“What must I do, Blessed Mother? How can I be a better sister to Rory? How can I protect Bee without becoming a monster? How can I find him and win him back? How do I not despair? How do I look beyond my own troubles, as he does, to a path that makes a difference not just for our own selves but for others?”
The busy noises of the city had faded. A rain shower mizzled through, stippling the stone walkways. I rested my forehead on the marble.
Perhaps, through sheer emotional exhaustion, I dozed. Perhaps I dreamed that a woman with a brown Kena’ani face, clothed in robes the color of the balmy sea and wearing a crown as pale as the moon, cupped my face in her hands and kissed my lips as a seal to her promise.
Be heartened.
A cold touch on my cheek snapped me awake. I sat back on my heels to find an orange tabby cat nosing at me, tail lashing as it prowled the altar stone. With a disdainful flick of its tail, it leaped away and vanished into a hedge thick with white and purple flowers.
I found myself facing a votive stone I could have sworn had not been there before. A trellis arched over the stone, woven with a flowering vine resplendent in falls of purple flowers. Beneath the flowers, the peaceful stone face of the lady stared into the distance. She asked no questions. She waited with the patience of one who has all the time of passing centuries, as the ice creeps south and retreats north, and seas fall and rise and fall again, and volcanoes slumber or waken.
A five-petaled flower floated in the rainwater gathered in the shallow depression at the center of the altar stone, reminding me that it was proper to make an offering. I had come to the Antilles with nothing but the clothes on my back-and them shredded and since remade-the locket, and my sword. The last of my wool challis, two pagnes, a spare bodice and blouse and drawers, the boots, a comb, and the needles, thread, scissors, thimble, and pins I had purchased with my hard-earned coin were all I possessed besides the little coin purse. I fumbled at the purse’s tie to make an offering of coin, but my clumsy fingers could not get it loose.
Coin was not the offering she wanted.
I offered my voice. I gave her the truth.
“My sire is the Master of the Wild Hunt.”
In the isolation of the sanctuary, with only the stone to hear, his magic could not stop me.
Be heartened.
There will be a way.
29
The next morning I pretended to sleep late so I could explore the house without being seen. I found Bee sketching on the covered patio that faced the garden. The general lounged on a Turanian sofa next to her, reading aloud from a black book.
“‘…The phrase “the span that binds the shores that flank the torrential waters that weep from the ice” likely refers to the bridge at Liyonum. Therefore, move Aualos’s division to take that bridge.’” I crept up behind him only to discover that the neat, blocky letters on the page spelled nonsense syllables. “‘Jovesday, sixth day of Maius. Aualos advances into Liyonum. Skirmishers report open road to Avarica. If march my divisions north, will split Tene forces and be able to fight each flank separately with full assault. So ordered.’”
“That was the battle of Ariolica?” Bee asked, not looking up from her sketchbook.
He had written a record of his campaign in code. “Yes, although my soldiers called it ‘When we shoved that stick up between Tene ass-cheeks.’ One might think it easier to recognize places from a drawing than from within the obscure words of a half-blind woman’s poetic utterances, but both create a challenge. The words must be interpreted for potential meanings. The images must be recognized and then placed in a season or day. Look how long it took us to find Cat. Your dreams gave hints of where she was, only neither you nor I knew how to interpret them.”
“I’m not sure I want them interpreted, now that I see what came of it!”
“Beatrice, if I do not save the cold mage, he will be captured and sold to the Taino.”
“If the Taino can hold him!”
“You have met the cacica. Do you doubt her power?”
Her rosy lips pinched so hard they paled. “No, I suppose not.”
He chuckled. “Queen Anacaona even proposed marriage to me.”
Bee’s gaze flew up, her pencil halting in midair. “She did?”
“There is an old custom among the Taino of a stranger king who marries into the royal lineage, but I am not to be that man. It would place me in a subservient position. Also, I promised Helene I would not marry again.”
She chewed at her lower lip, her gaze too intent on him. “Why would you promise that?”
He smiled with the expression of a man who means to gently let you know you have gone too far. With a blush darkening her cheek, she set pencil back to page. I sidled over behind her. She had brought life to the leaves, flowers, and branches of the garden so lovingly that a blank spot within the sketch stood out like a wound. I glanced up to identify the spot she’d not drawn in: A man dressed in a sober dash jacket and European trousers stood with his back to us, one foot up on a bench and a hand holding a stub like a little tube whose end glowed with heat. He had black hair in a braid down his broad back.
Bee cleared her throat. I looked down. She had written: I feel your breath on my neck. You are quite the noisiest breather. I wonder I never noticed before. I said you were feeling poorly.
The general rose as the Amazon appeared on the patio. “Ah, Captain Tira. Yes, I’m coming. Beatrice, you will join us for supper. Cat, too, if she is feeling better.”
“Of course.”
He followed the Amazon into the house.
The man at the bench turned.
The shock of seeing Prince Caonabo made me almost lose hold of the threads that veiled me. He set the stub to his lips. Embers flared as he sucked in air. Even at this distance, the smoke made my eyes water and my nose sting. Bee took in a sharp breath, for the man was staring at her with an air of accusation, young men being annoying in that particular way, thinking you owed them something just because they admired you.
Prince Caonabo tossed the stub to the earth, ground it out with his heel, and with a shake of his shoulders walked toward us. He wore knives strapped across his chest, glimpsed where his dash jacket flashed open. Rising, Bee snapped shut her sketchbook. Still in shadow, I stepped back.
He halted. Bee’s shoulders squared in a way I knew presaged battle.
“Is it the truth, Bee?” he asked in heavily accented Latin. His voice was nothing like as courtly and measured as Prince Caonabo’s. His tone had all the subtlety of a fencer who attacks straight on without feinting. “You are betrothed to my brother? You will marry him?”
“What did you offer me?” she asked coolly.
“What I could! You know how I am situated!”
“I do not have the luxury of joining your exile. You know how I am situated.”
He was the one trembling, not her. “Do you cherish any affection for me at all?”
Heartless Cat had never stared down an overwrought man with as much detachment as Bee did now. “Feelings cannot protect me or feed me. Although I daresay I envy my dear cousin for inadvertently falling in love with a suitable man. Not that it helped her, did it?”
“Yes, we have all heard quite enough about the maku fire bane. Will your wedding areito be held in Sharagua?” He made no attempt to touch her, yet I felt I was eavesdropping inappropriately on a most intimate conversation because of the way his gaze caressed her.
“No. It will be held at the festival ground at the border.”
His lips quirked up mockingly. “The better for the people of Expedition to be bought off with bread and circuses, as the Romans say. What date have the behiques set for the ceremony?”
“The areito will begin on the thirtieth day of October.”