Cold Fire (Spiritwalker #2)

Cold Fire (Spiritwalker #2) Page 206

“She threw him out?”

“He could offer her no profit if there was none to support the Europan war. I believe the man bides at the Speckled Iguana. We shall send he and any who wish to go with him back to Europa.”

“Pay for the whole ship and all?”

“More than one ship,” said Kofi. “He have signed up five hundred men for he army.”

“We’s happy to pay for him to leave,” said Sanogo, “and good riddance to hotheaded young fools and they arseness.”

“What of Prince Caonabo and his bride?”

“Yee cousin? She I have not seen, although I hear she await the prince at the border. As for the prince, I must go back now, for the committee meet with him this afternoon to seal the First Treaty anew.”

“Why should the prince want to renew the treaty? Wouldn’t possessing Expedition’s factories, university, and port strengthen his position? Especially if he has to fight over the succession?”

“A fight over the succession is no small thing. He have no time to bother he own self with Expedition right now. But it also happen, as yee said yee own self, Cat, that a place like Expedition serve the Taino better as a free city than under Taino rule. Prince Caonabo is young and untried, but to me he seem a pragmatical sort of fellow. We shall see if he succeed, or fail.”

“What of the prisoners who were going to be executed?”

“They all vanished in the night.”

“Even Prince Haübey? The one they call Juba?”

“That man likewise.”

“No doubt with the aid of his brother. It’s good to know Prince Caonabo has his flaws. I’m not going back to Salt Island, Commissioner.”

“I would not try and make yee. The prince he own self told me yee cannot be called a salter if there was never any teeth in yee to begin with.”

Kofi said, “What shall yee do now, Cat?” Then he laughed at my expression. “Me apologies, gal. I knew better than to ask. Yee’s going after Vai. Good fortune to yee with that.”

“Come with me to the Speckled Iguana, Kofi. I could use your support.”

He rounded up Vai’s other radical friends. We walked the fifteen blocks to the Speckled Iguana on empty streets that reminded me of the night I had staggered there in the company of Bala and Gaius and come home with Vai. The streets right around the Speckled Iguana were crowded with young men and their bundled possessions waiting with the look of restless wanderers who think it long past time to hit the road. They watched us walk past as if we were enemies approaching under truce. I climbed the steps with Kofi, and he was a good companion to have, being large, sturdy, and with those wicked scars to show he had survived worse than what you could dish out.

In the common room, a man I did not recognize worked the bar, but he knew me as soon as he saw me. He indicated the door that led to the back. My companions made a path for me through the staring, silent crowd. I ducked behind the bar and pushed open the door into the room in which Drake had killed one man to save another.

In fact, Drake was the first person I saw as I entered, for he was standing to the right of the door. The chamber in which he had healed a dying man was now pristine, decorated with long tables covered with red-and-gold floral-embroidered cloths and runners of magnificent Iberian lacework down the centers. Every seat was taken. People stood all the way around the room as well. At the far end, the general sat at the head of the longest table with a number of broadsheets creased and stacked at his left hand. I recognized Captain Tira and, to my surprise, Juba, standing behind the general like aides. I recognized the young Keita merchant who had railed against the commons at the dinner party. To the general’s right, in the seat of honor, sat the proprietor of the Speckled Iguana. He was wearing the gold-braided uniform of a high-ranking officer.

My cane hung from a cord looped over a bracket in the wall.

Everyone turned to look at me as the general raised his cup as in salute.

“I hear the Wild Hunt took him,” said Drake with a sneer. “The sad fate of many an arrogant bastard of a cold mage. But I must say, he really deserved whatever he got.”

Just out of principle, I punched him, and he went down on his backside, although to my disappointment, not one person snickered. Indeed, a kind of many-throated gasp was inhaled throughout the room as heat spiked and the ornamental candles ranged along the lace centerpieces caught flame. A strange glamour flickered, and the flames snapped out. Drake rose with a peculiarly disturbing smile on his face, as if he had a surprise for me that I would not like. I suddenly remembered that I ought to be frightened of a man who could burn me alive and had been willing to do so before. But I was not afraid, not right now with my fury at what my sire had done still red-hot. He stepped back as Kofi shouldered up beside me and crossed his arms.