Cold Fire (25 page)

“She doesn’t even like you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” His tone had a smile in it.

“Could you be more vain? You can’t think she came here to find you! Kofi told me she came in on a canoe up from Cow Killer Beach. It’s all criminals, witches, and whores down there.”

“Don’t you talk like that, Kayleigh!”

“I’m just saying it’s got a bad reputation. That’s a nasty gash at her eye. How did she get it?”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is she’s here, and she’s safe.”

“I heard she was with another man.”

A breath of cool breeze soothed my fevered brow.

“Don’t get mad at me, Vai. It’s the truth. Kofi saw you see him. He said it looked like you wanted to plant your adze in the other man’s…face.”

It got a little colder. Then, alas, the breath of ice eased. “I see now. You’re jealous.”

Her voice did have a touch of discontented whine. “You promised you would come with me to the areito. But now you’re going to sit here all night and stare at her.”

His anger faded entirely. “I can’t leave her to wake up to unfamiliar faces. Here’s Kofi. Doesn’t he look all cleaned up for you! Because I assure you it’s not for my benefit. But before you leave for the areito, he and I need to have a talk about what we tell little sisters.”

I opened my eyes into a blur of confusing images: The young carpenter with the scars wavered into view wearing a colorful jacket and with his locks ornamented with beads; he was smiling at Vai’s younger sister Kayleigh, who had on a blouse and wrapped pagne in the local way, her blouse ornamented by white necklaces whose polished gleam bore me under into a white-capped sea turgid with ice; a masked face, bright and unkindly, turned to look at me; a latch winked with glittering eyes; a crow swept down in a shroud of black wings. I moaned, trying to get away, but it pecked at my weeping eyes, and I turned to salt and dissolved into the foaming ocean water.

“Catherine?”

I gasped, bolting upright, heart pounding and breath ragged.

Night had fallen. A finely etched and exceedingly delicate bauble of cold fire illuminated Vai’s face. Beyond, by lamplight, people were clearing the tables and setting the benches in order.

“I don’t feel well,” I whispered.

“No,” he agreed. He got his arms under me and lifted me bodily out of the chair. “If you can use the privy yourself, I’ll take you there. Otherwise I’ll ask Aunty to come help you.”

“I can do it myself.”

I could, and I did, although I got confused by the pipes and the bowl and the water-flushing mechanism that the girls had showed me how to use earlier, very elaborate and hygienic and unlike anything I had ever seen in Adurnam. I was reeling with dizziness when I came out, so he carried me up the stairs and into a room and onto a narrow cot.

He peeled me out of my jacket, and there was a sudden silence even though it was already quiet. Afterward he let go of my arm and wiped down my face and neck and arms with a cool cloth. He made me drink in sips and then he moved away and I heard him talking in a low, urgent voice but I couldn’t understand the words.

I tossed and turned. As in a restless dream, an old man with feathers and shells in his hair entered the room. His calloused hand traced my navel; his lips pressed against my forehead with a kiss that snaked through my body to kindle my blood.

His unfamiliar voice spoke. “
She is clean.
”

Later, it was quiet, a hint of breeze pooling around my face.

“Aunty, it was the worst moment of my life, when she slipped away from me down the well. I thought I’d lost her forever. And then, when I took off her jacket and saw that bite…”

“Don’ borrow trouble, lad. The behique say she is clean. Anyway, better if yee go on to yee work, else yee shall be a nuisance all day. See how she stir, because she hear yee voice? She need to sleep, for she is sorely tired and worn. Go on. I shall watch.”

I woke to daylight and a stifling heat like sludge in my lungs. Rain broke overhead, a downpour so torrential I could hear nothing but its drumming on the tile roof. The air cooled. My headache eased. The rain stopped.

I lay on a cot. I wore only drawers and a thin muslin blouse. There had been a cover over me but I had kicked it off. My cane was tucked along one side. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and cautiously rose, but my head seemed fit on properly. I found a pagne hanging over the screen that divided the little room into two, with a cot on either side and baskets hanging from the center beam. A sheathed sword lay tucked into the rafters, safe from stealing because no one could touch Vai’s cold steel except him. A basket on the floor contained my folded clothing. I bound on the bodice and wrapped the pagne. The blouse’s sleeves were long enough to cover the healing bite.

My mouth tasted of unpleasant memories. Drake had deserted me to make my own way to the Speckled Iguana, where I would have fallen sick all alone. Not like here, where people—Vai—cared what happened to me. Blessed Tanit! The thought of possibly carrying Drake’s child and what would become of me if I did made me determined to forge my own path. I was not going to crawl to Drake to beg for help.

“Ja, maku!” One of the girls peeked in at the open door. She looked a bit older than Bee’s sister Hanan, perhaps fifteen, and with her springy black hair and brown complexion resembled Aunty. “Yee feeling better? Eh! Never mind the question. Yee look not so like fouled cassava paste. I thought sure yee would faint right away last night.”

“I am better, thank you. Never mind what question?”

“Vai say never to ask yee a question. ’Tis almost supper, if yee’s hungry.”

I had to pee, and I realized I was, indeed, hungry as well as furiously thirsty. “My thanks for the folded clothes. What’s your name? If you told me, I forgot.”

“Lucretia.”

“No. Really?”

She grinned. “Me dad’s a Roman sailor. He turn up once a year, all faithful like. ’Tis why I have eight little sisters.”

I laughed and followed her downstairs into the courtyard where men and boys were setting out benches and hauling in barrels, and women and girls were cooking. Aunty Djeneba ran not only a lodging house but an eating and drinking establishment as well, the sort of place people, mostly men, came to relax after a day’s hot work. The low-hanging sun peeking out from a tumult of clouds gave the light a muted glow.

In the outdoor kitchen, Aunty Djeneba greeted me by looking me over. “Yee stay quiet this evening. Tomorrow we shall talk. Here come Vai.”

He had wood shavings caught in his hair, and a residue of sawdust streaked his bare arms. He gave me a long, searching look, which I endured by drawing out my locket and playing with it. “You look like you feel better.”

“I slept all day.” I wanted to say more, but my tongue had turned to stone.

“You know, Aunty,” he said, “I need to go out to the Moonday gathering, if I can.”

“I shall see she come to no harm.”

“What gathering?” I asked.

“I’ll take you another time. If you’ll excuse me. I’ll just stow this in my room.” He had a canvas apron slung over his back with tools tucked into sewn compartments. He hurried upstairs, and when he came down, his friends, including Kofi, had appeared at the gate. They stared curiously at me but did not approach, and they left with Vai.

“I reckon yee shall be most comfortable by Aunty Brigid,” said Aunty.

I crept to the sling chair in the shelter behind the kitchen, next to the toothless old woman who smiled and spoke no word. There were always at least two children hovering, anxious to fetch me juice. I was not hungry, but I could have drunk the sea and then some.

Kayleigh came in as night fell, wearing a pretty pagne, her locks brightened with ribbons. She looked exactly as she had last year: tall, robust, and if not as stunning as her brother, still she was a good-looking young woman, one who had not fully left girlhood behind. As she came closer the lines of weariness on her face became evident.

After a hesitation, she came over. “Cat Barahal. You must be feeling better.” She mopped her brow with a scrap of cloth. “Vai went out. He’d not have if he thought you were sick.”

Lucretia appeared with a cup of the cloudy ginger beer everyone here drank. “I hear a rumor the general came back today.”

Kayleigh accepted the cup with a grateful smile. “He is still in Taino country.”

“Me father said the cacica would kick him out when he came a-courting.”

“Your father is Roman, Luce. He sees the general as the enemy. Word at Warden Hall is that the cacica and the general are negotiating. That has made the Council very nervous.”

“Do you mean Camjiata?” I asked. “This cacica, would that be Prince Caonabo’s mother?”

Both girls looked at me as if I had sprouted wings and a third eye.

Kayleigh drained the cup and handed it to Lucretia. “I’ll go wash up.” She strode off.

“Have I done something to offend her?”

“Never mind she,” said Lucretia. “She do work very hard at Warden Hall.”

“What is Warden Hall?”

“Ja, maku! Yee know nothing! The wardens keep order in Expedition and enforce the law.”

I could not help but think that working as a servant at Warden Hall would be a cursed good way to eavesdrop on delicate conversations.

“So I’s just saying,” Lucretia went on, “that she is nice. Truly. Not so charming as she brother, but…I mean, all they women come around all the time. Yet he never look twice at any! Being he sister, she always that one who count with him. And now here yee come.”

“Washed up on shore like a three-days-dead fish.”

She giggled. “Yee’s so funny.”

I went back up to the room with a candle. Kayleigh had fallen asleep on the other cot, which meant I had slept on Vai’s cot last night. Tomorrow we would obviously have to discuss other sleeping arrangements. I slept soundly. When I woke the next morning, Kayleigh was gone. I didn’t know where Vai had slept.

The courtyard had a calm beauty in the soft light.

“Where are all the children?” I asked Aunty Djeneba, who was grating the white root called cassava. “Where is Lucretia?”

“At school. They finish at noon. As for yee, we shall start yee easy today. Yee said yee can sew. I have got some mending by. Usually we take it down to Tailors’ Row but it would be a quiet job for yee in the shade.”

I pulled a bench over so I could sit under the kitchen roof. We were alone in the courtyard.

She said in a low voice, “One thing first. Yee must keep that arm covered until the wound heal. Yee must never speak of what happened. Never.”

I touched my sleeve, feeling the tender wound beneath. “Vai must have seen the bite when he took my jacket off.”

“Yes, and came to me at once, exactly as he should. I went out me own self and brought in a local behique, a good man, very discreet. Only we four know.”

We four, and everyone on Salt Island
, but I didn’t volunteer the information. “I know what will happen to me if the wardens track me down. But would something happen to you, Aunty?”

She paused in her grating. “It speak well of yee that yee ask, gal. I would be arrested and lose everything I own.”

“That is a terrible risk. Why take me in?”

She indicated the sewing basket and a folded stack of old clothes. “Here is a great lot of torn hems, ripped sleeves, and holes worn in elbows and knees. We people who live outside the old city have come to believe Expedition’s Council see us as these old clothes to use and throw out. If yee was the daughter of a Council family, we would hear no talk of sending yee to Salt Island.”

“My father wrote that if all are not equal before the law, then the law is worth nothing.”

“A wise man, that one who sired yee. Walk he still among the living?”

I looked away because I could say nothing.

“Seem the grief is still fresh,” she said kindly.

She returned to cutting, grating, and grinding, while I found peace in mending as she talked about how her people could trace their descent to sailors on the first fleet. She had herself married a man whose grandparents had left Celtic Brigantia to make their fortune in the markets of Expedition. Her husband had passed on a night three years ago when an owl had roosted atop the roof. Her three sons worked a fishing boat with their uncle her brother, and her only surviving daughter Brenna, the one with the Roman sweetheart, helped her run the lodging house. Uncle Joe, widower of Aunty’s sister, oversaw the part of the establishment where folk came to eat and drink.

“Do you have gaslight on all the streets in Expedition? Only a few places have gaslight in Adurnam.”

“All of the old city and the harbor district and troll town, of course. We here in Passaporte District got the street lighting three years ago. Only because we took to the streets in protest that we pay land tax and excise tax and we shall see something for the coin we pay to the Council’s treasury. But Lucairi District and them on out there? Nothing. They must still rely on fire banes to light they way at night.”

Here was my chance to find out more about mages in this part of the world.

“Fire banes work like common lamplighters and linkboys here?” I finished off mending a threadbare elbow with a pattern darning and held it up.

She looked surprised. “’Tis as good as tailor’s work. Yee have a neat hand for a woman. Fire banes likewise work for the fire wardens and at areitos and other night gatherings.”

“What’s an areito? A festival of some kind?”

“’Tis the Taino word for a sacred or community gathering, what the Romans would call a festival. As for the other, all fire banes must register with Warden Hall. That is the law. At that time they swear never to enter any association with other mages.”

“I’ve seen the power the mage Houses hold in Europa, so I can understand people in Expedition might be cautious about mage associations. Is there a button for this?”

“In the tin. It need two. If yee’s not registered as a fire bane, yee can be arrested. If yee go to register, yee’s not yet registered, so yee can be arrested if they want to arrest yee.”

“That’s exceedingly unfair! Why would the wardens want to arrest fire banes anyway?”

“Because they sell them to the Taino. The proceeds go to Council’s treasury.”

“Why would the Taino want fire banes?”

“Why, as catch-fires. No Taino fire mage take a first breath come the morning without a catch-fire nearby.”

I paused, needle frozen in midair, remembering the three salters Drake had used to catch the accelerating fire of his magic so it wouldn’t consume him. “That’s awful! Why would anyone let fire banes be taken and sold?”

“Because the wardens only take them who have no one to protect them. Fire banes born into a family with much money or a big house in the old city never go missing, never is sold out, nor never is they forced to work for the fire wardens. There is one rule for the rich and another for the rest. So a maku come to these shores is easy game. Yee shall find, Cat, that folk round here say nothing to the wardens no matter what we go a-seeing. Yee understand?”

Since I understood she was telling me that she knew Vai was a fire bane and that I was never to mention it to anyone, I nodded. I fished out another button and began sewing it on. “Are there many powerful fire mages in the Taino kingdom?”

She lowered her voice. “’Tis best be cautious and not speak of behiques, Cat. Yee would not want to come to they notice.”

I moved on, for now. “When did General Camjiata come to Expedition?”

“He and his people landed in Februarius. That man have caused so much trouble over where yee come from. And now he come here and go asking for we help. He want us to pay for he to start up a new war back there in Europa.”

“He traveled here to get aid from Expedition’s Council?”

“He asked. ’Tis one thing the Council done right. They said no.”

“They refused to help him! Is that why he went to the Taino capital? To seek Taino aid?”

“So it look. Any reckoning we look at it, ’tis bad news for Expedition. One time long ago there was many caciques on Kiskeya. Now there is only one, and that one rule over all the islands of the Antilles. I foresee nothing but trouble if the Taino decide to look this way.”

“So they’re an empire, like the Romans. But if the Taino cacique and his clan are so powerful, why don’t they just take over Expedition Territory and its factories and port?”

She smiled. “A smart gal, too, to ask that question. No wonder Vai is so smitten with yee.”

I pawed through the tin looking for a button I did not need. Feeling her gaze on me, I poured buttons onto my palm and scrutinized them.

She said, “If the Taino is one thing, they is holders of the law. In the First Treaty, the Taino caciques swore they shall never cross the border between Taino country and Expedition Territory. So by Taino way of thinking, to break the treaty is to dishonor the cemi. Yee know, they ancestors. By the by, Cat. When I speak of agreements, it remind me. Vai ask me last night about renting a hammock in the common hall. I thought he mean for Kayleigh, but he mean for he own self. Yee and she is to share the room, which he pay for, and he to sleep elsewhere.”

The buttons were bronze and formed out of the same mold. In a household practicing economy, it was wise to buy plain buttons so they could be interchanged on various garments.

“Not that ’tis any of me business,” she added in a tone that implied the opposite, “but peace in the house make peace in the heart.”

The buttons stared back at me. Not that it was any of their business!