Cold Magic

Boots, a cloak, gloves: all were delivered and of the highest quality and best cut, of a style seen in tailors’ windows in shops we Barahals could never afford to enter. At House inns they evidently kept such expensive garments in storage to be changed off like horses, because when Andevai returned, he was magnificent in a striped orange and brown dash jacket, ochre-colored trousers, and a cloth tied at his neck with such a modest knot that I knew I was in the presence of exceptional taste and wealth such as Bee and I and the little girls could only exclaim over in the pages of the Almanac while we sewed our dresses at home from last year’s patterns or altered castoffs we’d bought at the petticoat market. The only piece of clothing us girls possessed that was sewn for us by a dressmaker were our riding clothes: fitted with loose trousers beneath an overskirt cut for riding and a shirt and jacket cut for ease of movement in case a riding Barahal woman needed also to use her sword. I smoothed my clothing self-consciously. Andevai frowned—more of a wince, perhaps—and indicated the door.

The carriage waited in the courtyard. Flakes of snow spun in the air; the light had taken on a sheen, as though noncorporeal servants had been busy polishing the underside of the clouds, the better to complement the sartorial splendor of my husband.

“What is it?” he demanded, a flash of self-consciousness in his tightening mouth as he looked at me looking at him. He had very well-shaped lips.

I was seized by a sudden, unpleasant, and almost overwhelming urge to kiss him. Just a touch, nothing more than that, just to see what his lips tasted of.

Almost. Then I remembered how we had come to be here.

“Just recalling how good the buttered squash was,” I said in a strained voice, feeling heat rise to the roots of my hair as I looked away.

The footman, in outward appearance still male, flipped down the stair and opened the door, then stepped back. Her dark gaze met mine for a heavy moment. At the head of the horses, the coachman caught my eye and raised an eyebrow as in a question but said nothing.

Clutching my cane in a trembling hand, I climbed into the carriage to find it swept and cleaned, a pile of furs heaped on one bench and a covered basket set against the other door, the one we never used. Feeling mutinous, I reached out to jigger the latch. I snatched my hand back just as the carriage rocked with Andevai’s weight as he climbed in.

The door was closed. The coachman called his alert. We rumbled out of the courtyard and turned onto the road, heading east. On the town walls flapped banners bearing three horse heads arranged in a star, the sigil of the Cantiaci princes who ruled this region.

I avoided looking at him. It was all I could do.

East we rolled for the rest of the day, halted only by toll gates. We passed by the sprawling city of Cantiacorum and much later the stolid walls of Rutupiae. We descended into the great valley carved by the Rhenus River, crossing streams via bridges or ferries. As night engulfed us, we continued on, passing by villages lit by sentry lamps and guarded by shivering night watchmen. Andevai did not speak; neither did I. Not too late, although it was hard to tell with the sky overcast, we arrived at another House inn, greeted as always by a remarkably alert staff given the hour. I was shown to a room with a bed, and, after pulling off my boots, I threw myself across it with my ghost sword beside me and slept until dawn.

Indeed, I was surprised to find it light when an elderly woman roused me, showing me a basin where I could wash. She explained that there was not time for a bath as she helped me straighten and brush my clothing in the kindliest manner imaginable; she then admired my hair as she brushed it out and helped me pin it up again. A shy girl brought a tray laden with poached eggs, a rasher of bacon, bread warm from the oven, and a luscious pear.

After eating, I went out to the courtyard where Andevai paced by the carriage and, seeing me, unclenched his hands. The footman nodded. The coachman touched the rim of his hat, eyes crinkling in the smile that did not touch his lips. In the mirror in the Barahal house, he had appeared as a man, no different than he looked now. Perhaps he was simply a man. Or perhaps he was so powerful a creature disguised in human seeming that even a mirror could not unshadow his glamor. Andevai had referred to them as servants of the courts. Which meant Andevai, or the magisters who ruled his House, were so powerful that they could bind and rule creatures whose magic was surely as powerful as their own.

Feeling every jab of the bitter cold, I climbed into the carriage, my limbs like sodden logs except where they were lancing with a myriad of pains as comforting as stabbing knives.

Andevai settled in his usual place, at the opposite corner.

“Why did you let me sleep?” I asked as the footman closed the door.