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“It surely did before.” Aunty’s laugh coaxed a reluctant smile to my lips as I remembered the clever way he had won me over by bringing me delicious fruit to eat and confiding in me about his embrace of radical principles. “Yee never could seem to make up yee mind about Vai. Yee pushed him back with one hand and pulled him close with the other. What settled yee?”
“Really, Aunty, did you think he would give up before he got what he wanted?”
“Yee’s a stubborn gal, Cat. I had me doubts.”
“You shouldn’t have had. I think I was always a little infatuated with him, even back when I disliked him for his high-handed ways. The Blessed Tanit knows he’s handsome enough to overwhelm the most heartless gal.”
“Good manners and a steady heart matter more than looks, although he have all three in plenty. Still, I reckon yee have the right of it. ’Tis no easy task for a gal to say no to a lad as fine as he. Especially after the patient way he courted yee.” She took the spoon. “Yee get that man back.”
“I will get him back, I promise you, Aunty.” I did not add that I had no idea how I was going to manage it. “Bee will help me. We’re going to make our plans tomorrow.”
The thought of him trapped in my sire’s claws made me burn. Yet not even worrying could dampen my appetite. I ate two bowls of Aunty’s excellent rice and peas, by which time the first customers had begun to arrive. They greeted me with genuine pleasure, for even though I was a maku—a foreigner—in Expedition, folk here did appreciate my willingness to speak my mind. Better yet, they laughed at my jokes. The easy way people conversed pleased me, and no one thought it at all remarkable that a young woman had opinions about the great matters of the day.
“I certainly hope the new Assembly will not allow the Taino representatives to bully them on this matter of a new treaty,” I said to a table of elderly regulars.
“Hard not to feel bullied when a fleet of Taino airships sit on the border chaperoned by an army of soldiers who have already marched once through Expedition’s streets,” said Uncle Joe from the bar. “Peradventure without yee intervention on Hallows’ Night, Cat, we in Expedition would have had to bow before a Taino governor instead of setting up this new Assembly. If yee had not done what report say yee did do.”
I dodged past the lad who with pole and ladder was lighting the courtyard’s gas lamps. With a shake of my head, I set a tray of empty mugs on the bar as I made a grimace at Uncle Joe. After the dream I had just had, I did not want anyone to begin reflecting on the part I had played in halting the Taino invasion of Expedition Territory. He nodded to show he understood, then turned to draw a pitcher of ale from a barrel to refill the mugs.
Between one breath and the next, the lively rattle of conversation ceased. The courtyard fell silent. I had my back to the gate. As Uncle Joe turned with the full pitcher, glancing past me, his gaze widened. He reached under the counter and set his machete next to my tray.
He had done the same in my dream, only my sword was looped to a cord around my hips. The blade of his machete caught a glimmer of gaslight that carved a shimmering line along its length.
I swung around.
Prince Caonabo stood in the open gate, surrounded by attendants and soldiers.
Just as he had in my dream.
2
All eyes—and it was crowded tonight—shifted from the newcomers to me, and back to the prince’s retinue. Aunty Djeneba had been cooking cassava bread on a griddle in the open-air kitchen. She stepped back from the hearth to examine the interlopers. As the thin bread began to crisp, I could not rip my gaze from its blackening edges. The smell of its burning seemed to come right out of the dream I’d had, the way fire had caught in my flesh. Had Prince Caonabo come to kill me?
Was this what it meant to walk the dreams of dragons? Had I dreamed the dream meant for Bee because we were holding hands as we napped and her dreams had bled into mine? Or had I simply been waiting for this meeting, knowing the Taino would not let the death of their queen pass without a response?
Aunty realized the bread was burning, flipped the flat round onto the dirt, and gestured for one of her granddaughters to take over. After wiping her hands on her apron, she walked to the gate. She looked majestic with her hair covered in a vividly orange head wrap. Her height, stout build, and confident manner made her a formidable presence.
“Prince Caonabo,” she said, not that she had ever met him before, but there could only be one Taino prince in the city of Expedition. “To see one such as yee here at me gate is truly unexpected.”
One of the prince’s attendants answered in his stead, for like any lofty nobleman, Caonabo did not need to speak for himself. “His Good Highness has come to this establishment to find a witch.”
Most of our customers looked at me. I dressed in the local style so as not to draw attention to myself, but the days when I could hope to be just another maku girl making a living after being washed ashore in Expedition were irrevocably over.
Aunty stiffened. “We shelter no witch in me respectable house, nor have we ever, I shall thank yee to know. Nor need we answer to the prince, however good and high as he may be. Expedition remain a free territory. Yee Taino don’ rule us.”
The attendant blew a sharp whistle. Taino soldiers swarmed into the courtyard from the street, rifles and ceremonial spears at the ready, but the prince raised a hand to forestall any action.
“This afternoon I have spoken to the provisional Assembly,” the prince said with the precision of an intelligent man who has learned through countless hours of intense study to speak a language foreign to him. “We have completed our discussions and renewed the treaty between the Taino kingdom and Expedition Territory. One matter remains before I can leave Expedition.”
“What matter might that be, that yee trouble us while we partake of food and drink?”
Aunty still held the paddle she used on the cassava bread, and she had the stance of a woman ready to smack him with it right on his proud, highborn face if he didn’t give her a polite answer.
His attendants looked comically startled that a common Expeditioner would speak to a noble prince in such a bold and disrespectful manner, but Prince Caonabo himself appeared neither offended nor taken aback. He seemed like a man who knew his place in the world but didn’t need you to know it because it didn’t matter if you did. And it didn’t matter. In this part of the world, in the Sea of Antilles, he was among the most powerful men alive.
o;Hard not to feel bullied when a fleet of Taino airships sit on the border chaperoned by an army of soldiers who have already marched once through Expedition’s streets,” said Uncle Joe from the bar. “Peradventure without yee intervention on Hallows’ Night, Cat, we in Expedition would have had to bow before a Taino governor instead of setting up this new Assembly. If yee had not done what report say yee did do.”
I dodged past the lad who with pole and ladder was lighting the courtyard’s gas lamps. With a shake of my head, I set a tray of empty mugs on the bar as I made a grimace at Uncle Joe. After the dream I had just had, I did not want anyone to begin reflecting on the part I had played in halting the Taino invasion of Expedition Territory. He nodded to show he understood, then turned to draw a pitcher of ale from a barrel to refill the mugs.
