“Nor will you wait. I am methodical and persistent. You are impulsive and unpredictable. Ouch! Not to mention wild and ungovernable.”

That was true enough, as he soon discovered.

It was a simple plan with room for precipitous change. In such a sprawling compound there were layers of propriety meant to separate the high from the low. The mage House had a lovely breakfast room where a select group of adults broke their fast. There Vai insisted we would go, although the steward asked us four times if we would not prefer a comfortable tray of food in our suite. As we walked through the corridors I could not help but notice they had taken down all the mirrors.

Vai wore the dash jacket of midnight blue with exploding flowers, which he had brought along in the satchel precisely to overawe the House residents. To my surprise it looked splendid, not at all ridiculous. As good as the man looked out of his clothing, he looked particularly fine when he was well dressed and with his beard and hair trimmed the way he liked. He had a way of moving meant to draw the eye. As we entered the dining parlor, shadowed by the steward, everyone looked up. Men and women sat at separate tables, and the women in particular watched as Vai paced the length of the side table with its platters of apple and yam pudding, various porridges of rice, corn, millet, or wheat, warm bread with butter, fried beancake, a haunch of moist beef, and a dozen other mouthwatering trifles. The coffee looked sweet and milky.

“Is this all?” he demanded. “I expected a repast fitting to a House of stature, but…”

I picked up a plate, because the beef was whispering seductively to me.

“Catherine! I cannot allow you to partake of inferior comestibles.” His breathtaking obnoxiousness commanded the entire room. Even I disliked him a little, and that was saying something considering what we had shared in the night. “Is it possible your cook can bestir herself to deliver something edible?”

I hadn’t meant to, but I whispered, “Please, I’m so hungry.”

The next thing I knew a tear was trickling down my cheek. The effect of the tear on the patrician mages was remarkable. They reacted as if a large saber-toothed cat had leaped into their midst: Some froze, while others made ready to flee.

“What is your desire, Magister?” asked the steward in the tone of a man who is never awed by the fits and starts of the powerful, because he is their equal.

“I desire a tour of Noviomagus,” Andevai said not as a request but as a demand. “What sights there are to see, if indeed there are any in such a town, for I recollect my lessons that once this was nothing more than a frontier outpost of the Roman Empire, now sadly fallen. Catherine! Put that down!”