'Not promising. I expected better.' He set down his cup and, before I realized what he meant to do, plucked the cup out of my hand. 'You won't want that, Catherine.'
My mouth opened, and then I remembered Aunt's words and closed it. Our companions pointedly said nothing, but neither did they drink more.
A young male servant pulled out the chairs. We sat. The first course was carried in by four silent servers: a clear-broth fish soup, several lamb and chicken dishes swimming in bright sauces, platters of gingered beans, gingered rabbit liver, roasted sweet potato, and a pair of savory vegetable stews fortified with millet. How I wanted to display my offended dignity by spurning the food, but I was so very, very hungry, and it smelled so very, very good.
They set down the plates, and the woman spooned lamb in red sauce onto his plate for his approval. He tasted it and winced.
'Absolutely not.'
The chicken with an orange sauce.
'I can't be expected to eat this.'
'I would be willing to try it,' I said in a low voice, but although the woman glanced at me, my husband ignored my words.
The lamb in gravy, the gingered rabbit liver, the beans, and the vegetable stews met with the same scorn.
'Is this all your kitchen can manage? It is not what we are accustomed to at the estate, but perhaps you've been so long away tending house here in the city that you've forgotten.'
I winced, trying to imagine what Aunt would say if she ever heard me speak so ungraciously. The servers carried away the offending dishes. I wanted to weep. I would have scraped the smears of sauce off his plate, just to get some flavor on my parched tongue. He considered the clear soup and the bland orange potatoes with disdain.
'These are so simple they can, one hopes, offend no discriminating appetite. Very well. Can I hope there might be a suitable wine, a vintage better than that sour mead? A cheese, perhaps, and sliced fruit?'
The woman's expression was as emotionlessly correct as his was disdainful. 'I will ask personally in the kitchens, Magister.'
She deserted the chamber.
'I have certain things I need,' said my husband.
'All that was requested is ready,' said the man in a tight voice. -?
'Is it?' my husband replied in a tone thoroughly insinuated with doubt. 'I'm relieved to hear it, after this supper.'
The room lapsed into an awful silence. For the longest time he merely sat, looking out the frost-crackled windows into a dark courtyard. The heat rising from the floor warmed my feet and legs, but my shoulders were cold as I stared at the bright slices of potato and the cooling soup with its pure broth and moist, white fragments offish floating among scraps of delicate cilantro. I thought I might really and truly start crying when my stomach rumbled.
'But after all,' said the man abruptly, as if his chain had finally snapped, 'I'll just go to the workshop and make sure.' He rose and left.
Without looking away from the window, my husband hooked the bell and rang it.
The young man who had maneuvered the chairs entered the chamber, quite flushed, and touched the fingers of his right hand to his heart. 'Magister?'
His voice softened slightly. 'Serve the soup and potatoes to the maestra, if you please.'
'Yes, Magister.' The attendant looked relieved.
So I supped on potatoes and on soup, which even lukewarm
was spectacular, subtle and smooth and perfectly seasoned, although my husband did not deign to touch it. Afterward, the woman returned wearing a mulish expression and carrying a tray with six bottles, eight varieties of cheese, and fruit. He sampled the wines-pouring a few drops into the offering cup before each tasting-and the cheeses and rejected them all, while finally accepting a single apple, sliced at the table and shared between us, and one precious hothouse mango, prepared likewise.
Yet when he rose, thereby announcing that our supper was complete, I was still famished.
'If you'll show me to the workshop,' he said to the woman.
'Of course, Magister.'
They left the dining chamber as if they had forgotten I existed. I sat there too tired to rage, and just as I had begun to contemplate actually stealing the bits of food placed as an offering on the platter next to the stone, the girl appeared to save me from an act so disrespectful I was ashamed even to have thought of it. She escorted me through my parlor and into the sleeping chamber, where she helped me out of my celadon supper dress and into my nightdress.
'Maestra,' she said at last, an utterance that offered neither question nor answer except to remind me bitterly that I was now a married woman, with all that implied.
She left me sitting on the edge of the bed with a bowl of light to keep me company. Heat drifted up from the floorboards. My toes were warm, and my heart was cold. In all the years I remembered well, I had never gone to sleep without Bee beside me to whisper to before slumber overtook us. Now I was alone.
The light dwindled, and when its glowing dome dulled and collapsed into a wisp, I tucked myself under the bedding.
I lay there in dread for hours, hearing the rumble of carriages gradually fade as the city fell into its late sleep, hearing the occasional cry of the night guard on his rounds: 'All quiet! All quiet!' I recognized the droll bass of Esus-at-the-Crossing and Sweet Sissy's laughing alto as they sang the changeover, the death of the old day and the birth of the new. The beat of festival drums rolled faintly and was quickly stifled, or perhaps that was when I fell asleep and dreamed of happier times, dancing koukou.
I woke from an uneasy doze with my forehead wet with sweat. Somehow, the chamber had grown horribly warm. I got out from under the heavy covers, swung my feet to the floorboards, and padded over to the shutters. I found the clasp, turned it, and pulled the shutter aside, then unclasped the expensive paned window and opened it to take in a lungful of blessedly cold air. Then I coughed, having sucked in a huge breath of wood smoke, coal dust, and sewage stink. My eyes stung as I caught a whiff of ammonia.
The door behind me opened.
I gasped, turning, my hand still grasping the window's handle. A figure moved into the chamber; light formed into a luminous globe beyond his left hand. After a moment of complete incomprehension, I realized I was staring at my husband.
My husband! Come at last and very late to the marriage bed. Possibly drunk. Probably appalled at the necessity of consorting with an unwanted and unfashionable wife. I wanted to throw myself out the window, only I remembered Aunt's parting words: Go with your husband.
My duty was clear.
Strangely, he was fully dressed in practical traveling clothes (hat were dirty and torn. A moist substance streaked his cheek. He looked as if he'd been in a fight.
'Catherine, close that window,' he said in an angry voice, as if by opening the shutter I had done something to personally offend him. Me! Torn from my home, hauled through the city, and then starved and left to cower like a beaten dog in a trap!
There came on the wind a sound, or maybe just a tremor in the air, a bitter kiss on my lips. My Cat's instincts flared. I turned to the window, wondering if I really was going to have to throw myself out and run through the garden to get away from his cold fury, now sparking.
'Down!' he shouted.
A huge explosion flashed mere blocks away, and the entire inn shuddered as the boom hit. Glass cracked; panes shattered. I was flung backward and lay stunned on the floor as I watched through the window, now above me, sheets of flame rise into the night sky above a bedlam of screaming men and barking dogs.
