“ ‘Bright Venus’! I thought it very rude to wish a person of Kena’ani heritage luck in breeding under the auspices of a Roman goddess. Didn’t you, Bee?”

She was chewing over more urgent problems. “The mansa knows you’re here, so he’ll secure the house.”

“We have to get the chest!”

“Ba’al forbid that you lose Andevai’s fashionable dash jackets! Some other man might be seen wearing them!”

“If never so well,” I muttered mulishly. I missed Vai. How sweet those weeks seemed now, when I had seen him every day.

“Are you saying I don’t look well in this fine dash jacket?” Rory straightened his shoulders as a group of two men and two women passed who were laughing in the way of folk out about the business of pleasure. His smile made the women loose their holds on the arms of their beaux as they gave him a closer look over. When the men objected, Rory smiled more deeply, with a hint of dusky corners in his gaze, and one man took a startled step back while the other bit his lip.

Bee’s scorching glare drove them off. “Rory! We are skulking and running! We are not lighting a bonfire and ringing bells so people will notice and remember us.”

“Cat said I didn’t look well in my jacket.”

I rapped him on the arm. “It’s not your jacket.”

“Have we survived the mansa’s wrath, the prince’s fury, the general’s devious plotting, and the Wild Hunt only to have you two squabble over clothes? You look perfectly handsome, Rory, and I am sure many a female would love to pet you, and by that look you just got a few males as well, but none of them will get a chance if I murder you first. Are we done?”

“Yes, Bee, my apologies,” he said so contritely I was astonished.

“Cat?” she demanded. “Does Rory look well in that fine dash jacket?”

With a look like that, directed at me, I knew how to answer. “He looks very fine.”

“You’re only saying it because she told you to,” said Rory.

Bee’s hand tightened on his arm. “Rory, dearest, did you know that in anatomy class at the academy we learned how the ancient Turanians used to castrate young men so they could no longer engage in petting? I paid careful attention to that part of class but unfortunately there was never a practicum in which we were given an opportunity to see if we could manage the operation ourselves. But I haven’t given up hope.”

If he could have put his ears down, he would have. Then he laughed, and I did, too.