Kate Elliott - Cold Fire

I widened my eyes and mouthed, broadly, “ Yes. Say yes. ”

“Ye-es,” he said slowly, brow crinkling with a question.

“Yes?” said Lord Marius with a surprised glance at Amadou.

I lifted my chin and mouthed, “ Say yes. Say go up on the roof. ”

“Yes,” said Andevai more decisively. “By all means, go up on the roof.” Then, with what was even for him an excess of haughty pride, he turned his glare onto a startled Lord Marius. “Are we going up? The soldiers told me they found a troll’s maze. Whatever that is. I’d like to see.”

The captain raised a hand as if catching a tossed ball. “A troll’s maze! We’re leaving.”

Amadou glanced at Andevai. “They could have come over the roof.”

“There’s a goblin workshop locked up for the day on one side. On the other, they’re poisoning themselves with arsenic or some such. I don’t see how the girls could have gotten in here before us. And I’m not risking a troll’s maze. One foot wrong and the whole thing will crash down. Then we’ll be years haggling in court for damages. Trolls love haggling in court. Amadou, I suspect you’re right: This detour is a chase after a wild goose. Let’s go. They’re out there somewhere. I promised the mansa I would recover them and return them to him.”

Lord Marius went out. Amadou Barry followed.

Andevai crossed to the bed and picked up the jacket, holding it high so it swept along my left side. “Now I understand how you were able to get out of Four Moons House without being seen,” he whispered. “What magic conceals you? None I’ve ever heard of.”

“Listen! The mansa told them not to trust you. If you say left, then they’ll go right.”

Anger flashed in the flare of his eyes. “Is that so?”

“They were following you, to try to find us.”

“Were they, now?” His gaze narrowed as he contemplated an object, personage, or situation that annoyed him very much.

“Magister?” Amadou Barry stepped halfway back into the room. “Is something amiss?”

“I just can’t keep my eyes off it,” said Andevai, gaze skating above the collar of the jacket as his eyes met mine. “There’s so much about its tailoring I don’t comprehend. But it doesn’t truly belong to me, so I fear I must leave it behind. Although you never know. I haven’t given up on gaining something so very close to my heart.”

My cheeks were so on fire that I was amazed the legate could not see me.

Amadou Barry appeared startled by Andevai’s passionate words. “It’s a bit…over-complicated for my taste. We’re leaving now, Magister.”

“My thanks for the warning,” Andevai said, his gaze on me.

He tossed the jacket over the other clothes and turned away. At the door, he paused with a hand on the frame. I tensed, waiting for him to glance over his shoulder one last time.

A deep heavy boom shuddered the house.

“By Teutates!” cried one of the men, “they’re firing cannon on the river!”

Without looking back, Andevai walked out.

“Bring the prisoner,” said Lord Marius from the passage.

I heard Andevai. “By the way, Legate, how did you come to seek me out at the law offices?”

They clattered out, taking Amadou’s answer with them, and leaving me with a cold wind rising up through the shattered door and the jangling tinkling off-key chime from the chamber upstairs.

The jacket Andevai had held glared at me accusingly through its rose-colored spectacles with their peacock wings. I haven’t given up. I was standing there, as congealed as cold porridge, when Bee appeared in the doorway, radiant with alarm.

“Cat! We heard raised voices. What happened?”

“I don’t know whether to be annoyed or flattered.”

Rory slouched into sight beyond the threshold, hauling the two bags. “I feel like a half-dead antelope my mother has just dragged in for dinner.”

I hastened to his side. “I’m sorry. Let me take one.”

“Never again peahens. I’m off feathers forever.” He dipped his head to touch his cheek to mine. “You’re all right, though. So I’m better already. What happened to our guide?”

I hugged him. “Eurig sacrificed himself for us. We can’t risk going back to the law offices to warn them. We’ve got to find this Fiddler’s Stone at Old Cross Gate.”

“It’s a bad idea,” said Rory.

“Did Andevai betray us?” Bee asked.

“Quite the opposite. He’s the one drawing them off. The mansa is having him followed.”

“He seems strangely loyal to you, in an exceedingly peculiar sort of way.” She paused, examining my stiffening expression. “I won’t tease, Cat. Let’s go.”

In the wake of the militia’s passage, the lanes had emptied. We crept out a maze of back alleys that let onto the crowds of Enterprise Road, east of Fox Close. Women hauled baskets and pots balanced atop their heads. One gray-haired woman staggered along beneath a whole sheep, which was quite dead, all light gone from its eyes. The third person I asked told us to head east. I led with the cane, Rory hauled the bags, and Bee took the rear guard with the knife in her pocket and a small knit bag in which she kept her sketchbook and pencils slung over her back.

A band of young males swaggered past. They bellowed in perfect four-part harmony a song about the misadventures of an “ass” who was not a donkey but the prince of Tarrant. We reached an open area where five roads met. A line of carts and wagons loaded with casks, sacks, and open crates of unfinished hats had locked to a complete halt. The singing youths blocked the intersection. Arms linked defiantly, they began singing a familiar melody. Its usual lyrics, about a lass abandoned by a worthless lover, had been replaced by the challenging political phrases of the Northgate poet: A rising light marks the dawn of a new world.

I grabbed the sleeve of a passing costermonger. “Maester! Where’s Old Cross Gate?”

“Why, this is it! Trouble brewing. You don’t want to be caught in this.” He shoved on, using his cart to part the crowd.

I stepped in front of a pair of women with baskets on their heads. “Where can I find the Fiddler’s Stone?” I cried.

“An ill-starred day to be looking in the stone for the image of your future husband, lass,” said the elder. “But it’s past the arch and then in the little court to the right.”

It took us a moment to spot an arch in an unimposing old wall to our left. The opening was barely high and wide enough for a wagon. We fought through the crowd and slipped through it onto a side street lined with dilapidated old houses ripe for the transforming dreams of architects. A tiny lane pitted with ruts and filthy with crusty and yellowed snow took us to a little crossing where three alleys met. The Fiddler’s Stone was a squat granite monolith listing over like a drunk. The surrounding buildings were dank. Excrement had frozen in mounds alongside broken steps that led to ramshackle doors. All the windows were boarded up. But a wreath of frozen flowers draped the stone’s peak like a flaking crown.

Rory licked his lips. “I smell summer.”

“Give me the knife, Bee.” I pulled off my right glove, set the blade to my little finger, and sliced. The skin creased and reddened, but no blood appeared.

Bee snickered. “Do you want me to do it?”

“No! You’ll hack off the whole finger just to be sure.”

“Give me that.” She pulled off her own glove, took the knife, and neatly opened a delicate cut on her palm.

“Let your blood fall on the stone,” I said.

Warmth stung on my own hand as a bead of blood oozed red down my finger. All at once, I tasted summer on the wind.

“Like this?” Bee held her hand above the stone. Her blood dripped onto the grimy surface.