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“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.
