In my boots, my feet felt swollen. Abby walked barefoot. An iron-gray lizard with a lacy frill and a pouchy throat sunned itself atop a rock, watching me with the grave disinterest of an elder.
“I’m going to melt,” I informed it as I trudged past. “I have never been so hot in my life. How do you stand it?”
It did not blink. Nor did it answer.
The bell rang as we crested the prow of the headland. I walked in Abby’s wake down into a pretty half-moon bay with a fine curved beach that faced east. A ring of houses set on low stilts formed a circle around a grassy central plaza distinguished by a circular earth platform. North of the plaza lay a long dirt field fenced by straight stone walls on either side. To the west, in the shadow of a forested ridge, sat roofed cages surrounded by an impressively tall iron fence.
Kitchen gardens stretched between the houses; there a few figures toiled, in no hurry. Beyond, the forest ruled except for several clearings marked by mounds planted with dusty green vines and young fruit trees. A stream sparkled down from the ridge to spill into the bay.
My thoughts scattered every which way as I slapped down the steep path into the settlement. What would Bee say when I told her? “Really, Cat, did you fall for that tired excuse? ‘Fornicate with me and you will be healed’? Or was he so irresistible??”
But I smiled anyway. I felt cut loose from my old moorings. I might be frightened, miserable, and overheated, but I was also unbound.
My smile vanished. Never unbound. My sire’s command was the noose around my neck. His magic had thrown me onto a shore where fire mages dwelled. That was surely no coincidence. Was this why he had wanted me to come to the Sea of Antilles where the Taino ruled? How powerful were these fire mages called behiques? Did the sea hide them from him? Or was it possible that on an island in a hot climate there was no ice from which he could launch his spies?
Abby halted at the verge of a garden plot and kneaded her feet in newly-turned earth. She took my hand in a sisterly way. “Yee safe now, Cat’reen. No need for such a frown.”
“Are those the pens?” I asked, indicating the cages. Their thatched roofs and lattice walls made it difficult to see inside. Figures shifted like animals in stalls.
She winced, let go of my hand, and began walking. We skirted the central plaza, kicking up sand. Gracious Melqart, but there was sand everywhere in this place! Its grit rubbed my neck. Grains rubbed between my toes.
Abby led me to one of the round houses. Behind it, tall screens woven of reeds shielded a copper tub, four empty buckets, and soap. We hauled water from the stream to fill the tub, by which time I was sweating so foully I was glad to immerse myself in cold water. I scrubbed my skin, washed my hair, and rinsed myself off with water Abby kept bringing, for she seemed tireless. After I washed my clothes, I hung the clothing over the screens to dry.
“As I thought, you clean up wonderfully.” Drake stepped within the screens, looking me up and down so boldly I was not sure whether to be flattered or shocked. I had never been admired so brazenly before, for men in Adurnam would flirt with women but not maul them with their gaze. Andevai, who had after all claimed to have fallen in love with me at first sight, had certainly stared rudely at me and said things to me in the most arrogant way imaginable, but I could not help but think he would never look me over the way a hungry dog eyes a slab of meat.
“I would think a man would ask permission first before stepping into a woman’s bathing chamber,” I said, lifting my chin. I refused to humiliate myself by trying to cover bits of my body with my hands, especially since he had seen all of me anyway.
“My apologies. You just can’t know how unexpected this all is for me. You here, like this.” A smile played on his lips. “Anyway, out in the Taino kingdom, outside Expedition Territory, young unmarried women commonly go about their daily business wearing little more than you are right now. Here.” He tossed me a rolled-up piece of cloth.
“But I’m naked!” I shook out a piece of bright yellow fabric printed with orange and red shell patterns, and wrapped it around my breasts and hips like a shield of modesty. “What am I to do with this? If you’ve sewing scissors and a needle and thread I can fashion a—”
“That’s your pagne. The women of Expedition wear it as a skirt, with a blouse. You definitely need to cover yourself. You’re darker than I am, but the sun can still burn you.”
“Expedition is a famous trading and technological city in the Sea of Antilles. This village can’t be Expedition.”
“As I told you, this is Salt Island. Where salters are quarantined.”