As surprised as I was to find so young a man as mansa, I was more shocked when Andevai laughed at this blatant slur with the greatest good humor.
“Ah, you thieves! What do you mean to steal from me?”
“We will steal you away to the men’s courtyard, for you are come just in time for the Feast of Matronalia. A good feast for young married men to celebrate, with its hope of fertility and fruitful childbirth,” Viridor added with a sidelong look at me.
Vai grasped my hand, leaning close to whisper, “We’re safe, love. We’re safe here.”
With a parting smile he abandoned me, tramping off with the menfolk to the tune of a great deal of manly joking and laughter.
Whether out of politeness or because she sensed my consternation, the old woman took my right hand in hers, not to shake but to hold. “I am Magister Vinda. We have a modest suite of rooms for visitors, nothing like what you must be accustomed to at Four Moons House, but I will see you made comfortable.” Her speech was cultured, burred by old-fashioned pronunciations.
The “modest” rooms luxuriated in richer furnishings than anything I had grown up with. Blue fabric embroidered with sprays of silver stars upholstered the couches. The bedchamber was decorated in lovely shades of yellow.
“Everything is very lovely and of the finest materials,” I said, quite honestly. She looked so pleased I wondered if they had ever received any guests at all in this frontier town.
“These are all your belongings?” she asked with obvious surprise.
“We met with unexpected difficulties on our road and were separated from our companions and the rest of our things,” I temporized.
“It is clear by the state of your clothing that you have traveled an arduous path,” agreed Vinda. “By which I mean no disrespect, Maestra.”
“None taken!” I smiled. In my experience, smiles had a great deal of utility when it came to smoothing over an awkward question. “I was surprised when the men called each other slaves and thieves.”
“The Cissé and the Diarisso are cousins who may joke with each other. Are you only recently come to the mage House, to not know this? I find it curious that a young mage of such rare potency has been chained to a woman not Houseborn and with no magic.”
She was no djeli, to see the threads I wove so easily. “No one could have been more shocked than I was,” I agreed politely. “How do you know he is so… potent?”
“I can divine cold magic in others.” My blank expression prodded her into an enigmatic smile. “Diviners like me seek out blooms of magic among people not born into the mage Houses. When we find them, we bring them into the House to strengthen our lineage. Have you any children yet?”
I blinked, not sure how to answer this without seeming acerbic. “Why do you ask?”
“It is not usual for a young man to be sent on his Grand Tour with a young wife accompanying him. I thought you perhaps had borne him children already and sought a child by another magister. But if you’ve as yet had no children with him, then there can be no reason for you to seek to be impregnated by any of our men. Perhaps you are of the Sapphic persuasion, in which case I can let you know which women of the House may be interested in your attentions.”
I stared at her in confusion, as bewildered as if she had started to speak in a foreign language.
Her brow wrinkled. “I beg your pardon. Some people have no interest in sexual liaisons, nor is there any reason they should. Perhaps you prefer to choose for him from among the women who seek a child? I assure you that we keep careful records so no near relatives inadvertently mate.”
“Choose for him? I don’t understand…” Then, of course, I did. My eyes must have gotten very round, and then very narrow. She took a step back. I reined in my temper, trying not to snap, for I sensed no hostility. If anything, she seemed puzzled. “Is this the way you greet every male visitor? By offering to let him impregnate the women of your House?”
“Yes. It is the custom among the mage Houses when the visitor is a powerful cold mage.” She studied me as if I had sprouted antlers: a surprising turn of events but not yet a threatening one.
“What do you mean by the Grand Tour?”
“You truly have no idea.” She folded her hands at her waist in the manner of a governess about to launch into the day’s lesson. “Exceptionally potent cold magic is vanishingly rare, despite how it seems to people outside the mage Houses. Promising young men are commonly sent all around Europa, visiting other mage Houses and offering their services to young widows and to married women who have already had several children out of their husbands. Many years ago some wit called it the Grand Tour, and the name stuck.”
“You send them around like you would breed livestock.”
“Not at all. No one is forced to the task. It is a sensible way to attempt to increase the number of cold mages born within the Houses.”
I remembered a thing Vai had told me on the night we had consummated our marriage. “Might women travel to a mage House where it is said a promising young cold mage resides? To see if they can get pregnant by him?”
She smiled with relief, at last assured my intelligence was not wanting. “Yes, that also happens, but only among those Houses who have both wealth and prestige enough to make such visits. Please excuse my plain speaking, since I comprehend I have surprised you. We are a small House, very isolated and not rich, a trifling country cousin compared to Four Moons House. We have struggled for over fifty years to survive here in the frozen north among savages. Our mansa is unseasonably young because we lost all of our experienced magisters in a cholera epidemic ten years ago. Our djeliw died as well. For us the arrival of a powerful cold mage is a precious opportunity to strengthen our lineage.”
I did not want to get us tossed out into the cold, and furthermore, she had a point. “My apologies if it seemed otherwise to you, but we are not here on a Grand Tour.”
She seemed more curious than annoyed. “Your ignorance of mage House customs and that blush in your cheeks suggest you are newly come to the marriage bed and that your husband pleases you, as well he might, for he is certainly handsome. I shall not press you further on this account. It would be an inauspicious time.”
Apparently without having taken offense, she changed the subject to practical matters. Not that cultivating a new generation of mages wasn’t, at root, a practical matter among people whose wealth and station depended on the presence of intimidating magic.
“Let me take you to the baths. We’ll launder your clothing and fit you with clean things. I can see the magister’s clothes need replacing. There are a number of good tailors’ shops here.”
A tailor’s shop called Queedle & Clutch. Towers surmounted by gilded eggs. A cat waiting in the shadows. Bee had drawn these things! As the memory struck, I gasped out loud.
“Maestra, are you well?”
Palm pressed to my chest, I smiled, made tremulous by hope. “I hope and pray we might stay here a few days to rest,” I said, a little hoarsely. “It has been a long and difficult journey.”
“Of course. Come along. The women are eager to welcome you. We have turnip stew.”
Having become accustomed to the free and easy manners in Expedition, I had to remind myself that I once would have found it unexceptional for men and women to dine in separate chambers. Anyway, I was grateful for the friendly greeting I received in the women’s hall. The young women plied me with so many questions about Vai that I prudently entertained them instead with tales of Expedition and the Taino kingdom. They demanded to know if it was true that a woman had ruled the Taino kingdom, and that the new Expedition Assembly would include women as assemblymen, with the right to speak and vote just like the men.