Cold Steel

I paused to catch my breath. I had not realized how much anger I held against my heart for all the people who use others as nothing more than tools to build a house for themselves, who wrap chains around others and then claim they have the right and even the obligation to do so. Vexation overflowed like water over the brim of a full cup.

“To be perfectly honest, Andevai, it is nothing more than petulant vanity on your part to lie there after everything you have done and querulously complain that it wasn’t enough. Many thousands of people have died because of Camjiata’s war and many more will die, and uncounted more have suffered because of the rule of unjust princes. You are just one person doing what you can. Even you cannot be catch-fire for all the injustice in the world!”

From the table, far enough away that they thought I couldn’t hear, Bintou whispered to Wasa, “I can’t believe she talks to him like that!”

“I’m going to learn to talk like that!” murmured Wasa. “I can’t run about and hit people like Cat does, but I can become an orator like Cousin Bee. I’m going to become a hero and cause trouble all over everywhere!”

“Girls!” scolded their mother.

“So if you are done with your humble business about the pisspot, Husband, then go back to bed. You will get strong if you rest and meanwhile cease whipping yourself raw over the obvious fact that even your astoundingly monumental cold magic has its limits although clearly your vanity does not. Also, I will smack you if you keep whining like this, because I. Have. No. More. Patience. For. It.”

He withdrew the arm that shielded his eyes. His tight jaw and frustrated sneer smoothed into loving concern as he examined me. “Catherine, are you well? Is something wrong, love? I am accustomed to you speaking your mind, but you sound sour and on edge. That’s not like you.”

In two months the Wild Hunt would ride up to my door and take me away, but I was not about to tell him that.

When I did not answer he sighed and, with a grimace, heaved himself up. “Yesterday I could not even sit up, so I am somewhat improved. I’ll go back to bed and be patient a little longer.”

“I doubt that,” I muttered.

But he did go back to bed, stubbornly refusing my helping arm, and he ate every bit of the porridge his mother brought. Afterward he slept restfully.

I had a long talk about law and history with Bakary at the bedside of the mansa, where I found him whistling the spirit melody as he wove a song describing Andevai’s magic and exploits. That night, as always, Bee slept on the far side of the bed while I took the middle between her and Vai. Rory was curled up in his cat form on the floor, with the puppy sleeping trustfully between his big paws. House children who had been sleeping in the village festival house lay crammed together on mats on the floor, exhausted from Rory letting them climb all over him. They had come to us because the mansa’s nephew had taken over the festival house for his entourage without even asking the village elders for their permission.

Vai was dead asleep. I held Bee’s hand, twisting and turning. “If the House council chooses the nephew, we’ll be free. But we haven’t a sesterce to our name, so I can’t imagine what we’ll do.”

“I have an idea about that.”

“Yet I fear for what will happen to the House in that case. I worry the nephew will take a petty revenge on Haranwy. Although I think regardless he’ll have a village revolt on his hands. But if the council supports Vai… Bee, don’t let Vai be trapped by the House.”

“You’re so tired you’re fretting needlessly, Cat. This isn’t like you.”

“You won’t leave me, will you? Never, not until the end?”

“Are you feeling well?” She pressed her lips to my forehead. “You’re not feverish. Dearest, you must sleep. You mustn’t get ill.”

Sometimes the gods are merciful and will let you sleep instead of think.

In the morning, although still weak, Vai insisted on shaving and dressing and walking under his own power to his grandmother’s house. There, by the bedside of the mansa and with his mother seated in a chair behind him, he requested permission of the House elders to stand before them. At once, and far less politely, the mansa’s nephew challenged Vai’s right even to stand there, much less claim to be heir. I did not know what to expect, but the months of war, the days of captivity, and perhaps even his slow recovery had planed down the edges and splinters that had always made Vai so quick to take offense when he felt his dignity and honor were being challenged.

This time he let the other man talk on and on, cajole and whine, even blame the destruction of the House on Vai as if Drake had never existed. The nephew complained at length about the lowborn origins of the village boy in such insulting terms that even though the Houseborn elders might well have scorned Vai’s mother for being born in a cart with no lineage to her name, they still shuddered to see a dignified mother mocked in public in front of her son. At length the nephew ran dry, and by this time everyone was certainly waiting for him to stop.