Bee laughed with genuine amusement at his jest. “Would you willingly die in my place, to spare me?”

His smile flashed. Its easy charm shocked me. One could never look at the mansa and see him as anything except a man of exceptional status and self-confidence, because he lived at the pinnacle of rank and wealth. I had not known the man had a sense of humor, or was able to laugh at himself. The obvious had blinded me: All along Vai had modeled his arrogant behavior on the mansa’s, because Vai had been trying to be like the man who commanded his life.

“You intend to trade the secret of how you hid from the Wild Hunt in exchange for your freedom,” said the mansa. “How like a Phoenician!”

“I have not relinquished my claim to her!” cried the legate.

The mansa looked Amadou Barry up and down in a way that reminded me of Vai at his most obnoxiously cutting. “Legate, I mean no offense, but to offer to make a woman your mistress is not a claim. I will offer her a legal standing within Four Moons House while you are merely demanding she gratify your sexual desire for her.”

“I will marry her! She belongs to me!”

“I do not belong to you, Amadou!” cried Bee so indignantly that a suspicion flowered that she still retained a partiality toward the man. “Perhaps I do not want to marry any man. Perhaps I no longer see marriage as a contract that can benefit me. Look at my poor dear cousin, chained to a man against her will. Is this all I am to be allowed to hope for? I have decided it is not.”

“Yes, quite magnificent,” Lord Marius said with a shade too much sarcasm for my liking. “You can’t marry her, Amadou. The day after tomorrow you are to marry the prince of Tarrant’s daughter. I shall have to take charge. You are all dazzled by her fabled beauty, as the Hellenes of old squabbled over a woman and all for her cherry lips and fulsome bosom—”

“In fact,” I corrected, “Helen was the heiress to Sparta, a splendidly rich kingdom. They were fighting over her inheritance, not her beauty.”

“—but I am not willing to lose the war we are fated to fight because of a squabble over a woman. If we do not use her gift of dreaming, then General Camjiata will. You all know I have no interest in her comely person, so I will take her into my custody until we have sorted out how to best make use of her dreaming to defeat Camjiata.”