When I rested a hand on the top of my cane, the sense that my mother stood beside me, in understanding and support, bloomed so strongly in my spirit that for an instant I was sure I felt her touch on my shoulder. She had been a soldier, and now I must be one.
Kofi offered me a hand in the radical manner. He seemed about to say something but instead he slapped Vai on the shoulder and went back to his boat.
Vai took my hand and we walked along the jetty toward the main gate. Sailors reeled drunkenly toward a ship. A man tacked up a broadsheet with the bold headline BOYCOTT on a public board as people clustered around to read the radicals’ call to boycott the wedding areito.
“Why did he look at you and you nod? When that man asked for a day’s hire?”
“Kofi’s household is poor, Catherine.”
“It is?”
“No one in that house goes hungry, so I suppose they are wealthy in that way. The mansa sent a bank draft with me, so I am quite well situated because he assumed I would be living in a manner suited to the consequence of a magister of Four Moons House. I was therefore able to settle a significant sum on Kayleigh as her marriage portion. Because she is not yet legally an adult I am her guardian. If Kofi hires a day laborer, he is using her money, so that’s why he was asking my permission. If you want to know, Kofi tried to argue me out of the dowry being quite so large. It does not make it easy for Kayleigh to come into a household as a rich maku bride.”
“No, I can see it would not.”
“I had a long talk with his mother and aunts. I would trust Kofi with my life, and they raised him to be that man I trust. Kayleigh’s a smart girl. She’ll find a way to use the mansa’s money to help the household prosper.”
“Did I miss something when I slept on the boat? What did Kofi mean about you being the net thrown across the ocean?”
“I’ll join the general’s army but work secretly for the radical cause.”
“‘Risks must be taken if we mean to get what we want.’”
“I wonder who said those words.”
“I just did. But I am quoting Brennan Du.” I tightened my grip to make his eyes flare at the pressure. “My next husband.”
A pair of wagons sat unattended, loaded with bricks. Vai dragged me to the other side of the harnessed mules where two might pretend to have a little privacy. There, he kissed me until I was breathless.
“You will not be needing a next husband.”
“You’re so easy to bait. Anyway, you’re being jealous of a man you’ve never even seen.”
“Of course I’ve seen him, twice, which I know you know perfectly well. I saw the way you smiled at him at the Griffin Inn.”
I fluttered my lashes. “I was wondering what it would be like to be kissed by a handsome man.”
“Wonder no more.” He cupped my chin in a hand as he kissed me again.
“Here, now,” said the young wagoner, coming up, “none of that. Yee’s scaring the mules. Nice jacket, though. Where get yee such tailoring?”
Vai released me and checked his jacket to make sure it wasn’t askew or rumpled. “Europa.”
“Ah, yee’s a maku. No cause to go stealing Expedition gals with yee fine clothes and fat purse.”
“In fact, she is my wife.”
The wagoner did not look one bit impressed, and as he was a stocky, muscular man, his grin had an air of confidence. “Gal, yee don’ want a man who dress he own self better than he dress yee. If yee get tired of that one, come climb me mango tree. I shall buy yee pretty finery and as many ribbons and beads and baubles as yee desire.”
“Shall yee?” I asked with interest and in a pretty fair imitation of the local speech. “How many? Shall they come from Avenue Kolonkan?”
“That way, is it?” he said with a roll of his eyes.
“In fact,” said Vai, “it is not that way. I am buying her nothing from Avenue Kolonkan.”
“Is yee not?” said the wagoner with a look at me to see how I would take this proclamation.
“Shall yee not?” I asked with unfeigned surprise.
“To do so would offend my radical principles. Nor are the mules scared. And by the way, half the tailors on Tailors’ Row in Passaporte have taken patterns from this very jacket. So you will not offend your radical principles by purchasing from them.”
“See why I love he?” I said, simpering as I batted my eyelids again. “Some men court me with baubles, but he court me with radical principles.”
Unfortunately, the wagoner was far more interested in Vai’s dash jackets than my wit. “Tailors’ Row in Passaporte District. Truly?”
“At a tenth of the price a man would pay on Avenue Kolonkan. And the money goes into the pocket of the tailor who made it and not into the purse of the fancy shopkeeper who pays least wages to workers who are little better than indentured servants.”
“I like that talk!” said the other fellow. He and Vai shook hands and had a moment of deep connection with firm, masculine smiles and fiery comments about the corrupt Council, last month’s infamous raid at Nance’s, and whether the poor of Expedition would boycott the wedding areito despite the bounty of free food sure to be available there. I had to drag Vai away or I would have been left conversing with the mules.
“I hope you have not been spending money on Avenue Kolonkan,” he said, taking my hand.
“Looking is not spending! Anyway, the tips I earned at Aunty Djeneba’s aren’t enough to buy a single ribbon in any of those shops.”
“Kofi is going to set Aunty straight about what happened. I hope you don’t blame them.”
“I admire their loyalty to you. What an awful moment that was, though-”
I broke off as Vai halted. Ahead rose the gate and its watch lamps. A red-haired man stood beside wardens in the shadow of the gate, looking at us. The guard lamps flared as in a gust of oily wind. Vai released my hand and raised his. A slap of heat made the air snap. Vai closed his hand, and the sting vanished as though swallowed. The hilt of my sword trembled, tasting cold magic.
“Stay next to me,” he said. With a brisk stride he closed the gap, me beside him. The lamp flames shrank as if losing fuel.
Drake wore the half smile of a man anticipating a long-awaited treat. “Andevai Diarisso Haranwy, you are under arrest-”
“I am a representative of Four Moons House, a magister of the Diarisso lineage. You have no grounds nor means to arrest me.”
“We’ll see about that.” The lamp flames leaped as the air crackled with heat.
Vai curled both hands into fists, and the lamps guttered out. “If you can’t do better than that, you shouldn’t even try.”
Drake took a step toward him. “You’re under arrest as an unregistered fire bane. Which you’ve just let every warden here see. How do you like that, you bastard?”
“I am not a bastard,” said Vai so icily I knew Drake’s words had truly angered him, “and I will give you one chance to apologize to my mother for even suggesting it. Then you’ll know why you should not try to play these games with me.”
Drake’s grin flashed with a burst of fury. “Fucking arrogant bastard. See how you like fire.”
A furnace heat shimmered out of nowhere like a blast of scalding wind. Flames caught on a passing wagon. The poor mules harnessed to it-Blessed Tanit! the very mules who had hidden our kiss! — began to kick and buck in the harness as the wagoner leaped off the driver’s bench with a string of panicked curses. How did Drake dare release so much fire?
A fiery glow writhed around Vai’s form.
Blessed Tanit! Drake was using Vai as a catch-fire to fuel the flames. He was going to burn him up alive! I leaped forward and punched Drake right up under the jaw with the handle of my cane. He went down hard.
“Vai, douse the wagon!” I cried as I jabbed the blunt end of my cane against Drake’s chest.
Onlookers had already run to try to help the frantic wagoner unhitch the mules, but the wild kicking of the beasts forced them back. My sword’s blade pulsed as cold magic bloomed. Flames vanished into thready smoke. I
