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

by Jacqueline Carey

  “I tried.” Bao stretched out his hands, regarding them. “My mentor Master Lo could have done better, much better. But I did my best.”

  “That is all anyone can do,” Ravindra said with dignity, his small face very serious beneath his purple turban. “I think you did very well indeed.”

  Amrita gave me a sparkling sidelong glance, and I smiled back at her, thinking that these two were truly very good for one another. “Come!” She clapped her hands together. “Let us leave the horses to the stablehands and the treasure to the porters, and get everyone inside. You must all be very tired and hungry after your journey.”

  To be sure, I was.

  It was a relief, a blessed relief, to be back in this place where I had found sanctuary after a long ordeal; and with the shadow of the threat of Kurugiri’s assassins lifted, it truly was a place of sanctuary once more.

  I didn’t know how Amrita went about settling her expanded staff within her expanded household, and I didn’t care. It was enough for now to know that she did. I trusted my golden Rani to keep her word.

  In the chamber I shared with Bao, I removed the pouch containing the necklace with Kamadeva’s diamond from my pocket. It weighed heavy in my hand, singing softly to me. Although I’d thought myself jaded on treasure, this was no mortal gem. I had the urge to open the pouch and look at it once more, to gaze on the dark, shifting embers at the black diamond’s core. In Kurugiri and on the journey, there had been no time to think about it.

  Now I couldn’t help but wonder how it would look around my neck, what I would be like wielding it.

  “Tempted, Moirin?” Bao was watching me.

  “No.” I set the pouch down quickly on a dressing table. “Just… wondering. I can’t help it.”

  He came over to me. “You wonder what you would be like?” I nodded. Bao touched my cheek with his fingertips. “You would be desirable beyond bearing,” he said soberly. “You already incite powerful desire. Were you to don Kamadeva’s diamond, I think no one would be able to resist you, for the diamond would reflect your own considerable passions back at them. Men would walk through fire for the chance to touch your skin—and women, too. Men would gladly fight to the death for your favor without being asked. I daresay you couldn’t stop them from doing it. Is that what you want?”

  “No!” I said. “Of course not.” And it was true, almost entirely true; but there was a tiny piece of me that said otherwise. The vanity and pride that was wounded by the fact that I had wanted Raphael de Mereliot more than he had wanted me; by the fact that I’d failed to seduce Aleksei in Vralia; even the fact that my lady Amrita had only offered herself to me out of compassion.

  But I could envision the Maghuin Dhonn Herself turning away from me in reproach, Her eyes filled with immense sorrow and regret.

  I sighed. “I will ask the Rani for a coffer with a strong lock, and I will put Kamadeva’s diamond in it and throw away the key. Let the priests worry about opening it when it is returned to the temple.”

  Bao smiled. “I think that is wise. Such powerful objects are dangerous to mere mortals, even ones with the blood of the goddess of desire running in their veins.”

  I put my arms around his neck. “Desirable beyond bearing, hmm?”

  He nodded gravely, arms circling my waist. “Oh, yes.”

  I kissed him. “I would like to have a bath, and a very large meal, and then I would like to sleep in a warm bed, possibly for two days straight through. After that, I would very much like to hear more about these strong desires I incite. Does that sound reasonable to you?”

  “Yes, Moirin.” Bao’s dark eyes glinted, and he bent his head to return my kiss. “Very, very reasonable.”

  His diadh-anam flickered against mine, gentle as a caress. Kamadeva’s diamond sang in its pouch, and somewhere the bright lady smiled.

  “Oh, good,” I said with relief.

  SEVENTY-SEVEN

  As it was, it took only a single night’s sleep to restore me to a semblance of normalcy; and we awoke to good news.

  “Hasan Dar’s fever broke in the night,” the Rani Amrita informed us at the breakfast table, her face beaming. “His wound needs to drain yet, but the physician thinks he will recover fully.”

  “That’s wonderful!” I said. “I’m so pleased to hear it, my lady.”

  “Yes.” The light in her face faded a bit. “There have been far too many deaths already, eh?”

  Bao heaped his plate with eggs cooked with vegetables and spices, warm flatbread, and savory fried lentil-cakes filled with pickled achar. “What of the others, highness?”

  It brought back her vibrant smile. “Well, all are healing well!”

  While we ate, Amrita and Ravindra told us what had transpired in our absence. It had caused a great scandal that Pradeep and the guards had transported the bodies of the fallen to the temple of funeral pyres, both their highnesses accompanying them. Although the Rani had not made a formal announcement rescinding the policy of treating no-caste persons as untouchable, the rumor was circulating, and opinion was divided.

  “I have been taking counsel with priests,” she said. “Some of them are quite horrified at the prospect.”

  “But not all of them,” Ravindra added. “My tutor is of the priestly caste, and he and I have been studying the sacred Vedas.” He inclined his head to me. “I think you may be right, Moirin-ji.”

  I bit into a sweet, fried dumpling and swallowed. “How so, highness?” I asked.

  “In the oldest of the Vedas, there is no mention of no-castes,” he said gravely. “Only the four castes. And in some places, one might almost infer that it is possible for someone born to one caste to rise to another through study, and worship, and clean and proper living. I would not dare to make such a claim, but my tutor thinks it is possible. So. That is why I think you may be right, and sometimes men have put words in the mouths of the gods, shaping the world to their liking.”

  “I have been speaking with Laysa, too,” Amrita said, steepling her fingers in a mudra of contemplation. “She tells me that Sakyamuni the Enlightened One rejected the notion of caste when he founded the Path of Dharma.” She smiled in wonderment. “Although she has no formal religious training yet in this lifetime, she has carried great wisdom with her into this incarnation. She tells me she remembers hearing the Enlightened One himself speak about this matter many lifetimes ago.”

  “Would you think to do the same, my lady?” I asked her. “Reject the notion of caste?”

  “No.” The Rani Amrita shook her head, eardrops tinkling softly. “It is the way our world is ordered, dear one, and that is clear in the Vedas. But I am very interested in this notion that caste is not rigid and fixed, that the challenge of one’s kharma is not only to obey and endure one’s fate, but to transcend it. And I am interested in finding ways to help people do so, especially the less fortunate ones.”

  “Start a school,” Bao said around a mouthful of eggs. I raised my brows at him. He swallowed hastily and wiped his mouth. “Forgive me, highness. But if you wish to lift people up, the best way is to teach them. Before I met Master Lo Feng, I knew nothing but an acrobat’s tricks and stick-fighting. He taught me to read and write, mathematics, enough of a physician’s trade to make myself useful. He taught me the path of the Way, taught me to think and reason and meditate, to focus my mind and will. I became a different person because of what Master Lo taught me.”

  “Teach them,” Amrita echoed.

  Bao nodded. “From that one thing, ten thousand things will arise.”

  “I like this notion,” the Rani said decisively, and Ravindra nodded in agreement. “Only… I think I shall wait until Hasan Dar is recovered to announce any sweeping changes, eh? Pradeep is a good man, but not as strong-willed and courageous.”

  “Do you think there will be trouble, my lady?” I asked. “That folk will protest and resist?”

  “Some will,” she said soberly. “It is inevitable. Both priests on high, angry at having their authority und
ermined, and low-caste workers, resentful at having to share their ranking with folk they despise.”

  “But you are minded to do this?” Bao asked softly.

  “Yes.” Amrita’s lovely face was set and grave. “I am. The gods sent three women all bearing the same message to me. First Moirin, then Jagrati, and now the tulku Laysa. I cannot turn a deaf ear to them.” She smiled a little. “Maybe when men fail to heed them, the gods turn at last to women, eh?”

  “It took them long enough,” I observed.

  Amrita shook her head at me in mild reproach. “The time of gods is not like the time of mortals, dear one.”

  “Yes, my lady.” I ate another of the sweet, fried dumplings. “So are Laysa and her daughter staying?”

  “No, no. Only through the winter. When the high passes are clear, I will send them to Rasa with an escort. The others are staying,” she added.

  “Ah.” I smiled. “So you’re keeping the harem.”

  My lady Amrita laughed and flushed the slightest bit, narrowing her lustrous eyes at me. “I am not keeping the harem, Moirin. They could not return home after what they have endured, for their families would reckon them disgraced. I have offered them sanctuary here, and they have accepted it.”

  “Why would Mama-ji keep a harem?” Ravindra asked in bewilderment.

  “Moirin was only teasing,” Bao informed him.

  “Oh.” He continued to look puzzled.

  “It is a grown-up kind of teasing, jewel of my heart,” Amrita said to him. “A very D’Angeline kind of teasing.”

  Ravindra shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Anyway, it is very nice. It’s almost as though we have the big family you always missed, isn’t it, Mama-ji?” he asked. She nodded. “Would you like to come see?” he inquired. “We have opened a whole row of chambers along the lower level of the garden that have been closed for years.”

  “I would like that very much, young highness,” I said.

  After breaking our fast, we strolled in the great central courtyard garden. Although it was warm in the sunlight, there were no flowers blossoming in the winter months, but it was lush and green nonetheless, filled with towering rhododendrons that would be spectacular in bloom, and the immense banyan trees with their gnarled roots. Monkeys leapt and chattered in their branches, and birds with emerald, scarlet, and blue plumage flitted from tree to tree like living jewels.

  And beneath them, children laughed and chased one another, watched by indulgent mothers. Chamber doors that had been sealed for years for lack of inhabitants opened onto patios where the women of the Falconer’s harem sat and sipped tea or the spiced yoghurt drink called lassi, chatting with one another while keeping half an eye on the playing children.

  The women greeted the Rani Amrita with glad smiles and deep bows, palms pressed together.

  The young Prince Ravindra was hailed with bows and happy shouts, especially from the older boys, who quickly swarmed him and Bao, all yelling at once. It was obvious that Bao’s fighting prowess had been the topic of much conversation, but only Ravindra had seen him in action.

  “What’s that?” Bao cupped his ear. “Surely, you don’t think his highness exaggerates!” He scoffed, freeing the bamboo staff lashed across his back with a quick twist. “Stand back and watch.”

  Bao put on a show for them, fighting an imaginary opponent—ten imaginary opponents. He whirled like a dervish, the staff spinning in his hands until it was as blurred as a dragonfly’s wings. He crouched low, his staff sweeping the grass. He leapt high, lashing out with both feet in opposite directions and his staff in a third. He hurled his body in the sideways spinning kick parallel to the ground that seemed to defy the laws of nature. Bao vaulted and somersaulted, turned handsprings and back-springs, sending his staff soaring high into the air and catching it upon landing upright once more.

  The children shrieked with delight, raising a deafening cacophony that made me smile and wince at once.

  The women clapped for him.

  “He’s quite something, your bad boy, isn’t he?” Amrita took my arm, smiling. “Moirin, would you consider staying here, you and Bao? It would please me very much if you made Bhaktipur your home.”

  I hesitated, not wanting to refuse outright, a part of me not wanting to refuse at all.

  “Look.” She squeezed my arm. “Ravindra dotes on him, eh? Your bad boy makes my serious boy smile. And you…” She searched my face, shook her head and laughed her chiming laugh. “You are a little bit of a great many things to me, young goddess, and I do not know how to name the sum of its parts. I only know that I am very, very fond of you, and I would rather not lose you.”

  Since Bao and I had been reunited here, I had not consulted our shared diadh-anam. Now I did. It whispered the same message it had at our first reunion in the Tatar encampment a year ago. And it was not urgent, but it was persistent.

  West, it called to us. Westward.

  Somewhere, oceans beckoned.

  “We can’t, Amrita,” I whispered, tears in my eyes. “I can’t. I wish I could, because whatever home means to me anymore, it is so very far away. If I could call any other place home, it would be this place with you and Bao and Ravindra in it. But I can’t. The gods are not finished with me. And… and I miss my mother, too.” I sniffled. “I hate to think of her never knowing what became of me.”

  “Oh, Moirin!” Amrita fussed over me, wiping my tears away with the draped hem of her sari. “Of course you do. Forgive me, I did not mean to make this harder for you.”

  I smiled at her through my tears. “You didn’t.”

  “I did.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “It was a kindness. And I am always grateful for your kindness.”

  “Ah.” Unexpectedly, Amrita kissed my lips, sweetly and gently. “Yes, I know. I have not forgotten. Your demonstration of gratitude was very memorable. Will your gods let you stay a while, at least? Until spring comes? It will be much easier to travel then. I would be grateful for your aid in changing the world, Moirin. And I have promised to see you and your Bao wed. I would like to see it done when all the flowers are in bloom.”

  My diadh-anam did not speak against it.

  “Yes,” I said gratefully. “We will stay until spring.”

  Bao fetched up alongside us, sweat glistening on his brown skin. “I am too old for such acrobatics,” he announced. “It makes my bones ache. Moirin, why are you crying?”

  “Because we will have to leave this place,” I said.

  He frowned and glanced unerringly toward the west. “Not yet, surely?”

  “No.” I rubbed my face. “But it makes me sad to think on it.”

  “I know.” Bao stroked my back. “We’ll just have to make the most of our time here, all right?”

  I nodded. “That we will.”

  SEVENTY-EIGHT

  Alone in the bedchamber with Bao that night, I found myself feeling suddenly and unwontedly shy for the first time since… ever.

  It had been so long since we’d been intimate, and so much had happened to us both. He had survived Kurugiri and Jagrati’s favoritism. I had been the instrument of Naamah’s blessing, and the near-victim of Kamadeva’s diamond. As much as I wanted this, I didn’t know how to be an ordinary, mortal lover anymore.

  Bao sensed my uncertainty. “Do you want to wait until after we’re wed?” he asked. “I can if you can. I have great strength of will, you know,” he added, making me smile.

  “No.” I took his hand, traced the creases on his callused palm. “No, it’s just…” I shrugged, lacking words. “I feel strange. Unlike myself.”

  “Come here.” Bao tugged me close to him. I slid my arms around his waist, pressing my palms against his back, burying my face against his shoulder. He held me and breathed the Breath of Earth’s Pulse, one hand sliding through my hair, lifting it and letting it fall, a motion rhythmic and soothing, as though he were petting a cat. “Do you know why I was unkind to you when we first met?”

  “Because you hate
d Raphael de Mereliot,” I said in a muffled voice. “And you didn’t think I was deserving of Master Lo’s attention.”

  He laughed deep in his chest. “True. But there was another reason. I did not like D’Angelines very much. They think so highly of themselves, of their beauty.” His fingers slid through my hair, rising and falling. “Maybe it would have been different if I’d let myself get to know some of them. Too proud, I know.”

  “They probably didn’t encourage it,” I murmured.

  “No,” Bao agreed. “But I did not find them all so beautiful, either. To a Ch’in eye, it is a hard, sharp beauty, deadly as a blade. You… you were different. You looked like them and unlike them all at once, a more subtle blade, exotic to them, but a blend of the familiar and the strange to me.” He lifted my face, stroked my cheekbones with his thumbs. “You wanted me to speak of desire, Moirin? You were the most desirable woman I’ve ever seen, and I resented you for it. Foolish, but true.”

  “Oh,” I whispered.

  He kissed me softly, and I felt Naamah’s gift stirring at last. Doves—the wings fluttering in my belly were doves, not ravens. “If I were a poet, I would write poems of praise to your golden skin and ebony hair and green, green eyes,” he said solemnly. “But I am not a poet, Moirin. Only a peasant-boy risen high above his station.”

  My throat tightened. “No, you are a great deal more than that, my magpie.”

  His mouth quirked. “Oh, aye?” he asked, mimicking my inflection. “Am I?”

  “Aye.” I wound my arms around his neck and kissed his lips. The feeling of strangeness had fled. “You are.”

  Bao’s eyes gleamed in the lamplight.

  The bright lady smiled.

  It was slow and gentle and glorious. Cupping my face, Bao kissed me until I was dizzy with pleasure, his tongue delving into my mouth, teasing my own. Our flickering diadh-anams entwined in a private celebration, echoing the dance of our bodies. Liquid heat uncoiled in the pit of my belly, spreading languorously to my limbs. With careful reverence, he unpinned my sari, unwinding its complicated folds, kissing the skin he unveiled. The hollow of my throat, my collarbones.