Cold Steel

The courtyard thereby provided an ample stage for the entrance of a man.

He wore a striking garment in the local style, quite different from his usual dash jackets. I was stunned by how extremely flattering it looked on what was, after all, an already well-formed figure. The unbuttoned front of the jacket was cut to the length of a waistcoat, displaying light-colored lawn trousers as well as a black waistcoat, while the back of the garment swept in two long tails to his knees. The black brocade of the fabric had a weave so tight that the cloth shone in the sunlight. To this muted ensemble he had added a neckerchief of the most shocking orange-and-gold fabric, simply tied, to give a splash of color.

He looked very very angry as he slapped gloves against a palm and scanned the courtyards. He had not yet seen us at our table in the shadow of the portico.

A curse rose from the kitchens as the stoves went out. Brennan slipped a hand under his coat as for a knife. Rory began to rise.

Chartji said, “Please sit down, Roderic. If fur flies, my brethren may grow heated.”

Bee said, “I shall take care of this.”

When he saw her emerge into the light, he strode to her as an arrow flies to its target.

“Andevai! I am overwhelmed with joy at seeing you safe and well after our long separation!”

“Where is she?” he demanded in a tone so grippingly arrogant that it took my breath away, and not in a pleasant way.

She bestowed an aggressive greeting kiss. “Now you are to say, ‘How lovely to see you, Beatrice, and indeed it relieves my mind to know that you and Roderic survived your adventures unscathed after we were so rudely and violently parted on the river.’ ”

“I must assume you came to Lutetia with Chartji in answer to my letter, and have concocted some scheme to rip Catherine from me.”

“To which I reply, ‘My thanks for your good wishes, Andevai. It was a frightful journey, not an adventurous one at all. I was cold and hungry and damp. After we sold the boat to the most unpleasantly contemptuous man I have ever had the misfortune to meet if I do not include you when you are in this unreasonable mood, we had perforce to walk for twenty days over the muddiest paths and in the worst continual sleet I have ever experienced…’ ”

He was staring at her with such an expression of imperiousness being torn to shreds by her sarcastically cheerful tone that Brennan choked down a laugh, and Kehinde shushed him.

“… and I sickened!” she said, finally releasing his elbows. “I suffered the most grievous fever and cough for a month! ‘Goodness, Beatrice,’ you are to say now. ‘How very glad I am that you survived this dreadful experience and took no lasting harm from these travails!’ ”

“Where is she?” he repeated. “I found the letter from Chartji hidden in the skull.”

I could not bear it any longer. I got up and walked out into the courtyard.

“So,” he said, without the least change of tone. “Gave you a single thought for me and my situation, Catherine? Did it not occur to you that the instant they discovered you gone they would send a messenger after us? Can you imagine how it looked for me in the company of the mansa”—his voice darkened and grew thick—“and his cursed nephew, and our exalted allies to be informed that my wife had absconded like a criminal? I had to turn tail like a dog and come riding back lest I be accused of being a conspirator! With the nephew to supervise my journey, no less! So the damage is done. Are you content now that you have made me look like a fool?”

My cheeks burned with the sting of humiliation.

Bee slapped him.

He took a step back, not in retreat but in surprise. Every troll in the courtyard slewed around to stare. Many shifted their weight forward, ready to lunge. He brushed at the outer corner of his right eye, where perhaps one of her nails had jabbed. A cold eddy of air swirled down over us.

“You will not speak to Cat that way! I don’t care if you are her husband or the emperor of Rome. You will not! If you could think past your monstrous self-regard for one moment, you would pause to ask yourself why a woman who adores you as much as she does—although her devotion to you quite defies explanation—would take flight in such a precipitous way.”

His lips pressed together, his hands clenched, and his chest actually thrust out as he assumed the stance of a belligerent man making ready to respond with every hoarded sharp scrap of anger.

Chartji glided past me and thrust out her taloned hand. “Well met, Andevai,” she said. “I came at your request, as you see.”

In the reflexive manner of a man who has had good manners drilled into him since childhood, he shook hands. Hers tightened over his, holding him so he could not let go. The cold air eased as if cut off.