Cold Steel
Vai did not smile, but the man did develop a bit of a cocky swagger as we approached the waiting dignitaries. Not every man was announced with a song in his praise, although I wished the djeli did not insist on repeatedly referring to him in the Celtic way as “Andevai Hardd.”
“Andevai the Handsome!” I murmured. “I shall have my work cut out for me, keeping your monstrous self-regard from swelling any larger than the bloated whale it already is.”
He did not deign to look at me. “It’s only conceit if it isn’t true.”
“Here are you, Andevai Hardd,” said Lord Marius with a laugh, “just as you promised you would be. Apparently, I should not have doubted you, as some claimed I must.”
He glanced into the crowd of men. The mansa of Four Moons House was not there, but his surly nephew glared, his lips curled in a triumphant sneer as he awaited Vai’s downfall and humiliation. It was clear by the vulture-like expressions of the Roman legate and his tribunes that Vai had been the subject of discussion before we arrived.
We made our courtesies to the elders, the princes, the mansas, the Roman legate, and Lord Marius. Rory grazed down their ranks like a hungry saber-toothed cat through the succulent flanks of recently deceased cattle, being introduced, admiring their clothes and military adornments, making them laugh and putting them at their ease.
Vai addressed the company with a cool smile. “We had planned all along to give a demonstration of how weak the defenses are at Two Gourds House and how thoroughly unprepared even the most skilled djeliw can be for one such as my wife. I did not realize she meant to act so soon, for as you must imagine a spirit woman captured from the bush can at times be a trifle wild and ungovernable.”
The men chuckled, as Vai had meant them to. Their condescension was irritating, but it put them off the scent of his disgrace.
The mansa’s nephew pushed forward. “You may all be intrigued by his success in holding on to such a freakish creature, but when a man’s mother was born in a cart, he must be accustomed to living in the stable with the rest of the animals.”
“Like all honorable men, I show respect to the mother who bore and raised me,” said Vai with just the right touch of sternness. “As for your own envy, you’d have done better to apply yourself in the schoolroom instead of drinking, gambling, and whoring. Anyway, I don’t see that you could have managed to win and keep such a wife even had you the courage and ambition to attempt the hunt.”
“You were chosen to marry her only because the mansa did not want to waste a real man on a low marriage to a Phoenician girl who is merely a bastard with peculiar magic.”
“You simply are incapable of comprehending the mansa’s subtle mind.” Vai nodded at Rory.
To my astonishment Rory stripped right there in front of everyone with an alacrity that needed no dreams of dragons to predict. When he was stark naked—and never the least ashamed to be so!—he smiled charmingly around the company and then looked at Vai. Given another nod, he changed in a smear of darkness from man to cat.
Of course there was a gratifying outcry as Rory prowled the tent’s interior. He did look so lovely and magnificent, so sleek and powerful. The big cat padded up to the mansa’s nephew and butted him so hard in the belly that the man tumbled onto his ass. No one laughed; they were all too cursed nervous.
Then the big cat turned around and sprayed him.
The harsh smell overwhelmed everything except the sudden silence. When Lord Marius burst out laughing, the rest felt free to join in. The mansa’s nephew boiled up with knife drawn, full into the force of a roar that shook the air and made every man stop laughing and cower. All except Vai, who casually walked up to the cat and rested a hand on the beast’s shoulder.
I approached Lord Marius. “My lord, I am truly sorry about Amadou Barry. Please remember that Bee did try to save him. I come before you to offer my services as a scout and spy.”
He examined me, then nodded curtly. “You may pour the wine, Maestra Barahal.”
Thus was my status restored. They were so enamored of their rank and privilege that they could not imagine I would reject it.
The men settled to places at the table. The mansa’s nephew had to leave because he stank. Rory padded behind a screen and returned all dressed and smiling, to be offered a seat among the younger men, whom he quickly had eating out of his hand.
Lord Marius addressed the table. “Once the three legions out of Rome arrive, our Coalition will be too large a force for the general to defeat, whatever weaponry he carries in his arsenal. However, we suffer from a lack of reconnaissance. In the last months not a single scout has reported in.”