Cold Steel

“Are you finished?” asked Vai. “Very well, then. With the permission of the elders of the House, I will answer.”



They granted it.



“Your words speak for themselves. I would be ashamed to let such speech pass my lips. My mother knows I honor and respect her. That is all that needs to be said. As for the other, according to tradition, the mansa of a mage House is the man whose magic reaches the deepest. Can you stand before the elders of this council and tell them honestly that your magic is stronger than mine?”



Thus Vai defeated him.



Just then the mansa stirred, as though the voice of his heir had roused him. “Let it be Andevai,” he whispered.



Andevai knelt beside him, taking his hand. “I am here, mansa. It shall be as you say.”



The thread of the mansa’s voice was barely audible. It clearly hurt him to speak, but he was determined to be heard. “Andevai, promise me on your mother’s honor that you will stand as mansa and rebuild Four Moons House.”



“I promise on my mother’s honor.”



His mother did not smile. She was not such a woman. But her pride was a light in the room.



As the council filed out, Rory slipped in. “I’ll sit with you in attendance, with your permission,” he said to Bakary and Serena. “He will pass soon to the other side.”



Outside, Duvai confronted his brother. “What do you mean to do, Mansa?” he said mockingly.



Weary but unbowed, Vai frowned. “He yet lives. I am not mansa.”



“The hunter has already crept into the shadows of the House. Death stalks that place.”



I looked wildly around the open courtyard of the family’s compound, but I did not see my sire in light or in shadow. Then a crow fluttered down to perch on the roof.



“Do you intend to stay here?” Duvai held a stout staff as tall as his head, tipped with a fringe of feathers and beads. He shifted it now from his left hand to his right, as if making ready for an attack. “You and your people are eating out our winter stores. You claim you mean to change things, but you’re doing exactly what the mages have always done, living off our flesh.”



Vai was tired enough that he allowed himself to lean on me as he met his brother’s gaze without anger or malice. “What I mean to do, you will know when the mansa dies and I am free to act. But you may be sure that I intend to release every village from the clientage that binds it to Four Moons House. Until then, I ask you to remember what our father taught us.”



“Our father told us that a hero is loved only on troubled days. Otherwise he causes too much disruption for the village to find him a comfortable presence. Is that what you meant to remind me of, Andevai?”



“Are those words meant for me because you think I am the hero? Because if they are, then you have directed them at the wrong person. Although I do not think of Catherine as disruptive. Just precipitous sometimes.”



With a sigh Duvai handed his staff to his younger brother. No doubt Duvai felt it beneath the dignity of any man to have to lean on a woman, much less thank her for salvaging what she could out of a desperate situation.



Vai took the staff as if it were an offering of peace. “Brother, surely you do not forget that when I was a boy, I did nothing but follow after you.”



“You were a terrible nuisance, always underfoot,” agreed Duvai gravely.



I looked from one to the other, seeing the stamp of the father I had never met in their features but also in the way they both carried themselves as men. Strength can be used to harm, but it can also be used to build and to sustain. No doubt they had clashed in later years because they were so much alike. One had always known the place he meant to grow into. The other had hoped to follow, only to find himself completely uprooted and forced into unfriendly earth.



Vai rubbed the wood, approving the polish of the grain. “Father taught us that a man knows he is a man by the good he brings to his village.”



Bakary appeared at the door of Grandmother’s house. All the people loitering in the courtyard and at the gate to the family compound turned to look, every voice stilled.



The old djeli raised a hand skyward. “Mansa,” he said, to Andevai.



Between one breath and the breath that was never taken, I found myself married to the mansa of Four Moons House. Not that anyone had asked if this was what I wanted!



The next day, in the ensuing gatherings and rituals, I crept away by the path I had taken when I had fled Haranwy almost two years ago. The open gate gave way to a track that led through gardens and pasture. A herd of fat sheep worked through the forage. I did not go far through the golden stalks of autumn. An orchard of apple, plum, and cherry had been harvested but for a few stragglers. An old stump made a good resting place. I sat for the longest time staring at the wind in the grass and the sway of branches, but everywhere I looked I saw my sire’s shadow and felt the icy touch of his hand. The pulse of blood in my ears drowned me.