turn around the room. The other diners had quitted their tables some time ago, retiring, presumably, to their upstairs sleeping chambers for the night. We paused beside the door into the common room, where raucous laughter greeted the end of a rousing song.

“Let’s go in,” said Brennan.

“They said they were singing men’s songs.”

He had what my father would have called “a hearty laugh.” “I know this manner of old men. They were just seeing if they could intimidate you.”

“How do you know they’re old? You never went into the common room to see them.”

“They’ve been playing the songs old men play.”

He was easy to confide in. “Let me ask you, then. One of those old men—I’m sure he was nothing more than a humble farmer—ordered my… ah… my companion to sit down on the bench and drink with him. And he did!”

“Surely he would obey. They are elders.”

“He’s a magister.”

Brennan shrugged. “He’s Mande, as I am. If an elder says to sit, then you sit.”

“You’re Mande? Not Celtic? The Mande lineages came from West Africa.” I eyed his pale skin and reddish blond hair.

His grin flashed. “That’s where some of my ancestors came from. I’m also, by breeding, a Brigantes Celt. That’s where I get my looks. There’s probably the blood of a Roman legionnaire back there as well. Most everyone in these territories is tartan, aren’t they? In my village, we call ourselves Mande because we’re clients to a mage House whose founders came over from the Mali Empire.”

“Four Moons House?”

“For reasons I can’t explain, I really can’t tell you. My apologies.”

“None taken. It seems you left the village, though. The one north of Ebora.”

“I don’t know how much you hear about it down here, but many of the miners in Brigantia are angry about their working conditions and low pay. What can laborers do when the law courts are controlled by the prince and his jurists?”

“Surely jurists are impartial!”

He smiled sadly, as if sorry to be the one to rip the wool from my eyes. “Of course that is what they say. I’ve even encountered a few who are. Anyhow, the workingmen and women in my village spent ten years raising funds to sponsor two likely lads to attend the academy in Camlun. I was chosen mostly, I admit, because I was a good fighter and they figured I could protect the other lad.”

“Did you?”

He raised his left hand. His knuckles were scarred, and his little finger set crookedly, as though it had been broken more than once. “He learned enough to be taken on at law offices in Ebora. He is now a solicitor, a burr chafing at the robes of the courts.”

“I’m surprised the mage House allowed it. Couldn’t they have stopped you? The villagers are held in clientage to the mage Houses. Bound by old contracts or by entrenched custom to serve their masters in perpetuity. They’re practically slaves.” I thought of my own marriage and flushed. “My apologies. That sounds very offensive, doesn’t it? It’s what I was taught at the academy in Adurnam.”