by Kate Elliott
“Was I that unkind to you?”
“You weren’t unkind. You were too kind. You were a little condescending. And you refused to see what was going on all around you.”
He shrugged out of the cutaway jacket and tossed it with the kerchief on the bed. “You know I will not force you to stay in a place that seems to you a prison. I admit I could not hear your complaints because I was too overwhelmed by my victory. But Lord of All, love, you might not have chosen such words to shake me.”
He meant the accusation I had thrown after him. “I spoke my worst fear, that you would become one of them.”
With a frown he wedged the back of the chair under the latch and sat on it to wrestle off his boots. “I am one of them.”
“You are not like your tormenters!” I sat on the bed, searching out the words I wanted to say without beating him over the head with them. “You are vain, my love. And you stand a little high upon your pride. I think Rory is right, that you are a tiny bit ashamed of where you come from and who your mother is, and then naturally because you are at heart a good son and a good man, you are ashamed of being ashamed.”
He set the boots against the wall, not looking at me, but I knew Rory’s words had made an impression on him. I also knew that as much as he struggled to control his worst impulses, he would never be a restful person to deal with. Rather like Bee, no matter what she thought about herself! Yet he had come back to face censure rather than walk away to a life he could easily lead without me.
“I do see what is going on among the mages, love, but that does not mean I will let it deter me. I never did before, and I will not now.” He examined me in the most searching way. “I do see you cannot live within the mage Houses as they are currently run. Even if I asked you to, I see that you will not. What do you mean to do, Catherine?”
“Kill James Drake. Camjiata believes he controls Drake, but Drake must be using catch-fires. If Drake becomes as powerful as Queen Anacaona, do you believe he will behave as she did, with respect for the law and the ancestors? What will happen to the general’s legal code then?”
He held my gaze. “You must promise me you will not challenge him unless there is absolutely no risk to you.”
“Like stabbing him in the back?”
“You have no way to defend yourself if he uses you as a catch-fire!”
“Even fire mages have to sleep. Of course I will be prudent.”
“It would be the first time,” he muttered. “I would feel better if you took Rory with you to watch your back.”
“I will. Vai, you must promise me you will not become the mage the mansa wants you to be.”
“I will not become that man. No matter how it may seem, I have had no change of heart. It always has been Kofi and the radicals of Expedition I stand with, since the day I met him. Just as it has always and only been you for me, Catherine, from the moment I saw you. But above everything, you and I must trust each other.”
Let kisses fall where they may: Desire may flourish or wither in the space of a breath. Trust is a rock that will withstand every storm.
I extended a hand. He took it between his. “I give you my trust, Vai.”
“Always,” he echoed. Releasing my hand, he rose to begin unbuttoning his waistcoat. “But next time, love, warn me beforehand so I can be prepared, or we can work out some better scheme.”
The practiced way his fingers worked the rounded pearl buttons distracted me.
“Catherine? Had you something to say?”
“Oh! Yes. Why not tell the mansa I escaped so as to prove what a valuable spy I can be?”
“Why would they believe such a story?” He tossed his waistcoat on top of the jacket.
“They won’t know for sure, will they? If the mansa truly means you to be his heir, then he must allow you to prove yourself. As an explanation, it may serve to put them on the defensive…”
As he pulled off his shirt, I forgot what I was going to say.
“Go on,” he said.
At the dressing table he poured water into the basin and set in on his evening ablutions, washing his face and teeth and then using a damp cloth to wipe down his bare torso. In the midst of this he paused, wrinkling his brow as he pretended to be puzzled by my silence.
“Catherine? Had you more to say?”
A wave of aggravation swept me. Curse the man for being so attractive. “Andevai, those are gorgeous clothes and you look very handsome in them… or out of them… but if you do not hang them on the clothes rack they will get creased and rumpled.”
He pulled me up off the bed and into his arms with such strength that my toes briefly left the ground. He was not minded to be subtle or coaxing or patient. I floated, the heady pleasure of his kiss like ambrosia, as it always was.
When we paused he spoke in a murmur against my cheek as his hands began to wander their familiar paths. “What makes you think I care?”
I slapped his hand. “Of course you care! Anyway, I can’t bear to see such expensive clothes treated so carelessly. I shall do it, if you will not.”
He sat us on the bed and undid the double row of buttons on my cuirassier’s jacket. “Very well. Did you repair this, love? This is what you were wearing when you were shot. I would have thought it must have been cut off you.”
“I did not want to throw away what they had almost ruined. It felt too much like defeat.”
“It’s beautiful work, making something new out of what was torn.”
“They always think they are about to defeat us. For so long we have been at their mercy.” I grinned. “But now we are going to fight back.”
“Truly, now we can.” He slipped me out of the jacket. “Only your bodice beneath! I see you have not forgotten the Expedition style of dressing, for I must say that you in a simple bodice and wrapped skirt waiting tables on a hot night is what I love best, however beautiful you look in your other clothes. Or out of them.”
He undid the lacing on my bodice. The white pucker of scars on my shoulder he kissed as he began on the fastenings of my skirt.
I reveled in the caress of his lips on my neck and the playful wandering of his hands. “Vai, this is no time for me to risk becoming pregnant. Do you have…?”
“No need, love. Rory gave me the sign that you’re not fertile right now.”
I pulled out of his arms. “You and Rory have a signal arranged?”
“If you’d rather not, we shall stop here.” By the crinkling at his eyes and the wry cut of his lips, he was laughing silently at me. “I can sleep on the floor.”
“You will not be sleeping on the floor!”
“In truth, although I am sorry to have to say this to you, every night at Two Gourds House I returned ready to tell you everything that had happened. But you would drag me to the bed first and make it clear what you wanted before I even had a chance to talk. Naturally, given our exertions, I would fall asleep afterward. Then I was always called away early before we could converse at length.”
“That’s not how it happened!”
“It is!”
Blessed Tanit. Maybe it had been. “I was so very bored all day long.”
His smile faded as he leaned forward to embrace me. “I did listen to what they said to me, love. I do hear you. I want you to know that, before we are parted.”
“I know.” I held him close, for the thought of tomorrow filled me with excitement at the challenge, and yet also with dread at leaving him and Bee.
“All will be well,” he murmured, as if by sheer stubborn effort he could make it so.
I raised my lips to his and, after all, we forgot about the clothes until much later, at which point they were all rumpled and creased.
38
He was gone when I woke in the morning.
I hurriedly dressed and ran down to the courtyard to discover him in his rumpled clothes facing off with Bee across a table. A pot of coffee and her open sketchbook sat between them.
“Broken cups are little enough to go on,”
Bee was saying to him, tapping the sketch on the open page. It depicted a porcelain coffeepot and cups shattered into pieces around a tipped-over chair. Fortunately it was not the pot on our table.
I slipped onto the bench beside him, not sure of their mood because his eyebrows were raised and she wore a broody frown. His look acknowledging my arrival shared our night all over again. I smiled in answer.
Bee muttered under her breath, “Blessed Tanit, spare me,” then, in a normal voice, “Do you really know what this is, Andevai?”
He looked at the sketch as his eyes narrowed. “I know exactly what it is. This is Gold Cup House at Lemovis. The Coalition army was retreating north out of Burdigala after we suffered a crushing defeat there. The Iberians were right behind us. The Coalition halted at Lemovis. The mage House called Gold Cup House lies at the edge of the town, on the river. The mansa and I went to them to warn them they should evacuate, because the mage House in Burdigala was burned to the ground during the battle, almost certainly by Drake. Even to that point, the mansa wasn’t quite sure he believed me about fire magic. It’s impossible to make people here in Europa understand, for all such magic has always been strictly contained and controlled by the blacksmiths.”
“But wouldn’t they notice when people died as catch-fires? When the mage House in Burdigala burned?” she asked.
“How do you distinguish a fire lit by a mage from one lit by tinder? In war, it is hard to believe in the deaths of catch-fires when dead people are everywhere. The mansa and I were having coffee with Gold Cup’s mansa when Iberian skirmishers arrived in advance of Camjiata’s main army. Drake specifically meant to strike at the mage House. He did not know the mansa and I were there. He threw his fire into Gold Cup’s mansa, who was entirely unprepared to act as a catch-fire, and meanwhile set the whole cursed compound on fire. Children and elders trapped inside as if they were so much refuse!”
He looked away. Bee extended a hand to touch his arm, but she withdrew it and pressed her palm to her chest instead.
He shook himself. “That was when I discovered that to be a catch-fire is not just a passive thing, when the fire mage throws the backlash into you and you must endure it. In desperation, hoping to save the Gold Cup mansa’s life, I found out it is possible to pull the backlash out of another person and into myself. Any cold mage can do it if they are strong enough. It was too late for the mansa of Gold Cup House, but working together the mansa and I were able to quench the fire. I am certain I almost got that cursed fire mage to burn himself up. Lord Marius had time to deploy his army on the best ground. It was a bloody battle, but against Camjiata, they say a draw is as good as a victory. Anyway, all that expensive porcelain shattered in just this arrangement when the old mansa toppled over. I remember it exactly.”
“That’s when the mansa named you heir, isn’t it?” I said softly.
“Yes. That’s when he finally believed me.” He let out a breath. “Beatrice, I recognize the trust you have shown by sharing these sketches with me. I thank you.”
“Most never mean anything to me. Yet the general could always find their meaning.”
I shrugged. “So he claims. He could easily have guessed I would try to escape on a Phoenician vessel just as the tide turned that morning in Expedition. I suspect the sketches remind him of connections he then sews together. He doesn’t need dreams for that.”
“You’re the last person who should be such a skeptic, Cat.” She displayed a sketch of three hats: a half-crushed tricorn hat pinned by a badge in the shape of a lion’s head, a fashionable shako like mine that was ornamented with peacock feathers, and a humble cloth cap with a shard of glass caught in its crumpled folds. “What can anyone possibly make of this?”
“The shako is what Camjiata’s Amazons wear,” said Vai. Under the table he hooked his foot around my ankle. “I thought the style would look well on Catherine. The lion’s-head badge is the token of the Numantian League of Iberia, where Camjiata was born. The other is a farmer’s cap.”
“Yes, but what does it mean? Besides something to do with the war?” Bee refilled his cup and poured one for me. “Cat, dearest, do stand up and let me see those clothes. This isn’t what you were wearing yesterday.”
When I rose she examined my split skirt, jacket, and jaunty hat as Vai’s somber expression lightened at her exclamation of delight.
“What a splendid outfit! I adore the shako, although I could never wear it. Goodness, Andevai, I shall have to ignore all your roostering about in the hope you will take me to a dressmaker and get me an entire new wardrobe, too. We are sister and brother now, are we not?”
He smiled. She smiled. A spark of connection flashed between them.
A server brought a bowl of porridge and a platter of bread as well as another pot of coffee. Rory plopped down, stifling a yawn, and waited for Bee to pour him coffee.
“Where are the others?” I asked as I dug into the porridge.
Bee said, “They have all left already for a meeting with the underground council of radical leaders. I’ll follow after I have said goodbye to you, dearest.”
Vai touched my hand. “We must go, love. I promised Lord Marius I would bring you to pour the wine at his midday dinner today.”
“Did you?” demanded Bee. “Were all those fine speeches false coin, Andevai, just to make sure she would go back with you like a trophy on a rope?”
He met her gaze with a flicker of annoyance. “No. And you know they weren’t, don’t you? Maybe you just don’t like that she is the center of people’s attention for once, instead of you.”
Rory looked up from his porridge. “I promise you, Cat, I will bite their heads off if they do not behave, for it is a sunny day today and I am in too good a mood to have it ruined by their jealous posturing.”
I laughed and, after a fraught pause, fortunately Bee and Vai did as well.
It was harder than I’d thought to leave Bee. Vai and Rory waited at the gate with the saddled horse and our gear.
“I wish I could come with you, dearest, as Rory can,” she said.
“Camjiata will never let you go if he gets hold of you again, nor will the mansa. I do believe Kehinde and Brennan would let you walk away if you choose to do so.”
“That is why I trust them.” She bent a frown on me. “You must not let Vai bully you.”
“He does not bully me.”
“No, it’s true, he doesn’t. He fondles you with those sultry eyes. You’re quite hopeless, Cat.”
I took her hands. “Yes, but you do like him, don’t you, Bee?”
“Gracious Melqart! What would you do if I said I did not?”
A quiver of fear made me cold, as if winter had kissed me.
“Oh, dearest!” She embraced me. “For your sake, I already love him. I suppose when we have a pleasant home with a hypocaust wing, I shall endure him well enough, and you and I shall have a private parlor with a stove where he is not allowed to enter.” She laughed. “Cat! Your expression is quite confounded. He and I understand each other. The important thing is that he knows he has to maintain my good opinion, as he showed this morning. I respect his intellect and his rare and potent magic, which he has worked very hard to achieve. I do think he is a good man, and in ten years he may be bearable and in twenty he may even be likable.”
“I suppose I deserved that for asking!” I said.
We both laughed, and I left her.
Rory, Vai, and I passed through Arras Gate, Vai leading the horse, and made our way down the boulevard toward the Lady’s Island and the river.
“Nothing like family to keep you on your toes,” remarked Rory.
Vai smiled in the irritating way he had when all his ill temper had dissolved as mist under the sun because he had gotten what he wanted. “Do you miss your family, Rory?”
“Me? Yes. But it wasn’t to last, you know. Mother was already starting to look around for another mate. When she chose one, he would have driven me out, and I have no brothers to go a-roaming with. It
’s a lonely life to hunt alone. I like it here just fine. You’re my brother now, Vai.”
“So I am, Rory.” Vai slipped a hand into the crook of Rory’s elbow so they walked arm in arm. His easy, affectionate camaraderie with a man he trusted made me fall in love with him all over again.
They talked for a while of inconsequential things.
“You’re quiet, love,” Vai said at last, releasing Rory’s arm and pulling me over next to him.
“Andevai, do you like Bee?”
Rory snorted. “That is a question I would tremble to answer were I you! For myself, I find her annoying, managing, and bossy. But I’m accustomed to such behavior from females.”
Vai let go of my elbow and took my hand, just as if we were a courting couple in Expedition. “I love her like a sister. I realize her good opinion matters more to you than that of anyone else. She accepts that you love me. So she and I understand each other well enough. Why are you laughing, Catherine?”
I did not explain.
When we reached the forecourt of Two Gourds House, Vai was in a mood to throw his weight around. He demanded baths, food, horses, and a djeli to accompany us, as befitted his rank as heir. When I emerged refreshed, I discovered Rory in the entry hall lounging on a marble bench and surrounded by women. The highborn magisters who had scorned me in the women’s quarters turned to me with an effusive friendliness that amused me. Would we return to Two Gourds House soon? Would my brother be staying with me? Was he married?
Naturally we had to wait for Vai, who appeared at length in fresh clothes. He rode alongside the djeli to converse on arcane matters of genealogy. Rory and I rode behind, with two grooms, two attendants, and two troopers.
“I must say, those women looked very bored,” said Rory.
“I suppose they are. That’s probably why they were so sour and unfriendly to me.”
“I’ll bet they would be up for some friskiness. You could let me loose there for a month and everyone would be much the happier for it.”
I laughed. “I promise you, Rory, if we ever return there, I will certainly let you loose, just to enjoy the spectacle.”