19. How to Make a Man Less Grumpy #2
Inside, Guin caught the eye of an older white woman sitting at a desk near the front. “Excuse me, Mrs. Potts. Is Ndege here?”
The secretary for the shipping company looked up with a wide grin. “Lady Guin!”
Before she could say more, a Black woman strode out of the back office. Ndege was tall and lithe and had shaved her hair close to her scalp.
“Lady G! We haven’t seen you in months,” Ndege said, her voice lightly accented.
“I’ve been busy.”
“I heard about the fire.” Ndege leaned a hip against the desk and crossed her arms. She wore a gown today, but Guin had seen her dressed like a man, too.
She seemed to wear what pleased her. Right now, her gaze caught on Bran, who stood a step behind Guin as usual.
“But I see not all rumors are to be trusted. I also heard he’d died. ”
“I did,” Bran said.
“Don’t listen to him. We thought he was dead, but we were mistaken. There was a fire, though. The entire shop burnt down.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” And Ndege looked it, too, with lips pursed and eyes troubled. “But I am glad to see you both well. What brings you here today?”
“The usual. Plants. But I was wondering if you have anything new for me.” Ndege had supplied Guin with plants from around the world for years now. “I’m especially looking for those that thrive in places where there is an abundance of sun and heat.”
Ndege nodded toward her office. “Perhaps. Follow me.”
Inside, a Black man sat behind a large mahogany desk, bent over a large, water-warped ledger. He scrawled across its pages, turning dark ink into precise script. His tightly curled hair was parted down the side, and he looked up as they entered.
“Lady Guinevere,” he said. “And Bran. What a miraculous surprise.”
“I’m not dead,” Bran grumbled.
“I see that.” Kikulwe leaned back in his chair and intertwined his hands behind his head as his wife stood next to his chair.
“They need plants from Buganda,” Ndege said. “Or Greece perhaps. Do we have any recent shipments that might prove helpful?” Ndege knew navigation routes, star charts, and trade negotiations; her husband knew numbers. They made an excellent team.
“Hmm.” Kikulwe flipped through the ledger, running a finger quickly down each page. “Nothing she hasn’t used before. Nile tulip?”
“I’ve not had that in some time. I should like some.”
He nodded and continued through the ledger. “Aloe”
“I’ve plenty of that, thank you.” Guin tapped her bottom lip. “Do you think you could keep me in mind as you travel? I need something that thrives particularly in climates with heavy sunlight.”
“Or no sunlight at all,” Bran said.
“Yes, but I thought we might visit Mrs. Boyd after this.”
He grunted, nodding.
Guin turned back to the Kikulwe and Ndege. “I’ll pay well.”
Ndege laughed. “You always do. Would you like to peruse the warehouse. There may be something that catches your eye.”
“Oh yes, please. Webale.”
Ndege made for the door, and Bran caught Guin’s wrist.
“I’ll meet you at the carriage,” he said. “There’s something I want to ask Kikulwe.”
She nodded, pleased. Clearly he felt so secure after a fortnight of no attacks that he was willing to let her go off on her own. As she and Ndege slipped through a back door in the office, she heard the beginnings of a conversation.
“What do you need, friend?”
“Do they have curses in Buganda? Or anywhere you’ve traveled to?”
“Curses?” Ndege asked, one graceful brow arched high.
What was Bran up to? Guin shrugged and followed her friend into the dark warehouse.
Ndege looked around cautiously, then she glamoured a fairy orb to follow them about.
They’d known one another for years before the woman had trusted Guin enough to use her magic, and Guin would rather eat the muck off the London streets than betray her friend and see her hang.
The laws were quite clear, only transcendent men performed magic in England.
And if anyone wished to enter their borders and use magic from a different land, it would be considered a hanging offense.
Having a queen and a talented marchioness had not changed that, unfortunately.
All that barbarity was still used simply to prop up the lie that only titled, British men were capable of magic.
Ndege’s fairy light illuminated a variety of interesting specimens, and Guin picked through them.
“May I ask you a question?” Guin said.
“Yes, please.” Ndege’s face was thoughtful in the orb light.
“In all your travels, have you come across a potion that enhances transcendent power, allows it to be used when there is no light? Like an alchemist’s inner heat?”
“Oh yes, there are those who make and sell such things, but I do not tamper with them. I possess no recipe. But I can look for one, if you’d like, next time we leave these shores.”
“Yes, please.”
A half hour later, Guin met Bran in front of the coach, holding a small wooden box.
“What’s that?” Bran asked, opening the door and helping her up.
She settled on the forward-facing seat, and after giving the driver their next destination, Bran sat next to her and the coach took off.
“What’s in the box?” he asked, his thigh brushing against hers.
She opened it. “Ndege does not trade in ivory, but she—ahem—intercepted a trader who does, commandeered their ship and their wares, and put him out of business. She could not save the elephants who’d already been killed, and she does not want to sell their tusks, but she gave me this.
She thought I might honor the poor dead beasts by doing something useful with their remains. ”
Inside the silk-lined box were two long, curved tusks.
“You’ve never used ivory before,” Bran said.
She closed the box. “No. But what the queen is asking for does not exist, so far as I know. I may need to utilize ingredients I’ve never used before. Though, I hope the ivory proves unsatisfactory. I would hate to give men more reasons to part those poor animals from their lives.”
In Soho, they met with a woman who’d emigrated from Greece to England in her youth.
Mrs. Ariti’s sons owned a butcher shop, and her personal garden was lush and plentiful, even in winter.
She gave Guin trimmings from anything she grew in exchange for potions to help soothe her joints.
Mrs. Ariti was ninety years old, stooped, and wore a long gray braid coiled around her head.
Her eyes were sharp and clear, and she leaned on Bran as she guided them through her garden.
Guin dallied behind them, taking her time to pick what she liked. And listening to the conversation happening on the path in front of her.
“Curses?” Mrs. Ariti said. “No such thing. You know that, dear boy.”
Bran pushed his hood back, and his glamour still hadn’t taken over, even though the sun shone warm and high above them, cutting through the February chill. “I know someone who thinks she’s cursed. I’d never heard of them being real, but there’s more in this world than I know of.”
Mrs. Ariti patted his arm. “That’s a healthy… Why does she think…” She spoke half in English and half in Greek, and Guin couldn’t parse out the Greek bits.
Bran never had any trouble, though. He cut a glance at Guin over his shoulder and replied to Mrs. Ariti fully in Greek.
Fine. She didn’t want to eavesdrop anyway.
By the time they got back into the coach, Guin was curious, though. She set her parcels—a new breed of olive tree and a basket of Cretan rockrose—in the bottom of the coach and said, “What are you doing, Bran?”
He sat next to her, and the coach set off. “What I always do. Following you about.”
“No, I mean the questions about curses.”
“Ah, that. It is clear to me, based on what your parents said, that the curse, if it exists, is a solvable problem. Like my stuck glamour.”
She held entirely still, uncomfortable with how that made her feel—sticky, a bit sour, na?ve.
“It’s understandable if you didn’t see it before. You were raised to believe in it. And you’ve lived your share of tragedies. It’s difficult to see sense through all that grief.”
“I’m not a child scared of monsters beneath the bed.”