I opened my eyes to surprise the Taino woman with a look of wry pity on her weathered face. “Shall yee like somewhat to eat or drink? Juice, or rum? Guava, perhaps?”
“I am not an opia, although I do like guava. I’m not a witch, either. But I would take a shot of rum and a cup of juice, with thanks.”
The rum was potent enough to steady me, and the juice soothed my aching throat. The boss offered me more juice, which I drank.
“Cat?” I looked up to see Luce, chest heaving as she ran up. “Cat!” She hugged me so hard it squeezed the air from my lungs.
Aunty Djeneba proceeded with less haste and more dignity toward us, accompanied by one of the men who had fled the carpentry yard. She spoke briefly with the Taino boss. Her mouth creased down as she turned to me. “Well, Cat, yee have turned up again.”
“Like a three-days-dead fish,” sniveled Luce, releasing me to wipe her eyes.
I couldn’t speak. I knew I was about to start bawling.
“I can see yee need to clean up and get fresh clothes,” said Aunty. “Luce, yee run and fetch Kayleigh. Cat, yee shall come home with us until Kofi-lad can come from the meeting down at Council House. He have spoken to us about those things which happened. I hope yee shall forgive me harsh words to yee.”
Heart full and throat choked, I whispered, “Yes.”
Then I bawled anyway on the way to the boardinghouse. A shower revived me. Clean clothes made me feel almost human. A platter of Aunty’s rice and peas and a slab of fried pargo with several more cups of guava juice sweetened with lime and pineapple restored my will, as if such humble gestures were magic. Because they were.
I was considering a second platter of rice and peas when Kofi and Gaius Sanogo arrived.
“Were you working for him all along?” I demanded of Kofi as he and the commissioner sat opposite me. “Are you secretly a warden?”
“I’s standing for the Assembly, when it come time for the vote,” said Kofi. “As for the other, I’s sure me own tale is no stranger than the one I hope yee mean to tell us now.”
“There is a lot of it you won’t believe.”
“That would be a change,” teased Kofi with a laugh that coaxed a smile from me.
“I’s willing to pass me own judgment,” said Sanogo.
The entire household as well as a few of the regulars gathered to listen. It took me two cups of the potent ginger beer to work myself past my instincts and my training to actually tell them things I would normally have kept silent about. But I managed it. With Luce sitting beside me and holding my hand, I told a short version of the tale. Even with the things I felt obliged to leave out, it was the most I had ever told anyone at one time except the night I had spent in Vai’s arms. When I was finished, they replied with a measured silence. I could not tell if they believed me, thought I was quite deluded, or reckoned I was merely the most outrageous liar they had ever met.
“Oh, Cat!” sighed Luce. “What shall yee do now?”
I met Kayleigh’s stricken gaze. “I will get him back. I promise you.”
She nodded, then turned her face into Kofi’s shoulder.
I addressed the warden. “What happened to General Camjiata?”
Sanogo’s pleasant smile had the bracing effect of a piece of ice sliding down my back. “Jasmeen threw the man out of the town house. She owned it through one of she clan’s holding companies. We never knew it belonged to she. That is why we never suspected her.”
“She threw him out?”
“He could offer her no profit if there was none to support the Europan war. I believe the man bides at the Speckled Iguana. We shall send he and any who wish to go with him back to Europa.”
“Pay for the whole ship and all?”
“More than one ship,” said Kofi. “He have signed up five hundred men for he army.”
“We’s happy to pay for him to leave,” said Sanogo, “and good riddance to hotheaded young fools and they arseness.”
“What of Prince Caonabo and his bride?”
“Yee cousin? She I have not seen, although I hear she await the prince at the border. As for the prince, I must go back now, for the committee meet with him this afternoon to seal the First Treaty anew.”
“Why should the prince want to renew the treaty? Wouldn’t possessing Expedition’s factories, university, and port strengthen his position? Especially if he has to fight over the succession?”
“A fight over the succession is no small thing. He have no time to bother he own self with Expedition right now. But it also happen, as yee said yee own self, Cat, that a place like Expedition serve the Taino better as a free city than under Taino rule. Prince Caonabo is young and untried, but to me he seem a pragmatical sort of fellow. We shall see if he succeed, or fail.”
“What of the prisoners who were going to be executed?”
“They all vanished in the night.”
“Even Prince Haubey? The one they call Juba?”
“That man likewise.”
“No doubt with the aid of his brother. It’s good to know Prince Caonabo has his flaws. I’m not going back to Salt Island, Commissioner.”
“I would not try and make yee. The prince he own self told me yee cannot be called a salter if there was never any teeth in yee to begin with.”
Kofi said, “What shall yee do now, Cat?” Then he laughed at my expression. “Me apologies, gal. I knew better than to ask. Yee’s going after Vai. Good fortune to yee with that.”
“Come with me to the Speckled Iguana, Kofi. I could use your support.”
He rounded up Vai’s other radical friends. We walked the fifteen blocks to the Speckled Iguana on empty streets that reminded me of the night I had staggered there in the company of Bala and Gaius and come home with Vai. The streets right around the Speckled Iguana were crowded with young men and their bundled possessions waiting with the look of restless wanderers who think it long past time to hit the road. They watched us walk past as if we were enemies approaching under truce. I climbed the steps with Kofi, and he was a good companion to have, being large, sturdy, and with those wicked scars to show he had survived worse than what you could dish out.
In the common room, a man I did not recognize worked the bar, but he knew me as soon as he saw me. He indicated the door that led to the back. My companions made a path for me through the staring, silent crowd. I ducked behind the bar and pushed open the door into the room in which Drake had killed one man to save another.
In fact, Drake was the first person I saw as I entered, for he was standing to the right of the door. The chamber in which he had healed a dying man was now pristine, decorated with long tables covered with red-and- gold floral-embroidered cloths and runners of magnificent Iberian lacework down the centers. Every seat was taken. People stood all the way around the room as well. At the far end, the general sat at the head of the longest table with a number of broadsheets creased and stacked at his left hand. I recognized Captain Tira and, to my surprise, Juba, standing behind the general like aides. I recognized the young Keita merchant who had railed against the commons at the dinner party. To the general’s right, in the seat of honor, sat the proprietor of the Speckled Iguana. He was wearing the gold-braided uniform of a high-ranking officer.
My cane hung from a cord looped over a bracket in the wall.
Everyone turned to look at me as the general raised his cup as in salute.
“I hear the Wild Hunt took him,” said Drake with a sneer. “The sad fate of many an arrogant bastard of a cold mage. But I must say, he really deserved whatever he got.”
Just out of principle, I punched him, and he went down on his backside, although to my disappointment, not one person snickered. Indeed, a kind of many-throated gasp was inhaled throughout the room as heat spiked and the ornamental candles ranged along the lace centerpieces caught flame. A strange glamour flickered, and the flames snapped out. Drake rose with a peculiarly disturbing smile on his face, as if he had a surprise for me that I would not like. I suddenly remembered that I ought to be frightened of a man who could burn me alive and had been willing to do so before. But I was not afraid, not right now with my fury at what my sire had done still red-hot. He stepped back as Kofi shouldered up beside me and crossed his arms.
