Vai rubbed the wood, approving the polish of the grain. “Father taught us that a man knows he is a man by the good he brings to his village.”
Bakary appeared at the door of Grandmother’s house. All the people loitering in the courtyard and at the gate to the family compound turned to look, every voice stilled.
The old djeli raised a hand skyward. “Mansa,” he said, to Andevai.
Between one breath and the breath that was never taken, I found myself married to the mansa of Four Moons House. Not that anyone had asked if this was what I wanted!
The next day, in the ensuing gatherings and rituals, I crept away by the path I had taken when I had fled Haranwy almost two years ago. The open gate gave way to a track that led through gardens and pasture. A herd of fat sheep worked through the forage. I did not go far through the golden stalks of autumn. An orchard of apple, plum, and cherry had been harvested but for a few stragglers. An old stump made a good resting place. I sat for the longest time staring at the wind in the grass and the sway of branches, but everywhere I looked I saw my sire’s shadow and felt the icy touch of his hand. The pulse of blood in my ears drowned me.
Where the hand of fortune branches, Tara Bell’s child must choose.
I had made the only choice I could, not just once but many times. I had to save the ones I loved, for although I had grabbed for their hands, I hadn’t been able to save my parents that terrible day. Maybe my sire had saved me. Maybe I had accidentally saved myself. All I remembered was how I had struggled to reach them.
It wasn’t drowning I was truly afraid of. It was the moment my mother’s hand had slipped away from mine as the current pulled her into the murky depths where my father had already sunk.
No more! I would not lose them! I would not!
So I had made the bargain with my sire. I wouldn’t lose them, but they would lose me.
Bee’s laughter floated like the memory of summer past and the promise of summer to come. She and Andevai appeared, arguing with the intensity of two people who agree on the fundamentals and are now clashing about what color the curtains should be. Rory trailed after them, distracted by the puppy racing around his heels and barking in excitement as it demanded he play.
“There you are, dearest!” Bee called. “Cat, you can’t just run off like that. For one thing, it looks very disrespectful to the elders both of the village and of the mage House. Furthermore, something is bothering you, and I am going to bully you until you tell us what it is.”
The puppy gnawed on my ankle while wriggling its hindquarters in ecstatic excitement.
“I know what you are thinking,” said Vai.
“I don’t believe you do,” I said in my coolest voice, although in fact it was difficult to be morose when a puppy was chewing on my leg.
“I understand your concerns, Catherine.” He flipped out the length of his dash jacket and sat beside me, shoving me with his hip to make room. “Beatrice and I already have a plan, although I agree we should have made it more clear to you. But you’ve been so distracted and tired and hard to talk to, love. You’ve not spoken a word about what happened to Drake, or why Four Moons House is now encased in ice just as if the Wild Hunt had devoured it. Just like Crescent House.”
“It is an odd resemblance, is it not?” I agreed. “But the Master of the Wild Hunt can only enter the mortal world on Hallows’ Night. Everyone knows that!”
He rubbed a finger along the trimmed magnificence of his beard. “That’s true. Still, I did not know an eru had such power.”
“Neither did I!” agreed Bee, with a suspicious look, but it was evident she had not the slightest memory of my sire’s passage through the coach or what he had done.
“I did not know it either, but it appears to be an eru’s work.” It was no lie. The one who gave him birth had had an eru’s form when he was disgorged. Rory looked a question at me, and I shook my head. He pulled his lips back as if to snarl at me, and I opened my eyes very aggressively, head jutted forward, until he backed off. Glimpsing his movement, the puppy gamboled after him.
“Is that all you have to say on the matter?” Vai demanded. “Because it seems no one witnessed every part of what happened except for you.”
“I asked for their aid, for that is my right. I cut a path for them through the mirror. But they had no obligation to stay once Drake was dead.”
At that moment I knew I would not tell them. They could not stop the Wild Hunt, nor could I allow them to follow me into the spirit world. If they knew what bargain I had made, the next two months would swamp them in misery and fear. It would be cruel to tell them. So I would keep silence and tell no one.
He took my hands in his. Bee set her arms akimbo and fixed him with an axe-blow glare. A wind teased through her curls, making them dance, like happiness. His breath brushed my ear.
“No kissing, Andevai!” said Bee. “You promised! You must present your argument in a reasoned and sensible manner.”
He released my hands and stood. I had washed and mended his clothes while he was bedridden, but despite the skillful job I had done, they looked like clothes bought in the secondhand market, not like costly garments appropriate to a powerful magister whose status was every bit the equal of a prince’s. Yet he looked so very fine. It wasn’t the clothes that made him beautiful.
“Catherine, I know you have told me that you cannot live in Four Moons House. And you heard me promise the mansa on my mother’s honor that I will rebuild Four Moons House. I am a cold mage, and I have to do it.”
“I know, my love.”
“Besides the promise to my mother, I have a responsibility to the House that educated me and to the mansa who raised me up. To every fledgling magister who may never get proper training, like the fire banes in Expedition. To my own family, to the village that birthed me, and also to the other villages chained by clientage to Four Moons House. To all villages so chained. All communities have a right to liberty, a right to the dignity and security of their own persons.”
“After which,” said Bee in a portentously deep voice, “he will cause all strife in the world to cease, every infant child to be born healthy, and all men to have the taste to dress fashionably and in colors that suit their complexions. What Andevai is working up to tell you, dearest, is that while he promised to rebuild Four Moons House, he cleverly did not specify how he would do so. Nor did the mansa ask. I keep trying to tell you about my plan, and you keep ignoring me.”
I considered my folded hands, and then looked up at them. So bright they were in the afternoon sun. The wind fell cool across us, but the light cast a glorious, rich glow across the land. From here we could see a glint of the great river whose waters had so altered my life, although in truth it was the hunter who had acted that day for his own hidden reasons. He had driven me to this moment as hunters will, stalking their prey until they are cornered.
So be it. I still had life in me.
Rory scooped up the puppy and walked over to sit at my feet.
I smiled at them, whom I loved best in all the world. “What plan could you possibly have agreed on?”
47
Had I understood the monumental nature of their scheme, I might have taken a nap first.
To argue with elders who object to such a radical change of direction needs a honeyed voice and a stubborn persistence working in concert. The new mansa informed his people that no House could rise on the ruins of the old. The ice had caged it forever and, with it, the old chains by which Four Moons had long sustained itself. Those who did not wish to walk this new path with the mansa had the right to go elsewhere, to join whatever mage House would take them in. The deceased mansa’s nephew and perhaps half of the survivors departed. I was surprised at how many stayed, including Serena and all of the House’s djeliw. I couldn’t blame the bards. Given the choice of the two men, I knew which one I would rather sing about.