"1 know."
"How could Mama and Papa think I would ever forgive them, once I found out?" Bee…
"Let me finish. The tide turned and the ship sailed. I sweet-talked the harbor pilot into smuggling me on board the pilots skill when he returned to harbor. The ship could not turn
against the tide, so they went on to Gadir without me. I hope they think I cast myself overboard and drowned!"
"Bee!"
"I don't mean it! Not for the girls' sake. I left a note. I didn't want Hanan and Astraea worrying. They Were so scared, for I had to drag them from their beds and make them dress in the dark in the terrible cold. Shiffa and Evved and Cook went, too, but I knew Pompey and Callie remained behind. I walked home. But you know, Cat, there was almost no food left in the root cellar, and coal enough for only a week, and no money at all. I can't imagine how we were meant to survive the winter had we not been forced to flee!"
"But-"
"Pompey went back to his family in the country. I gave him some things he could sell, for I thought it only fair he should have a severance wage. Callie has nowhere to go, you know. She's got no kin. I couldn't turn her out on the street, so we sold off a few things Mama and Papa had left behind. Once I was certain we had sufficient coal to heat the kitchen and grain to keep two of us for some months-for Callie knows exactly where to find the cheapest victuals at the tradesmen's market- then I went to the academy and asked to speak to the headmaster. I asked him to contact Four Moons House for me so I could exchange myself for you."
"Bee!"
"But first he made me describe the ceremony to him, the one we witnessed, when the jelly was brought in."
"It's djeli," I said. Then: "But you were sent upstairs. You didn't witness it."
"I peeked! After I described it, he told me that the law allows the head of the house to dispose of any minor under his rule at his pleasure, which means Uncle had a perfect right to marry you off against your will while you were still underage. Worse, a
marriage chained by magic cannot be severed under any circumstances except by the death of one of the people involved." She caught my wrist in a bruising grasp. "They tried to kill you, didn't they, Cat? Didn't they?"
My voice was a hoarse whisper. "Yes."
"But you escaped those hateful mages! You escaped, Cat, and you came back. I knew it was what you would do."
She was flushed and magnificent, refulgent with indignation and pride. As if the sorcery of beauty had called, the door opened and Amadou Barry, Roman legate, stepped into the chamber. Seeing her, he halted as if he had slammed into stone. The chamber could have erupted into a blazing storm of fiery flying pigs, and he would have had eyes for only Beatrice.
"You are not wanted," she said imperiously, with a flick of her hand.
He opened his mouth, closed it, and went out. The door closed with a snap behind him.
"Well, there's a change of heart," I said, reflecting that Andevai would have argued instead of retreating. "Once, you did little else but moon over his handsome eyes and pleasing manners."
"I do not see him. I do not recognize him."
"You're so flushed I think I am going to have to fan myself. What happened?"
"She loves him, she loves him," said Rory in exactly the tone thirteen-year-old Hanan would use to tease her older sister.
She crossed her arms and glowered at him. "Who do you think would win, dear cousin, if it came down to battle between you and me?"
He laughed without stirring in the least, entirely unaffected by a stare that would have obliterated any other man. "You're delectable when you're angry. I could just eat you up."
"You could just try," she retorted. "You remind me of that little beast Astraea, unrepentantly spoiled."
"And you remind me of my younger sister-not Cat, but the other one-the one who is tiresome and self-absorbed and who never shuts up, yowling day and night for attention."
I broke in before the duel got ugly. "Bee, he's not joking. He could eat you up. Now tell me what else the headmaster said."
"He told me that by no means should I return home. That Four Moons House would likely come after me. He sent his dog-"
"His dog?" asked Rory, licking his lips.
"His assistant, the albino from the east," she said impatiently. "Anyway, the dog went scouting and came back to report that soldiers wearing the livery of Four Moons House had stationed themselves outside our house. So the headmaster offered to protect me. You can imagine my surprise when he summoned Amadou Barry. Who is no student. He's an agent working for Rome."
"He's a legate."
"Yes, that's how the headmaster addressed him." Her lips quirked up in an ironic, even sarcastic, smile. "And because I am very clever, I discovered that Legate Amadou Barry is the one who brought that book to the academy."
"Lies the Romans Told?. Why would a Roman legate possess that book?" But I recalled Shiffa's words. "Unless it was a code-book. Written by a Barahal. You don't think-?"
"That he came to the academy to ingratiate himself with Barahal girls? Whose parents might know something of it?" She fluttered her lashes, all honey, and then smiled a cruel smile. "I told them Papa burned it."
"How did you come here?"
"1 had little choice. The headmaster kindly informed me that
not even a mage House will invade the residence of a family connected to the nobility of Rome. Yet you may suppose that however safe I am here, however well I have been treated, I am but a pretty bird in a pretty cage. I endured it because I knew I had to stay out of the hands of the mage House until you returned."
I looked at her narrowly. "That can't be the only reason."
She flushed. "Yes, I got to see Amadou every day, and speak with him familiarly, every day. So I bided here quite peacefully and even eagerly as the weeks passed, knowing there was a separate watch posted by the headmaster's loyal dog on our house to make sure Callie was not disturbed. To keep an eye for your return. And then"-she trembled-"and then he kissed me."
Rory grinned. "The man stinks of love for you, darling."
"Don't be crude, Rory," I snapped.
"Nothing can go on here without his aunt-he calls her 'Mother'-hearing of it," she murmured. "She spoke privately to me. It was the kindness that was the worst of it. I was a very fine young woman, she said, but it was certainly impossible that a young man who was on his mother's side the grandson of a prince and on his father's side a grandson out of the Valerii-"
"The patrician Valerii?" I cried.
"Not only that, the Valerii Messalans."
"By the way you are steaming from your ears, I believe this term means something to you that it cannot mean to me," remarked Roderic languidly.
"Descendants of the Roman consul and commander who obtained the only significant victory Rome ever claimed over Qart Hadast," I said, pressing my hands to my breast. "They are the worst enemies of the Kena'ani. Also, they never marry outside their patrician clans."
"It seems they do. Amadou's mother was born into a princely Fula lineage. His father's father was also of noble Fula birth.
They are bankers, too, hugely wealthy. He is the one who married a Roman woman of the Valerii gens. But I don't really care about that, Cat. The war with the Romans happened so long ago. His aunt made it very clear, in so very kindly a manner, that we Barahals were beneath them. Any alliance between us could not be contemplated. And then he… he… Later he found me, and he spoke such ardent words to me that I became quite dizzy. He offered me a flower marriage, as if I would entertain for a single moment the idea of sleeping in his bed for one year only afterward to be cast off like a common prostitute, for you know that is what people think of us Phoenician women. I told him just what he could do with his insulting offer. Then he apologized most profusely and spoke most bitterly of how unforgivable his own behavior had been and how he had never meant to offer me an insult but was only overcome by his feelings for me.