Cold Steel

Rory chatted companionably with the young staff officers, but I stuck next to the general. I did not like the look of James Drake, wearing yet another of Vai’s purloined dash jackets to spite me. What I least liked the look of was his squadron of thirty young fire mages. How many catch-fires he controlled I was not sure, for one of the carriages was locked, with caged persons inside, while a file of shackled catch-fires marched under guard of soldiers wearing Lady Angeline’s badge.

We traveled hard all day on the main road, passing sections of the slow-moving baggage train. Columns of infantry marched away to either side, across fields, the army like locusts on the move. Messengers galloped up on spent horses with reports from the vanguard. In the town of Castra, where Lord Gwyn had died, we were met by cheering locals lining the road.

North of town we stopped to water and feed the horses. Soldiers ate stale bread and took naps. I walked upstream to wash my dusty face and hands.

Rory lay down on the grass and slid into a doze. I smiled to see his peaceful face lit by the sun. As for me, I was terribly hungry. The roofs of a farmstead rose nearby. I would have gone to beg food from them, but I had no money to pay for it and probably they had already had their granary emptied by a quartermaster.

“I wonder,” I said to dozing Rory, “how a general who comes to liberate makes sure he isn’t just seen as a thief.”

He snorted awake, rising up on an elbow. I turned. Lady Angeline approached along the bank. Downstream, horses muddied the waters.

I made a pretty courtesy, for although as wife to the heir of Four Moons House I now ranked as her equal, I did not want anyone here to know of Vai’s new status. “Your Highness.”

Her gaze grazed along the length of Rory’s body, and to my amusement she flushed when he winked at her. Unlike Drake, he did look good in Vai’s clothes, even when they were rumpled from travel. She turned to me. “What am I to call you?”

“Maestra Barahal, as you wish, Your Highness. May I ask if you have been married long?”

“Let me make myself understood to you, Maestra. Do not make an enemy of me. I am the only child of the prince of Armorica, he who stands as overlord above the Veneti dukes.”

“Ah.” I surveyed her proud posture and confident stance. Her riding clothes suited her. Clearly she was a woman of taste, in most regards. “Yet if I am correct, by Gallic law you cannot rule in your own right because you are a woman. You must marry a man who will become son to your father and then prince in his place.”

“You comprehend my situation astutely, Maestra. Unlike every other prince’s son, James has no interest in ruling Armorica and will leave to me the inheritance I have earned.”

I knew how to dig for information. “I suppose his ambitions are set on recovering his ancestral crown in the Ordovici Confederation.”

“You think he is volatile and angry, but that is because you do not know the circumstances under which he was driven from his rightful place. In fact, he has a philosophical temperament, one that prefers to gaze at the stars and plumb the mysteries of the universe. When the time comes, he will be perfectly happy to leave the administration of both principalities to me.”

“Goodness! I can understand that the chance to rule two principalities would be an inducement for a woman of your princely birth and ambition. Yet if the law were changed to allow the daughter to inherit equally to the son, such a dynastic marriage would not be necessary for you.”

I had misunderstood her.

“The marriage suits me marvelously well.”

“Ah. Well, then, a word of advice.”

“Cat,” said Rory, warningly.

I poked anyway. “Besides the bad fit, for the dash jackets are too loose and too tight in all the wrong places, the colors really do not benefit his complexion. Your attire is so exquisite in all ways that I cannot believe you have urged him to wear another man’s clothes.”

Her right eye half winked shut in a flicker of irritation. “He has promised to burn them all when the cold mage is dead.” With that she returned to the main group. Drake came to meet her.

Rory got to his feet. “Cat, will you ever learn to keep your mouth shut?”

“Burn his lovely dash jackets! Think of the disrespect to the tailors who cut and sewed them!”

“Cat.”

My volcanic ire subsided before it spilled over into gouts of red-hot stabbing. General Camjiata beckoned. On we rode through the long afternoon. Fortunately our pace was slow enough that at intervals Rory and I could dismount to walk instead of riding.

As twilight descended we entered the grounds of a lord’s estate with a long artificial pond graced with fountains and a terraced set of clamshell-shaped lawns leading to a stately house. Troops stretched out on the grounds, having not even erected tents. They leaped to their feet with cheers as the general’s entourage made its way to the big house.