“Why would he say that?”
“That should be obvious, if you know the history of my lineage.”
He shifted the chair back and sat opposite me. “The Barahals are a clan of hired soldiers, of Kena’ani stock, what others call Phoenicians. Their mother house is based in the city of Gadir on the coast of southern Iberian near the Straits of Hercules. I was informed one evening that I was required to travel to Adurnam to marry the eldest daughter of the Adurnam Hassi Barahal house. Haste was required, so I left the next morning. Beyond that, I was told nothing, and I’ve had no time to learn anything else.”
“You were warned the Barahals would have little conversation and fewer manners.”
He crossed his arms and leaned back.
I knew I should not bait him, so I shoveled in more food. Yet, having chewed and swallowed, I was gnawed to bursting by my swelling grievances. I opened my mouth to eat more and instead words poured out. “It’s true the Barahals have served as mercenaries for hundreds of years. But we began as messengers. Couriers. We were not always uncouth soldiers, brutes paid to kill.”
He did not flinch. No doubt he had forgotten about the two men he had so recently slain.
I backtracked, anyway, lest he think I was criticizing him. “You must know that the Kena’ani built a sea-trading empire three thousand years ago.”
“Yes, yes, even I must know that. Everyone educated knows that the Romans and the Phoenicians fought to a standstill in the Mediterranean wars two thousand years ago.”
“Well, after that, we maintained our ports and markets and ships against the might of their land empire. In Europa, meanwhile, the Celtic tribes and nations shifted allegiances and quarreled and built their cities and armies with the grain and metals we Kena’ani brought them.”
“I’m not sure from this tale how sea traders came to be mercenaries and spies.”
“You have to know of the salt plague in western Africa that released the ghouls from the depths of the salt mines.”
“Of course. The Koumbi Mande people—my ancestors—were the first ones attacked.”
“It happens that about the same time as the diaspora, the nation known as Persia rode out of the eastern Levant and conquered the great Kena’ani city of Qart Hadast, which you may know as Carthage. So my people also had to flee their home. Some went to their kinfolk in Gadir and the Iberian colonies. Many traveled even farther north, to Adurnam, Havery, and Lutetia, for instance. Many were cut off from their old sea-trading routes, so they had to find a new way to make a living. That is how the Hassi Barahal lineage was established. First we became messengers. Couriers often have to fight to protect themselves, so some hired out as soldiers. And that led to scouting, spying, and scholarly work.”
“Is spying meant to be less uncouth than soldiering?”
My anger sparked. “Many condemn mercenaries for their trade without considering the culpability of those who pay them. That’s what I meant. People with power do not want to share the secrets that allow them to stay in power. Or at least, that’s what my father always said.”
He kept his gaze steady on me. “So the Barahals decided to make their living stealing secrets from one set of powerful people and selling them to another.”
I found wisdom enough to imprison any further statements inside my throat by working halfway through a mound of baked squash drenched in butter. I patted my mouth with a linen napkin and with vast self-control considered three pink slices of roasted beef and a fan of sliced apples precariously tucked against them on the edge of the plate. Keep silence.
“I sense there is more you wish to say,” he said.
“That’s all I feel is safe to say. My father spent his life traveling. He called himself a natural historian. He recorded his observations. Whenever he had reason to sojourn in a city with a branch house of any of the Hassi Barahal cousins, he would leave his full journals with them. In time, the journals were gathered under my uncle and aunt’s roof.”
“Thus you prove my point.” He reached across the table, prized an apple slice from my plate, and ate it. “Those who remain silent cannot have their secrets stolen and then sold in the market, or to their enemies.”
I felt anger flush my cheeks. “That’s not what my father was doing. Natural historians seek to understand the world. Some scholars hoard what they’ve learned, as dragons are said to hoard gold and gems. Others choose to share so many may be enlightened.”
“To what purpose?”
“To what purpose do the Houses wield cold magic?”
He snagged another apple slice and paused, the apple like a tutor’s rod, held to emphasize a point. “Before the Houses rose, farmers and craftsmen labored under the whim of princes and lords, who strove with each other in incessant war.”
“That’s what the Houses must say, isn’t it? I don’t see how they are so different from princes. They just use a different weapon to hold on to their power.”
“So say the radicals, who desire to overturn the harmonious order of things.” He ate the slice of apple, picked up a spoon, and dug into the remains of my baked squash. “But the radicals are disruptive spirits, who sow trouble.”
“Like destroying an airship?”
He didn’t even blink. “We in the north have lived at peace for many generations because of the stability provided by the mage Houses. What do the trolls who brought over that airship know of our land? They call us rats! They live far away across the western ocean. They’re interfering with what they do not understand.”
I cut the beef into pieces and slid the plate a handbreadth toward the center of the table. Like my father, I was curious about human behavior. “What is it the trolls do not understand? That the Houses stand in the way of innovation and industry?”
“Do they suppose that the technology of combustion will not come to the attention of the unseen courts as its use spreads? That airships will not be viewed as a threat if any attempt is made to mount an expedition over the ice?” With a two-tined fork, he speared a bit of meat and ate it, and then another piece and a third. I was so engrossed in watching him eat off my plate without apparently realizing he was doing so that his subsequent words floated past like clouds out of my reach. “Are they so naïve and ignorant to believe that the unseen courts will not retaliate as they have in the past, and that when the courts retaliate, many more people will suffer than will ever hope to benefit by these clever toys?”
“You believe in the existence of the unseen courts,” I breathed as he stabbed more meat. I sat with all the wind knocked out of me as he ate through most of the meat before I could find breath enough to speak. “How can we know for sure, when no human or troll has ever seen the courts?”
He set down his fork. “I do not ‘believe’ in the unseen courts, Catherine, any more than I ‘believe’ in the sun. Like the spirit world, the courts exist despite my belief or lack of belief, whatever that means. Isn’t it strange how the new modes of fashion ignore the truth, or claim it is something else? How can you not believe in the courts when you are being conveyed in a carriage harnessed to creatures molded in the manner of horses that have not been changed out since Adurnam? If they were ordinary horses, they would have long since foundered and expired. You may naturally perceive the coachman and footman who serve me as men, but they are not.”
“Oh,” was all I said as I snagged the last piece of meat. I could hoard my own secrets!
“You don’t believe me!” he said triumphantly. Condescendingly. He grabbed the last slice of apple. “But it is nevertheless true. Why did your father, the natural historian, refuse to recognize the existence of the unseen courts?”
“He didn’t disbelieve. He just had no proof. They are ‘unseen,’ after all. He recorded a hundred village stories in his journals about the spirit world and the courts. But stories, of themselves, are not proof.”
“The Wild Hunt is not a story. Those with too much power, or too much curiosity, are hunted down and eradicated. Much as we h
unt down and eradicate pests and mice and crawling things from our houses. Where is your father now, Catherine?”
I set down my utensils and bit my lip. My eyes stung.
He looked at his fork. At my plate. At me. His color seemed heightened. He slapped down the fork, scraped back the chair, and jumped to his feet.
“We’ve stayed too long.” He crossed to the sideboard and rang the bell.
The door opened and an older man stepped into the room. His springy black hair was plaited in rows. His indigo boubou was so crisp and crinkly that the cloth rustled as he moved. “Magister, what is your wish?” His voice was as harmonious as his appearance.
Andevai relaxed and acknowledged him with a polite nod. “A change of clothing both for myself and my wife, maester. Something more appropriate for her, if you please.”
“These fit me,” I broke in. “Other garb might not be so accommodating for travel.”
“Ah. Well, then, fit her with fur-lined boots and cloak and gloves, a woolen underjacket. She’ll need furs for the carriage. Heated bricks.”
“I’d like to wash,” I said, a little desperately, feeling all my dirt.
“I’ll have a basin with warmed water brought, with towels, maestra,” said the man. “Then you may at least wash your face and hands.”
“That will be all there is time for,” said Andevai. “Make it quick.”
“And a basket of food to take with us in the carriage,” I called as the door swung shut.
I heaped more food on my platter. It was easier to eat than to think of my parents. Or the Wild Hunt. Had the Wild Hunt killed my parents because they’d known something they weren’t meant to? But, no, it wasn’t possible. They had not died on Hallows Night.
Andevai went to stand at the window, as cold and proud as if we had never spoken or as if he had never eaten off my plate as casually as I might have forked delicacies off Bee’s. I had a suspicion that he might not really have been aware he was eating, that he’d done it without thinking.
That he was embarrassed.
Impossible.
I set to the food, aware I had little time to wolf down as much as possible. He spoke not one word further. The older man returned, and Andevai went away with him. After I had used the water closet, a young woman with flame-red hair and creamy skin entered with a brush and cloth to wipe what dirt and stains she could from my clothing as I washed my face, hands, arms, and finally my feet in blissfully hot water.
Boots, a cloak, gloves: all were delivered and of the highest quality and best cut, of a style seen in tailors’ windows in shops we Barahals could never afford to enter. At House inns they evidently kept such expensive garments in storage to be changed off like horses, because when Andevai returned, he was magnificent in a striped orange and brown dash jacket, ochre-colored trousers, and a cloth tied at his neck with such a modest knot that I knew I was in the presence of exceptional taste and wealth such as Bee and I and the little girls could only exclaim over in the pages of the Almanac while we sewed our dresses at home from last year’s patterns or altered castoffs we’d bought at the petticoat market. The only piece of clothing us girls possessed that was sewn for us by a dressmaker were our riding clothes: fitted with loose trousers beneath an overskirt cut for riding and a shirt and jacket cut for ease of movement in case a riding Barahal woman needed also to use her sword. I smoothed my clothing self-consciously. Andevai frowned—more of a wince, perhaps—and indicated the door.
The carriage waited in the courtyard. Flakes of snow spun in the air; the light had taken on a sheen, as though noncorporeal servants had been busy polishing the underside of the clouds, the better to complement the sartorial splendor of my husband.
“What is it?” he demanded, a flash of self-consciousness in his tightening mouth as he looked at me looking at him. He had very well-shaped lips.
I was seized by a sudden, unpleasant, and almost overwhelming urge to kiss him. Just a touch, nothing more than that, just to see what his lips tasted of.
Almost. Then I remembered how we had come to be here.
“Just recalling how good the buttered squash was,” I said in a strained voice, feeling heat rise to the roots of my hair as I looked away.
The footman, in outward appearance still male, flipped down the stair and opened the door, then stepped back. Her dark gaze met mine for a heavy moment. At the head of the horses, the coachman caught my eye and raised an eyebrow as in a question but said nothing.
Clutching my cane in a trembling hand, I climbed into the carriage to find it swept and cleaned, a pile of furs heaped on one bench and a covered basket set against the other door, the one we never used. Feeling mutinous, I reached out to jigger the latch. I snatched my hand back just as the carriage rocked with Andevai’s weight as he climbed in.
The door was closed. The coachman called his alert. We rumbled out of the courtyard and turned onto the road, heading east. On the town walls flapped banners bearing three horse heads arranged in a star, the sigil of the Cantiaci princes who ruled this region.
I avoided looking at him. It was all I could do.
East we rolled for the rest of the day, halted only by toll gates. We passed by the sprawling city of Cantiacorum and much later the stolid walls of Rutupiae. We descended into the great valley carved by the Rhenus River, crossing streams via bridges or ferries. As night engulfed us, we continued on, passing by villages lit by sentry lamps and guarded by shivering night watchmen. Andevai did not speak; neither did I. Not too late, although it was hard to tell with the sky overcast, we arrived at another House inn, greeted as always by a remarkably alert staff given the hour. I was shown to a room with a bed, and, after pulling off my boots, I threw myself across it with my ghost sword beside me and slept until dawn.
Indeed, I was surprised to find it light when an elderly woman roused me, showing me a basin where I could wash. She explained that there was not time for a bath as she helped me straighten and brush my clothing in the kindliest manner imaginable; she then admired my hair as she brushed it out and helped me pin it up again. A shy girl brought a tray laden with poached eggs, a rasher of bacon, bread warm from the oven, and a luscious pear.
After eating, I went out to the courtyard where Andevai paced by the carriage and, seeing me, unclenched his hands. The footman nodded. The coachman touched the rim of his hat, eyes crinkling in the smile that did not touch his lips. In the mirror in the Barahal house, he had appeared as a man, no different than he looked now. Perhaps he was simply a man. Or perhaps he was so powerful a creature disguised in human seeming that even a mirror could not unshadow his glamor. Andevai had referred to them as servants of the courts. Which meant Andevai, or the magisters who ruled his House, were so powerful that they could bind and rule creatures whose magic was surely as powerful as their own.
Feeling every jab of the bitter cold, I climbed into the carriage, my limbs like sodden logs except where they were lancing with a myriad of pains as comforting as stabbing knives.
Andevai settled in his usual place, at the opposite corner.
“Why did you let me sleep?” I asked as the footman closed the door.
He looked as surprised as if I had leaned over to kiss him. “Weren’t you tired? Anyhow, I had certain—necessary offerings—that I had to attend to.”
The steps were raised; the carriage shifted as the footman leaped onto the back. I braced myself as the wheels ground over gravel and bumped up a ramp; then we made the road, the constant road, running east into a brightening day.
“We are almost home,” he added, although it was difficult to tell whether the words were spoken with joy or perturbation.
In the misty dawn light, he kept the window open. I huddled in the warm furs and stared at the land outside, dense with spruce or pine and the occasional stand of birch and here and there warmwood like oak and beech on south-facing slopes protected by the configuration of the land. Forest opened to pasturage, and in the distance rose a village of round houses set in a p
recise ring. Here and there, flocks of goats and sheep probed for the remnants of summer’s grass. The mist burned off; the sky was cloudless, a wintry blue the color of Brennan’s eyes. What had become of Chartji and Godwik and Brennan and Kehinde? When they reached Adurnam, would they guess the truth about who had destroyed the airship?
We passed other villages. Every field was plowed under against winter’s freeze. Orchards, tree trunks packed in straw, raised skeletal arms.
He watched the landscape, and I watched him sidelong. He had trimmed his beard and mustache. It was a masterpiece of subtle sculpting, highlighting the strong line of his jaw. Had he no body servant to tend to his clothing and toilette? I tried to imagine the coachman wielding razor and scissors but could not, and decided that among those employed at the inns, there must be men specializing in this service for preening young bucks like Andevai. Yet then why would he not travel with his own body servant? To the Houses, it would be an insignificant expense; they had entire families and clans and villages bound to them, what Brennan and the law called clientage, which might extend unbroken for generation after generation with little hope for change. I was fortunate, really. When my father and mother had died, the Hassi Barahal clan might have done anything with me they wished, according to the law, but the Kena’ani valued their children too much to sell them away.
Aunt and Uncle’s hand had been forced. Their anguish had been real. So I had to ask myself, Why? What did they owe Four Moons House, and why would a mage House possibly want a daughter of the Hassi Barahal clan in its keeping? Did the Hassi Barahals hold some secret that might damage the mages, and by taking me, had the mages therefore bound my family to silence, with me as an unwilling hostage?
It simply made no sense.
Andevai grabbed the edge of the window, his body tense as he gazed over the landscape. What did he see that was hidden to my eyes? Harvested fields making an expanse of white stubble. A double ring of stockade, an outer palisade surrounding gardens and byres and sheds and an inner man-high fence surrounding a village of blocky, mazelike compounds. A slope fenced for pasture with a stream glittering along one side. A pond skinned with early season ice, as fragile as if it were spun of sugar. A grove of black pine with one towering giant in its midst.