Rory grinned. “The man stinks of love for you, darling.”
“Don’t be crude, Rory,” I snapped.
“Nothing can go on here without his aunt—he calls her ‘Mother’—hearing of it,” she murmured. “She spoke privately to me. It was the kindness that was the worst of it. I was a very fine young woman, she said, but it was certainly impossible that a young man who was on his mother’s side the grandson of a prince and on his father’s side a grandson out of the Valerii—”
“The patrician Valerii?” I cried.
“Not only that, the Valerii Messalans.”
“By the way you are steaming from your ears, I believe this term means something to you that it cannot mean to me,” remarked Roderic languidly.
“Descendants of the Roman consul and commander who obtained the only significant victory Rome ever claimed over Qart Hadast,” I said, pressing my hands to my breast. “They are the worst enemies of the Kena’ani. Also, they never marry outside their patrician clans.”
“It seems they do. Amadou’s mother was born into a princely Fula lineage. His father’s father was also of noble Fula birth. They are bankers, too, hugely wealthy. He is the one who married a Roman woman of the Valerii gens. But I don’t really care about that, Cat. The war with the Romans happened so long ago. His aunt made it very clear, in so very kindly a manner, that we Barahals were beneath them. Any alliance between us could not be contemplated. And then he… he… Later he found me, and he spoke such ardent words to me that I became quite dizzy. He offered me a flower marriage, as if I would entertain for a single moment the idea of sleeping in his bed for one year only afterward to be cast off like a common prostitute, for you know that is what people think of us Phoenician women. I told him just what he could do with his insulting offer. Then he apologized most profusely and spoke most bitterly of how unforgivable his own behavior had been and how he had never meant to offer me an insult but was only overcome by his feelings for me.”
“Oh, Bee,” I whispered.
Roderic whistled softly.
“There. I’ve said it, and I did not die.” She choked on the words, wept gustily, and finally began to laugh in the way crying people do, who cannot help but find their own sobbing ridiculous. “Oh, Cat. Then the worst thing was that the next night, I dreamed about you and Cold Fort. I had informed Legate Amadou Barry that I certainly would never again speak one single word to him beyond what was absolutely necessary to the customary pleasantries of greeting and departing. I had to eat my words and go to him and ask him for such a tremendous favor, to ride off on what he must have imagined was a pointless chase after a cloud-headed girl’s stupid dreams.”
“And he said?”
“How I hate men! He said yes instantly and asked if there was anything else he could do to serve me if only to make up for the insult he had not meant to offer me. But now you are here, and that is all that matters. So, I’m done. Do you have a plan yet? What happened to you?”
I nodded at Roderic. Like a soldier taking an order, he rose and went to lean against the door so no one could barge in to interrupt our cabal.
“The mansa’s troops are after me; it’s true. I think the best thing to do is let the Barry family shelter us until the solstice. Once you gain your majority, Four Moons House has no contractual hold on you.”
“If they want me that badly, they’ll find a way to get me, don’t you think?”
“Yes, and we’ll need a plan for that, too. But maybe after the solstice, the mansa won’t feel obliged to kill me, which prospect I selfishly admit pleases me no end. If the Barry family will shelter Rory and me with you, then we have two days to rest—”
Roderic raised a hand, beckoning silence. His lips curled back and his shoulders tensed, as if he were about to hiss. “Cat, this doesn’t smell good,” he murmured.
I looked at Bee, who was still at the window. Her brows twitched down. I slid over to the door beside Roderic. We had entered the house through the front door onto a long entryway similar to the design of the house in which I had grown up. Indeed, we’d left our coats and cloaks there. I pressed my cheek against the door and heard the front door shut and an exchange of surprised greetings in the entryway.
“I expected you sooner than this, Marius!”
“So I would have come, had my cousin not detained me. I don’t like it, Amadou. My cousin says we are required to give Four Moons House what they want in this matter.”
My blood ran cold in my veins.