We stood this way for a while, smashed together, holding tight, my cane pressed between us. I could not think. We were reunited. That was all that mattered.
Eventually, I opened my eyes. Over her head, I watched Rod-eric making his courtesies to the aunt, who clearly found him as charming as he found himself. Amadou pulled up two wooden stools with legs carved to become antelopes, and the men sat down in front of his aunt. Rory smiled at the twins as Amadou bent forward to confer with his aunt, who held his right hand between hers.
Bee must have felt my attention shift. She released me from the vise. I took in a long gasping breath, then staggered forward, aware I had snubbed the woman who had sheltered Bee. But she was gracious, and her nieces seemed genuinely if shyly pleased to see me again, although I am sure I had not ever been kind enough to them at the academy to deserve their generous greeting.
"You remember my half brother Roderic, Beatrice," I said, hoping I would not have to kick her. "It's been ever so many years since we last saw him."
She fixed her full-bore stare on me, drilling for secrets. Then she swept over to him.
"How could 1 possibly forget dear Rory!" With a flourish, she
kissed him smartly on either cheek and rather more warmly than he had clearly expected.
He glanced at me as if for aid in dealing with a flower whose beauty might hide poisonous thorns.
Bee stepped back from him and eyed Rory an instant more, then cast a look toward Amadou so brimming with fulmination that I would have laughed if she had not appeared ready to stick a knife in him… or to kiss him. It was difficult to tell. He pressed a palm to his forehead, realized he was doing so, and looked to his aunt with a plea.
"Please sit," his aunt said. "This is unexpected."
Water was brought, then coffee and candied ginger, boska, and cherries. Amadou described, succinctly, our meeting at Cold Fort. He was clearly concerned that Lord Marius had not yet rejoined us, and his aunt took the opportunity to suggest she and he go to the factotum's office and see about sending a messenger to the prince's court in Adurnam. The twins likewise were dragged along on this expedition. It was done so smoothly that I had scarcely realized she had deliberately engineered matters to leave us alone, when Bee stung.
"Who are you, really?" She rose with fists on hips, arms akimbo, to glare at Roderic. "Come along to charm my innocent cousin into calling you her brother!'
He blithely transferred himself to the nearest couch, stretched out his long legs, and leaned back with arms crossed. "I do not need to defend what is true."
The battle of wills commenced as they stared each other down. Obviously, neither was going to blink first.
"He really is my brother," I said, running a hand up and down the smooth length of the cane that had been given to me by an eru who had called me "cousin." "Or at least he could be. If we share a sire."
"The hair is like," she admitted grudgingly. "You've some
resemblance about the face. Perhaps. Why do you have a cane,.at?
"To protect myself at night. You won't believe what has happened to me."
"I might," she said ominously, like a storm about to break. She flung herself down beside Rory, ignoring him in exactly the way she ignored her little sisters when she wasn't interested in what they were doing. Her gaze followed me as I crossed the room to collect her sketchbook and pencil and returned them to her. I sat on the other side of her on the couch, running my fingers over the embroidered silk. I was sure I had never touched cloth as expensive as this in all my days. The simple layout of the house gave the appearance of modesty, rather like Amadou Barry, but one could see in the quality of its appointments that the family did not maintain a more opulent house only because they chose not to.
"I might believe anything now," she went on darkly, pressing the sketchbook to her chest. "I might believe my own father and mother handed my dear cousin over to wicked magisters under false pretenses, knowing they had bound themselves years ago to a contract that actually called for me to be handed over to the mage House."
"Did you know?" I whispered, fingering a perfect rose made of tiny red stitches.
"Can you possibly imagine I would have stood by meekly and let them sacrifice you in my place had I known?"
Tears burned. "No," I choked out. "I never did believe it, not for all this time."
She grasped my hand. I twisted the bracelet she had given me off my wrist and placed it back onto hers, the mark of our compact. Thus we made our peace.
"We were both duped," she raged, turning the bracelet around and around her wrist. "Lied to. Used. 1 am so angry 1 couldHer expressive face sheared through so many emotions so quickly that it was dizzying.
Rory leaned forward. "You could what? I am all ears."
"It was a figure of speech, you wretched idiot," she said with the same dismissive scorn she heaped on her sisters when they annoyed her. "There's nothing I can do but sit here and be grateful for these very fine and high-placed and fabulously wealthy people who have been so generously willing to offer a sad, impoverished lowly Barahal shelter, food, and a bed."
She turned quite, quite pink, as with shame.
"Bee!" I said.
She jumped to her feet and strode to the window, her back to me. "I know nothing of what you have suffered, and yet here I am speaking only of my own mild difficulties. I'm terribly selfish."
Astonishingly, she burst into tears. Real, raw tears.
I ran to her and hugged her, and she pushed me away and cursed so frightfully that I laughed. She wiped her eyes and threw one killing look toward Rory, who had closed his eyes and was pretending to not be there.
"Bee! What happened?" I demanded.
"No, you tell me first," she cried. "Tell me what they did to you!
"I'll tell you everything, but I want to hear your story first so I can start making a plan."
She set a palm on the perfectly polished glass of one of the windowpanes. The garden, in winter, wore its green yew hedges as its brightest tone; leafless fruit trees lined a path toward several round graneries partially obscured by willow hurdles set around them like a stockade. Beyond lay stables and laundry. The high stone boundary walls were obscured by trimmed evergreen yew trees, guardian against magic. For a house in Adur-nam, they had a lot oi land.
I waited, and she began.
"You can imagine what happened after the magister hauled you away that night. Mother and Father did not sleep. A few chests were packed with clothes, necessaries, and Father's private correspondence."
"What happened to the package Andevai-the magister- gave to Uncle?"
"They burned it first thing, all of it. They threw that book you found on the fire, too."
"Lies the Romans Told?."
"Yes. But when they weren't looking, I pulled it out and hid it behind Uncle Daniel's journals. Which they left behind."
"They left behind the journals? How could they?"
She shrugged. "We left the house before dawn and went straight to the harbor. A Kena'ani captain was obliged to offer us passage when Father invoked the old custom of motherhouse. While we waited in a cabin on the ship, Mama and Papa told me the truth. Thirteen years ago, a contract was forced onto the Hassi Barahal clan by Four Moons House. The magisters held evidence that the Barahals had spied for Camjiata during his campaigns while at the same time selling information to the princes and mage Houses allied against Camjiata. In exchange for keeping the evidence of this double-dealing a secret, the magisters had the right to take possession of the eldest Barahal daughter at any time before she reached her majority. Me, Cat. It was me they wanted, not you."