Fire & Ice Read online

  Yellow feet outstretched, Carro’s eagle glided into this dark maw that was its home. Air disturbed by its flapping wings propelled straw in little eddies to the corners of the landing area. At their tethering spots further into the building, other eagles squawked and ruffled feathers.

  Carro unclipped his harness and slid off the back of his eagle. He swayed with the effects of too much bloodwine, but he forced his feet to move. Never mind the Newlight festival, there’d be trouble if he was caught drunk in the Eyrie.

  Six birds stood tethered to the central bar. One of them was ripping at a mass of blood and fur that might once have been a Legless Lion cub. Two other birds were preening themselves, and one regarded Carro with a roving orange eye.

  Carro tied the reins to the far end of the bar and threw his bird a hunk of meat. As if it knew that he was supposed to rub it down before leaving, the animal cocked its head and gave him a disdainful glare before it pierced the meat with its claw to claim it. Yet it didn’t bend down to tear strips off the meat. It arched its neck. A series of spasms rippled through the animal’s body. It opened its beak wide and spat a fur ball onto the floor.

  A stable boy skittered past and shovelled it, still steaming, into a bucket. His eyes were wide. “Did you see that, how fast I got it?”

  If he expected coin, Carro had spent his last money on drink. He shrugged, and continued to the door, bloodwine churning uncomfortably in his stomach.

  That was not an honourable thing to do. But he had no coin left.

  After the market raids, the men had gone to the meltery. The older Knights had been drinking hard and had challenged him to keep up. Which he had, just, including two trips to the alley at the back of the meltery to spew, standing over the pink-stained snow, hating himself for the waste of money. His father might be a merchant, but he was an Outer City merchant with nowhere near as much wealth as the city nobles whose sons usually went into the Knighthood.

  He avoided the young stable boy’s questioning gaze.

  Later. He’d give double the going rate later. The thought only added to the misery he already felt.

  He couldn’t forget the merchant’s shocked face, with the expression that said, I trusted you. Then there had been all those other merchants watching him. He’d betrayed his own people. What would they do when he came back to the Outer City two days from now, when he and Isandor flew in the race? Would they still cheer? What would the Knights do if they knew the full truth about him? There was no way, no way, he’d go back to his father.

  He left the eyrie for the darkness of the corridor. Against the wall stood an eagle statue carved from opaque glass, with orange gems for eyes.

  The Knight served his eagle; the eagle served the Knight.

  It was said that the first eagles had been bred in the palace from the much smaller birds that lived in the mountains. Rumours went that icefire had gone into their blood and that this was the reason they were big enough to carry a fully grown man in leather armour.

  The Tutors said that was nonsense spread by “certain elements”, by which they meant the Brotherhood. But the Brothers said they spoke the truth about the eagles being giant forms of wild eagles, and many Knights believed it. This statue symbolised the first of those birds.

  The Tutors and upper command didn’t like it, but most Knights placed small offerings at the glass eagle’s feet for luck.Carro stopped and stroked the cold glass neck, smoothed by the passage of many hands. He leaned his forehead against the glass, hoping it would clear his drunken head. If you have any power at all, help me.

  Then again, why should it help him? He had never been brave enough to give an offering.

  * * *

  Carro’s mother sits across the table, yelling at him.

  “If I hear one more word about that nonsense . . .”

  It isn’t nonsense. Just because his mother fails to understand why the Brotherhood does things such as calculating the power of sunlight doesn’t mean that it is untrue.

  The things the Brotherhood teaches are true; he and Isandor did the experiment as it said in the book. They went out into the alley and let the light shine through the magnifying glass they bought at the markets. The intense spot of light caused the paper to burst into flames. The book told them this happened because of the shape of the glass and the direction of the sunlight. It also explained that you could do a similar thing with icefire.

  They were laughing at their success when his mother found them.

  Carro hangs his head. No use arguing.

  “Go and help your father in the warehouse.” She flaps her hand at the door, already bored.

  “Yes, Mother.”

  * * *

  Carro froze, his heart thudding, his cheek still against the glass beak of the eagle.

  Voices echoed from lower levels of the eyrie, the meaning of the words inaudible. Carro heard his name in every shout, mockery in every bout of laughter. Even the wind whistling through the howling staircase shrieked his name. Carro, the betrayer. Carro, the gutless. Carro, who had to follow his cripple friend into the Knighthood.

  “There you are, Apprentice Carro.”

  Carro gasped.

  The Tutor stood behind him, hands on his hips. He was a man with a beak-like nose, much like an eagle.

  Carro scrambled away from the statue, kicking a few coins across the stone floor. Blood rose in his cheeks. Had the Tutor seen how he’d embraced the glass eagle?

  “Where were you? I expected you at training.”

  “With the Knight patrol. You gave me permission—”

  “I did?”

  “Yes, the patrol Captain—”

  The Tutor slapped Carro’s face, hard. “The Eagle Order has five pillars: Obedience, Honour, Honesty, Humility and Silence. You disregard all of them. May I remind you that your status is of no import amongst the Knights?”

  Status? He had no status. His father was a lowly merchant. Oh, his status as the only Outer City Apprentice? His status as the Apprentices’ pissing post?

  His gaze on the toes of his boots—scuffed, unpolished—he said, “The Patrol Captain asked if I could come with them to the markets. You gave me permission to go.” He’d done nothing wrong—except getting drunk.

  The Tutor pushed Carro’s head up and spat in his face.

  “You disrespect me. And you’re drunk. Go to your dormitory and sleep it off. Report for cleaning duty tomorrow.”

  The Tutor turned and made for the door. “And be glad I’m not giving you worse punishment.”

  Carro looked up defiantly, wiping saliva off his face with the sleeve of his tunic.

  “And wash yourself. You’re disgusting!” the Tutor yelled in the confined space of the corridor. The sound of his footsteps faded.

  Carro went down the staircase which took him down to the Apprentices’ dormitory, a long room with rows of mats against both walls. Blankets lay neatly rolled up at the head end of each.

  A few older Learners huddled together on one mat, casting furtive glances at the door as Carro came in.

  “And then,” one boy was saying, “Then I could see her, right through her dress, you know, and man, does she have puppies.”

  The boys guffawed. One or two glanced at Carro.

  “Heh, you look like you fell off your bird again,” snorted Jono.

  They always had to remind him of that moment, in his second-ever flying lesson, when his eagle had taken off so quickly that he hadn’t secured himself in the harness.

  Clamping his jaws, Carro crossed the room to the shelves at the far end and took a clean uniform from the shelf labelled with his name.

  “Listen to me, then,” another Apprentice said. “I seen her the day before yesterday. She were going into the baths. There were guards outside, and some went inside with her.”

  “Do you think they . . .”

  More guffaws.

  “Nah. She’ll pick the real pretty ones. Like that one.”

  All boys turned to Carro. A grin sprea
d across Jono’s face.

  “Hey, pretty boy.”

  One elbowed the speaker in the side. “Hush. He be selected, I think. I heard some Tutors talking about him.”

  “And they let him stay with us? Do they want him undamaged?”

  Jono laughed aloud. For some reason, he’d been picking on Carro since the first day of their training. It started with comments on Carro’s clothing, and his parents. Then there had been taunts about the Outer City, and about his clumsiness and his girl-like curls—which Carro had cut off at the earliest opportunity.

  Carro kept his gaze to the floor. Do not talk back, do not talk back. With everything at the eyrie, that only made things.

  “Hey, boy? You be a virgin?”

  * * *

  Carro stares across the room. The girl has hair like a bronze waterfall. It dances over her shoulders when she moves her head. She’s come with the seamstress who is going to make some new dresses for his sister to wear to dinner parties to show off the material his father has imported from Arania. Then rich women will come from the city to buy the fabric.

  Business. Fabric on the table and patterns spread out over the couch.

  The pretty girl should be wearing the dresses, not his dumpy sister. The girl would look like a goddess. She should be outside, celebrating Newlight, but instead she’s here with her boss on his mother’s whim.

  She smiles. Around her neck she wears a strip of leather with a gull’s tail feather tied to it. She’s freshly blooded and free to consort with whomever she wants. And she’s watching him.

  Carro’s cheeks burn with heat. Distant thumps of festival music roar in his ears.

  “Carro, I told you to get the account books. Why haven’t you done it yet?”

  Carro gasps. That’s his father yelling at him. He’ll be in for another punishment when the seamstress leaves.

  He jumps up, but still looks at the girl, and doesn’t see the table. He hits the corner with his knee. Cups go flying with loud clanks and clatters. Tea seeps into the tablecloth.

  “You clumsy boy!” his mother yells.

  The girl giggles.

  Carro flees, blood throbbing in all sorts of uncomfortable places.

  * * *

  Carro sneaked into the bathroom as quietly as he could, trying not to catch the boys’ attention.

  His footsteps echoed in the room of tiles and stone. His breath made puffs of mist in the icy air. The fire from the drying room barely brought any warmth. A fat icicle trailed from the tiny window in the top of the opposite wall almost to the ground. The city buildings were so different from those in the Outer City. These buildings were open, square and cold. The houses in the Outer City were round, without windows, and had a central stove that kept the house warm all day.

  Being a Knight wasn’t meant to be comfortable.

  He undressed himself, and rinsed the smell of bloodwine out of his clothes, shuddering at the memory of the Learner Knight from the patrol who kept buying him drinks when his stomach was already protesting. To get him punished no doubt. He poured several pitchers of ice-cold water over his head and then got to work on the bathroom floor. Cleaning duty: he’d done his fair share. He collected the broom and scrubbed the tiles.

  When he went to hang his clothes to dry, he found the Apprentices who had been in the dormitory blocking the door to the drying room. Jono was in the middle of the group. He said lazily, “It think it’s time the pet got a lesson, don’t you?” He scratched the crotch of his trousers.

  * * *

  The girl’s name is Kaila. She holds his arm and talks and giggles. Carro listens to her cheerful babble and wonders how he can guide her into the furniture-maker’s warehouse. It’s big and empty, and young people go there to lose their innocence during the Newlight celebrations. And now that he’s managed to sneak her out of the house, he can think of nothing else. His whole body aches for it.

  A couple of older boys block the street. Carro recognises some of them as his sister’s friends. The pleasant feeling fades for an icy cold.

  The leader of the group, a lanky boy whose name he doesn’t know, pulls Carro’s cloak off.

  “Hey,” Carro yells. His voice sounds high and boyish. Not the way he wants the girl to hear it. He wants to be manly; he wants her to think he knows all about having girls.

  The boy holds the cloak out of his reach.

  “You don’t need that. You have enough blubber to keep you warm.”

  “Give that back to him,” Kaila says. She lets go of Carro’s arm—leaving a warm spot—and yanks the cloak out of the boy’s hands.

  “Hey, what have we here?” The boy grabs her arm. He reaches out and pulls the feather from under her cloak with a broad grin on his face. His mates are cheering.

  “You keep your hands off her!” Carro shouts.

  “Ah, she’s yours, is she?”

  Another boy laughs. “Do you guys reckon he knows where to put it?”

  A volley of laughter cascades through the street.

  “You know what,” the leader says. “We will let you go.”

  Carro breathes out heavily, but doesn’t understand. Let him go? They never let him go without humiliation.

  Then the boy says, “And we’ll come. We’re going to watch.”

  * * *

  One of the boys pushed Carro face-first into the wall. Others laughed. Hands yanked away the towel, which slipped past his thighs into a puddle on the floor. An icy breeze made his skin break out in goosebumps.

  No. He would not think of what happened that day in the furniture-maker’s warehouse, about the girl and her pale flesh and his own unwilling body, the laughter at his flaccid member, shrunken and shrivelled in the cold. The girl was crying; the boys were cheering, pushing him, jostling him. He could not do it.

  And he would not go and relive it. He needed to toughen up; his father’d said it often enough and, as much as he hated his father, the man was probably right. He was not a pretty boy with too much fat and no muscle. He was not an artist with certain parts of his anatomy removed. He was not a boy lover.

  * * *

  Carro stands in his father’s room. His father sits in his chair by the hearth, smiling.

  Carro doesn’t like the smile. When his father is angry, things are bad. When he smiles, things are worse.

  But his father doesn’t speak. He sits, saying nothing.

  Carro grasps his hands behind his back and stands there, determined not to say anything.

  But the silence lasts on.

  Eventually he can’t stand it anymore.

  He asks, “You wanted to see me, Father?”

  His father doesn’t answer.

  “Um—Father? I’d like to continue with my study.”

  His father says nothing. Doesn’t even look at him.

  What sort of silly game is this? Carro balls his fists, but knows getting angry will not do much good. Whatever he does, his father always wins.

  So he stands there, and stares into the fire.

  But his father still doesn’t speak.

  He gathers all his courage. “Father. I really need to study. Please tell me why I needed to come.”

  Another silence.

  “Well, if you won’t . . .”

  His father raises an eyebrow, and goes back to staring into the fire.

  “Father, I’m not going to stand here if you won’t tell me what this is about. I have a lot of study to do. I won’t let you keep me here and then punish me for not doing my work.”

  Carro turns on his heel and leaves the room.

  In the hall he stops, panting, listening to his thudding heart, stilling his trembling limbs. He can’t believe what he’s just done.

  * * *

  Carro mustered his strength and pushed himself back, slamming his elbow hard into the nose of Jono, who was fumbling with his trousers.

  Jono swore hard.

  There were shouts, cursing, a jostle and few more boys pushed Carro back against the wall. The mixed t
aste of plaster and blood in his mouth was too familiar. Two boys on each side held Carro’s arms.

  “What did you think you were doing?” Jono stroked Carro’s naked shoulders and let his hand slide down his back, between his buttocks. A cold hand closed around his balls.

  “You thought you could beat me, pup?”

  Carro dared not breathe. He whispered, “No.”

  The hand let go, and slid over the skin.