"Yes, Mansa," Andevai murmured.
"The Wild Hunt obliterated Crescent House, but not to aid us. They care nothing for us. We are less than vermin in their eyes. Yet, ironically, the Hunt's intervention saved us. For it was
only after the death of Crescent House and the woman who walked the dreams of dragons-the woman Camjiata had married-that the Second Alliance could capture Camjiata and defeat his army. But I tell you now: Peace will not last, for princes will quarrel and laborers will remain ungrateful for that which benefits them. War and suffering wait at the door, eager to enter. So we listened closely when the diviners told us their shells and sands revealed that the eldest daughter of the Adur-nam Hassi Barahal lineage will walk the dreams of dragons."
Walk the dreams of dragons?
What did that mean?
In the tone of a man goaded by curiosity into imprudence, Andevai spoke. "Can such people truly exist?"
The mansa said, as if Andevai had not spoken, "Am I doing the right thing, Bakary? To bring a woman who walks the dreams of dragons into a mage House puts us all at a terrible risk. We know what the Wild Hunt did to Crescent House. We saw the ruins."
"It is true, Mansa. So my father taught me and his father before him. This is known to us, but we never speak of it. To bring one who has learned to walk the path of dreams into a mage House is like bringing fire into a field of dry straw. One spark and all is consumed."
"Yet she is too valuable to lose. I thought it would be enough to bind her to us through the contract and let her remain, untouched and untrained, in her family's arms. If we bound her and kept her hidden in plain sight with her family, then no one else could take her, and we placed no risk on our House. That way, we held her in reserve. In case the storm came."
"Plans are dust thrown into the wind," said the djeli.
"So the storm comes, as we feared. We must take the risk." The mansa's words fell as heavy as iron.
I shifted to get a better look at the glass-paned wall that
looked out over the garden: high arched windows, paned doors, velvet curtains swagging from the walls and tied back with ropes of red braid. Warmth breathed up from the raised floor, embracing my belly. Here in the protected halls of Four Moons House, it was difficult to imagine what risk they faced.
"I n-never knew…," stammered Andevai, and an older, simpler accent surfaced in his voice, quickly stifled. "I had nay idea-no idea. Only a story I heard as a boy about a woman born with the gift that is a curse. She learned to walk the dreams of dragons, and so the Wild Hunt killed her. If that's so, Mansa, and if an entire mage House was destroyed by the Wild Hunt because of one dreamer, then what would be so terrible that you would risk bringing such a person into Four Moons House?"
His question was met with a drawn-out silence.
When the djeli spoke, it seemed his voice penetrated the foundations of the house. "Camjiata has escaped his island prison."
If the roof had fallen in on me, I could not have been more stunned. Perhaps I made a noise. The attendants glanced toward me and as quickly away. Bad enough to be humiliated like this without them smirking at me in my mortification. I dug deep for the concealing glamor, letting it embrace me like a cawl.
The mansa's anger stung like sleet. "The Houses will keep the secret of Camjiata's escape for as long as they can, but all too soon the news will get out. And when it does, the Barahals may try to seek him out and gain his protection. They do not know what the girl is, but we can be sure Camjiata will recognize her importance immediately. He will claim her, if he finds her before we do."
"The other girl," murmured Andevai. "When I saw Catherine, I was sure Catherine must be the one waiting for me…
and then they told me she was the eldest____________________
She said she was
two months older than the other girl."
"So there is still time before the eldest Hassi Barahal
daughter reaches her majority and the contract expires," said the mansa.
A new uneasiness stirred in my heart. I pushed up my head to see if my arms worked and lowered myself down again. The attendants paid no attention to my movement.
"What must I do, Mansa, to regain your favor?" Andevai asked in a low voice.
"Return at once to Adurnam and marry the Barahal girl, as you were commanded to do."
The djeli said, "The marriage already made was bound by an irrevocable chain, Mansa."
"Then it must be undone."
"It can't be undone, Mansa," replied the djeli patiently. "You know this as well as I do. And furthermore, the contract stipulates I hat the girl must be the sole wife of the magister who marries her."
"So she will be," said the mansa, each word ice, purposefully, deliberately. "The one you married in error is useless to us, Andevai. Indeed, she was party to the fraud. The marriage will be undone and the other girl recovered and brought under our control before the winter solstice. Andevai will carry out his duty to show his obedience and prove his worth."
From the chamber on the other side of the door, silence fell. The attendants at the other double doors yawned, oblivious to the tension pouring out over me. In the garden, a breeze set the treetops swaying. I heard, rising from elsewhere in the building, the voices of children in full spate, laughter and teasing and stories and dares.
"Aiei!" The djeli's sigh penetrated the air like storm winds, making me shudder.
"But, Mansa," said Andevai, "I don't understand. A binding marriage… a chained contract…"
"Can you not see the solution even so?" demanded the mansa. "Is even this beyond you?"
"But, Mansa," said my husband, "the only way out of such a contract is through the death of one of the parties involved."
"Yes. Kill her."
18
The words were simple, the silence that followed complex, ugly, smothering. It was so quiet I was sure I heard my husband blink.
"I beg your pardon, Mansa. I have not understood you."
"You heard what I said."
I pushed up gently to hands and knees, careful to make sure my head did not spin, but I was not at all dizzy. My heart was cold steel. I shifted to my feet and walked to the corner, a hand tracing the wall because I was part of the wall and nothing more than the wall, and after that I was window, nothing more, and then I was the door that did not open, curse it, but the next door did. I slipped through and closed it behind me and was out in the garden, all this really before I realized I had developed the thought, I. Have. To. Run. Now.
The garden was a rectangle, with its length extending to a wall beyond which rose evergreen trees. Several paths wound between tall yew hedges, perfect for skulking, so I ducked behind the screen of densely packed leaves and worked my way like a scuttling rat from hedge to hedge toward the far wall.
A bell rang, and I jerked as if a rope had caught me up short. But it was only a calling bell, because in response I heard the shouts and laughter of children racing down interior corridors of the wing that lay to my right. I reached the high wall that
bounded the garden. It had no gate whatsoever and was far too high for me to climb over.
I had to go through the house.
I saw a sturdy double door set next to the corner where the wing to my right met the garden wall. Herel paused, panting, my hand on the latch.
"Catherine!" Andevai's voice carried into my prison.
Kill her.