“That is a fine idea in principle, Husband,” I said, “but what about the House’s other client villages? Will they languish, while you favor Haranwy?”
His mother said, “The children in the village are needed to work at chores.”
“I will find a way to do this,” said Vai with a stubborn pinch of his lips.
Fortunately an attendant announced Serena, who came accompanied by two other women. I greeted her with clasped hands. She greeted Vai casually, like an equal, then introduced me to her companions: One had married into Four Moons House and one been born into it. I escorted them to Vai’s mother, who remained seated, which was the privilege of an elder, although I was pretty sure Vai’s mother was younger than the mansa for all that she looked much older from years of illness. She accepted their polite greetings with a rigid aspect of seeming calm. The girls were so stricken by shyness that they barely whispered.
“They will ride in my personal coach,” said Serena. “If there is trouble, I can protect them.”
“That’s very generous,” I said, in genuine surprise.
“Is it?” she asked with lifted eyebrows. She turned back to Vai’s mother, bending over her to clasp her hands. “Maa, be sure I will take proper care of you and your girls, both on the journey and once we return to Four Moons House. Now I must go and make ready.”
She kissed me on the cheek and departed with her companions. Going to collect the cacica’s skull from a table by the door, I heard them murmur as they walked away down the passage.
“Really, Serena! He is certainly the epitome of a man in looks and dress, and we have all heard more times than we could possibly wish about his cold magic, but the family! How could you not laugh at seeing his mother’s rustic simplicity? They say she was born in a cart.”
“My grandmother would slap me for any such display of poor manners. Nor do I forget that my children will one day need the favor of the new mansa to make their way. Besides that, now my husband has chosen his heir, disrespect shown to them is like disrespect shown to him.”
“Catherine, what is it?” Vai murmured, coming up beside me as I laced the basket shut. Seeing his mother distracted by a steward’s quiet instructions, he caught my hand in his. “That’s a brilliant idea you have about opening up the school to all the children of the local villages.”
“Yes,” I said dreamily, imagining the consternation at the introduction of so much rustic simplicity when Vai and I announced our new plan.
Noble Ba’al! Had I already acquiesced? Had the mansa defeated me so easily? Or was it the look on Vai’s mother’s face that had weakened my resolve? How could Vai and I possibly manage a household if we started from nothing among people hostile to cold mages? How would we even keep warm in winter? To build a house with a hypocaust system was ruinously expensive even if Vai did much of the carpentry himself. We hadn’t a sestertius to our names.
He allowed a servant to push his mother and Wasa in the invalid chair so he could walk behind them arm in arm with me. As we paced through the compound along corridors I had never before seen, he smiled, for the people who lived in Two Gourds House did pause to look. Blessed Tanit! The man meant to make sure everyone saw him. I was both amused and embarrassed. I did not like so many people staring at me. I did not like the feeling that I was being seduced into the clutches of the mage House with lovely clothing and flattering admiration, even though I knew that was not Vai’s intention. No doubt he simply wanted to give things to me to show he could, like the sandals he had bought for me at Aunty Djeneba’s and the bed he had built for us.
The troubling confusion of my thoughts made it therefore a relief when we settled the family in the coach. When a big basket appeared with the puppy in it, to be conveyed with the girls in the coach, I thanked Serena so profusely that she smiled in a way that made me feel gauche, an emotion I would never have believed I could experience.
“The creature will give them something to keep their minds off the journey and whatever trouble lies behind us.”
The girls wept and clung first to me and then to Vai before he gently reminded them that he relied on them to take care of their mother.
Vai’s mother took my hand in hers, speaking in a low voice. “You were right. He did not leave us behind.” To my surprise she kissed me on the cheek.
From the steps we watched the cavalcade depart. The spears of the escort flashed under the bright eye of the sun. The Four Moons banner rippled in a brisk wind. Distant thunder rolled, and everyone waiting in the courtyard looked up at the cloudless sky.
Vai spoke. “The cannonade is not battle. It’s Lord Marius’s army at field maneuvers. We shall take a tour of the city today. The river walk is lovely in the sun.”
“Vai, yesterday Viridor acted as your ally, yet he is the one who betrayed you.”
He shrugged. “He did what he thought was best for his House, not out of malice. I can’t fault him for that. In a way he helped me, for none of this would have happened had I not fallen into the mansa’s hands. He and I talked it all out.”
“You are friends again? You trust him?”
“Yes.”
A steward dressed in the brown livery of Two Gourds House approached Vai. “Magister, you are required in the men’s hall. Maestra, if you will, the steward of the women’s hall attends you.”
Vai went his way and I went mine, accompanied by a young djelimuso with jangling gold bracelets on both wrists and gold earrings. In our guest suite a formidable woman stood examining the cacica’s skull. Her resplendent starched boubou and head wrap marked her as Houseborn. After a suitable exchange of greetings, she cut to the point.
“As long as you remain here in Two Gourds House, you will need persons to attend to your needs and those of your husband. Have you any particular requests, Maestra?”
I thought I might as well take the bull by the horns. “I am newly married, Maestra, and I was not raised in a mage House. As you must surely know, I am only recently released from confinement in another wing of this magnificent establishment. If you could assign me an experienced and patient woman to help me make my way, I would be grateful.”
She nodded. “Yes, you must learn to do things in the proper way. There was some talk in the servants’ quarters about the unseemly way you laced up your skirt and bounced a ball around the back courtyard. Yet Magister Serena said you acquitted yourself well when you poured wine for the men’s supper last night. So you cannot be unversed in all aspects of a woman’s duties.”
I just could not resist. “The game with the ball is called batey. I would be happy to teach it to anyone who wishes to learn, boys and girls alike, for everyone plays in the Antilles.”
She sighed. “I will be blunt, Maestra. It is my understanding that his origins are very low. The honored mansa of Four Moons House and my own cousin, who is mansa here, believe your husband to be crucial to the effort to defeat the Iberian Monster’s greedy ambitions. For him to be raised to such a position of honor is an unexpected act that speaks to his exceptional promise. If you will allow yourself to be guided by me, then you will avoid doing things that could shame your husband. As it is said, a well-behaved wife will bear well-behaved children.”
My lips closed over several imprudent retorts. I plied a different stitch. “Goodness, Maestra, I am only thinking of my husband and future children when I play batey. In the Antilles, they encourage girls and young women to play so as to strengthen themselves for childbirth.”
She frowned. “In that case, I suppose it must be seen as unexceptionable.”
Servants were assigned to guard, serve, and clean our suite, and a steward was on duty at all times to advise me in matters of propriety. No mirror graced the suite. Except when Vai and I were in the bedchamber, a djelimuso would sit in formal attendance, so it was clear the mansa did not trust me.