notably marked by a pair of tall wooden posts the locals called Heracles’s Pillars for the famous straits at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea. On the opposite side of the jetty was an inn called Nance’s, with a sprawling wooden deck flanked by buildings. The edifice had a grand view of the harbor and of the monumental arch that led into the walled confines of the old city. Almost two months ago, Vai and I had been separated here by an unexpected meeting.
At tables along the railing, men ate with the concentration of sailors savoring their last good meal before shipping out. Barrels were lined up street-side next to the steps. A man leaned against a barrel with an open book in his hands. He met my questing gaze with a polite nod of greeting.
“Blessed Tanit!” I released Luce’s hand. “Rory, we’ve got to run.”
The leaning man closed the book with an audible snap. Kofi looked around with a curse. A piercing whistle cut through the hush of dawn. Rory dropped the handles of the cart he was pushing, and the entire line of carts came to a juddering halt. Taino soldiers trotted onto the jetty from where they had been hiding amid stacks of crates. The men who had been eating clattered down the stairs to fan out onto the jetty, brandishing the short swords known as falcatas that were famous as the preferred weapon of Iberian infantrymen. We were surrounded.
The man with the book approached with a measured tread that drew all eyes. He had height and breadth, the look of a man who fought in wars once and means to do so again. Silver streaked his mane of wavy black hair. His face bore the stamp of his father’s noble Malian ancestors in having brown skin and his mother’s patrician Roman lineage in having a bold nose.
My enemy, General Camjiata.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Cat,” he said with the friendly smile the victor can afford to give the vanquished. “I admire your plan for a bold escape, and your ability to gather allies. But you’re going to have to come to the Council Hall to address the charge of murder.”
4
“Shall I eat him, Cat?” murmured Rory.
“Rory, don’t move. They’ll shoot you.” I faced the general. “How did you find us?”
“You see, Cat, it isn’t that you need to have the dragon dreamer at your side at all times,” said General Camjiata as he strolled up to me. “She does not dream the day before of what will come to pass the next morning.”
“She doesn’t?” I asked, thinking of my dream.
He took no notice because he was too enthralled by the sound of his own voice. “Nor can she walk by purpose into a dream that will tell her what she wishes to know about a crossroads in her future. She may never even recognize what it is she has seen. What you need to make use of a dreamer’s gift is a record of her dreams, so you can study this record until you see patterns emerge and weave the pieces together.”
He opened the book.
“That’s Bee’s sketchbook!” I exclaimed. “The one you stole from her!”
The page was a jumble of images drawn in Bee’s vivid style: a winged horse galloping across waves; the famous twinned bronze pillars known to stand in the temple of Melqart outside the city of Gadir in Iberia; a black saber-toothed cat; nine half-moons. And a pretty little portrait of me from the back, holding by the hair the decapitated head of Queen Anacaona as I looked over my shoulder as if in flight from a pursuer.
“Gah.” I reached across him to turn the page, for the gruesome detail took me aback.
He pulled the book away from me. “The
“Why nine moons when November isn’t the ninth month? And why the half-moon?”
“In the early Roman calendar, November was the ninth month. Nones refers to the day of the half-moon. If you don’t know that, you can’t make use of the dream.”
“You could just have guessed I might have tried to escape on a Phoenician ship leaving before the tide turns.”
Taino soldiers parted ranks to allow a frowning Prince Caonabo to come forward.
The general indicated me. “Your Highness. I told you I would find her. With this one, you really need to use a rope if you want to capture her.”
He whistled. In his first war his army had been famed for its Amazon Corps, women who fought with more ferocity than men. My mother, Tara Bell, had been a captain in his Amazon Corps, and she had been condemned to death for the crime of becoming pregnant, with me. A woman dressed in soldier’s garb walked forward. Captain Tira sheathed her falcata and unlooped a length of rope. It had a noose, to go around my neck.
“Yee cannot be serious!” said Kofi.
Rory snarled.
Camjiata smiled, as if he hoped I would do something reckless.
Luce, Kofi, and the men of Kofi’s household were fenced in. No doubt they would be charged with aiding and abetting a fugitive.
“Your Highness, I’ll come quietly,” I said to Prince Caonabo, “if you will agree to let these people go free, no questions asked, no grudge held, no charges brought.”
“So have I already agreed,” the prince replied. “All but your brother may go without prejudice.”
“Kofi, just go,” I said, for by the gritting of his teeth I could see his frustration building.
His eyes flared as he gestured for his kinfolk to depart, but he went. Luce flung her arms around Rory, who peeled her off and pushed her after the others. The soldiers made an opening for them to push out their carts. A crowd had begun to gather on the jetty, mostly laborers headed for work or women carrying wood or water to their homes.
“An ugly crowd,” said Camjiata. “Best we make our way to Council Hall quickly, Your Highness. We need only leash the girl. The young man will follow her.”
No longer pretending to smile, he dropped the noose over my neck. The coarse sailor’s hemp chafed my skin.
The prince’s open carriage rolled out from behind Nance’s. I clothed myself in as much dignity as I could gather and stepped up into it. Rory walked behind the carriage to keep an eye on everyone. I wondered if it was his usual position in the hunt when he and his mother, aunt, and sisters prowled the spirit world in search of their next meal.
Prince Caonabo sat facing me. Camjiata sat next to me, holding the rope.
As the driver snapped the reins and the horses moved forward, the Taino soldiers paced in disciplined ranks. The general’s Iberian veterans had more of a swagger. Sailors and laborers gathered at slips and quays to stare, and women and wagons moved aside to let us pass. A gaggle of young toughs shadowed us.
“Why have you involved yourself in this inquiry, General?” I asked politely, even if I really wanted to bite and claw.
“Cat, I am not your enemy. Please be assured that Tara Bell’s child will always have a home with me if she needs shelter. I want only to protect you.” I had never met a man who could speak in such sentimental platitudes and yet have it sound so genuine and unforced. It was one of the most irritating things about him.
“Protect me? You betrayed me!”
“The cacica was required by law to exile you to Salt Island. What you don’t understand is that Salt Island was the safest place for you at that time.”
“That you can say so with a straight face and such sincerity is almost admirable! Everything I did here in Expedition was machinated by you.”
“Perhaps not quite everything. Things are not as simple as you believe they are. But this is not the place to discuss them.”
We crossed under the shadow of the gate and into the old city with its encircling stone walls, legacy of an
