Cold Fire

Keer chuffed, crest rising. “I hear his voice in yours. Therefore, I will help you. A sloop may be embarking this coming Venerday if the weather holds. Have me your letter before then, and I shall see it posted with we usual pouch.”



“How long will it take to get there, and an answer to return?”



“Who can know? A month each way, if the weather holds fair and the winds cooperate and the ship does not sink. So, likely it will be longer.”



A month each way! That would be barely enough time for me to hear back from her before Hallows’ Night at the end of the October, and then only if all went well. What choice did I have? I had to try. “In truth, Maestra, I am destitute. I have neither pen nor paper, nor payment for delivery costs.”



Keer bent forward, examining me in the same way, I imagined, that a bored and fed hawk considers a squirming mouse trapped within reach of its talons. “I can offer you work in our clutch’s corporation. In recompense for the employment you were not able to take up in Adurnam. The cost of letter and dispatch can come out of your earnings. You can nest in a room above our offices.”



The words hit me like a blow. Employment. A room. I need never see Vai until a year and a day were up and our marriage dissolved. Never again.



“Here is more tea,” said Keer.



I had to drink another cup, because I could not speak.



“My offer has surprised you,” Keer said at length.



I dredged for words. “I am unexpectedly overwhelmed, Maestra. But I already have employment and a room.” I could not bear to disappoint Aunty Djeneba. Surely it was easier to hear all the gossip at the boardinghouse than confined in an office. Surely. What if the wardens caught a glimpse of me so close to the gates? Where was Drake, anyway? “Let me start with a letter,” I finished weakly. “I’ll bring one before Venerday.”



“No one enters into an association without a great deal of negotiation and thought.”



“No, of course not.” My thoughts tangled and collided as if I stood in a maze of mirrors, staggering from Bee to Vai and back again, she whom I might not be able to save and he with whom I had no future.



Keer let out a hiss of breath like steam escaping from a kettle. “You rats. If you simply agree, without contesting, then I will always stand above you in the—as you call it—the pecking order. Really, where is the fun in that? You rats are too fond of your entrenched hierarchies.”



The words charmed me into a grin. “My apologies. I was preoccupied by another matter.” I roused the part of me accustomed to being sensible. “I assure you, I will return ready to duel.”



The teeth showed again. “That, I will enjoy. Now. You require paper, pen, and ink.” Was it my imagination, or had her way of speaking changed as she spoke to me, vowels shifting sound, cadence altering?



We began bargaining over the cost. The troll did not strike me as discourteous or greedy; if anything, I sensed that each transaction was a chance to play a game I could barely perceive whose rules I did not understand. Even after hard bargaining, the few coins I possessed did not suffice to buy a sheet of foolscap and a dram of ink, much less the dispatch service.



With polite words I took my leave, in my confusion turning the wrong way. The crowded shop fronts and offices debouched into a square on the north vault of the old city walls where rose a huge gate carved with a lion on one side and a buffalo on the other. A hulking palace sprawled along one side of the square, marked with the lamp and staff of the warden’s service. This edifice was Warden Hall. A tall, powerfully built young man with scarred cheeks was pushing a flat cart laden with baskets of fruit toward a side entrance. After a moment, I recognized Vai’s friend Kofi.



Wreathed in shadow, I followed him. Clouds were piling up in the east, heavy with rain and streaked with gray smoke rising from the factory district. I sneezed, grit in my eye. Kofi paused at the corner, wiping his forehead with a kerchief as he studied the clock tower of Warden Hall.



When the hour tolled nine, he pushed his cart to the kitchen entrance. Kayleigh came down steps hauling a bin of rubbish, which she set beside a stinking wagon hitched to a sleepy donkey. Pretending to be nothing more than chance-met servants, they exchanged murmured words.



“Word has come by bird that the cacica and the general have concluded their negotiations. He and his people will set out on the next auspicious day to return to Expedition.”



“What manner of deal have the general struck with the Taino?” he asked.



“No one knows. But everyone is very nervous. The five Council members who voted to support the general are scolding the twelve who voted to reject him. The five say that by refusing to aid him, the Council has driven the general into Taino arms.”