Cold Fire

“If yee shall forgive me, Maestressa Barahal. We have met before but was not formally introduced. I’s called Gaius Sanogo.”



I looked into the face of a man old enough to be my father but not elderly, tall and a little stout but clearly fit and healthy, with more silver in his beard than in his closely shorn black hair. I recognized his face with a shock.



“You were at the meeting at Nance’s.” My tone sounded too hot to my ears. “One of the radicals. Are you the one who betrayed your own people? I thought it was Jasmeen.”



“Did yee?” He had a pleasant face and a pleasant smile and the pleasant gaze of a man confident in his status. “The revelation come too late for they who now sit in prison waiting for the fleet to sail.”



My cheeks flamed. Might the worst have been averted if I’d told Vai everything I could? “I didn’t see you at the supper table,” I said.



“I was not at the supper table. Still, I could not help but overhear yee when yee told the professora that yee is not under the employ nor in the service of the general.”



“Are there really secret passages in the walls? Do you serve the general?”



He looked amused. “Not at all, Maestressa. The folk at Warden Hall call me ‘Commissioner.’ The general tolerate me presence here because he must.”



“The commissioner! Were you infiltrating the radicals?”



“As such,” he continued, “I’s thinking any gal who can for some weeks evade we search for she, might be a valuable asset for we organization. If she is not engaged elsewhere.”



My fingers brushed the spot where my sleeve concealed the scar. “I am not for hire.”



“I know about Salt Island,” he said in the same tone he might use to comment about the rain shower pattering through the foliage outside.



“Is that meant as a threat?”



“Only if I choose to disclose that information to the Taino authorities, or to arrest yee. Which for me own reasons I don’ choose to do. I’s trying to figure yee out. I reckon a Barahal ought to know something of how cold mages fought against the general in the Europan wars.”



I bargained. “I might know something, if you tell me where my husband is.”



“I must ask me own self, just why it is yee want to know where he is gone. For it surely did look like yee plotted to hand him over to the general. And it surely do look as if the general is protecting yee, even as yee claim not to be under he command.”



“He protects me for the sake of my cousin, Beatrice.”



He glanced at the floor with a smile caught on his lips that said as clearly as words that he did not believe me. His gaze, rising, met mine. He had eyes as brown as his skin. “I don’ think so.”



I needed him to believe I wasn’t working for the general so he would help me find Vai. “She’s far more valuable to him than I am, now that she’s to marry Prince Caonabo.”



I truly surprised him.



He studied me with the gaze of a man accustomed to assessing criminals. “Yee’s either quite naïve or very clever, Maestressa. I suppose time will tell. With yee permission.”



As Sanogo withdrew, I glanced toward the general, obliviously playing a sprightly melody as he contributed to the other conversations he was having. When Camjiata rose to allow one of the women to play, Sanogo intercepted him. I escaped through the open doors onto the patio. The wind flecked drops on my head from rain-laden leaves as I stepped into the garden. The debate between the professora and the young merchant seemed likely to go on all night. I sat on a damp bench and folded my hands in my lap, waiting.



The general found me soon enough. “Cat, you and I need to have a talk about the nature of confidential information.”



“Had I known you meant to keep your alliance with the Taino secret from your own allies in Expedition, I would have leveraged the information more to my advantage.”



“You have no advantage. You eat off my table and sleep in my house. Nevertheless, you intend to sneak off and find your husband. I wonder what you possibly expect to do then.”



“Save Europa from your war,” I said with an angry smile.



“Thus leaving countless communities laboring in the harness of an unjust social order.”



“Which you hope to replace with an empire.”



“I am the descendant of emperors both Roman and Malian. I do what I was born for.”



“Surely there are other people in the world who are descendants of emperors, but that does not mean they are fit for or eager to rule. Or that they have a right to do so!”