Days passed. We slept in the hospital tent, in servants’ quarters, in stables, always under guard. Of Vai I saw no sign, but the locket’s warmth told me he lived. With what tendrils of thought still remained to me, I imagined we were returning to Four Moons House. Instead we came to rest at last in a locked room with a hypocaust floor. Wood-barred windows overlooked a walled courtyard past which I heard the sounds of city life. The room had four rope beds and a table and bench. Wasa set the cacica’s skull on the table, as she had started doing at every stop on the way, careful to ornament her with a flower or bit of greenery.

Once the incessant jostling had ceased, I slowly recovered. A dignified older woman in a head wrap and burgundy boubou applied poultices to my shoulder and prescribed a diet of broth, beets, and barley. After some days I was strong enough to ask where we were.

“In the city of Lutetia.”

“Lutetia!” Twenty years ago, in this very city, General Camjiata had overseen a committee of legal scholars and bureaucrats who had written up his famous law code. My father had written extensively on the meetings in his journal. “Why are we here?”

“No more can I say, Maestra, except that you bide in Two Gourds House by the courtesy of the mansa of Four Moons House.” The healer spoke slowly so we could understand her. “The woman’s lungs are stubbornly inflamed. The syrup of poppy has weakened her badly. The girls tell me she has taken it for four years. No person ought to drink the syrup for so long. I am surprised she has survived this long. As the gods will, so will it be.”

I did not like to hear talk of dying. “Might we wean her off the syrup?”

“It would be difficult with her so weak.”

“But we can try!” The cacica would not give up so easily! With her training as a healer, she might know how to help. “Might we get a mirror so we can tidy our faces?”

“I have been told I may never bring a mirror into the room.”

I refused to give up. Obviously Vai’s mother needed a degree of nursing the mage House had never been willing to provide and that her daughters were too young and inexperienced to manage. First I begged for richer food and more of it. I asked for pen and paper so I could record dosages of the syrup. I held a pot of water steeped with the needles of Scots pine so she could inhale its steam. We rubbed oil of mint into her chest. Day by day, one drop at a time, I cut down on the amount of syrup she ingested.