Cold Steel

I gasped as I set my feet on the packed earth floor. The cold seared right through my skin. I ached all over, but I knew that would fade. With a blanket sewn of lusciously soft beaver pelts wrapped around me, I got the fire going and the kettle heating. The bench shoved right up against the brick of the hearth helped the clothes dry more quickly. Wool steamed, its scent rising. The worn cotton cloth I had stolen on Salt Island fluttered as the fire roared.

Shivering in wet wool, I ventured out of the hut and ransacked the shed. Right inside the door I found a large tin tub and a pair of wooden buckets. From the evidence of the frames and troughs, I supposed the hut and shed to be a haven where winter trappers and hunters could deal with their kills. Since the winter pelts of animals were thickest, it made sense that winter was the best time to hunt and trap for furs, and if villagers came there every winter, they likely stocked it late in the autumn. Crocks and baskets sat on frames out of the reach of rats. Parsnips! Barley! Lentils and broad beans! Nuts in the shell, already dried! Withered bunches of dried nettle and hoarhound hung from the central beams. Dried vetch for animal fodder was bundled in sheaves. When I discovered a stoppered jar of linseed oil, I almost wept.

Would the villagers who used this hut consider us thieves? It didn’t matter. Our canoe had hit the sand. We simply could go no farther right now.

Quite some time later I had barleynut-cakes baking on the bricks, a pottage of parsnips, lentils, and barley simmering, and a pleasing tisane of nettle and hoarhound at brew. I made a place for the cacica’s skull at the back of the table, against the wall, and set before her a slice of parsnip garnished with a drop of the tisane. After this offering, I drank the first infusion of the tisane to soothe my raw throat and gobbled down two bowls of soup.

Eating and drinking improved my mood and constitution immeasurably. I sorted out all our gear to repair later. It seemed prudent to carefully test the sheaths to make sure they hadn’t cracked from the cold, and to rub them with a little oil; if one was careful, perhaps they could be reused. I pinned up my braid and bathed using the lavender soap we had taken from our old home. Afterward, I washed out my filthy clothes, dumped the dirty water, and combed out my hair. The cotton from Expedition dried quickly, so I dressed in my bodice and a wrapped skirt. The tub was half filled with steaming water for Vai, and more was heating.

I was contemplating a rock-hard slab of dried whitefish when the fire flickered. With a disgruntled sigh the flames went out on a puff of ash.

I pulled on my boots and dashed outside. It took me a moment to spot him trudging along the shoreline with three dead grouse slung on a line. He was farther away than I would have expected, until I saw what trailed behind him.

A mage House troop of turbaned riders pursued him. They wore gray wool winter coats cut for riding, and their heads were wrapped in bright green turbans. The horses picked their way over the uneven ground. My heart pounded as I cursed under my breath, rage and frustration exploding. How had the mansa found us so quickly?

I counted forty men before I noticed Vai glance over his shoulder to measure the distance between them and him. A lance that had been nothing more than a long spear with a wicked steel point unfurled a banner marked with the four phases of the moon, the sigil of Four Moons House.

The moment he saw me waiting, the soldiers vanished in a patter of sleet that doused my rage. My heart fluttered as his step quickened. He was disheveled, dirt smeared like paint down one side of his face. His once-elegant clothes looked like a beggar’s chance-met rags. He dazzled me.

“I thought the soldiers were real!”

His face shone, dark and beautiful. “My magic is unbelievably strong here.”

“Didn’t Professora Alhamrai say cold magic is stronger when the mage is close to the ice?”

“Cold mages have always known our power lies in the ice. There’s so much nyama. I could do anything, love.” He laughed again as he hung the grouse from the eaves.

“Not that thinking poorly of yourself has ever been a problem for you,” I remarked.

His eyes flared as he looked me up and down. He had the dizzy good humor of a man who is half drunk. “Not only do you look clean and fed, but you obviously have no idea how beautiful you are, especially with your hair down and that mouth of yours talking. Are we going in?”

The interior seemed dim after the bright sky and the snowy landscape. The lingering heat warmed me right up, or maybe it was hearing him stamp about in the entry hall behind me. I tested the water in the tub. He came in, shedding his coat.

I was not minded to be subtle. I helped him out of his clammy garments and wrapped him in a fur for long enough to make him drink the hot tisane and eat soup and barleycake, although he wasn’t much interested in the food. The tub interested him more, where I washed every bit of him with the sweet-smelling lavender soap. I managed to dry most of him with one of the pagnes before he picked me up.