Kate Elliott - Cold Magic

"Maestra?"

The truth poured over me like ice water. I sat bolt upright as a girl with tightly curled, short black hair stepped into the room with my clothing draped over an arm.

She startled back. "I'm sorry, maestra. I didn't realize you were still abed. If I may say so, what lovely hair you have, maestra."

Her cheerful smile coaxed an answering smile from me as I brushed black strands out of my face. "That is very kind of you," I said as I climbed out from under the covers. "Is it so very late already? The bed is quite comfortable. It smells of herbs."

"So it does," she agreed cheerfully. "I myself sewed sachets and bound them with amulets to keep out bedbugs and other such irritations."

Not all irritations, though.

My husband strode in as though it were his chamber, but pulled up short like a dog yanked back on its leash. The heat from the glowing coals in the braziers was sucked away in a sharp inhalation. He stared at me as though speech had been ripped from his throat.

I grabbed for my sword, lying on the bed, but all I found in my hand was the cane.

He flinched back as from a blow and rapped his own cane on the floor. "Are you not ready?"

The serving girl goggled at him. He wore an exceptionally fine dash jacket that, fitted through the torso, fell from the hips in loose folds to his knees. This one was paneled in a gold fabric set against a green of such elegance that even I took in a startled breath, because the fabric was so impressive, not because the buttery shine of the beaded gold collar caught high up against his neck looked so very well against the rich brown of his complexion.

I drew my cane across my nightdress like a shield. "Are we in a hurry?"

He blinked. "Ah. We are. Yes. Also, there is a chance the prince's wardens may pursue anyone they believe tied to the incident…It may not have been so very wise for me to go to the academy to find out what properties of the airship I could best exploit, although I admit I found out exactly what I needed."

"Wouldn't a cold mage deflate any balloon sack just by standing alongside it?" I asked, then bit my tongue.

"That's part of it," he said enthusiastically, then stopped and glanced at the young woman, who quickly bowed her head. "It's best to assume we might be followed."

I remembered the mob, the smoke stinging in my nostrils, the beat of flames against the sky. The howls of anger. Maybe my color changed.

He nodded, as if I had spoken. "Just so. The carriage is waiting." He went out.

The girl smiled in a sisterly way. "He's not a kinsman of yours, is he?"

"No! Not at all. Not in a kinsman blood relation kind of way. We met for the first time two days ago."

She did not take offense at my tone. Evidently, like Bee, she could interpret my mood and draw her own conclusions. "He has beautiful clothes, if you don't mind my saying so."

"The Houses are rich; everyone knows that." I had not meant the words to come out with such sarcasm.

She chuckled. "Surely we do know that, who serve them. But forgive me, maestra. He said the carriage is waiting urgent, and I'm blabbering on. What help can I offer? I'll brush your hair, if you wish."

I smiled. "I'd like that. Just a few strokes, for I must finish quickly."

She was a good companion on an anxious morning, because her words flowed in a soothing spill. "My brother, he's an apprentice at a tailor shop in Adurnam, where you must have come from. When he visits at festival, he brings us the tailoring books and the fashion books to look over. I know what he would say about that one. If you don't mind my saying so."

Leaning closer, I murmured, "What would your brother say:

"Privately, I'm sure," she said in the voice of a person thrilled to be offered a venue for speaking her mind instead of remaining mute before arrogant cold mages. "Privately, he would say that the finest of clothes must be worn with a coolness that does not draw attention. A man who draws attention is trying too hard."

A brutal hammering rose from downstairs, like someone pounding on a door. Startled, I jerked away from the brush.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, twisting the hair neatly up and pinning it into place. "I hope no one heard me. I meant no offense."

"None was taken in this chamber, I am sure." I was sorry to lose her lively presence, but I knew what I would need to get through another day. "Is it possible for you to go downstairs to the kitchens and pack a basket of bread and cheese and apples, or anything? I would be most grateful to you and to those in the kitchens."

She favored me with a look heavy with sudden pity. "Blessings on you." She looked around the chamber, which in the light of day resembled nothing as much as a luxurious prison house with its barred windows and iron-bound door. "I suppose you'll need them."

It proved an exceedingly long, jokingly uncomfortable, and tediously silent day. After the incident with the shattered cup, I was unwilling to attempt conversation lest I inadvertently anger him, and despite that brief discussion of airships in my chamber, he now displayed no interest in me whatsoever. He even declined my offer to share with him the contents of the basket: an apple, walnuts, two loaves of fresh bread, a wedge of pungent cheese, and two halves of a chicken neatly wrapped in waxed paper. Mostly, I thought about my family. Why this had fallen on me I did not know, but I would do my duty because I loved my family and they loved me. I would do my duty to honor the memory of my father and mother.

We rolled at twilight out of the Great North Wood and past willow hurdles fencing off gardens and then alongside clusters of round cottages grouped in compounds and beyond them substantial rectangular houses set back individually from the road. We had arrived in Southbridge, that part of the old Roman town of Londun south of the ancient bridge.

The carriage slowed as we mined onto the high road. The road widened to form a square around an old Roman temple. The high road plunged north toward the bridge, unseen in the gloom except for the distant glitter of watch-lights, while we took the rightward passage. We passed an inn whose gateway was lit by twin lanterns, a row of shops closed and shuttered, and a wide, paved court that sheltered a smithy still glowing within, gates flung open to let heat roil out. A burly man covered in a smith's apron strolled into view and lounged at the gate, thick arms crossed as he stared at our carriage. From within the smithy, the syncopated beat of a hammer rang, crossed and elaborated with the lighter rhythms of other pounding: the chatter of a higher-pitched hammer, the sassy countervoice of women pounding grain in a neighboring courtyard. The blacksmith simply watched, turning with our passage as if the force of his gaze were driving us out beyond the fiery furnace that was his purview.

Beyond the smithy, the road forked again, a dirt lane ribboning off into fields while the paved turnpike shot east toward Cantiacorum and eventually to Havery, some days' travel away. We passed more whitewashed houses and then a fenced-in area that in summer was certainly a grand garden. Beyond wall and garden lay a burned and blackened ruin, a once-noble structure with a courtyard and more buildings in back, all scorched, roofs fallen in, black soot everywhere. We pulled up in front of the smashed gate.

The eru opened the carriage door and pulled down the step, and my husband climbed out. I hurried after him as he strode past the gateway into the courtyard and halted at the ruined threshold of the main building. He pulled a spark of light out of the air and let it swell into a ball; this he sent spinning over the ruins, like a dog let run on a long leash. By the look of scorched and broken furniture tumbled in heaps or smashed under fallen beams, the place had gone down fast, and recently. In places,