Amadou Barry halted three steps into the room. I eased back to the bed on which lay the peacock jacket. “Sissy was ever so. I’m amazed by the resourcefulness of those two girls.”
“Everyone has underestimated them, that is sure. Not least you, Amadou. Were you just that sure she would accept the-ah-position as your mistress?”
“I am a prince and a legate. Her family is impoverished and not respectable. She can’t ever hope to receive a better offer.”
Unless it was an offer to throttle him. As if a fire had been laid in the hearth and lit, my temperature rose.
“Quite so. I’m surprised to hear a Phoenician refused a lucrative contract-” Lord Marius broke off, gaze tightening. “Did you see something?”
Calm. I had to remain calm.
“In Beatrice? Faithful Venus, Marius! Even you must see something in her. She is the most delectable-”
“If I have to hear you praise her shining eyes and cherry lips one more time, I will have one of my men shoot me to put myself out of my misery.”
“She will not sigh when I am dead,” said Amadou.
“Nor will she lie with you for gold, it seems, which is the next line in the famous poem by the Thrice-Praised poet Bran Cof.”
Amadou sighed. “I misplayed my hand. I was too accommodating.”
Lord Marius paced the chamber, passing an arm’s length from where I stood with my buttocks crushed against the high metal frame of the bed, holding my breath. “Women are hard to please. I could have sworn I saw a flicker of movement. Must have been the light.”
“How do we know the girls are anywhere near this district? Much less in this house?”
“The mansa specifically told me to follow the cold mage. We’re not to trust him. If he says to go left, then we go right.”
“Ah, so that’s why you turned this way when he wanted to ride back to Enterprise Road.”
“That’s right. Then one of my soldiers saw the cold mage see someone up on this roof, and my man thought it was a female, so here we are.” Lord Marius paced to the door and glanced into the hall. He gestured to someone before turning back. “You know, Amadou, whatever you think about your Beatrice’s raven-black ringlets and bonny curves, this business of hunting down girls makes me uneasy. It’s beneath us. Meanwhile, that commoner in the hall is right, curse him. The Northgate poet sits on the steps of my cousin’s court. Each day the poet does not eat, he heaps more shame on my clan’s honor. I fear we are not getting out of this without a bloodbath.”
“The plebes will mob and riot. It’s in their breeding. We’ve known that in Rome for centuries. The sooner the militia drives the rabble off the streets, the better for all. If more blood were spilled, there’d be less trouble.”
“Do you suppose so?” drawled a far-too-familiar voice. “I would think a timely hailstorm would drive people inside without causing undue harm.”
Andevai walked into the bedchamber. I could not call his expression a smile.
“That’s an interesting thought, Magister,” said Marius. “Can you manage such a storm?”
Andevai’s cool vanished like frost under the sun. “Of course I can!”
“I meant no offense, Magister. It would be a cursed sight better way to restore order than cutting people down. In my experience as a soldier…”
Gaze straying from Lord Marius to the bright disorder of clothing and fabric strewn across the beds, Andevai saw me.
He saw me.
Lord Marius had broken off. “Magister? What’s wrong?”
Andevai blinked. “I was…just…stunned…” His gaze flickered to the bed. “That jacket. Orange bars. Blue scallops. Peacock-winged spectacles. And a ruff?! Quite stunning. You would have to really…wear colors…and lace…to pull that off in a jacket.”
“Yes, you would have to,” said Lord Marius with a laugh, glancing toward me-at the jacket-and back at Andevai. The look he gave the man I had to call my husband was so frankly appreciative that I blushed. “You’re quite the decorative specimen yourself.”
“My thanks,” said Andevai in the most absentminded manner imaginable. I blinked so hard I thought he must surely hear me warn him with my eyes to stop staring at me.
Amadou Barry sighed in the manner of a man wanting to change the subject. “Speaking of shooting oneself. Do we search the roof??”
“What say you, Magister?” Marius’s amused and avid gaze remained fixed on Andevai.
“I say nothing,” said Andevai, glaring right at me in the most shockingly idiotic way.
“We were told you could lead us to the girl you wed.”
Andevai looked sharply away and appeared to be searching walls and ceiling for any remnant of good taste. “Is that what you were told? I wonder if this is meant to be a tailor’s shop, or if they only raided one and got all the pieces mixed up.”
Amadou Barry whistled. “You didn’t come to this district to get information on where she fled?”
“I was on my own business.”
“You’re not going to give her up, are you, wherever she’s gone?” said Marius. “Good for you. I liked her. That girl has spine and courage.”
“We should check the roof,” said Amadou.
Andevai’s gaze skipped back to me.
I widened my eyes and mouthed, broadly, “ Yes. Say yes. ”
“Ye-es,” he said slowly, brow crinkling with a question.
“Yes?” said Lord Marius with a surprised glance at Amadou.
I lifted my chin and mouthed, “ Say yes. Say go up on the roof. ”
“Yes,” said Andevai more decisively. “By all means, go up on the roof.” Then, with what was even for him an excess of haughty pride, he turned his glare onto a startled Lord Marius. “Are we going up? The soldiers told me they found a troll’s maze. Whatever that is. I’d like to see.”
The captain raised a hand as if catching a tossed ball. “A troll’s maze! We’re leaving.”
Amadou glanced at Andevai. “They could have come over the roof.”
“There’s a goblin workshop locked up for the day on one side. On the other, they’re poisoning themselves with arsenic or some such. I don’t see how the girls could have gotten in here before us. And I’m not risking a troll’s maze. One foot wrong and the whole thing will crash down. Then we’ll be years haggling in court for damages. Trolls love haggling in court. Amadou, I suspect you’re right: This detour is a chase after a wild goose. Let’s go. They’re out there somewhere. I promised the mansa I would recover them and return them to him.”
Lord Marius went out. Amadou Barry followed.
Andevai crossed to the bed and picked up the jacket, holding it high so it swept along my left side. “Now I understand how you were able to get out of Four Moons House without being seen,” he whispered. “What magic conceals you? None I’ve ever heard of.”
“Listen! The mansa told them not to trust you. If you say left, then they’ll go right.”
Anger flashed in the flare of his eyes. “Is that so?”
“They were following you, to try to find us.”
“Were they, now?” His gaze narrowed as he contemplated an object, personage, or situation that annoyed him very much.
“Magister?” Amadou Barry stepped halfway back into the room. “Is something amiss?”
“I just can’t keep my eyes off it,” said Andevai, gaze skating above the collar of the jacket as his eyes met mine. “There’s so much about its tailoring I don’t comprehend. But it doesn’t truly belong to me, so I fear I must leave it behind. Although you never know. I haven’t given up on gaining something so very close to my heart.”
My cheeks were so on fire that I was amazed the legate could not see me.
Amadou Barry appeared startled by Andevai’s passionate words. “It’s a bit…over-complicated for my taste. We’re leaving now, Magister.”
“My thanks for the warning,” Andevai said, his gaze on me.
He tossed the jacket over the other clothes and turned away. At the door, he paused with a hand on the frame. I tensed, waiting for him to glance over his shoulder one last time.