Cold Steel

“Not so difficult, was that? But I’m thinking you don’t recognize me. For I surely recognize you two lasses, and the man with you, too. That’s why you’re in here and not out there.”



He had two fingers missing on his right hand. Abruptly, I did recognize him.



“You were the one with the coal cart, Brennan Du’s man. You challenged Lord Marius, to catch his attention so he wouldn’t find us. He had you arrested. Your name is Eurig.”



“That is me in truth, lass.” He flashed a more flirtatious smile, perhaps thinking that a woman who remembered him so keenly had been struck by his looks and presence, when in fact I had been trained in a household of spies and messengers to have a good memory. “I remember the day as bright as yesterday even though it was over a year ago.”



“We were never able to thank you for the sacrifice you made for us. What happened after you were arrested?”



He glanced at his mutilated hand. “A lot of folk were arrested after the prince got news that General Camjiata had walked into Adurnam and then escaped over the sea. Black-haired Brennan and the professora barely escaped.”



“I was with them!” said Rory. “That was fun!”



He rounded on Rory. “Fun! One hundred men were executed for treason!”



“I didn’t see that,” said Rory indignantly. “We were already gone. I would never call executions and arrests fun! I meant that the skulking and running were fun, and Brennan Du taught me how to properly drink whiskey. Did you think I meant I am the kind of person who laughs when people suffer?”



He looked suddenly about twice his normal size, with his chest puffed up and his lips curled back. His braid, like a whip, seemed ready to snap.



Eurig scooted his chair back so fast that it squeaked against the floorboards.



Rory leaned forward. “A person can enjoy fun and be serious at the same time.”



“Gracious Melqart, Rory! You’re sounding more and more like Cat every day!” Bee pushed him back into his chair and turned her most coaxing smile on Eurig. “What happened to the Northgate poet?”



Eurig’s anger broke free. “Why, the Northgate poet died, lass. And our hopes with him. The prince let the poet starve himself to death on the steps of the palace.”



I was too shocked to speak, for when we had fallen into the well, the Northgate poet had still been alive.



“Died!” Bee set down her mug. “What of the shame that stained the prince’s honor?”



“Tyrants have no honor and therefore no shame. The prince will make merry at his daughter’s wedding feast. He serves flesh to a princely Roman legate in exchange for the Invictus Legion to guard his restless lands. Roman boots will walk the roads the empire built in the days of our ancestors, back when we were free men. Every day we wake to see our master the prince of Tarrant walk arm in arm like a brother with the cursed magister who is the mansa of Four Moons House, although they were bitter rivals all the long days before. We live under the law of the sword. They crush us under their boot-heels like the vermin they name us, and so death makes cowards of us all. The prince ordered that every troll must leave the city, and no person raised a voice in protest.”



“Every troll?” demanded Bee.



“That’s what was strange,” I murmured. “There are no feathered people anywhere.”



“Every one. And every man in a radical’s cap was arrested and his family threatened. Hundreds have been transported to the north. There they must labor with their sweat and their blood in the mines of the Barrens. The salt they haul up in buckets flavors the prince’s food while his subjects go hungry. The iron they dig out of the rock forges the swords that kill us.”



His poem of grievances so stunned me that I could not help but think of the promises General Camjiata had made. The music of revolution had a more urgent melody when heard in a city where so many voices had been so recently silenced. I wanted to give him hope. “I heard a rumor that the general is returning to Europa. He’ll proclaim a legal code that abolishes the ancient privileges of princes and mage Houses.”



“Rumor is like a woman’s promise that she’ll kiss you. Have you a kiss for me, lass?”



“I don’t kiss just any man I see! Only the ones I want to kiss! Did I give you reason to think otherwise?”



“A brave man must have taken on the taming of you!” he said with a laugh that made me want to skewer him.



“Our thanks to you for helping us,” Bee said as she slipped the cheese knife out of my hand. As if I could not control my temper!