General Camjiata returned to the city last night.”
I choked.
Luce clucked. “’Tis sweet that yee’s nervous.”
Kayleigh was going on, voice tight and accusatory. “I’m no good at being a spy. I jump at every noise. I bump into things. I hate being indoors. It’s not the cleaning work that’s hard. It’s that I can’t stop thinking they’re about to catch me and whip me and then hang me.”
“I wouldn’t ask it of you if I could do it myself.”
Her tone softened. “I know, Vai. I know you’ll never stop putting us first. I know you’ll never stop trying. It’s not fair I get away and no one else does. You know I’ll do whatever you ask.”
“Then tell me. Do I look all right?”
She snickered. “I cannot believe you just asked that.”
“Cat, have a bat stolen yee mind?” Lucretia rapped me on the head with the brush.
“What makes you think I’m nervous?” I rose indignantly as the door opened.
Kayleigh entered. She ventured into monosyllables as she looked me up and down. “That’s so fine, Cat. I’m so tired of these cursed lengths of cloth we have to wrap for skirts.”
“My thanks,” I said cautiously. “I could buy more material and sew you a similar skirt. A jacket will be harder. I’ll have to make a pattern for it.” Then I remembered I was leaving.
“Me, too, Cat!” cried Lucretia.
Kayleigh looked tired. I suppose a spy’s work would be tiring if you didn’t enjoy skulking and eavesdropping, and if you couldn’t draw shadows around you to hide yourself from everyone except the ones you most needed to hide from.
Her wan smile seemed genuine. “That would be nice, Cat. You look very pretty.”
I hoped I wasn’t flushed. “I really would love to make you a skirt.” Lucretia pinched me. “And of course one for pestiferous Luce.”
Luce giggled.
Kayleigh sank down on her cot and rested her head on her arms.
“Kayleigh? Are you well?” I took a step toward her.
She gestured with a hand. “I have to go back to Warden Hall. The scullery girl came down sick.” She hesitated, then went on into her arms. “I’m sorry I haven’t been nicer to you, Cat.”
“I hope he hasn’t been scolding you. Vai ought to appreciate you better.”
She glanced up with a surprised look. I thought she was about to speak, and I braced myself because I was sure it would be words I did not want to hear. But she rubbed her forehead and said, “I’ll just rest a bit. Enjoy yourself tonight. I mean that.” She lay down.
I grabbed my cane and slid it through the loop I had sewn into the waistband. If I was going to go, then I was cursed well going to enjoy myself. Just this one areito.
Lucretia said, “Cat, we have not braided yee hair.”
“I think I won’t.” Let him see it all unbound!
“A kerchief, then.” She followed me out. “Yee shall really look nice with the kerchief.”
Vai stood in the courtyard talking with Kofi, who saw me and with a startled expression nudged Vai. He turned, looking up as I swanned down the stairs, Lucretia at my heels. Just for a moment he looked as if he had been kicked by a horse. Or perhaps it was me feeling the hoof slamming into my head, for he wore a jacket I recognized from Adurnam, a chained pattern of red and gold so bold only a confident man could pull off. There was something about the way he wore clothes that choked admiration out of people who wished not to be quite so stifled by a feeling I could only describe as… No. After all, I could not describe it.
“Catherine. There you are. Time to go.” He extended a hand, meaning me to take it.
Kofi looked embarrassed. An armature of wood and netted rope rested behind them on the ground: the bed. It was wider than the narrow cot; two might share such a bed if they were willing to lie together in a loving embrace. My arm trembled, for I found I could not decide whether to keep it held firmly at my side as I knew I must, or to reach for him.
Vai smiled in the most annoying manner possible, as if he understood my struggle.
“No!” Aunty appeared, wiping her hands on a cloth. Lucretia whimpered and retreated up several steps. “A kerchief, or a braid, gal. Yee’s not leaving me house with yee hair unbound.”
“Oh,” I said, petrified into immobility. I had never seen her angry before.
She turned on Vai. “Yee should know better, maku.” When she said “maku,” her tone bit.
The fire in the kitchen hearth flickered out. Over by the bar, Uncle Joe cursed. “Did yee not set that wick properly?” he said to one of the lads.
Vai lowered his gaze and let his hand fall to his side. “I beg your pardon. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Not with yee mind, that is for sure.” She yanked the kerchief out of her granddaughter’s hand as Lucretia gave an audible gulp. “I shall tend to Cat me own self. Go sit by the kitchen, Cat. As for yee,” she added, nodding to Kofi, “yee take the maku and go on. The gals shall come after.”
Kofi stammered an almost inaudible leave-taking, grabbed Vai’s arm, and dragged him off.
I followed Aunty over to the kitchen, where I sat on a stool. She fetched a comb, gave a look to the children that made them flee to the safety of Uncle Joe, and began a single thick braid.
“Yee do fidget, gal. Never again.”
“Never again what?”
“Unbound hair is how sly women advertise they wares, and witches entwine they victims.”
“Oh.”
“Yee don’ know, but Luce ought to have done. I reckon she thought yee was just being daring, for she think the world of yee.”
“She tried to give me a kerchief?!”
“While Vai was too dazzled to think.”
“He was?”
“Gal, don’ play that game with me. Nor should yee play it with him, like yee’s punishing him for what he done before. Like yee want he to be in love with yee, so yee can throw it in he face.”
“That isn’t what I want!”
“That is how it look. Either let him be, or let him win yee back. This other is just small and mean, and I don’ like to think of yee as a mean-hearted gal.”
“But I can’t, Aunty,” I whispered. “I have to leave. There’s a great deal I can’t tell anyone.” My voice wavered, and almost broke.
“He have secrets also. Yet say ’tis true. If yee cannot, then cut it clean. There is just no cause for this way of going on. Life is too short. There. Yee’s fit to go out. Don’ be trying that again.”
“No, Aunty,” I said in my most chastened voice, ducking my head like a cowed dog. And really, what can be worse for a cat than being compared to a dog?
At the gate, Luce took my hand with a compassionate smile, and we went out into the blowsy late-afternoon heat. Rain had slicked the streets, already drying off; the blustering wind had torn the clouds until they looked like crumpled iron sheets. Her arm on mine, we strolled along Tailors’ Row, where men greeted us politely from tables beside the gates of their family compounds.
“Yee sew that skirt yee own self, Sweet Cat? Will yee give me the pattern?”
“That’s my trade secret, isn’t it? How shall yee make it worth my while?”
They laughed. “Going to the areito, gals? Yee two look fine!”
Luce giggled, and it was all worth it, to hear her laugh like that.
The brush of drums spiked the air and made my skin tingle. Shadows kissed and mingled with light as afternoon sank with the sun into the drowsy west. We strode through the quiet streets of the Passaporte District, home to working households of the respectable kind, people who made the things necessary to the daily round of life.
Lucairi District had once been a village where Lucayan immigrants from the Bahamas had settled back in the early days of Expedition Territory. As the city spread, the village had been folded into the outer city and newer immigrants had moved in. The streets had not the neat grid of Passaporte nor its gaslit streets. The plaza was very old, and not large, having once been only a village center, but the batey court had been recently expanded and
