She left.
I unrolled the scrap of paper to see Bee’s distinctively grandiose handwriting. “I hope all is well because I must assume you either found a way or made one and I am sorry to write but I just got word that I am to be handed over to the cacica at dusk so please come.”
I handed it to Vai.
His gaze flicked over the words twice. “Tell me if you think she wrote this herself.”
“She wrote it. She quoted the great general Hanniba’al to let me know she wasn’t coerced. Had she quoted a Roman, she would have meant otherwise.”
“Then we have to go.” He went out.
We? I shut the lid and hurried after him to the washroom. “Vai, we can’t trust the general.”
“I know,” he said as he stripped and stepped into the brass tub. “But we can’t ignore him. We discussed all this last night, love. As I hope you remember.”
“That’s not what I remember about last night.” I poured a pitcher of cold water over his head; he didn’t even flinch. But in fact we had talked for a long time about our situation; it was remarkable how pleasing it was to converse with a man in the dark when he was holding you close and you were both quite naked and well sated. I smiled, watching as he soaped down: He was lean but not thin, not short but not particularly tall either, and the view from the back was simply so alluring I had to clamp my mind to Bee’s message and our circumstances.
I said, “It’s easy to talk noble philosophy at the table and then change your mind when you’re in the mud. Even if the general becomes emperor and abolishes clientage, it will take years of war. By then the mansa could have taken his revenge on you by destroying Haranwy.”
“I’m not the only one in Haranwy willing to risk the struggle. Other people in the village have skills as useful in their own way as mine for a radical sort of enterprise.”
“Like your brother Duvai? Is he a radical now, too?”
“Perhaps. Rinse me off and hand me a towel, if it pleases you.” I emptied the other two pitchers over him and offered to dry him off, but he shook his head and took the faded pagne. “Start that, and we’ll never leave. Anyway, I’m not as concerned for myself.”
“You should be!” I folded his dirtied work clothes to be washed later.
“I’m simply too valuable to him alive and as an ally. I have to play that drum. But as long as the general believes you’re going to have something to do with his death, he’s a danger to you.”
“No. I truly believe he truly believes in his destiny. So as long as I’m alive, he’s alive.”
He tied a well-worn pagne around his hips. “Whatever he believes, he’s trying to intimidate you. He will use us against each other to get our cooperation. To me he’ll say: Ally with me, and I’ll spare her life and free your village. To you: Hand him over, or I’ll kill him.”
Outside, he paused in the sun to brush drops of water from his hair. He looked very fetching, and certainly the glance he aimed at me, to see if I was admiring him, fetched me close. I pressed my face into his neck, his skin moist against my lips. The scent of ash clung to him, odd to smell on a cold mage.
“Keep the ice lenses hidden, but take the cold steel in openly, Vai. He’ll respect that. And he won’t know your cold magic makes my sword bloom in daylight.”
“Yes. They’ll be watching my sword, not one that appears to them a cane.”
I rested my hands on his chest and looked up into his face. “The general will have crossbows as well as rifles. That’s what scares me.”
He had a smile that was just for me, intimate and inviting. “You’ll have to watch my back. Like you were doing in the washroom just now.”
Then after all we had to kiss, a slow sweet morning greeting. Obviously the bliss of love deafened me, because when a twig snapped, I was just as startled as he was.
“Kofi!” He grinned with the laughing smile I had often seen on his face at Aunty’s when he was with his friends. He looked so relaxed and appealing I could scarcely breathe for being dazzled.
Stepping away, I gripped the top of my pagne. Fortunately it covered the important bits.
“Yee look like a village man now, Vai. Suits yee.” Kofi walked forward to clasp hands with Vai in the radical manner, after which they slapped each other on the shoulder in a manly way. “Or something have suited yee, that is for certain. Peace of the morning to yee, Cat.” His grin was just too wicked to endure.
“I’ll just go get dressed,” I said in a choked voice, and I fled to the room.
“Tamed her, have yee?” Kofi said in a jocular tone that made my ears burn.
“Tamed her? Why would you want to tame a woman who defied the mansa with only her wits and her determination to live?”
“Yee have it bad. I only mean, usually she is quick to scratch. Instead she ran off.”
“To get dressed. She’s not working for the general.”
“I’s not yet convinced of it, but-”
“You ought to be convinced by my telling you it is so. If she meant to stab me, she’d have done it to my face while telling me why she was doing it and how I had brought it on myself.”
“That is one thing I shall say in she favor: She don’ spare words. ’Tis not so lively at Aunty’s these evenings, I tell yee truly. But yee know, Vai-”
I shut the door. He let Kofi tease and contradict him because he liked and trusted him. I remembered seeing Vai in the village of Haranwy with his age-mates, the ones he had been forced to leave behind when the mages had come for him. How easy he had seemed with those young men! The mage House had stripped that camaraderie away from Vai, leaving the arrogant magister who used his magic, his status, and his cutting words to intimidate. At first he had probably only used those things to protect himself as a youth bullied and scorned by his new age-mates in the mage House, but after long enough, such things become habit. The worst thing for Vai would be to return to Four Moons House and become the magister the mansa wanted him to be.
When I appeared, Vai broke off in the middle of a sentence about not letting Aunty believe that about Cat. “Let me dress,” he said.
He left me looking at Kofi. “I trust Kayleigh is well,” I said. “And your family. No trouble?”
“We have peace in the house. Me thanks for asking. In yee own as well, I hope.”
“My cousin is well, thank you.” I essayed the question I most wanted answered, no matter how much it hurt. “Aunty Djeneba and Luce and them. Are they well? No trouble?”
“Certainly no one have spoken to the wardens of they part in Vai’s situation.” His gaze was not hostile, but it was wary and mistrustful. “Whatever else, I believe yee truly care for them.”
I opened my mouth, and shut it, for my face had grown hot. A pause to check on Vai struck me as timely. I took a step back and looked in through the open door. He wore trousers and a thin lawn shirt. Standing in front of a chair, he was holding a dash jacket in each hand, clearly trying to decide which one to wear. “Blessed Tanit! Vai, is that a mirror you have set on the chair?”
My gaze caught Kofi’s, and suddenly we were both snickering.
Vai’s tone had a glacial scour. “Catherine, perhaps you and Kofi shall go over to the kitchen. I am sure you are hungry.” He tossed the more soberly patterned silver-gray one on the rumpled bed and began to pull on the purple jacket with stylized orange and black stones.
“That one makes my eyes hurt,” I said to the sky. As Kofi and I walked along the brick path toward the dining patio, I decided to dispense with courtesies. “Did you ever trust me, Kofi? Before I was tamed, I mean.”
He whistled appreciatively. “So yee heard that? Meant as a jest.”
“Of course it was! I never doubted!”