Cold Steel

Page 122

Vai rose from a chair. “Catherine! You look… confounded. Was there trouble? Beatrice! Is all well with you? Have you peace and good health?”
Bee kissed him on either cheek in the effusive Kena’ani manner. “Andevai! Here you are! What a startling color that dash jacket is! Please allow me to tell you how very glad I am that you are back with us.”
“My thanks, Beatrice,” he said stiffly, taken aback by her enthusiastic welcome and perhaps wondering if she disliked his new garment. The distinctively rich orange-red damask did look well on him. Because the sleeve length was just right, I wondered if the tailor had shortened the sleeves on the green jacket on purpose so he wouldn’t wear it. “Catherine has been worrying about you.”
“Of course she has! I’m sorry to say we had trouble today. A violent altercation broke out between the ghana’s troops and some loitering trolls.”
Rory whistled under his breath. “Glad I missed that.”
“I am sadly sure the town is in for a very bad night. Can you and Cat be ready to depart within the hour, Andevai?”
He took my hand and looked me up and down to make sure I was all right before releasing me. Footsteps in the hall brought me around with my sword half drawn.
Brennan entered the room. “Magister, next time we’ll bring you in through the stables so you don’t put out all the fires. Can you be ready to leave within the hour?”
“No. Nor do I see the need to do so.”
I cringed at Vai’s brusque tone. Rory smirked, as if he found the situation amusing. Brennan sighed wearily, and Bee opened her mouth to make a scalding retort.
Vai sailed right over her. “However the ghana reacts to this disturbance, I will have no trouble leaving Sala. I see no need to go sneaking off and freezing and besides that leaving disgruntled innkeepers at every stop because I kill their fires. Nor will I agree to camping out in the woods in this damp and cold. Not when I can have every expectation of peace traveling as a magister in a coach generously provided by White Bow House. No prince or ghana or lord—or radical—will prevent me from making sure my wife travels in comfort to Noviomagus.”
“Goodness, Cat!” said Bee. “He still talks in exactly that same pompous way.”
His gaze flicked to her. “If you are trying to irritate me, it won’t work.”
“How could it, when you are already so very irritating?” she muttered.
“Because as I was just about to say and now will say, there is no reason the three of you cannot travel with us. We told our hosts we were separated from our servants, so you will pose as our retinue. All of us can leave Sala in a way uncomplicated by searches, seizures, and concerns about where we will sleep every night.”
“Pleasant to have all such mundane details settled,” said Brennan with a wry grin.
“How do I get to serve?” Rory fluttered his eyelashes in a way that made Brennan chuckle as at an old joke that hasn’t lost its charm. “By the way, Cat, you were so very wrong when you told me that first day in Lemanis that I can’t wear women’s clothing. I have made several friends in the last months who enjoy it when I dress in women’s drawers and other garments.”
“Rory!” Bee cried in a long-suffering tone redolent of many shared experiences I would likely never know anything about. “You need not say just whatever comes into your mind, as I have had reason to tell you before.”
“I just wanted Cat to know! I don’t mind being scolded for something I did wrong, but I don’t think it fair to be scolded when I did nothing wrong!” Oblivious to the stupidity of poking an already annoyed wasp, he addressed Vai. “Do you wear women’s drawers?”
I braced myself. Bee pressed fingers to her forehead, wincing. Brennan rocked forward on his toes, clearly expecting the same outcome I was.
Vai smiled indulgently at Rory, as if they were the best of joking friends. “No, I do not. But I can’t see why you shouldn’t wear them if you wish to. It’s just that they’re cut for a different shape.”
I exchanged startled glances with Bee at this unexpected display of relaxed camaraderie, for if there was one word I would not have used to describe Vai, it was relaxed. Footsteps scraped down the hall. Rory stood, the blanket sliding off to reveal him wearing the green floral dash jacket. Blessed Tanit! Had I gotten hit on the head and was I now dreaming that Vai had given one of his precious jackets to someone else?
“Chartji and Caith cannot believably pose as your servants, Magister,” Brennan went on as the door opened to admit the lawyer Chartji and her clutch-nephew, the young troll Caith.