Cold Steel

“What is your desire, Magister?” asked the steward in the tone of a man who is never awed by the fits and starts of the powerful, because he is their equal.



“I desire a tour of Noviomagus,” Andevai said not as a request but as a demand. “What sights there are to see, if indeed there are any in such a town, for I recollect my lessons that once this was nothing more than a frontier outpost of the Roman Empire, now sadly fallen. Catherine! Put that down!”



I had taken advantage of his speech to creep over to the side table and fork a slice of beef onto my plate.



“Lord of All, Magister,” said one of the men, goaded into speech, “let the girl eat.”



My husband smiled in the most condescending way imaginable as he turned his dark gaze on the other man, who was not much older and had the look of a person gone a little soft from having lived in luxury all his days. “That is how revolution starts. You give them one scrap of beef out of pity and suddenly they wish to eat rich food that isn’t good for them and is likely spoiled besides.”



I could not help myself. Right in front of their astonished gazes, I wolfed down the slice of beef before he could take the plate away from me. His eyes flared. The chamber grew so cold so fast that my next exhalation made mist.



“I am sure a tour can be arranged,” said the steward hastily.



Vai’s eyebrows rose as the cold eased fractionally. “I am sure you can arrange such a tour, but have you any decently sprung carriages in which we may be conveyed in comfort? I was shocked at the condition of the bed. It was not adequate to my wife’s needs.”



I choked down a laugh, and tried to turn it into a coughed sob.



At the far table one woman whispered to another, “See how he dresses himself like a peacock and fits her in dull, ordinary feathers!”



Ordinary! Blessed Tanit! In Sala I had myself overseen the making of this sensible ensemble of mock-cuirassier jacket and perfectly tailored traveling skirt with a double row of buttons in the front for ease of dressing and sewn of the finest challis dyed a sophisticated rich spruce green that exactly complemented my coloring.



The steward was by now looking angry. “You may be assured that our carriages are of the first quality, Magister.”



He tried the bread. “Sadly, the same cannot be said for your cook. I will endeavor to accept what you set before me. My wife has begged me to break our journey here for some days of needed respite, for she has a frail constitution and the coach accident quite overset her delicate nerves, but I am not sure I can endure these conditions for even one more night, much less perform other duties.”



As the steward assured him that all would be arranged to his satisfaction, I stealthily ate two slices of bread magnificently flavored with a tincture of garlic and dill. Then I managed to eat my way down the side table as Andevai complained at length about the unlikelihood of anything being arranged to his satisfaction.



Not long after, we were seated in a spacious and exceptionally well-sprung carriage taking a tour of the city under the guidance of the steward. He was, he informed us imperiously, the son of Five Mirrors’s mansa. He did not like Andevai, that was obvious, but best of all, he had begun addressing gentle comments to me as if he felt sorry for me. The djeli had come along, ostensibly to narrate our tour. Although he glanced at the laced-up basket and my cane, he did not remark on them.



Noviomagus had the look of a prosperous town. Folk were out shopping. Servants pushed carts along the cobblestone streets. Like most urban centers that had survived the collapse of the Roman land empire eight hundred years ago, the old forum of the Roman city had developed into a civic center of a new town. A clock tower and a council house identified the public square where festival dances could be held, soldiers could parade, and princely bards and djeliw could declaim to large crowds. My husband compared these agreeable surroundings unfavorably to the superior architecture of cities I was pretty sure he had never visited except in prints collected into books. He then demanded to see New Bridge, whose splendors the djeli described in lengthy detail as we rolled through the streets toward the river. I enjoyed the djeli’s resonant speaking voice and fluid delivery not least because it meant I didn’t have to listen to Andevai go on in that appalling tone.



It was a mercy to get out of the carriage at New Bridge. The air was cool, and the cloudy sky was rent by wind. Andevai asked question after question about the design and engineering of the bridge. He sounded as if he actually knew what he was talking about, as perhaps a man trained in carpentry by an architect would. I lagged behind. The moment the djeli turned his back on me, I slipped away behind a passing wagon. The men attending us shouted in alarm, but I had already hidden in the shadows and raced away. Because the Feast of Mars Triumphant began this evening, shopkeepers had hung the red festival wreath pierced with a short sword from their doors or over their windows. I saw no ram’s masks in honor of the old Celtic war god Camulos, as were customary in Adurnam. Here, Mars Intarabus was known as the wolf-killer because he wore a wolf’s pelt for clothing.