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

by Jacqueline Carey

  But we were among loved ones; and it was enough.

  “Now you shall exchange vows of devotion,” the priest declared. “Moirin, it falls to you to speak first.”

  There were traditional words for this, too, but not vows that would make sense for such an unlikely couple as us.

  I took a deep breath, gazing at Bao. “So much of what happened to thrust us together, neither of us chose. You wanted to find a way to be sure of me, my magpie? Well, today is it. We did not have to do this, you and I. You did not have to ask me to wed you, and I did not have to accept your offer.” I swallowed hard, my eyes stinging. “I am here beneath this canopy, saying these words because I love you and I choose to be with you for the rest of my life. Today, I am choosing this and giving my heart to you.”

  Bao’s dark eyes were bright with tears, and one spilled onto his cheek. I tried to remember if I’d ever seen him cry before.

  I didn’t think so.

  The priest gestured at him. “Now you.”

  Bao laughed self-consciously. “Moirin.” His hands clenched in his lap. “I am not good at this. Only know…” His fisted hands unknitted, lying upward and folded, and his eyes were bright, so bright, looking earnestly at me. “You have a very, very large heart. And I will do my best to take good care of it.”

  Shouts of laughter and approval surrounded us.

  “Wait, wait!” The priest raised his hands in a good-humored protest. “We are not finished here, eh?”

  So we finished.

  First I cupped my hands in Bao’s and the priest poured rice into our joined hands. Together we poured it into the sacred fire, a rich toasty smell arising.

  Then the priest tied our wrists together with a long cord and bade us circle the brazier seven times. This we did, while he intoned a seven-fold blessing upon us, begging the gods to bless us with happiness, prosperity, and children, and a good many other things.

  And then it was done.

  Bao glanced sidelong at the priest. “May I kiss her now?”

  The priest nodded.

  Bao kissed me, smelling of sandalwood and incense, of unfamiliar oils. But beneath it, he smelled of himself, the hot-forge scent that made me feel safe and loved and protected, and I twined my arms around his neck, returning his kiss, glad he did not share the Ch’in reluctance to show affection in public.

  It felt good.

  It felt so very good, and right.

  Our shared diadh-anam sang between us, and I leaned my brow against his. “Do you love me?” I asked.

  He laughed. “You have to ask? Today of all days? Yes, occasionally stupid girl. I love you very much.”

  “Good.” I smiled at him, hoping he would remember it later. “I am glad.”

  There was a feast that went on for many hours, servants carrying dozens of laden trays filled with spicy and savory dishes into the garden, where long tables had been erected and draped in more bright fabric. There was music and dancing, and there were games I didn’t fully understand, including one in which Bao and I were made to sit back to back and answer a series of questions about each other; and yet another in which the cord that had tied us together was knotted around our wrists in a complex pattern which we had to unravel one-handed.

  We did well at those.

  We knew each other very well, my magpie and I. We worked well together, even at a simple task such as untying knots.

  And it didn’t matter that we didn’t really grasp the details of the traditions, that the traditions didn’t really apply to us. It didn’t matter that neither of us were familiar with Bhodistani dances, gladly making fools of ourselves in the effort.

  All that mattered was that we were together, and surrounded by love. Celebrating beneath the open sky, garlanded with flowers, reveling in all the joy and abundance the world had to offer.

  I waited until the sun was sinking low, casting long shadows over the garden, to tell Bao about my dream—or at least the important part of it. As much as I hated to do it, I couldn’t go to our bedchamber with it unspoken between us.

  He listened without comment.

  “Do you think it is real?” he asked gravely when I finished. “Or is it only your fear speaking to you?”

  I swallowed. “I think it’s real, Bao. It felt very real.”

  “Oh?” Bao raised his brows at me. “How real, Moirin?”

  I flushed; I couldn’t help it. I felt the warm blood climb into my throat and scald my cheeks, revealing my guilty secret. It wasn’t always to my advantage that he knew me so well, and at such a time, Naamah’s gifts felt like a curse in truth. “I’m sorry! But it was Jehanne,” I said as though that excused me for betraying him in a dream, knowing it didn’t, knowing I would do it again anyway if she came to me. “And she was lonely, so very lonely. It broke my heart! I couldn’t help it. It would have broken yours, too.”

  He looked away from me.

  I clutched his arm. “Bao? I am sorry. I didn’t mean to do it, only…”

  His shoulders shook, and I realized belatedly that he was trying not to laugh. “So!” He turned his gaze on me, his dark eyes now bright with tears of barely suppressed laughter. “Within hours of our wedding, Moirin, you are telling me that it appears I am sharing you with the ghost of the White Queen; and that together somehow you must face that idiot demon-summoning Lord Lion Mane Raphael both of you loved for no good reason. Is that right?”

  I nodded, chagrined. “Aye, more or less.”

  Bao exhaled. “I knew I should have thumped that Raphael over the head,” he remarked. “Next time, I won’t hesitate.”

  “Have I ruined our wedding?” I asked in a miserable tone.

  “No.” Bao cupped my face in his hands “No,” he said a second time, his breath warm on my skin. “I told you before. I love you as you are, Moirin. I would not change anything about you, even the fact that you have the will and morals of an alley-cat, because that is as your gods made you, and it is part of the reason for your very large heart.” He smiled wryly. “Although I might have wished for a few days of wedded bliss before life with you got stranger.”

  I laughed, relieved and glad once more.

  Bao kissed me—once gently, a second time with the rising heat of desire. I felt our diadh-anam blaze brighter than ever with the approval of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself; and then a second burst of brightness, warm and golden, a soft thunderclap all around us like a thousand doves taking flight at once, turning the blood molten in our veins and filling our mouths with a sweetness like honey.

  Naamah’s blessing settled over us, over the entire charmed garden and everyone in it, driving away now and forever any doubt that her gifts carried any taint of a curse. I heard soft cries of wonder as folk turned to one another and embraced spontaneously.

  My magpie prince lifted his head, eyes wide with awe. “That was…”

  He had removed his turban hours ago, and now I ran one hand through his thick, unruly hair, tugging his head down to kiss me again. “That,” I whispered against his lips, “was Naamah’s blessing. And I do believe she approves of this marriage.”

  Bao smiled and pulled me closer to him, one strong, lean arm snaking around my waist. “I do believe I’m ready for this party to end, Moirin.”

  I nodded, the golden warmth of Naamah’s blessing still coursing through my veins, fanning the flames of desire. “Oh, yes!”

  And so we said our thanks to our guests and our evergracious hostess Amrita, who regarded us with laughter in her eyes; and I couldn’t help but smile fondly at her, still a little in love with her, in love with the whole world tonight. And with the heady mantle of Naamah’s grace hovering over us all, it felt as though the whole love-struck, desire-smitten, intoxicated world returned the favor.

  “Go, go!” Amrita said in her musical voice, making a shooing gesture at us, a rare gleam of devilry in her lustrous gaze. “I know your impatience very well, dear one.”

  Bao stifled a cough.

  “What do you mean, Mama-ji?”
Ravindra inquired in a puzzled tone.

  “It is more grown-up teasing, young highness,” Bao informed him. “Trust me when I tell you that you would rather not understand the jest.”

  “Oh.” Ravindra gave him a dubious look. “All right.”

  Laughing, we took our leave of the party.

  Our bedchamber had been filled with flowers and candles, and Bao and I made love for long hours that night, surrounded by fragrance and flickering candlelight, and it was by turns tender and sweet, and fierce and urgent, and all of it was good, so good, sanctified by Naamah’s lingering blessing.

  Somewhere in the small hours of the night, Bao surrendered to sleep as we lay together in a quiet moment.

  I lay propped on one elbow and watched him sleep, his face as serene in repose as it never was when he was awake, as calm and beautiful as an effigy of the Enlightened One, a Dharma saint with a warrior’s body.

  And I thought how his journey to this moment was as long and strange as mine: a Ch’in peasant-boy sold into slavery, stubborn enough to take his destiny into his own hands no matter what the cost. A stick-fighting prince of thugs who had walked away from the entire life he’d built to become Master Lo’s magpie. A leader of men, a rescuer of princesses and dragons. One called twice-born, one who had died and been restored to life.

  A Tatar prince, struggling against an unwanted destiny.

  Jagrati’s favorite.

  My husband.

  Even in my thoughts, the word sounded strange to me; strange, but right. Like as not, I would be a dreadful wife. But Bao knew it and was not afraid.

  For the first time in longer than I could recall, I felt the tug of destiny on my diadh-anam, our diadh-anam, grow a little more urgent, a little more insistent. Bao made a faint noise in his sleep. I glanced westward, wondering what awaited us.

  Oceans; further oceans.

  I wondered how many.

  There was Jehanne’s motherless daughter, whom I had promised to tell about her mother’s courage of heart and the love and kindness and generosity she had shown to me. One day, I would tell her about the genuine fears that underlay Jehanne’s foibles, and the steadily increasing joy and excitement with which she had welcomed her daughter’s birth.

  And there was ambitious and charismatic Raphael de Mereliot, not content with the gift of a physician’s healing hands; Raphael, who had nearly been taken over entirely by the last demon he summoned.

  We had saved him, Bao and I and Master Lo. We had driven away the demon Focalor, a Grand Duke of the Fallen. But I had always wondered about something I saw that day, after the demon had been forced to relinquish Raphael, after I had thrust him through the doorway and closed it. After it was all over, I thought I’d seen the briefest glimpse of Focalor’s lightning flicker in Raphael’s storm-grey eyes, and wondered if a trace of the demon’s essence lingered in him.

  If the divine spark of my diadh-anam could be divided, mayhap a demon’s spirit could be, too.

  That same feather of foreboding brushed along my spine, making me shiver.

  “Moirin,” Bao mumbled sleepily, half-awakened by my shudder. “Stop thinking and go to sleep. And no dreams tonight, huh?”

  “It’s just—”

  “Sleep,” he said a bit more firmly.

  So I settled alongside him, my head on his shoulder, and Bao held me in his Kurugiri-marked arms, his entire body making a strong, safe haven for me, a pledge of enduring love. His breathing softened into sleep once more, a soothing and calming rhythm. Although I did not think I could sleep yet, my breathing slowed to match his as it had so many times before, and I thought that there was nowhere else I would rather be, and no one else with whom I’d rather face my everlasting destiny. Traces of Naamah’s blessing lingered over us both like a promise that one day, every day would be as joyous as this one.

  Somewhere, the bright lady smiled in gentle approval.

  Somewhere on the far side of the stone doorway, the Maghuin Dhonn Herself paced in majesty, lifted Her mighty head, and gazed at the errant child She had loosed on the world with love and pride in Her deep, deep eyes.

  A word surfaced in my thoughts. Home—the gods were calling me home, and I was ready to go.

  Whatever came next, Bao and I would face it together.

  As candles guttered low and sank into pools of wax all across the bedchamber, and I drifted down toward darkness, a sigh of happiness escaped me.

  I slept, and did not dream.

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  NAAMAH’S BLESSING

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  THIRTY-NINE

  I did not expect kindness.

  In that, I was mistaken. The Emperor Achcuatli gazed at me long and hard when I was escorted once more into his presence, and there was desire in his gaze, but there was also a gentleness he hadn’t shown before. At length, he smiled. “It is pleasing to see you dressed in my gifts.”

  I bowed. “They are very beautiful, my lord.”

  He gestured to a chair across the table from him. “Come, sit. We will take chocolatl.” At that, I must have brightened, for he laughed. “You know it?”

  I sat opposite him. “Yes, my lord.”

  While attendants prepared the frothy concoction, sweetening, spicing and whisking it, Achcuatli studied me. “You are not scared or—” The second word was unfamiliar. Naamah may have graced my tongue, but not my vocabulary; at least not in a permanent manner.

  “No, my lord. I am not scared,” I said. “I do not know the other word.”

  Achcuatli pressed a fist to his belly. “To feel sick inside at an unclean thing.”

  The image of the skulls flashed before my eyes again, and once again, I pushed it away. “There are things about the Nahuatl I find… hard to understand,” I said slowly, chosing my words with care. “Desire is not one of them. It is a sacred thing to my father’s people.”

  His obsidian eyes were intent. “Is that why it is so strong in me for you?”

  Attendants set golden goblets of foamy chocolatl before us. I waited for the Emperor to drink before taking a sip, reveling in the wondrous mixture of bitterness and sweetness, the rich taste of it. “Yes.”

  “A sacred thing,” he mused.

  I took another sip. “I am a child of the goddess Naamah, to whom all desire is sacred.”

  Achcuatli’s mouth twisted. “The men of Aragonia would have had us believe they were gods, too.”

  I shook my head. “I do not say that. Only that Naamah is—” I didn’t know the word for ancestor. “My father’s hundred-times-ago mother.”

  His face cleared. “I see. Yes, such things are known.”

  “Did you think it was true?” I asked. “About the Aragonians?”

  “No.” The Nahuatl Emperor was silent a moment. “I knew they were men. They fight and bleed and die like men. But I thought their gods had favored them, giving them knowledge to build great ships that cross the sea, giving them armor against which our macahuitls shattered and broke, and great beasts to master and ride. And so I let them stay. I was young, and knew no better.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask why he did not send them away now, but not wanting to provoke a diplomatic incident, I did not voice it.

  Achcuatli guessed anyway, giving me a shrewd look. “Now it is too late. There are too many to defeat with ease, and they have made bargains with other people, tribes we have conquered, who would be pleased to see this empire fall. Foolish people, who think the men of Aragonia would keep their bargains.”

  Once again, I held my tongue, grateful that I’d learned a measure of discretion.

  And once again, he knew. “You do not wish to speak against them,” he observed. “That may be wise. But I know what they wish. If they could defeat us and rule over this empire, they would.” He shrugged. “I know what they say. They think their Nah
uatl servants are too stupid to learn their tongue, and we have let them think it. They speak freely before their servants. They think we are little better than animals.”

  “I do not think that,” I said.

  “No.” Achcuatli considered me. “You are different. And yet, Cuixtli tells me the sight of the tzompantli sickened you.”

  “Yes.” I didn’t need to know the word to guess it referred to the rack of skulls. And while I didn’t want to give offense, I thought it best not to lie when doing Naamah’s business. “It did.”

  The Emperor drained his goblet. “Come,” he said. “I wish to show you something.”

  Obediently, I rose to accompany him. Attendants hastened to brush the ground before our path. Achcuatli dismissed them from the task with mild irritation. I noted that he’d exchanged his gold-soled sandals for more practical plain ones, and thought that the Nahuatl Emperor also knew a good deal about the value of appearances.

  Followed by a discreet throng of attendants and guards, we exited the palace into an extensive pleasure garden, one so vast and ornate it made me catch my breath. There were oak trees, cypresses and palms, and others I could not identify with thick barrels and wide, spreading leaves. There were countless flowers in a riot of color. All of them were healthy and vibrant, reaching exuberantly toward the sun. I breathed the Breath of Trees Growing, drinking in the green scent of the place.

  Achcuatli led me toward a large structure. At a distance, I thought it a gazebo of sorts, but as we drew nearer, I saw that it was an aviary built of wood and wicker, filled with growing trees. There must have been a hundred birds inside it. I hadn’t seen such brilliant plumage since leaving Bhodistan.

  “See there?” He pointed to a bird with emerald-green feathers and a ruby breast. It perched on a branch, regarding us with big, round eyes. Splendid green plumes as long as my forearm trailed from its tail. “That is the quetzal. It is a sacred bird.”

  I glanced at Achcuatli’s headdress, recognizing the plumes, and lifted one hand involuntarily to touch the feathers on my own.

  “Yes,” he said as though in answer to an unasked question. “It is an honor to wear them.”