Lion's Bride - Iris Johansen [49]
Ware was sitting at a table in the Great Hall with a large account book in front of him and a quill in his hand when she went searching for him the next afternoon.
“I’ve come to play chess with you,” Thea announced belligerently.
Ware frowned. “I don’t wish to play chess.”
“Neither do I,” she said crossly. “It seems to me a foolish game with everyone stalking one another. But Kadar said you enjoyed playing, so I must play with you.”
“It’s a very intelligent game.” He paused before adding, “But meant for men of war, not for women. They don’t have the bent of mind for such strategy. Kadar should not have attempted to teach you.”
“Oh, shouldn’t he?” she asked with ominous softness. “Just because I think it a foolish game is no reason to believe I cannot play it.”
“I have no time to find out.” He scowled down at the book. “Leave me. I have figuring to do, and reconciling these numbers makes me extremely bad-tempered.”
“Dundragon has no agent?”
He said with sarcasm, “Most Franks are willing to accept my temporary protection from the Saracens, but not the risk of allying themselves with me against the Templars. Is that not strange?”
“What of a villager?”
“It would take longer to teach one than to do it myself.” He dipped his quill in the inkwell. “And I hate—” He broke off and slowly lifted his head. “Kadar usually did this for me.”
“He did?” she said cautiously.
“But he’s gone now.”
She knew where this was leading. “I also hate numbers.”
“But Kadar said you learned to do them at the House of Nicholas.” He paused. “It doesn’t seem unreasonable for you to assume this duty for him.”
“For him?”
“He was the one who asked service of you.”
“I’ll play chess with you, but I’ll not do these accounts.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Perhaps you think they’ll be too hard for you? It’s true, a woman’s mind isn’t meant for—”
“I’m not a fool and I won’t be played for one. I won’t do your work.”
He sighed. “It was worth a try. Then go away and leave me to them.”
She started to turn away and then stopped. How was she to bear him company if she was not with him? “I will look at them,” she said grudgingly.
He instantly swung the book around to face her.
She looked at one page, then turned to another. “By all the saints, this is a hodgepodge. I cannot even read it.”
“I was just starting to work on it. Kadar has poor penmanship.”
She looked through a few previous entries. “Kadar also cannot add.” She glanced up and said, “And I’d wager his penmanship is remarkably like your own.”
He gazed at her innocently. “But how can you be sure?” He rose to his feet. “Well, I must go see Abdul.”
Like a boy going out to play, he intended to escape and leave her with this numeric nightmare. “I think not.” She went around the table and settled herself in his chair. She pointed at another chair a few yards distant. “Sit there.”
“I have things to do.”
“Yes, you must sit there and explain these hideous blotches that I cannot read. I’ll try to straighten the accounts, but you will bear me company.” She smiled sweetly. “As I promised Kadar.”
He frowned. “I’m to sit here and twiddle my thumbs?”
“Or do the accounts yourself.”
He reluctantly sat down. “I don’t like to be still.”
“One does what one must. Think of something else, as I did when I was a child enduring long hours at my loom.” She opened the book to the first page. This task might well last until Kadar returned, she realized crossly.
“What did you think about?”
She looked up in puzzlement and then remembered her words. “Many things. At times I would imagine the designs I would create someday. When I was very little, I dreamed of going to the bazaar. I’ve never been to one, but my mother told me of a visit there. It sounded a magical place brimming with bright copper plates and fine jewels and strange sweets.”
“And thieves and whores and the smell of fish.”
“I wouldn’t mind.” She picked up the quill. “It would be exciting. I shall go see it for myself someday. Perhaps as soon as I reach Damascus. Though I shall