Cold Steel

This courtyard was not meant for my eyes. I was trespassing.



I padded back to the lonely refuge of our rooms. In lamplight I set out the cacica’s skull and poured her a little wine. As I cleaned and sorted my sewing kit, I told the cacica about my evening with the women of White Bow House. I had stayed away from discussing Camjiata or radical philosophy and stuck to a theme of women speaking out and taking a place in governance. Everyone had paid attention, even if most had been skeptical that such a thing could ever happen. Maybe there really were times when words were more effective than a sword.



Men’s laughter gusted up the hall. I grabbed my sword as the lamps guttered out and the door swung open. Vai slammed it behind him as he stamped snow off his boots. Baubles of cold fire bobbed erratically over his head. He shed his coat and tossed it over a chair to reveal his dash jacket unbuttoned and disheveled as if he had carelessly dragged it on.



“I could just eat you up,” he murmured, pressing me back against the wall to kiss me.



I wrestled free. “Blessed Tanit. You are drunk!”



“Given my previous experience with you when you were drunk, I can’t help but wonder what you will be like in bed when…” He noticed the skull sitting on a side table. With a visible start he recoiled a step. Then he grabbed his coat and draped it over the skull. That he looked inordinately pleased with his cleverness confirmed my belief that he had imbibed too much liquor.



“I felt it prudent to maintain my wits in a strange household. Why were you outdoors?”



“We drummed the festival dance in the courtyard. It started to snow.” He tugged me into the bedchamber, steered me to the bed, and grappled me down on it. “Since it is the Feast of Matronalia to honor the Roman goddess of childbirth, they all wanted to know if I have gotten you pregnant yet. I had to tell them it was not yet the auspicious season for us.”



“They do seem inordinately interested in your fertility. Magister Vinda asked if you were here on your Grand Tour.”



He stiffened, and not in an amorous way. His mood lurched from lasciviousness to fury as he sat bolt upright. “Our offspring is not the mansa’s to sell or trade as he wishes.”



“I set her straight, I assure you,” I said soothingly, stroking his arm.



He leaned against the headboard, looking away from me and thus forcing me to contemplate the beauty of his eyes and strong cheekbones. The sulky set of his lips made me want to kiss them. “Do you have any idea how insulting it is to be treated as if you are nothing more than a highly regarded stallion with desirable conformation?”



Several jesting comments raced against each other in an effort to reach my tongue first, but I yanked on the reins and tried another tactic to calm him. “When I was waiting tables at the boardinghouse, some men treated me as if I were nothing more than a womanly form they’d like to fondle and take to bed.”



He glanced sidelong at me with a swift measure to take in exactly those conforming attributes. His thunderous frown eased slightly. “They surely did.”



I bit down a smile. Levity would be fatal at just this moment. I chose a feinting attack. “Magister Vinda wondered if I was looking to dally with one of their women. Or get pregnant by one of their men.”



He put an arm around me. “Why would they think you would be interested in anyone else when you’re married to me?”



That he could speak such conceited words with such humble sincerity never failed to delight me. “I suppose it would depend on whether I can get satisfaction. If I must dash the hopes of the many, then you must accommodate the desires of the one.”



“Must I, Catherine?” He had a way of saying my name that made it seem like the most burning caress whose touch inflamed my entire body.



“Yes. You certainly must.”



27



My growling stomach woke me. Both bed and window curtains had been pulled back to admit the light of a sunny winter morning. Vai sat at a dressing table in front of a large mirror, shaving. He wore trousers but nothing else, so I ogled his back, with his workman’s muscles. There was an old scar across his mid-back, as well as a fading bruise on his left shoulder that he had acquired during our escape. I admired the way he turned his head by degrees to get a new angle, and the methodical way he trimmed using a comb, razor, and tiny pair of scissors.



Then I got bored.



Was the man trimming hair by hair to get the exact look he wanted?



“Gracious Melqart, Vai. How much time do you spend on your grooming? Wouldn’t you rather come back in bed with me?”



He met my gaze in the mirror. “Of course I would, love. But I’m meeting Viridor and the lads for breakfast. They’re going to show me the schoolroom—”