“When you put it like that,” said Bee, “it is puzzling.”
“Must you agree with him?” I cried, for I am sure I would never have switched sides on her with such alacrity.
“Cat, I do not like him any more than you do, for he did try to kill you, and that I can scarcely be expected to forgive. But when you consider the situation rationally, it is puzzling.”
“Thank you,” he said, looking very irritated and very handsome.
No, of course he did not look handsome. I was merely exhausted from the exigencies of the last few days and made vulnerable to trivial considerations because I was worrying about Rory. One sees strange things in such a state of mind. One might think anything.
“I have been forced to come to the conclusion,” he continued, “that the mansa considers me expendable. In rather the same way, I suppose, that the Hassi Barahal house considered you expendable, Catherine.”
“Is this an effort to make me feel sympathy for your situation by comparing our plights?”
“Yes.” Then he looked startled, as if that was not the word he had meant to say. “I meant, no, not at all.”
I had not realized Bee had so many smirks in her. She looked at me in the most annoying way possible, blinking thrice as though to send me a message, which I ignored with a frown I hoped would blister that knowing smile right off her lovely face.
“Go on, Magister,” she said in a tone that invited confidence. “I, at least, am listening.”
He had a way, I had come to recognize, of drawing himself up with shoulders braced and chin lifted that made him look exceedingly arrogant, but however vain and arrogant he actually was, there was more to that look than met the eye. “You have no need and certainly no desire to feel sympathy for me, Catherine.”
“That’s right, I don’t,” I agreed with a cruel smile. “By any chance is your shoulder paining you?”
“It has healed,” he said curtly. “Catherine, I am just trying to explain why you should consider trusting me.”
“What has become of the innkeepers and their staff?”
“I found the inn locked up and deserted. Leaving you entirely unprotected, I might add, and quite asleep. I expect they went to the council square to swell the ranks of agitators.”
“If the inn was locked up,” said Bee, “how did you get in here?”