Cold Magic (30 page)

I would have—should have—bolted, but the words chained my heart and my feet. Maybe it was only curiosity that would kill the cat, or perhaps she who lay invalid on the bed had power enough to hold me here, even if she seemed to give me a choice in the matter. The girl I recognized too late: She was the girl I had glimpsed striding through the orchard with the other workers. Duvai, then, must be Andevai’s older brother. Impossibly—or perhaps not—I had run to exactly the wrong place. Could it be the eru and coachman had betrayed me? Yet why bother to stage an elaborate escape? More likely the mansa, or the djeli, had power enough to direct my steps this way.

The shape in the bed spoke again, and the girl repeated so I could understand.

“Just because you think you see a wolf does not mean one is there.” She added, “Mother possesses sight.”

I was breathing hard and fast. “That’s your mother? Andevai’s mother?”

“Our father’s mother, so our mother. Go to her. She won’t bite, Catherine. Your name is Catherine, isn’t it? I asked already, in the orchard—my brother’s wife will surely become a sister to me!—but he refused to let me meet you.”

The old woman spoke as in answer, and the girl grimaced and shrugged. “He’s ashamed of us. That’s what they’ve taught him there, to feel ashamed of his people.” She glanced at me sidelong and the next words were not unfriendly precisely but with a bite I had not heard in the grandmother’s tone. “Do you look down upon us also, Catherine?”

“No, no, not at all.” Now I had to approach the old grandmother lest my behavior be deemed haughty. What had I to lose by being friendly when I now knew he had rejected them? I knelt beside the bed on a pillow set there for visitors. “Grandmother, my greetings to you on this evening. Is it peaceful with you?”

We went on in this way for a while, and the longer we spoke the stock phrases that were easiest for me to understand, the better I could tease out meaning from her country way of speaking and the gaps made by words that I simply did not know. Andevai’s sister filled in what I missed. I was not even aware when the long ritual of greeting shifted into another type of conversation entirely, for ancient grandmothers generally feel they can interrogate those who enter into their circle, and I
was
her grandson’s wife and therefore now her daughter.

“Duvai’s wife naturally believes her husband brought a spirit woman home from the bush to take in as his second wife,” she told me, with help from her granddaughter. “That is why she took so badly against you. She is not a mean or ungenerous woman, but she is jealous of his attentions, for she believes he is a man whom all women—especially spirit women who see him walking in the bush—must desire as a husband. Also, he will become head of the family one day soon.”

“Why would she think me a spirit woman out of the… ah… bush?”

“You have the smell of the spirit world in your bones. But I have seen spirit women, and spirit men, and changeling children, and I know you are not one of them but something else.”

“Do you know what I am?” I demanded.

The girl hissed warningly at my impassioned tone, but the old mother smiled. “I sense you are confused. Why are you come to our village? I admit, a wedding night celebrated on Hallows Night would be ill-omened, so better that you wait on the bedding. Still, I would think you better served in a big house with plenty of rich food and fine clothing to wait out the hallowing.”

I held my tongue, thinking furiously. What could I say that would not condemn me?

“Yet here you are,” she continued. I did not think her sight extended actually into my thoughts. It surely took no great skill to look at my weary, rumpled form and figure that something drastic must have precipitated my departure from a powerful mage House on the deadliest night of the year, especially since Andevai’s sister knew perfectly well that I had only hours before arrived at Four Moons House in her brother’s company. “And now you are our guest, whatever else you may be. I expect you are hungry. Kayleigh, bring meat and porridge. How tired the feet become after much walking!” She lifted her hand a handbreadth off the blankets.

This, I realized, was an invitation for me to sit rather than kneel. The attendant brought a stool, and I thanked her nicely and examined Grandmother’s face for Andevai’s lineaments. Like all of the villagers in these parts, she was what Brennan had called “tartan,” of mixed descent, lighter than Andevai and Kayleigh but without Duvai’s brown-gold hair. She was very weak, but her gaze was alert. A frail hand stirred on the blankets. Moved by what impulse I did not know, I took gentle hold of her hand and we sat for a time in silence, my hand warm against her cooler skin. I felt oddly comfortable, almost at peace, with drums talking nearby and her breathing as steady as a heart’s beat.

“What is the name of this village?” I asked at last.

“Haranwy. We are a well-fed village, through our hard work. Growers of grain.”

“And hunters,” I added, more tartly than I meant, “who tell me they can walk in the spirit world.”

“What would a city girl like you know of hunters? Or the spirit world? To attract the interest of Four Moons House, you must have been born into a rich or a princely family, or to one that has harvested many cold mages out of its fields.”

What expression showed on my face I don’t know, but she chuckled again. “It is the fate of the young to believe the old know everything or the old know nothing. I am merely curious about my grandson’s destiny. We are rarely allowed to see him.”

Kayleigh came in carrying a tray with water and a cloth for washing and a bowl of gruel topped with a strip of meat whose savor made my mouth water. She set the tray on my lap with a pleasing smile that made my own lips stir. Yet all at once I knew—as a goat must know in the instant before its throat is slit—what Andevai’s sister was about to say.

“Vai is at the gate, on a very fine horse! They always say they’ll let him visit on the festival days, but then he never does. You never said, Catherine, that he was right behind you. Did you get separated on the road? I suppose he was looking for you! I don’t think he has the least idea you are here, though. Isn’t that strange?”

“Kayleigh.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“How does the wind speak in the compound?”

“Duvai let it be known at once that no one speaks until you give the word, Mother.”

“Let the cold mage come to my bedside. As for the other, a closed flower waits until daylight to bloom. Even the beasts prefer a quiet byre in which to feast.”

The girl shared a glance with me and rolled her eyes almost exactly as Bee would have done. Then she took herself out, sparing a grin—of happy complicity, assuming me to be as glad to hear news of Andevai’s arrival as she was—before she closed the door.

My hands were shaking. I looked around the small house, seeking windows, but there were none, only a hearth set into one wall with a chimney funneling the smoke out and the attendant standing by the door. I was trapped.

“What did I ever do,” I muttered, “to deserve this destiny?”

She sighed sharply. “I have let it be known that none will mention your presence here until I say to do so. Knowing the hunters ranged deep into the bush and seeing you arrive with your hair and those looks on a cross-quarter eve, people naturally wonder if you are a spirit woman or a real woman. That is why you were brought to me. My son is too ill to receive such visitors.”

“Andevai’s father is ill?”

“Vai calls him Father, but you would say his uncle. He is my elder son, who sired no sons of his own, alas. My younger son, who sired my two grandsons, has crossed over. Duvai waits too impatiently for the household to pass into his hands. That is the destiny of some men, to see in the passing of one they love an opportunity to better themselves.”

Despite everything, despite all my efforts to stay strong, I began to snivel, trying to choke down my sobs.

“If you sit in the corner, he will not see you. Not if I do not wish him to see you, and I do not wish it, for I know what is in your heart.”

I wiped my nose with the back of my free hand. “W-what is in my heart?”

“You fear Vai because you fear the mansa. What does the mansa want from you that he brought you into his house?”

She had power as great as that of the mansa but so different it could not be named.

“My death,” I said before I knew I meant to say it.

Not even this surprised her. “Ah. A sacrifice. This corner”—she indicated the foot of her bed—”is darkest.”

I carried the tray to the corner and sat in the darkness with my sword at my left hand and my cloak pulled around me, the hood over my head. I was still shaking but suddenly ravenous. At least if I was going to die, I would die with a full stomach! I quickly washed and then, cradling the bowl in my left hand, swept the meat to my lips with my right.

The door opened.

Duvai came in first and Andevai after him in a wave of cold that made the hearth fire shudder. They did not stand close. Andevai in his fine, expensive clothing made the humble room appear shabby and sad in comparison, and he held himself aloof, as if he feared he would ruin his clothing by touching anything in the room. Certainly he would have looked down his nose at his older brother, except that Duvai was half a head taller. The contrast was strong: Duvai was taller and bigger, and perhaps as many as ten years older than Andevai, and the hunter was an impressive-looking man with the confidence and pride that comes from being respected by those he lives among.

“Here he is, Mother,” said Duvai in a clipped tone that so shocked me with its displeasure that I swallowed the last hank of meat before it was fully chewed. My gulp was, fortunately, covered by his scornful words. “My brother has come home at festival, by the generosity of the mansa who lifted him to a higher station and therefore protects us out of thanks for what a noble son we have given to a House full of sorcerers.”

“I am here, Mother.” Andevai did not look at Duvai, and it was difficult to know whether it was pride, dislike, vanity, or envy that had cut the chasm between them. “I regret that I have not been here as often as I might have wished, but I am here now. I was following the toll road, and night came on just as I reached Haranwy.”

Duvai gestured too broadly. His voice was deep, and his words unexceptional, but his tone was cutting. “We welcome him on a festival night, as we are required to do, now that he is a powerful man in the world. Perhaps his presence here will keep the Wild Hunt at bay on such a night. Or perhaps it will attract them, as honey attracts bears and carrion attracts wolves, they whose arrow and whose spear cannot be turned aside, not by any human power or cunning or strength. Not even by his.”

I braced, my left hand at the sword’s hilt, but Andevai had more self-control than I had realized. His jaw tightened. The hearth fire dimmed, but it did not go out.

His grandmother certainly did not fear him. “On Hallows Night, the masters cut out the souls of those who will cross over to the other side in the coming year. My son is infested with fever. His body will not outlast this winter. This I have seen. I also have few enough days left in this flesh, so I will see you, sons of different mothers, embrace this night. Even if you cannot like each other, then promise me for the sake of the village never to fight one another. I will always be watching.”

Duvai grunted, almost inaudibly. “It will be as you wish, Mother,” he said.

I had not thought it possible for Andevai’s haughty posture to grow more stiff, but it did. “It will be as you wish,” he echoed softly.

The two men embraced, but I had seen snarling dogs more companionable. They parted awkwardly.

Andevai went over and knelt on the pillow. He took his grandmother’s thin hands in his own and bent to kiss her hollow cheek. “I missed you, Mother.”

Duvai snorted.

This time the fire did go out, and a spurt of ash rose. Strangely, the tapers that lit the room kept burning undisturbed.

“Let the festival be danced,” she said to Duvai. “I will hear and dance with you. On such a night, trouble may come to the gate if things are not done properly.”

“Of course, Mother,” he said with more warmth than before. He said nothing to Andevai but left. The attendant emerged from the shadows opposite and knelt at the fire to set new kindling.

“Don’t bother,” said Andevai. “It won’t light until I’m gone.”

She continued with her task as if she had not heard him.

“You are come late, Vai. You who study the magic of winter are most at risk. You dare not walk abroad on the day when the veil is thinnest and the hunt rides. For I am sure the tales tell us that the ancient ones who rule in the other world distrust magisters most of all.”

“They hunt down those who become too powerful and draw their notice, so we are told, but you can be sure I am not taught enough to become truly powerful. Not I, the son of slaves.”

“Is that a bitter apple, son?”

He grimaced. “I asked for nothing. I wanted to be a hunter, not a cold mage.”

“Yet you are what you are.”

“So I am. Now I am responsible for all of you, as I am reminded every day at the House. Trouble runs at my heels like a pack of wolves. The mansa has ordered me to kill a person.”

“That is a heavy task. What manner of person?”

“I have to do it. I have no choice. That is not why I came, Mother. This night and day I cannot travel abroad—no magister can, although our servants can ride where they wish, evidently.” How annoyed he sounded! How glad I was that the eru and the coachman had the power to tweak the noses of the proud House mages! “So I stopped to see you,” he continued, as humbly as an affectionate child. “The visits I make here are what sustain me through the rest of the year. It will be a colder winter than most….” He faltered, voice choked, and after a moment continued. “Best I go see Fa now, to greet him, and then to see my own mama. What news of my mama, Mother?” His voice trembled on the words. Beyond the walls of the house, the drums rolled loudly and in unison as youthful voices whooped and cried out, breaking into song.