Cold Steel

“Bee, where are we?” I whispered as I rubbed my bruised shoulder. “Where is the dragon?”

“The dragon cast us out on land,” she whispered back.

The road was a cart track, two ruts cutting through damp earth. Mud slopped with each turn of the wheels, but we were high and dry. The two oxen pulling the wagon had the stolid pace of animals who can walk all day without stopping. Around us lay green hills ablaze with spring flowers. I shivered, for although the wagoner was content in his shirtsleeves, it seemed deathly cold.

Rory was sitting up next to the driver, wearing one of Vai’s best dash jackets, the fabric red, gold, and orange squares limned by black. He took a puff on the pipe and coughed violently.

The old man chortled again. “You smoke like a woman, lad! No doubt comes of being forced to attend on your sister and cousin all these months, as you say. I’ll teach you to be a man.”

The sight of Rory wearing the dash jacket distracted me. “Bee! How could you let Rory wear that particular jacket? That’s the one Vai wore the morning after we…”

Her foot poked me to silence. “How could I have remembered that!”

“He’s already got a smudge on the elbow!”

She gazed past me, steadfastly mute. Back the way we had come rose the roofs of fishermen’s shacks next to a small marble temple whose pinnacle was marked with the chariot of a sea god. A sleepy strand gave way to rocky shallows where men raked for oysters. Beyond lay an islet prominently marked by a stone pillar and a tree so large I could tell it was an oak even from this distance. The gray-blue waters of the sea soughed in the brisk wind, chipped with foam. Out on the water it was raining, but up here it was dry and sunny. It looked a cursed lot like the land I had grown up in.

Bee tugged down my skirt, which had gotten ruched up past my knees. “You slept through most of the journey. It’s as if you had actually been stunned.”

“You were stupefied,” added Rory helpfully, turning to address me. “Then you started making smacking noises like you were trying to kiss someone, or had turned into a fish. You didn’t start howling until you reached dry land.”

“Rory and I had to drag you and the chest out of the Great Smoke and onto warded ground, right there on that little island. An oysterman saw us and brought a rowboat to help us to shore. This kind fellow agreed to convey us.”

“That’s all very well, Bee, but it doesn’t answer my question.” My legs were sticky and my skirt was damp. Bee had gotten my wool jacket onto me, although she hadn’t buttoned it. I chafed my arms and hands, trying to warm up. I was exceedingly grateful for the sun, however weak its light and heat seemed compared to the blazing sun in Expedition. “Where are we?”

“Why, dearest,” she said with a triumphant smile, “we’re on the road to Adurnam. We’ve reached Europa.”

13

The rain caught up with us as we reached the outskirts of Adurnam. By the time we reached Westmarket we were soaked through, and the downpour had left Bee’s curls plastered to her neck. Vai’s dash jacket was creased and sodden and, worst of all, Rory had burned the cuff with ashes from the wagoner’s pipe. I had begun shivering so badly I didn’t have the energy to scold him.

The wagoner reined up at the edge of the bustling fish market just as the rain ceased. Wagons and carts trundled in from the marshy Sieve, the vast estuary of the Rhenus River.

“This is as far as I come, lasses.” He cackled, tapping his hat against the driver’s bench to flick water off the brim. “You had me half believing those lively tales you spun about the foreigners over the ocean who allow girls to run about half naked kicking a ball. As if females wouldn’t just hurt themselves trying to play such games like men.”

Irritation warmed me as I clambered off the wagon. “I was not making it up! The game is called batey. You don’t kick the ball, because it’s not allowed to touch the ground. Women play it in leagues, just like the men, and people come to watch.”

“Folk come to watch, as if they were men! I’d say for another reason, ha ha! Women ruling and men bowing and scraping to stop from being scolded! I’m as likely to believe this tale of an Assembly of representatives voted on by every person in the city. As if a prince would allow that!”

I spoke through gritted teeth. “There is no prince in Expedition.”

“No, there’s a fancy-dressed queen instead!” He laughed as he wiped rain from his cheeks. “You’re killing me, lass!”

Rory pulled me back before I whacked the man with my cane. To soothe me he groomed away tendrils of hair stuck to my forehead. “You’re not going to convince him of what is true if he believes it can’t be true.”