Kushiel 03 - [Moirin 02] - Naamah's Curse

by Jacqueline Carey

  “Do your best, Master Lo’s magpie,” I murmured. “There are others waiting.”

  “I’ll need your help to sop the blood. And maybe others to hold him still. It’s going to hurt.” A thought came to him. “Sudhakar!”

  “Yes, Bao?”

  “Fetch a pipe and a lamp. And opium, lots of opium.”

  “Yes, Bao!”

  “He’s very obedient,” I observed as he trotted off again.

  “He was trained to be,” Bao said in a flat voice.

  When Sudhakar returned a second time, Bao filled the bowl of the long, slender pipe with sticky brown poppy resin, coaxing Hasan Dar to lean on one elbow and take the mouth-piece of the pipe between his lips. He then held the oil lamp beneath the bowl until a sweet-smelling smoke arose. Hasan Dar sucked gratefully on the pipe, while Bao watched with an expression somewhere between hunger and envy.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I warned him. “I am not nursing you through that twice.”

  “Not even a wife yet, and already you nag,” he retorted, drawing a pained chuckle from Hasan.

  The opium took effect quickly. Seeing the commander’s limbs relax, Bao nodded in satisfaction and beckoned to Sudhakar. “Take the pipe, and see that it’s given to anyone who wants it.”

  “Yes, Bao!”

  The quoit was lodged in Hasan Dar’s ribcage, closer to his back than his front, three or four inches protruding and the rest sunk deep into his flesh. After washing his hands, Bao gave it a cautious tug, wary of the razor-sharp outer edge. Hasan hissed between gritted teeth, but the thing didn’t move.

  “I think it struck bone,” Bao muttered. He glanced around. “Are any of the household servants here?”

  I shook my head. “Pradeep has them busy.” He was in charge of rounding up food and bedding, not to mention a hundred horses left to stray.

  “Sudhakar!” Bao called. “A change of plan. Do you know where his lordship keeps his hunting gear?” The lad came hurrying back, nodding. “Good. Fetch me a falconer’s glove.”

  “Yes, Bao!”

  “The Falconer really was a falconer?” I asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I did not know that,” Amrita remarked. She looked pale and anxious. “Is there anything I can do to help, Bao?”

  “Can you sew?” he asked.

  The Rani turned even paler. “Yes, but…” Her gaze skated over the quoit sticking out of Hasan Dar’s side, and her expression turned determined. “Yes, I can try.”

  “Sorry, my lady,” Bao apologized. “I did not mean for you to sew the commander’s wound.” He nodded at the sewing kit, which contained curved needles and sturdy, waxed thread. “But if you could thread a needle for me, it would be a great help.”

  “Of course.” Kneeling gracefully, Amrita bent to the task, glad to be of use, her hands calm and steady.

  I rubbed Hasan Dar’s back in a circular motion and breathed the Breath of Ocean’s Rolling Waves, the most calming of all the Five Styles. His breathing slowed to match mine, the jutting edge of the quoit rising and falling, glinting in the lamplight.

  Sudhakar returned with a falconer’s glove, a thick padded affair made of tough leather. Bao donned it, flexing his fingers.

  “Ready?” he asked the commander, who gave a dreamy grunt of assent. Bao took hold of the steel quoit and gave it a sharp yank.

  Strong as he was, it still took three yanks to free it; and there was a sharp, cracking sound as the quoit came loose, along with a hoarse cry from Hasan Dar. The wound gaped, a white shard of bone jutting out of it, blood pulsing over the commander’s skin. Bao swore, tossed the quoit aside, and stripped off the glove, plucking out the bone-shard and probing the wound for others, extracting two smaller splinters with his bare hands.

  “It’s clean,” he said breathlessly. “My lady? Moirin?”

  I blotted the wound with clean bandages, while Amrita silently handed Bao the threaded needle.

  Bao sewed.

  I swabbed.

  When it was done, a ragged line of stitches sealed the wound shut, the flesh seeping a little. After uncorking and sniffing different unguents and ointments, Bao chose one to slather on the wound. Together, we worked to bandage it, wrapping clean cloths around Hasan Dar’s torso.

  “So this is what war is like,” our lady Amrita said in a low tone. “It is a very terrible thing!”

  “So it is, my lady.” Bao swiped his forearm over his brow, which was damp with sweat, then settled onto his heels. “All right.” He plunged his hands into the basin of clean water, soaping and washing them as Master Lo had taught him to do. “Sudhakar! Tell me, who is next?”

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  I lost count.

  I do not know how many wounds I helped Bao stitch that night, how many broken bones I helped him set.

  Many.

  At one point, I asked him why there was no physician in the household, when surely there must have been regular injuries.

  “Lord Khaga tended to them himself,” he said, surprising me. “As did his father, and his grandfather before him. He took pride in his skill.” Bao shrugged. “People are complicated, Moirin.”

  “True.”

  There was a rebellion on the part of the Rani’s guards when Bao suggested the uninjured men should transport the bodies of the dead outdoors, where the cold would preserve them from decay.

  “With all due respect, that is a pariah’s work, Bao-ji,” Pradeep said to him, shuddering. “Not a warrior’s.”

  Bao narrowed his eyes at the fellow. “We are speaking of men who fought and died bravely. Those of us who survived owe them a debt of honor. Their bodies should be tended to with dignity.”

  “I will do it, Bao,” young Sudhakar volunteered, even though he was unsteady on his feet and his nose resembled a squashed turnip. “Or at least I will try. I do not mind. I was born a no one, a no-caste.”

  An injured guard smoking opium from a pipe Sudhakar had prepared and handed to him coughed and lowered the pipe.

  The Rani Amrita raised her hand in the mudra of fearlessness, stilling the room. “Bao is correct,” she announced. “A debt of honor is owed to the dead, and we will see that each and every one is transported safely home and given a proper funeral—even our enemies, in the hope that they will find a greater peace in the next life. However…” She gave Bao an apologetic glance. “I fear there are predators in the mountains, are there not? Leopards and such?”

  He nodded. “Yes, highness. I hadn’t thought of it, but yes.”

  “I would not have the bodies of our dead dishonored by animals,” Amrita said firmly. “So. For now, let them abide. Only know, we will be returning them to Bhaktipur; and it will be our honor to do so.”

  She lowered her hand.

  In the silence that followed, the guard with the pipe let out a little sigh, returning the mouth-piece to his lips and beckoning to Sudhakar to hold the lamp for him.

  I smiled at Amrita, who smiled wearily back at me. “I think that is how you change the world, my lady,” I said to her. “One small step at a time.”

  After many long hours, at last there was nothing urgent left to be done. Everywhere, injured and uninjured men slept on the stone floors of Kurugiri, rolled in blankets. Although she could have had her choice of either Jagrati’s or Tarik Khaga’s chambers, the Rani chose instead to sleep in the harem. Lest he need my assistance, I stayed with Bao in the banquet hall where he had tended to the majority of the injured.

  “You were very brave today, Moirin,” Bao mumbled, already half-asleep, his arm around my waist and his hand resting over the hard lump of Kamadeva’s diamond stashed deep within a pocket of my coat. “Facing Jagrati and that cursed thing.”

  “I couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t been there,” I said. “You and Amrita.”

  “I know.” He yawned. “But you did do it.”

  “You were beyond brave, my hero.” I raised his hand to my lips and kissed his battle-scarred knuckles. “And not only for
fighting boldly. You were a healer today, Bao. Many men may owe their lives to you. Master Lo Feng would be so very, very proud of you.”

  A soft snore answered me. Resolving to tell him again in the morning, I fell into an exhausted sleep.

  In the morning, the task before us seemed even more daunting, the scope of it revealed in the harsh light of day. There were over a score of corpses to be transported down the winding mountain path, over a score of women and children in the harem to be escorted to safety, plus dozens more servants. There were over a dozen men too badly injured to be moved yet; and one more had died in the night while we slept. There were farmers and herders in the valley nestled to the northwest of the fortress yet to be consulted. There was the question of what to do with the spoils of war, the gilded trappings and fine tapestries that adorned the fortress, the coffers of jewels found in Jagrati’s chambers.

  There was the question of Kurugiri itself, and who, if anyone, should lay claim to it. By right of inheritance, it should pass to the Falconer’s eldest son—but none of his harem-born offspring wanted it. By right of conquest, it belonged to the Rani.

  “I do not want it!” Amrita said, dismay in her musical voice. “It seems a cruel gift to inflict on anyone.”

  “So let it stand empty and crumble over time back into the mountain,” Bao suggested. “Or give it to the valley-folk if they want it.”

  They didn’t.

  The Rani sent an embassy led by Pradeep to address the farmers and herders in the valley. He returned to report that the folk he had talked to were pleased to know that the Falconer and the Spider Queen were no more, but that Kurugiri had a name as a cursed place, and that they would be well content to let it stand empty and live their lives in peace without being forced to tithe the lion’s share of their crops and herds to the fortress.

  “They are happy to grow barley and poppies and raise yaks, highness,” Pradeep said with a shrug. “I cannot blame them.”

  So it was decided; Kurugiri would be abandoned and left to stand empty, a stark reminder of the cruelty and self-absorption that could be bred in a place that combined deadly power and isolation.

  After conferring with Hasan Dar, mercifully alive and surprisingly lucid, the Rani Amrita concluded that a swift messenger should be sent to Bhaktipur to let Ravindra know we had triumphed, requesting the aid of those guards left to ensure his safety. Meanwhile, the bulk of our guards would follow on a slower mission, escorting the Rani and members of the harem, and transporting the dead back to Bhaktipur.

  Bao and I would remain to tend to the wounded, assisted by members of the household staff. We would also see that a full inventory of Kurugiri’s goods was conducted. Stolen treasures that could be identified, like the fist-sized ruby called the Phoenix Stone that the Tufani trader Dorje had spoken of so long ago, would be returned in time to their rightful owners. The rest would be sold, and the proceeds divided among the victims of Kurugiri.

  “I do not like leaving you in this place, Moirin,” Amrita fretted. “I would prefer to know you were home safely in Bhaktipur!”

  I touched her warm, smooth cheek. “I know. But the danger is over, and I will be safe with Bao, my lady. For whatever reason, the gods have seen fit to join us together. Having spent the last year of my life following him to the far ends of the earth, I’m not leaving him.”

  “I told you a long time ago that you would fall in love with me,” Bao said with obnoxious good cheer, leaning on his staff. “Didn’t I?”

  I glanced sidelong at him. “Yes, O insufferable one.”

  He chuckled.

  My lady Amrita shook her head, her lustrous eyes shining at us. “I will see you wed, the two of you. You most definitely deserve each other, eh?”

  We gathered the dead.

  It was a long, arduous process. Limbs had stiffened in the rigor of death, and it was difficult to wind linen sheets around them. Men swore, wrestling with corpses, repenting of their harsh words only when Amrita reproached them for it.

  No one wanted to touch Jagrati, so Bao and I tended to her.

  Even in death, she had a terrible beauty: gaunt-faced, her sunken cheeks collapsed to the bone. I wiped the dried flecks of froth from her lips, sensing Kamadeva’s diamond in my pocket singing to me. Her dead skin was ashen, but it seemed to me that her spirit lingered. Hungry for vengeance against the world that had harmed her—but somewhere beneath it, I thought Jagrati hungered for acceptance, too. I remembered how she had recoiled from Amrita, and it seemed to me that it was more than the strength of the Rani’s warding mudra at work there. It was due to a lifetime of Jagrati being taught that her touch was unclean and polluting. She’d had no problem taking her vengeance on men, no problem touching me, a foreigner and Kamadeva’s victim.

  It was different with the Rani Amrita. She may have been all that Jagrati had despised, but the habits of a lifetime had overridden her hatred.

  I pitied the Spider Queen, mayhap more than I ought to. When Bao asked quietly if we should remove the rings and bangles that adorned her fingers and wrists, I shook my head. “Let her keep them,” I said. “There’s more stolen treasure than anyone needs within the walls of this bedamned place. Let her take the baubles she died wearing to the afterlife with her. Maybe it will ease her angry spirit.”

  Bao looked relieved. “Good.”

  Together, we wound Jagrati into a shroud; and both of us were relieved to have it done.

  There was a blend of joy and sorrow in the procession that departed from Kurugiri when the work of gathering the dead was finished. Sorrow for the losses incurred, joy at the innocent victims liberated, the women and children of the harem who still looked happy and dazed at their good fortune. Only the tulku Laysa appeared serene and unsurprised, but nonetheless glad and grateful.

  Amrita hugged me close in farewell, tears in her eyes. “Promise me you will be well, Moirin! I do hate leaving you here.”

  I returned her embrace, kissing her cheek. “It’s only for a little while, my lady.”

  “Too long, even so.” She laughed ruefully, wiping her eyes. “We must have known one another in a different life, eh? Or else how could you have become so dear to me so quickly?”

  “Moirin does,” Bao informed her. I gave him a sharp look, and he grinned at me. “What? You do.”

  “You do,” Amrita agreed. “So, my bad boy Bao! You will keep her safe for all of us, eh?”

  He pressed his palms together and bowed to the Rani. “I have determined it is my life’s work, highness.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  Bao snuck a glance at me, still grinning.

  “He only pretends to jest,” Amrita observed, her hands forming a mudra. “But I will hold you to your promise, Bao-ji. And I will remind you that it is Moirin who came here to rescue you.”

  He sobered. “I do not forget it, highness. I will not ever forget it.”

  “That is well, then.” Amrita’s radiant smile returned, her irrepressible laughter chiming like golden bells. “And I shall have great fun planning your wedding!”

  Together, Bao and I watched the Rani Amrita and her procession depart, entering the long, winding labyrinth, men on foot and men on horseback, some riding double with women or children behind them in the saddle, some carrying terrible burdens, escorting the joyful living with care, carrying the lamented dead with dignity and honor—and the unlamented dead, too.

  I sighed.

  Bao kissed me, his lips lingering on mine. “The Rani was right, Moirin. I was not jesting.”

  “I know.” I stroked the nape of his neck, feeling the strong sinew drawn tight beneath his skin. Naamah’s gift stirred in me, and Kamadeva’s diamond sang to it; but it was not right yet. Not here, not now. “Shall we go count some jewels?”

  He nodded. “Let’s.”

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  Taking inventory of Kurugiri’s treasures was a prodigious task. The coffers in Jagrati’s private chambers alone revealed untold wealth.

  “Stone a
nd sea!” I plucked out an impossibly long strand of pearls the size of quail eggs, each one perfectly spherical and uniform in shape, shimmering with an iridescent pinkish hue. “How would someone even wear such a thing?”

  “Looped three times around the neck, Moirin,” Bao said briefly. “Sudhakar, make a note. One strand of pearls, three arm-lengths long.”

  “Yes, Bao!” the young man said eagerly, adding in an apologetic tone, “Only, I cannot write.”

  We found someone who could, since Bao could write only in Ch’in characters, and I could write only in the Western alphabet, neither of which the Bhodistani could read.

  One by one, we catalogued the pieces in Jagrati’s coffers.

  A gold filigree hairpiece set with emeralds, another set with sapphires and seed pearls.

  An ornamental dagger with three large emeralds forming the hilt, sheathed in a golden scabbard encrusted with diamonds.

  Countless gold and silver bangles and anklets.

  A collar wrought of rubies and diamonds crafted in the shape of glittering flowers with blood-red centers.

  Rings set with every manner of gemstone.

  Gaudy and elaborate brooches dripping with jewels.

  On and on it went, an endless and dazzling array. We found the famous Phoenix Stone, the immense ruby for which the Maharaja of Chodur and his bride had been slain, tucked away in the corner of a coffer and forgotten.

  It wasn’t just jewelry, either. There were shelves of jewel-bright miniature paintings on ivory panels depicting warriors riding to battle on the backs of elephants, hunters on horseback cornering a tiger, opulent scenes of court life. There were the gilded lamps and braziers, many of the former encrusted with gems. There were decorative vessels carved from ivory and carnelian. We found an entire trunk of gilded bronze votive figures depicting the Bhodistani pantheon in intricate detail.

  “Why would Jagrati want these stolen for her?” I asked in bewilderment, holding a many-armed statue of the goddess Durga. “She claimed to hate the gods.”