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I spun, ready to bolt, only to see Bee being marched through the back gate from the alley. Soldiers emerged from the carriage house carrying the three packs and the chest.
“We met before, as you may recall,” continued the djeli, in kindly tones.
“Bring them inside, Bakary,” repeated the other man, the one I still did not see.
As they brought Bee up, I let the threads of shadow drop. The soldiers exclaimed, swinging their crossbows around. I was relieved when the djeli led us into the house.
The mansa of Four Moons House sat in a chair in the kitchen. The wide sleeves of his indigo robe swept over the arms of his chair. He had concealed himself within a perfect illusion of an empty kitchen. I had thought Vai a master of weaving cold magic into illusions, but obviously I had not properly understood why the mansa ruled the mage House.
He was a physically imposing man of middle age, old enough to be my father but not old. He had the girth of a person who eats well and remains active. His Mande heritage showed in his black complexion, while his tightly curled dark red hair spoke of his Celtic ancestors. His presence made the kitchen seem shabby. We stood before him like supplicants. He examined us, then glanced at our gear, which his soldiers had set on the floor by the unlit stove. Finally he gestured to the djeli.
“Where is Andevai?” asked the djeli.
“He is not in Adurnam, Mansa,” I replied, for the djeli was speaking for the mansa, not on his own behalf.
“Yet here are three packs, for three people to carry,” said the djeli.
“He is not in Europa, Mansa. You yourself sent him to the Antilles to spy for you.”
With the tip of his ebony cane, the mansa fished one of the dash jackets out of the chest. The intricately tailored garment was sewn out of a bold blue-red-and-gold fabric printed with an elaboration of Celtic knots so complex it hurt my eyes. His gaze on me fell as cold as the sleet he had called down. He spoke with his own mouth instead of through the djeli’s words.
“Do you think I do not recognize these clothes? Andevai’s penchant for fashion started as mockery, so we observed in the House. He wore more and more outrageous clothes to belittle the other young men and their pretentious styles. But of course he always looked good in them.”
“We came to enjoy the anticipation of what he would appear in next,” added Bakary, amusement making his tone light.
The mansa tossed the expensive dash jacket carelessly over a chair, where it rested in folds and wrinkles. His resonant voice deepened, steeped in disgust. “Do not lie to me regarding his whereabouts. You belong to me because of the marriage chained between you and Andevai. By law, I have power over your life and your death.”
“Cat is many things,” interposed Bee in a tart voice, “but one thing she is not is a liar. If you wish to know where your spy is, then you must answer to yourself.”
“I am puzzled by your impertinence. You are but two girls from an impoverished family of mercenaries. One of you is a bastard. Both of you serve your clan’s business by acting as spies for the Iberian Monster. Those cursed Hassi Barahals cheated us twice over. Not only did they give us the wrong girl, but they had already placed her in the service of the general so she could spy on us once she was inside the house. A cunning and unscrupulous plan.”
“I am puzzled that you speak of unscrupulous spies as if you are innocent in this regard, since we have already established that you sent the cold mage to spy in Expedition,” retorted Bee. I could tell by her flushed cheeks and brilliant gaze that she was just getting warmed up. “Or do you mean to advance the argument that what is wrong for us to do is right for you to do? If we even were spies for General Camjiata, which we are not. I do not know what arrangements the Hassi Barahal clan made in the past with the general, but I assure you, Magister, that the day my parents handed Cat over to Four Moons House to spare me from being married off to a cold mage against my will, was the day I considered myself emancipated from their selfish affections.”
His eyes narrowed. “A fine and affecting speech, but I must suppose that legally you are still bound to them because you are an unmarried woman and such maidens can never be guardians of themselves.”
Bee laughed so sarcastically that everyone in the kitchen jumped as at a gunshot. “By which you mean to say, men like you do not wish such women to be guardians of themselves.”
He ignored her in favor of measuring my body. “I must assume you seduced Andevai in the usual way. You have that look about you that may make a young man feel hunger.”
At the boardinghouse I had learned to scold any man who ogled me in such an insulting way, and I usually succeeded in getting the other customers to laugh at him.
Bee murmured, “Cat! Don’t!”
But I did.
“Rather, I would say that radical principles seduced him. Really, Your Excellency, you have only yourself to blame. Why should he serve an unjust system as if he were a horse placed in harness who has no choice but to pull lest he be whipped if he balks? Even so, Vai made you a vastly generous offer. If you would release the village of Haranwy from the clientage it has labored under for generations, he promised to serve you loyally. He would have sacrificed his own freedom and happiness to assure their liberty. You laughed at him.”
“I did nothing so crude as laugh. I gave him his sister’s freedom, when in truth she ought to have been bred to see if more cold mages could be produced out of that family. It was far more than I needed to do!”
“Kayleigh is not a brood mare!”
His lack of recognition betrayed that he had no idea that Vai’s sister was named Kayleigh. “That I released her shows my appreciation for his value to Four Moons House. We may hope he will sire children on you who have some measure of the strength he has—”
“I’m not a brood mare either!”
“—but the genealogies sung by the djeliw tell us that cold mages with such deep roots rarely breed children who possess as much potency. To think how many advantageous matches the House lost now he is wasted on you! We might have sent him on a successful Grand Tour and afterward prosperously negotiated for three or even four wives for one such as him. Even if he does not sire powerful children, many Houses are willing to make the try for grandchildren out of such a mage. Each marriage creates a rope that binds us and makes us stronger for the coming war.”
“Vai is not a stallion to be put out to stud!”
