I knelt under cover of laughter. “One word more, Magister,” I whispered, “and I will tell the tale of what a fool the Phoenician girl made of you, the day you and your soldiers and your highborn magic could not catch me when you found me unarmed on the road. I’m sure every man here wants to hear the part about how I mocked you and then stole your horse.”

Picking up the fallen wineglass, I rose, handed the empty tureen back to the stunned serving man, and to my surprise was greeted by the head wine steward handing me a full carafe.

“Well done, Maestra,” he murmured.

“Do go clean up, Jata,” said the mansa to his fuming nephew, who was picking bay leaves out of his hair. “Now, Andevai, describe in greater detail for our guests why and how you believe General Camjiata is using fire mages to fight his battles. More wine.”

As if more wine were what a pack of half-drunken men needed! But Serena nodded at me, so I poured, one eye always on Vai. He did not drink or eat a single morsel more. He explained crisply and in detail what he had seen and what conclusions he had drawn. Someone who did not know him might have mistaken the edge to his voice as arrogance when by the set of his shoulders and the angle of his chin it was clear he was covering humiliation.

The meal dragged on long past my patience for it, but I smiled and served to the end. The men departed in a mood half martial and half jocular, soaked in wine. Vai was sent out with the visitors to see them safely on their way home.

The mansa remained, lost in thought as the servants cleared the table around him and themselves departed. When only the mansa and Serena and I were left in the room, she poured three glasses of wine. The first she gave to me. She set the other two on the table and seated herself on a cushion next to her husband with an enigmatic smile.

I was so thirsty and angry that I drained the wine in one swallow, a rush like wet earth and giddy flowers. “Why do you let the powerful abuse the powerless? Why would you allow the one who had the least to fear to abuse the one who had no one to help him?”

“The magic should never have bloomed so strongly in a common-born slave like him, a boy whose own mother has not even a village lineage to claim,” said the mansa harshly. “When it did so, he ought to have been grateful we brought him into the House.”

“Where he was mocked and reviled every single day?”