What had the Hassi Barahals owed to Four Moons House that Aunt and Uncle must pay in the coin of my flesh?
My husband had not come in after me.
Despite the cold outside, the chamber breathed warmth, but of course I saw no hearth, no fire, no coal-burning stove.
“You will want to change for supper,” said the woman.
“I will?”
Her smooth countenance slipped, and she looked at me as if I had turned into a toad. Then she smiled without a sliver of sincerity and, with the same frigid courtesy, indicated the sleeping chamber. I rose, trembling, and followed her past the bed and into a closet almost the size of the bedroom I shared with Bee. There lay my trunk. An unknown hand had opened the lid to reveal the hastily packed garments within. Two dinner dresses lay draped over the back of a dressing chair.
She considered my perfectly respectable clothing as she might a serpent. “You will have to use one of these garments. And no time to iron out the wrinkles. Still, with such a costume, wrinkles are the least of the offense. I will send a girl to help you dress.”
She left before I could punch her with the strong left hook noble young Maester Lewis of the red-gold hair had taught to Bee and me. Tears pricked and burned, so I thought of ice and did not cry. Waiting, I tugged off my boots to stand barefooted on the plank floor, expecting its cold pinch to shock away the last of the tears. But the floor oozed heat. Ah! It was glorious.
The door clicked open, and I turned with a start.
The girl had strawberry hair and blue eyes, a blandly pretty face as uninteresting as the blandly tasteful décor, and most importantly she had deft hands with buttons and laces. I tried to draw her into conversation, since she looked about my age, but she might as well have been mute. Or she might actually have been mute. Given what Bee and I heard about the cruelties and whims of the Houses, it would not have surprised me if they had cut out her tongue. I chose the celadon crepe, my best dinner gown. It was not perhaps at the height of fashion, but it had good line, as Aunt would say.
Aunt, who had handed me over without blinking.
The woman entered and shooed the girl away. She eyed me critically. “I suppose that is the best you have. I can see why the mansa did not wish to saddle his nephew with you.”
Better not to reply. I stared at her, hoping she thought I was stupid.
“We will take supper now,” she added.
I kept silent as I walked behind her through the sleeping chamber and the parlor, into the hall, and across it to a finely appointed room whose windows looked out onto the lit courtyard. She sent me in ahead of her, alone.
A table set for four with china, silver, and glass graced the center of the room. Two bowls hanging from brass tripods poured cold light on the scene, and two pairs of candlesticks bled threads of cold light from their placement on each sideboard. A small side table placed beside the window held a platter on which rested an unusual, large-veined stone and a glazed earthen vessel scored with a geometric pattern in whose belly rested a spray of white flowers.
I turned as my husband walked in. He now wore a long dinner coat tailored from stunningly expensive “king’s cloth,” the color so rich a gold that the eye melted in ecstasy just to look upon it. According to my father’s journals, a mystic symbology was woven into the very pattern of the cloth, but because the Houses guarded their secrets with firmly closed mouths, no outsider knew what these signified. He sported also a knotted kerchief at his neck in the style known as “the diaspora,” so complicated in its magnificent folds and falls that I blinked in admiration.
His dark eyes narrowed. “I thought you brought appropriate clothing.”
“I did!”
“Why are you wearing this, then? To appear so, when they already think me—”
He broke off before I could further lose my resolve not to speak, for the two proud attendants—I knew no one’s name here except my own—entered the supper room, looking, like him, as pleased as if they had been asked to drink salt water. He walked to the sideboard, where we all washed our hands in a bronze basin. He poured from an open bottle into five cups, then took the offering cup to the window, poured a few drops onto the stone, and set the cup on the table beside the vessel. Returning to the sideboard, he handed out the other cups, first to me and then to the others.
We drank. The mead was honeyed and rich, burning down my throat to my empty belly.
“Not promising. I expected better.” He set down his cup and, before I realized what he meant to do, plucked the cup out of my hand. “You won’t want that, Catherine.”
My mouth opened, and then I remembered Aunt’s words and closed it. Our companions pointedly said nothing, but neither did they drink more.