something between you and Brennan?”
Her hesitation told me everything I needed to know.
“Blessed Tanit! Are you sleeping with him?”
Her fingers tightened on my hand. “We have been traveling together for months. I must say there are benefits to being a young woman who knows she is barren, when it comes to activities of the amatory sort. But I’m not in love with him, not in that way. We’re more like attentive companions.”
“Attentive companions! Are you telling me you’re engaged in a companionably attentive affair with one of the most notorious and dashing radicals in Europa?”
“Shh! Lower your voice. This isn’t the place to have this conversation!”
“Does he want to marry you?”
“Strangely, Cat, not every man wishes to marry me, starting with your husband and ending with Brennan Du. I find it’s a relief to negotiate a relationship that is based on respect and friendship rather than all this overheated romance.” Her voice dropped so low I had to lean my head against hers to hear. “The truth is, he’s been in love with the professora for years, but she is married. I heard Brennan and Kehinde arguing once. She admitted that she dislikes her husband. It was a marriage arranged for her at a tender age. You would think an intellectual of such radical sensibilities would take it upon herself to shed such imprisoning traditional customs, but she refuses to do anything that would bring dishonor upon her family.”
“There’s a great deal I do not understand about this situation!”
Brennan’s laugh floated from the kitchen, where he was evidently soothing the cook.
“I do not want to be discovered gossiping with you!” Bee finished, dragging me on.
Upstairs, at the very back, we entered a modestly furnished dining chamber lit by cold magic and cooling rapidly. Rory lounged under a blanket on a threadbare couch situated beside the brick chimney and its dead fire.
Vai rose from a chair. “Catherine! You look… confounded. Was there trouble? Beatrice! Is all well with you? Have you peace and good health?”
Bee kissed him on either cheek in the effusive Kena’ani manner. “Andevai! Here you are! What a startling color that dash jacket is! Please allow me to tell you how very glad I am that you are back with us.”
“My thanks, Beatrice,” he said stiffly, taken aback by her enthusiastic welcome and perhaps wondering if she disliked his new garment. The distinctively rich orange-red damask did look well on him. Because the sleeve length was just right, I wondered if the tailor had shortened the sleeves on the green jacket on purpose so he wouldn’t wear it. “Catherine has been worrying about you.”
“Of course she has! I’m sorry to say we had trouble today. A violent altercation broke out between the ghana’s troops and some loitering trolls.”
Rory whistled under his breath. “Glad I missed that.”
“I am sadly sure the town is in for a very bad night. Can you and Cat be ready to depart within the hour, Andevai?”
He took my hand and looked me up and down to make sure I was all right before releasing me. Footsteps in the hall brought me around with my sword half drawn.
Brennan entered the room. “Magister, next time we’ll bring you in through the stables so you don’t put out all the fires. Can you be ready to leave within the hour?”
“No. Nor do I see the need to do so.”
I cringed at Vai’s brusque tone. Rory smirked, as if he found the situation amusing. Brennan sighed wearily, and Bee opened her mouth to make a scalding retort.
Vai sailed right over her. “However the ghana reacts to this disturbance, I will have no trouble leaving Sala. I see no need to go sneaking off and freezing and besides that leaving disgruntled innkeepers at every stop because I kill their fires. Nor will I agree to camping out in the woods in this damp and cold. Not when I can have every expectation of peace traveling as a magister in a coach generously provided by White Bow House. No prince or ghana or lord—or radical—will prevent me from making sure my wife travels in comfort to Noviomagus.”
“Goodness, Cat!” said Bee. “He still talks in exactly that same pompous way.”
His gaze flicked to her. “If you are trying to irritate me, it won’t work.”
“How could it, when you are already so very irritating?” she muttered.
“Because as I was just about to say and now will say, there is no reason the three of you cannot travel with us. We told our hosts we were separated from our servants, so you will pose as our retinue. All of us can leave Sala in a way uncomplicated by searches, seizures, and concerns about where we will sleep every night.”
“Pleasant to have all such mundane details settled,” said Brennan with a wry grin.
“How do I get to serve?” Rory fluttered his eyelashes in a way that made Brennan chuckle as at an old joke that hasn’t lost its charm. “By the way, Cat, you were so very wrong when you told me that first day in Lemanis that I can’t wear women’s clothing. I have made several friends in the last months who enjoy it when I dress in women’s drawers and other garments.”
“Rory!” Bee cried in a long-suffering tone redolent of many shared experiences I would likely never know anything about. “You need not say just whatever comes into your mind, as I have had reason to tell you before.”
“I just wanted Cat to know! I don’t mind being scolded for something I did wrong, but I don’t think it fair to be scolded when I did nothing wrong!” Oblivious to the stupidity of poking an already annoyed wasp, he addressed Vai. “Do
I braced myself. Bee pressed fingers to her forehead, wincing. Brennan rocked forward on his toes, clearly expecting the same outcome I was.
Vai smiled indulgently at Rory, as if they were the best of joking friends. “No, I do not. But I can’t see why you shouldn’t wear them if you wish to. It’s just that they’re cut for a different shape.”
I exchanged startled glances with Bee at this unexpected display of relaxed camaraderie, for if there was one word I would not have used to describe Vai, it was
“Chartji and Caith cannot believably pose as your servants, Magister,” Brennan went on as the door opened to admit the lawyer Chartji and her clutch-nephew, the young troll Caith.
I took a step back, a shade too abruptly, because Caith’s head slewed around like that of a predator spotting the furtive skittering of its hapless prey. A vivid memory of the troll ripping out the belly of the horse, guts spilling, steam rising from the hot innards, blinded me for a blink of an eye.
A blink was all it took for them to take the leap and make the kill.
“The feathered people need not pose as my servants,” said Vai, startling me back to myself. He crossed to shake Chartji’s hand. “Chartji is my solicitor, after all. A pleasant coincidence that we stumbled across each other here in Sala. We have a great deal to discuss.”
“I have not neglected your case, Magister. However, my case file is in Havery.”
“All the more reason I would be pleased to offer you and Caith conveyance in a comfortably sprung carriage and lodging in respectable inns for as long as you choose to accompany me.”
Chartji bared her teeth to mimic a human smile as she approached me to shake hands. “Catherine Bell Barahal. I am pleased to flock with you again. Our clutch-cousin, Keer, has written of your doings in Expedition.”
I hesitated, bruised by the memory of the dead horse. “Truly, I am glad to be reunited with you all. I was just so… stunned by the fight at the livestock market.”
“It is not to be wondered at,” agreed Chartji. “Trolls from the north country in Amerike have little understanding of human behavior and custom. They are brutish and abrupt. They don’t properly know how to behave around you rats. Why, they don’t even take rats as clutch-cousins or allow them to buy stakes in their consortiums, as we Expeditioners do.”
As I grasped her hand I was overtaken by a distinctive scent of summer sun, hot stone, and dry grass touched by the gentle spray of falling water. Keer had felt the same to me. I liked it. The other trolls hadn’t smelled this way.
She bared her teeth again, sharing a smile as if she could smell my settling nerves and wanted me to feel
