Cold Fire - Page 74/210

“Unless they’re healed. That’s what you told me.”

He poured more rum. “No. Any person bitten by a salter, whether healed or infested. The law dates from the arrival of people from Europa and Africa. It was part of the original treaty that allowed the Malian fleet to set up the independent territory and city of Expedition on the island of Kiskeya. By ruthlessly enforcing the quarantine, the caciques stopped the disease—and other diseases that came with the fleet—from spreading as much as they would otherwise have done.”

“Are you telling me I can’t ever leave this island?”

“No, I’m telling you I have plans to get you off this island. You must keep your mouth shut about this conversation and especially about my association with Camjiata. Don’t tell anyone. Be patient, like Abby. When I tell you to act, act immediately, no questions. Can you promise me that?”

“What choice do I have? Drake, what day is it?”

“The second of Augustus. As we Celts say, Lughnasad.”

Seven full months had passed while I had floundered in the spirit world. Lughnasad was one of the cross-quarter days. Was that why I’d been drawn back at just this time?

“How did you get here, that you don’t know what day it is?” he asked.

With a racing heart and a stab of fear, I suddenly realized I could not answer the question even had I wanted to. “How do you think people commonly arrive in the Antilles?”

He took a swig from the bottle and offered it to me. When I hesitated, he lifted it to my lips. He had a delicate touch, and the rum did calm me. “Come now, Cat. There can be no reason I could have expected to see you ever again, much less on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean from Adurnam.”

I felt like a cornered rat, but I had to say something. “I was kidnapped. I ended up here.”

“Floating in the sea?” He laughed. “Did you get thrown off the ship or did you jump?”

“Since I can’t swim and I am terrified of water, why would you think I would jump?”

“Since I don’t know, you have to tell me.” He glanced heavenward and then back to me. “That’s why I asked.”

The secret belongs to those who remain silent, as Andevai had once said to me. “It’s too painful. I’m not ready.”

An expression brushed by a glimmer of impatience creased his face and vanished into a gentler smile. “When do you think you might be ready, Cat?”

Sitting in the dark house with him reclining so close beside me made the memory of our sexual congress by the pool very strong. I was adrift and restless, and I just did not want to be alone.

“Did you think it was nice?” I whispered.

For a few anxious, embarrassed breaths, I wasn’t sure he had understood me.

“Ah!” A warmer smile softened his mouth.

He leaned in to kiss my lips, his moist with liquor and mine no different. I needed someone to cling to, and anyway it felt so good, even on a mat on a floor.

16

“I have to go,” he said afterward, rising and pulling on his clothes. “Salters are most active at night.” He lit a glass-shuttered candle set on a shelf fixed to the wall by the door. “There are centipedes and scorpions. You’d best sleep in the hammock.”

Then he was gone. I barred the door as I wondered what a hammock was. The gleam offered enough illumination for me to use basin and pitcher to wash myself with water drawn from the big bronze pot. I pulled on my shift and drawers so as to be decently covered. The air inside the chamber was like hot viscous porridge. How could I possibly sleep?

Fingers scratched at the barred door. Had my heart not been firmly embedded in my chest, it would have slammed back and forth around the room like a rabbit gone wild. After the rabbit calmed down, I picked up my sword and leaned an ear against the door.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Abby.”

As my left hand tightened on the hilt, my right crept to my throat. The only sound I could get out was a soft “Gaaah.”

“I not here to bite yee. Mebbe after we chat.”

Horribly, we both started giggling. I fumbled with the bar, set it aside, and opened the door.

She slipped in. “I don’ have permission to walk out at night. They put we in di pens. Most times dat change come at night.”

“Sit down. Although it’s horribly hot in here.”

She looked surprised. “Think yee so? If yee want, we go up a di roof.”

I laced on my bodice, and she tied the pagne for me. We climbed a rope ladder and settled side by side on a ledge rimmed with a railing. I sat cross-legged with my sword across my thighs. The clouds were breaking up, mottling the sky. Waves soughed on the beach. The sound was restful until you began to wonder if the steady lift and drag of the waves was really the breathing sleep of leviathan.