Cold Fire

I exchanged a glance with Bee. We would have to lose him, but not too soon. A shame, for he seemed nice enough. “Our thanks. We can’t give our names. My apologies.”



“I understand. This way.”



He picked up the handles of the cart and began pushing not toward Enterprise Road but deeper into the narrow lane of Fox Close. We walked alongside as he talked. “We’ll take Ticking Lane through the Lower Warrens. They’re perfectly safe despite the name. Most of the old buildings here have been knocked down and rebuilt. And there’s gaslight everywhere in this district. We used to be nothing more than a fishing village. Now we’re quite the most modern district in Adurnam, thanks to the trolls and the radicals.”



“How did you become a radical?” Bee asked.



“As the Northgate poet says, it’s no crime to think men have natural rights that ought not to be trampled on by ancient privileges.”



“Just men? Or women, too?” asked Bee with her most dangerously pretty smile.



He blinked, taken aback by this thrust. “Nature has suited women for a different role than that given to men.”



“Like Professora Kuti?” Bee demanded.



“Cat!” Rory nudged me with a bag. “I smell a lot of horses nearby.”



Angry shouts of protest rang from Enterprise Road: “The dogs are come to bite us with their teeth of steel.” “We need step aside for no man!” “Which will it be, lads? Freedom or fetters?”



A whip cracked. A man screamed. A column of mounted soldiers swept into sight around the corner where Fox Close met Enterprise Road. About half wore tabards marked with the four moons of full, half, crescent, and new: turbaned mage House troops, leading a spare horse. The rest wore the uniforms of the Tarrant militia except for a half dozen in red-and-gold hip-length capes, the mark of Rome’s ambassadorial cavalry. Pedestrians stumbled back to the stoops and railings.



“Keep walking,” said Eurig. “Don’t look back.”



“Eurig,” I said, “did the ancient village here have a crossroads?”



“What? The Fiddler’s Stone down by Old Cross Gate? The fishermen would bring their catch up from the shore and trade it to the folk who came over from the Roman camp. That was a long time ago.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Let’s move faster. Just don’t run.”



I looked back. The soldiers pulled up in front of the law offices of Godwik and Clutch. A man wearing a Roman cape dismounted just as the door opened and Andevai appeared on the steps. The rigid set of his shoulders betrayed his annoyance, and made me think he really had come to consult with Chartji on a matter so private he hadn’t told the mansa. From the steps, as if drawn by my foolish stare, Andevai looked our way down Fox Close. I saw him see me.



Quite deliberately, he strode down the steps, mounted, and turned toward Enterprise Road.



“He’s leading them away from us!” I said.



“Just keep walking,” said Eurig.



“Cat!” Bee was breathless. “Didn’t you recognize him?”



“Andevai? Of course I recognized—”



“It was Amadou Barry, with the Roman guard.”



Eurig turned his cart into a lane lined with craftsmen’s shops. Behind one window, clockwork toy horses and dogs clattered along a display counter. Behind another, four women sat at a table, filing and polishing tiny gears.



Rory, lagging behind, ran to catch up. “They’re coming back. That Lord Marius is with them now. He must have told them to turn around.”



Eurig whistled shrilly. Five shops down, a burly man wearing an apron streaked with grease stepped out onto the lane. He nodded, and we hurried past him into a large room where persons bent over an alembic from whose unstoppered rim rose a misty thread. An acrid smell made my eyes water. Rory sneezed. From behind a curtain came the sound of hollow clapping.



“Up on the roof and over to the troll nest,” said the aproned man. “They’re all out at the steamworks, and I’ve got their permission. I’ll put your cart out back. Lads, get your masks on.”



“What’s that awful smell?” Bee asked.



“A scent to keep the prince’s hounds at bay, Maestressa,” he said. “You won’t be able to come back down, but they won’t be able to come in.” He dragged aside the curtain to reveal stairs.



A handbell rang three times. We climbed the stairs to the first floor in pace to the odd clapping noise. Workbenches filled the first-floor chamber, strewn with glass pipes, gleaming gears, and a discarded tartan cap. A dozen workers were grumbling as they reached under their benches for cloth masks. Scars mottled their ashen faces. The second floor was crammed with crates, and the third with neat rows of cots. A stair-step ladder led to a long, low attic with a dormer window and more cots.