Cold Steel

“This is a radical step,” the prince remarked as he bowed over Beatrice’s hand, for it was evident they were already acquainted. “It appears the Honeyed Voice has sweetened yet another ear.”



“In fact,” said Vai, “it is her cousin, my wife, who coaxed me into bed with the radicals. Her, and my good friends from Expedition.”



“You are welcome here,” said the prince, to all of us. “My clan has long suffered, caught between the Parisi prince and the Veneti dukes with their Armorican overlord. That is why I have sought allies elsewhere.” He nodded at Chartji and Godwik. They were not the only feathered people present at his court. “The presence of a mansa and his House will certainly give my rivals pause, especially now that the Iberian Monster’s campaign has shaken up the entire continent.”



“What news of the Iberian Monster?” I asked.



The old man indicated a stack of dispatches on a desk. “An interesting turn of events. He has rallied four Roman legions to his cause and declared his intention to depose the emperor and raise himself to that exalted place, after which he will reform the laws and some such palaver. Last we heard, he won a resounding victory near Nikaia. For the time being, that leaves us here in the Gallic Territories at a temporary peace. We shall see how long it lasts.”



At the law offices of Godwik and Clutch, Chartji took us to a storage room. Here, by diverse means, had washed up most of the belongings we had lost hold of over the last months: Vai’s carpentry tools and the other traveling gear he and I had abandoned when we had leaped into the Rhenus River; the chests left behind at Two Gourds House with all of Vai’s dash jackets and the clothes he had had made for me; even, astoundingly, the chests Bee had been forced to leave with Camjiata, from which Drake had stolen some of Vai’s clothing.



To my amazement, one of the chests contained all of my father’s journals. The general had kindly sent these items on with a note that read:



It is never too late to change your mind.



Best of all, Bee unearthed the gold and fine linen Caonabo had asked her to deliver to Juba. The cloth shed a smoky flavor, dragon-like, from being packed in with tobacco leaves. “Haübey was meant to wear this finery on his return to Sharagua, but I have decided we need the money more than he does now he has been called back from exile. We can get an excellent price for the tobacco as well. It is no easy task to shelter, feed, and clothe almost one hundred people from nothing!”



The old Hassi Barahal compound where Aunt Tilly had been born had been boarded up in the wake of Camjiata’s defeat sixteen years ago, when the household had dispersed either to Adurnam or to Gadir. With the proceeds from the sale of the gold, Four Moons House obtained the lease for this edifice, which backed up against a gentle tributary stream of the mighty Sicauna River in the northern quarter of town. In the next property over along the bank stood a run-down old villa with a hypocaust system in need of extensive repairs, owned by a Kena’ani shipping clan eager to make an ally of the mansa and his Kena’ani wife and her cousin by offering him use of the building as long as he made the necessary repairs and renovations at his own expense. With the weather rapidly growing colder, the able-bodied set to work to repair enough of the hypocaust system to shelter the cold mages through the coming winter, while the Barahal compound’s buildings were cleaned for the rest of the household.



Five days after we arrived, with the heaviest of the cleaning behind us, Bee and I walked down to the harbor district to the law offices of Godwik and Clutch. I liked what I had seen of Havery, for the little port city had a free and easy flavor that reminded me of Expedition. A lively troll town expanded in the west, near a burgeoning factory district. Besides the usual port-city mix of people of every lineage, clan, ethnicity, guild, and profession, there were enclaves of merchants and artisans and sailors from Expedition, the Taino kingdom, and other Amerikan peoples as well.



“The prince has asked me if I will consider standing for the council when he calls for elections next year,” Bee was saying, “and naturally I will, since many women may feel reluctant to put themselves forward. Someone must set a good example. But we must have a way to make a living as well. That’s why the plan Andevai and I have concocted makes perfect sense. In a way, the mage House and the Godwik and Clutch consortium have become partners through your relationship with both of them. The best part is that you and I will finally get to do the work we were trained for.”



I loved to watch her shine. She was a little like the puppy. She had gotten her teeth into an enterprise that matched her wit and her ambition.