I had never met a man who could speak in such sentimental platitudes and yet have it sound so genuine and unforced. It was one of the most irritating things about him. Indeed, it irritated me so much that all the clever, cunning wiles I’d meant to weave fled straight out of my mind. “Do you have my father’s journals? You stole them, just as you stole Bee’s sketchbook!”
He dropped his gaze to the floor with a smile that made me instantly suspicious, as if he guessed the entirety of my plan. Then he looked up. “Have you come to demand them back? Or were you captured by my soldiers? What scheme have you in mind?”
“My husband has been taken prisoner by his own mage House. Rory and I escaped and have fled in the hope you will take us in and help us rescue him.” As I spoke the words, I felt how false they sounded.
“What of Beatrice?”
“Her honeyed voice is raised on your behalf among the radicals.”
“Raised on my behalf, but not in my presence. You would think she no longer trusts me with her dreams.”
Never let it be said I could not think on my feet! “Her words prepare the way for you better than dreams!”
“It’s true the Gallic towns and villages have proven more amenable than I had dared hope. I am sure it is due to the efforts of my radical allies agitating among the farmers and craftsmen and householders who will benefit the most once my legal code is proclaimed.”
“To say laws are in place is not the same as having them enforced.”
“Indeed, and thus our current conflict, no?” His Iberian lilt had gotten stronger.
“And another thing,” I added. “Is Prince Haübey with you?”
“I would prefer to continue this conversation in a more private setting before—too late.”
A frown darkened his face so quickly that as it smoothed into a neutral expression I wondered if I had mistaken it. I turned. Rory put a hand on my arm to hold me back as James Drake sauntered up the center of the hall.
“I couldn’t believe what I just heard, and yet it is true. Cat Barahal! Washed up where she’s not wanted.”
He had a lovely woman on his arm. She wore a lemon-yellow gown trimmed with ribbons that looked fabulously well on her voluptuous figure, for she had the same sort of curves as Bee. Six soldiers wearing uniforms marked with the ship’s mast of Armorica attended as an honor guard. Behind them swaggered four youths garbed in red dash jackets meant to look bold; two were girls, wearing skirts, reminding me of the girl who had died in the forest. Behind them shuffled six men weighted with heavy iron cuffs; they were uniformed in ugly jackets tailored out of a ghastly red-and-white fabric so ill cut that they made Drake look like quite the most fashionable man in the hall. Which of course he was, because he was wearing one of Vai’s dash jackets, a gold damask that shone like flame. It was one of the garments Bee had been forced to leave behind when she’d fled the general’s fleet in Sharagua.
I only realized I had taken a step forward when Rory yanked me to a halt.
In a murmur Camjiata said, “Not for that, Cat. Choose your blows wisely.”
“That’s an exceptionally lovely dash jacket, Drake,” I said. “Too bad it doesn’t fit you.”
“This isn’t the last thing that belongs to him I’ll soon be slipping inside.” He released his inamorata without a backward glance and had the gall to pace once around us, looking me over as if I were livestock for sale in the market. “You didn’t appear at the standing inquiry in Expedition. So you were found guilty in absentia of the murder of the honored cacica. The sentence for murderers is life servitude in the cane fields or as a catch-fire.”
A glamour of light pulsed as the unlit lamps along the walls flared. Folk murmured in awe and fear. They would have been even more frightened had they seen what I could see. A mist-like glamour writhed around Drake’s body. Wisps like threads of spun light poured off him and created a lacework pattern through the lofty hall and into the six iron-cuffed men. One flinched, one cowered, one wept, and three stared with dull resentment. They all glowed as they channeled the backlash of his fire magic and poured it out of harm’s way. In truth it was impressive to see how skillfully Drake parted the flood of his magic into six smaller streams, no one of them strong enough to overwhelm any single man.
My skin prickled. My heart beat faster.
“That’s right, Cat,” said Drake. “I now weave multiple fire banes as catch-fires. But I can still use you in the old-fashioned way, burning you up like kindling. No one will stop me because you’re a condemned murderer. It would as easy for me to kill you as to take in my next breath.”
The whisper of their magic stirred my blade. “I’m not unarmed.”
Instead of stepping back prudently, he leaned closer. His unruly hair brushed my cheek as he whispered in my ear. “Neither am I. I’m training up an entire company of fire mages loyal only to me. Think of that before you taunt me. But if you kiss me, I’ll consider allowing you to become my concubine instead of my catch-fire.”
Rory snarled, causing Drake to startle back.
“You are too late, Drake. I have already been tried and acquitted by the Taino court of ancestors, in the spirit world.” I swung the basket around and pulled out the skull.
Drake’s nose wrinkled up. He brushed a finger along his clean-shaven chin, glanced at the pretty blonde, then looked back at me. “There is something very wrong with you, Cat. Put that skull away, if you please, for it does not impress or frighten me. Indeed, you do nothing but poke at people with your impertinent questions and your outrageous tales, and all to no purpose except to annoy.”
He had never figured out that there was something odd about my answering questions with questions, not as Vai had immediately. Blessed Tanit! What an ass!
The thought made me smile mockingly, and of course my smile roused his temper.
“Enough! I am now wed to the daughter of the honored Armorican prince who is overlord of all the Veneti dukedoms. Such an honor is due me as a son of the Ordovici kings of old.”
“The Ordovici kings of old? Of what are you trying to convince me, Drake?” I asked, for this boasting, defensive mood puzzled me. “That because you are highborn I ought to overlook your boorish behavior? You cannot think I regret the way we parted, or the choice I made.”
He laughed nastily. “You’ll soon be sorry you didn’t take a princely crown when it was offered to you.”
Camjiata stepped into the breach. “My steward has been at pains to signal that our dinner is ready to be served. Let us not delay the repast, for my command staff is waiting. Lord Drake, will you and Lady Angeline join us?”
She answered for Drake in a cultured, formal voice. “We would be pleased to join you, General.”
She smiled soothingly at Drake—rather, I supposed, as Bee might say I sometimes smiled soothingly at Vai when he had climbed up onto his highest horse of intemperate disdain. Only, of course, Vai was no murderer. Was she a smart woman who had learned to manage him, or a frightened one eager to assuage his fits and starts? Her gaze flicked my way as she hooked fingers along his elbow.
“Come along, Cat,” said Camjiata with an unusual hint of asperity. “I think you have made enough of a scene for the moment.”
“Me?”
He steered me commandingly toward an interior door. In a side chamber, a table had been laid with settings. Eight people waited, expressions brightening with interest when they saw me and Rory, and darkening when Drake and his bride—and the six catch-fires and the four young fire mages and the six soldiers—entered. Among the command staff I noted the one-eyed proprietor of the Speckled Iguana in Expedition, the man who had once fought alongside my mother at Alesia.