Cursor's Fury (Codex Alera #3)(73)

But they didn't. Why?

He had just finished rinsing himself of the soap when it hit him, all at once.

Tavi snarled a muted curse, heaved himself out of the tub. He seized a towel, quickly swiped it over his body, and snatched up a plain robe folded on a nearby chair, shoving his still-damp arms into it. He stalked out of the bathing tent into the central yard.

The wine tent was in an uproar of one kind or another, and Tavi emerged in time to see Bors lumber up to its entrance and go inside. He spotted the blind woman beside one of the tents, still playing her reed pipe, and stalked toward her.

"What are you doing?" he hissed at the woman.

The blind woman set her pipe down and her mouth quirked into a smile. "Counting the days until you realized who I was," she replied. "Though I was about to start counting the weeks. "

"Are you insane?" Tavi demanded in a harsh whisper. "If someone realizes that you are Marat-"

"-they will be considerably more observant than you, Aleran." Kitai sniffed.

"You were supposed to be in Ceres at the family reunion."

"As were you," she said.

Tavi grimaced. Now that he knew who "Gerta" truly was, the disguised elements of Kitai's appearance seemed painfully obvious. She had dyed her fine, silvery white hair to crude black and let it grow matted and tangled deliberately. The pockmarks on her face were doubtless some kind of cosmetics, and the blind woman's bandage covered her exotic, canted eyes.

"I can't believe the First Lord just let you ride away."

She smiled, and it showed very white teeth. "No one has ever told me where I may or may not go. Not my father. Not him. Not you."

"All the same. We need to get you out of here."

"No," Kitai said. "You need to learn to whom the Parcian merchant's factor reports his information."

Tavi blinked at her. "How did you..."

"If you recall," she said, smiling, "I have very good ears, Aleran. And as I sit here, I learn much. Few guard their words near a madwoman."

"You've just been sitting here?"

"At night, I can move more freely and learn more."

"Why?" Tavi asked.

She arched her brows. "I do what I have done for years now, Aleran. I Watch you and your kind. I learn of them."

Tavi let out a short, exasperated breath, but touched her shoulder. "It is good to see you."

She reached up and squeezed his hand with hers, her fingers fever-warm, and she made a small, pleased sound. "I did not enjoy your absence, chala"

There was a shriek from the far side of the Pavilion, then a mussed, besotted legionare flew out of the wine tent. Bors came out after him a second later and applied sweeping kicks from his great booted feet to wherever he could reach upon the drunk, until the man had been driven from the Pavilion.

Kitai withdrew her hand from Tavi's, and the spot felt peculiarly cool in the absence of her heated skin. "Now, Scipio Rufus. It will be strange for you to be seen conversing with a simpleton. Go away. You'll scare off the game."

"We must speak again," Tavi said. "Soon."

Kitai's lips curled up into a sensual little smirk. "There are many things we must do, soon, Aleran. Why ruin them with talk?"

Tavi flushed, though the sunset was particularly red tonight, which might have hidden it. Kitai lifted her reed flute to her lips again, hunching down once more into her role. Bors returned from evicting the rowdy drunk and settled down into his spot by the fire. Tavi shook his head and returned to the bath tent to await the return of his laundered clothing.