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The rain caught up with us as we reached the outskirts of Adurnam. By the time we reached Westmarket we were soaked through, and the downpour had left Bee’s curls plastered to her neck. Vai’s dash jacket was creased and sodden and, worst of all, Rory had burned the cuff with ashes from the wagoner’s pipe. I had begun shivering so badly I didn’t have the energy to scold him.
The wagoner reined up at the edge of the bustling fish market just as the rain ceased. Wagons and carts trundled in from the marshy Sieve, the vast estuary of the Rhenus River.
“This is as far as I come, lasses.” He cackled, tapping his hat against the driver’s bench to flick water off the brim. “You had me half believing those lively tales you spun about the foreigners over the ocean who allow girls to run about half naked kicking a ball. As if females wouldn’t just hurt themselves trying to play such games like men.”
Irritation warmed me as I clambered off the wagon. “I was not making it up! The game is called batey. You don’t kick the ball, because it’s not allowed to touch the ground. Women play it in leagues, just like the men, and people come to watch.”
“Folk come to watch, as if they were men! I’d say for another reason, ha ha! Women ruling and men bowing and scraping to stop from being scolded! I’m as likely to believe this tale of an Assembly of representatives voted on by every person in the city. As if a prince would allow that!”
I spoke through gritted teeth. “There is no prince in Expedition.”
“No, there’s a fancy-dressed queen instead!” He laughed as he wiped rain from his cheeks. “You’re killing me, lass!”
Rory pulled me back before I whacked the man with my cane. To soothe me he groomed away tendrils of hair stuck to my forehead. “You’re not going to convince him of what is true if he believes it can’t be true.”
Bee twisted a slender bracelet off one dainty wrist. “Please take this as thanks for your help.”
“You don’t need to pay me. I’m happy to do a good turn…” The wagoner paused as Bee held up the bracelet. “Is that gold?”
“Gold from the court of the Taino king,” she said prettily. “He was so overwhelmed by my beauty that he married me.”
“If you want to call that marriage.” His gaze hardened. By the way his gaze flicked between us, I guessed he was reconsidering his estimate of what manner of young females we might be and whether Rory was truly my brother or rather our partner in crime.
Bee’s diminutive stature led people to think her both mild and harmless, until she shifted her feet to a fighting stance. “We expect to be treated with the respect we have shown you,” she said in a voice thick with queenly grandeur. “Do not make me regret I thought you a decent man.”
He relaxed. “I see you two girls is having me on. My thanks, then, and I’ll take the bauble gladly, as a keepsake of your mischievous ways. Now you get on to your sire, lass. Lest he get tired of waiting for you and come hunting you down. Listen, you can hear him coming now!”
In the distance horns tootled and drums and cymbals clashed.
“What festival parade is that?” I asked as we heaved the chest out of the carriage.
“Tomorrow Mars Camulos has his feast. The mask associations have been practicing for weeks for the festival procession. You Phoenician girls won’t be dancing to that Roman horn!”
With a wave and another cackle he drove into the narrow lanes of the market.
“Mars Camulos!” said Bee with a dark frown. “That means tomorrow is the twenty-third day of the month of Martius. The areito to celebrate Caonabo becoming cacique took place on the first of Februarius. Which means we left Sharagua six weeks ago.”
“Six weeks! And yet three months before that!” I cried, thinking of Vai, taken from me on Hallows’ Night.
Looking toward the stalls of fish, Rory eyed the nearest vendor as if gauging whether he could snatch a fish and run. “No wonder I’m so hungry!”
“Rory, don’t do it.” Bee grabbed his arm, and he winced. She turned to me. “You’ve always said that time passes differently in the spirit world. It’s still strange to have it happen to us.”
Rain started up again in a blowsy mist. My teeth began to chatter. “We need to find shelter and decide what to do.”
“I have to speak to the headmaster, Cat. I think we should go there first.”
Rory hunched his shoulders. “He’s a dragon. You can’t trust him. He will eat you.”
“He won’t eat me, Rory.” Bee poked him in the arm. “He might eat you, though, and there are moments when you are so annoying that I must say I expect I would encourage him to do so.”
Rory drew himself straight, lips pulled back. “I shall have you know, Beatrice, that I am never annoying. That you find me so is a reflection on your character, not mine.”
“We need to scout out our ground first,” I temporized, for I sensed Rory trembling at the edge of rebellion. Also, I desperately wanted to dry out and get warm. “Let’s go first to the law offices of Godwik and Clutch. It’s a long walk across the city, I know. But if there’s anyone I trust, it’s the trolls… the feathered people, I mean. The Taino always use the more polite phrase.”
“We need not imitate the Taino in everything just because they believe themselves to be superior to us!” remarked Bee in a frosty tone. “But I suppose it is wisest to go to the law offices first. Wait here.”
She left Rory and me huddled with the chest under the eaves of a decrepit warehouse. Wagons lined up to offload their glistening catch into the baskets and crates of middlemen, merchants, cooks, and men guarding wheelbarrows. No one paid us any mind, for we looked exactly like an impoverished brother and sister who had no home and no means of buying our next meal, but I felt exposed and vulnerable.
