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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 precise 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.
A man, stiff and slow with age, was leading an ox toward the village.
Andevai watched for a long time, leaning out to keep the houses in view as we trundled east. When at last he sank back onto the seat, he covered his eyes with a hand.
Had I seen a tear? Or was that only a trick of the light?
15
After a while, he lowered his hand and slid shut the window, leaving us in the dim confines, ripe with the smell of our sweat after so many days.
I had begun to shiver, despite the smothering furs. “I… I wanted to ask if there is anything I should know. Proper greetings? Words or gestures I should not use?”
“Do what I tell you, and don’t speak. There’s far too much for you to learn to start now. Afterward there will be time.”
“After what?”
“We must be purified to pass onto the estate. Then you’ll be brought before the head of Four Moons House and accepted into the house.”
