Without looking up from his reading, he spoke in a low voice so as not to disturb Rory. “There is ale and bread on the side table. A basin, if you want to wash.”

I slid off the bed. Rory did not stir, but something in his changed breathing made me think he had woken, as wild animals do at the least movement, but was pretending to be asleep to give us privacy. At the side table I washed my face in the basin, then sat opposite the general.

“Don’t you sleep?” I asked.

“Cursed little. I concentrate best on dispatches at night, when no one disturbs me. A nap or two during the day suffices. How fare you, Cat?”

“Did you expect me to embrace them?”

“I thought it best to get the meeting out of the way. I can’t say I expected your anger. Beatrice did not confide the full particulars to me.”

“So you found a way to discover the full particulars by surprising me with the meeting.”

He looked up with a wry smile. “Is that what you think of me, Cat?”

I could not fathom how I could like him, yet I did. “You want me to kill Drake. But how can I trust you? You betrayed me.”

He glanced toward the door and nudged my foot under the table to signal me that people waited outside. “I did not betray you. You walked into Taino country of your own free will.”

“That you can say that with a straight face and such sincerity is almost admirable! Everything I did was encouraged and machinated by you.”

He smiled. “I’ve got some sack. It’s an Iberian wine from the Sherez region near Gadir.”

I felt the presence of a trap, a danger I wasn’t aware of. Yet with the fall of night my sword had bloomed, even if to his eyes it still looked like a cane. The locket warmed my skin. My parents walked with me, so I nodded.

He fetched a bottle and two glasses. He poured, sipped from the glass as if to mock me for thinking he might mean to poison me, and handed it to me before pouring for himself. I shifted the glass to swirl the wine, then tasted. The liquor had a dark brown color and a strong, sweet taste that I did not like as much as rum’s.

“I wish you hadn’t given my father’s journals to the family. I’ll never get them back now.”

He pushed aside the pile of dispatches. “If you go to Gadir, you can sue in court for rei vindicatio, the right to regain possession of something you already own. If you can stand up in court and swear that Daniel Hassi Barahal sired you and thus you are his next of kin.”

My mouth had gone so dry that my voice emerged hoarse. “Daniel and Tara were married. That makes him my father.”