“Is this what you taught Raphael?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No.”
“Why?”
“It is not what he wished to learn,” he said patiently. “Nor where his gifts lay. Lady Moirin, I ask again: Is it your will to continue?”
I took a deep, experimental breath. My body reverberated with the memory of the Maghuin Dhonn’s heavy tread shaking the earth, and the earth’s answering pulse. My diadh-anam sang inside me. “It is.”
He bowed. “Come tomorrow.”
I thought Raphael might laugh when I told him that night at dinner that Master Lo Feng was teaching me to breathe, but he didn’t.
“Odd as it sounds, there may be merit in it,” he said. “I’ve found it to be true in other matters. As I said before, the Ch’in believe energy flows through the body in specific patterns, concentrating in various points. Under his tutelage, I’ve learned to sense and manipulate it.” He smiled at me. “Greatly more so with your aid. I’m eager to see if that holds true in other endeavors.”
“Your secret project?” I guessed.
Raphael nodded. “Make no mistake, Moirin,” he said in a somber tone. “This is a private matter and you’re not to discuss it outside the Circle.”
“The Circle?”
“A handful of scholars dedicated to pursuing knowledge. We call ourselves the Circle of Shalomon.” He hesitated. “It’s naught that’s illegal or treasonous, I promise, and we will follow every safeguard and take every precaution. But there are those in the realm who would question the wisdom of our pursuit. Once we’ve succeeded, it will be different.”
I frowned, sopping up meat juices with a piece of bread. “May I ask exactly what it is that you’re attempting to do?”
Raphael glanced at the chef standing beside the tray with the roast, the manservant hovering beside him. “You may ask, but I’ve said as much as discretion permits. I’ll divulge no details here. Tomorrow. All right?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I eyed him. “What will you give me in exchange for my aid and patience, my lord de Mereliot?”
He smiled. “What did you have in mind?”
“You fell asleep in a rather inconsiderate fashion last night,” I pointed out. I’d kept my word and performed the languisement Jehanne had taught me. It hadn’t made him weep, but it had pleased him greatly. And to be fair, I hadn’t followed her instructions to the letter. I wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t been teasing about putting my finger in his bottom. She had looked altogether too amused at my reaction to the suggestion. Once I could get past being disconcerted by the lingering scent of her perfume, I’d have to spend some time reading the book on Naamah’s arts she had sent me.
“Consider it a tribute,” Raphael said.
“Consider this a request,” I replied.
He laughed and granted it.
It was nice, the nicest it had been between us that night. Raphael was thorough and considerate, taking his time to please me. I loved the feeling of him inside me, moving in and out, the slow waves of pleasure building. I loved the golden warmth of him. I loved the feeling of his shoulder blades beneath my hands, his hips rocking between my thighs. I matched my breathing to his, Master Lo Feng’s lessons somewhere in the back of my mind. I wished it could always be this nice and simple.
Afterward, Raphael slept.
I lay awake for a time, my body sated, but my mind still alert. Raphael sleeping looked younger and more vulnerable. I stroked his tawny, silken hair. “What are you up to, Raphael de Mereliot?” I murmured. “What manner of business best left unsaid before your household?”
He sighed in his sleep and said Jehanne’s name.
I fought the urge to tweak his hair. “She’s always there between us, isn’t she?” I said ruefully. “More than you know. But whatever it is you seek in this mysterious pursuit, it seems only I can give it to you.”
He sighed again, wordless.
“Oh, fine.” I kissed his cheek. “Sleep.”
On the morrow, I had another lesson with Master Lo Feng and the ubiquitous Bao and his ubiquitous staff. I thought the Ch’in physician would teach me another style of breathing, but I was wrong. He merely sat on his mat with his legs folded and bade me practice the Breath of the Pulse of the Earth.
I practiced.
It came easier this time. I got bored, but then the boredom passed. I went deeper into the earth and deeper into my own body, feeling the energy pool and gather in the pit of my groin. There, it sat and radiated, waiting to be tapped. It wasn’t a sexual feeling, but almost. I liked it.
“Very good,” Lo Feng said when we had finished. The corners of his eyes crinkled in that lovely hint of a smile. “Are you sure there is no Ch’in blood in the People of the Brown Bear?” He glanced at Bao. “Or Tatar, perhaps?”
“No,” I admitted. “We came to Alba from far away a long, long time ago when the world was covered with ice. Is Bao a Tatar?”
Bao shot me a scathing look, his fingers tightening on his staff.
“His father was,” Master Lo Feng said calmly. “It happened during a raid. Through no fault of his own, Bao is a child of violence.”
Bao surged to his feet and stomped away, the butt of his staff stabbing at the grass. A moment later, he stomped back and helped his mentor to his feet, averting his face to hide an expression of rough tenderness.
“Do you ever smile?” I asked him.
“Do you ever stop asking stupid questions?” Bao retorted in heavily accented D’Angeline.
“Yes,” I said—and said no more.
His lips twitched.
“You nearly did.” I pointed at him. “I saw it. You very nearly smiled.”
“Children.” Lo Feng’s voice silenced us. He shook his elegant head, casting his gaze skyward. “Will you spend your energy wastefully in foolish bickering, or will you conduct yourselves as students of the Way in dignity and discipline?”
I inclined my head. “I’m sorry.”
Bao muttered.
Master Lo Feng laid a hand on his shoulder and said something soft and gentle and lengthy in Ch’in. I saw Bao’s wiry shoulders hunch and tense, then relax. He propped his staff in the crook of his arm and bowed in the Ch’in manner, hands clasped, an expression of aching yearning on his face as he gazed at his mentor. It wasn’t meant to be observed, and I looked away.
“Tomorrow?” Lo Feng inquired.
I nodded. “Tomorrow.”
We parted, walking in different directions. I glanced over my shoulder as I made for the Academy stables and caught Bao glancing back at me.
He almost smiled.
Almost.
THIRTY-FIVE
Raphael had arranged for an early dinner that night. After we dined, he called for his carriage and we headed out of the City. When I asked where we were bound, he said it was to a country estate owned by Denis de Toluard’s family.
“He comes from a long line of Siovalese peers with a penchant for the scientific arts,” he said. “Most were engineers, but his father was fascinated by the occult sciences and studied at the Academy here. He purchased this estate and modified it that he might carry on his studies more extensively.”
That told me very little. “I see.”
He gave me a quick look. “It’s not necessary that you understand what we undertake tonight, Moirin. Only that you lend me your magic.”
I folded my arms. “Yes, well, I’d like the chance to try and understand.”
“All right.” Raphael nodded. “You know that Blessed Elua’s Companions were once divine servants of the One God of the Yeshuites? And that they forsook their posts to follow Elua?”
“I do,” I said.
“During the time before they passed into the Terre d’Ange-that-lies-beyond, they taught many arts to the folk of Terre d’Ange.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Engineering, architecture, music, healing, pleasure, husbandry, seafaring, warcraft… all the gifts we enjoy today. But there are other gifts they did n
ot teach us.” He lowered his voice. “And other divine entities who have not served the One God for many thousands of years.”
“Why?” I asked.
“They rebelled when he set his son Yeshua ben Yosef above them, lost a battle, and fell from grace,” Raphael said. “But they still possess much arcane wisdom. And there is an ancient manual that tells how they may be summoned and compelled to divulge their secrets. King Shalomon of the Habiru wrote it.”
I glanced out the window. The sun was setting, gilding the landscape. I thought about watching twilight settle over the burial mound in Clunderry, the grave vigil of remembrance my people undertook there at Midsummer. “The Maghuin Dhonn learned it is not always wise to pursue such things.”
“Shall all the world remain ignorant because the Maghuin Dhonn made a mistake a hundred years ago?” Raphael asked in a steady voice.
“No. I don’t know.” I sighed. “What manner of gifts?”
He leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. “The hidden qualities of herbs and minerals. The ability to speak the tongue of animals. The ability to forge friendship between foes. Does that sound so terrible?”
“No,” I admitted.
“One of the greater spirits holds the secret of the commanding the wind and seas,” he said in awe. “The very gift the Master of the Straits once wielded!”
“Aye, and hid away for a purpose,” I reminded him.
“If he’d meant it to be lost forever, he would have destroyed it,” Raphael said. “But mayhap there’s another way to find it. Think on it, Moirin!” His eyes shone. “Ever since Gautier and Jean-Philippe de la Courcel vanished seeking the missing pages of the Book of Raziel, Terre d’Ange has been fearful and overcautious. King Daniel ascended the throne at a young age, unready and hesitant. Now he’s torn between mourning his first wife and indulging his second. The rest of the world outpaces us, establishing trade with Terra Nova while we indulge in gossip and dalliance. A gift of such magnitude could usher in a new Golden Age.”
I frowned, unsure. My diadh-anam pulsed inside me as it always did in Raphael’s presence, but it offered no guidance. When I thought about the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, Her gaze was level and measured, neither forbidding nor encouraging.
This choice, I had to make myself.
“That’s a dream writ large,” Raphael said softly. “If we have any success at all, and we’ve not to date, I imagine it will come on a smaller scale with the lesser spirits. But do think on it, Moirin.” His voice caught. “Such a gift might have spared my parents. It might save others from meeting the same fate.”
I reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair from his brow, remembering the horror of those deaths at sea. “All right. I did promise.”
We reached the de Toluard estate in blue dusk. It looked like a pleasant place—a gracious manor house with tall cypress trees surrounding it like sentinels. I breathed in their sharp, piney fragrance, willing them to lend me their proud strength in whatever was to come.
“Lady Moirin.” Denis de Toluard gave me the kiss of greeting in the foyer. He looked far more serious than I remembered. Even his curly brown hair looked subdued. “My thanks for consenting to assist us. Come, I’ll introduce you to the others.”
There were six of them all told, all of them in their mid- to late-twenties. Later, Raphael told me they had all studied together at the Academy of Occult Philosophy. I greeted the first one with a shock of recognition.
“We’ve met,” Lianne Tremaine said in acknowledgment. “Welcome, my lady.”
“What further gifts might the youngest King’s Poet in the history of Terre d’Ange possibly seek?” I asked, genuinely curious.
She tilted her head, lamplight making her topaz eyes flare. “There are always further thresholds to cross. I seek words of such surpassing beauty that they might melt the hardest heart of stone.”
“Oh.”
I met the other three. Balric Maitland, a silversmith with broad shoulders and strong, sinewy hands. A quiet, unassuming archivist and language scholar named Claire Fourcay, who cast longing glances in Raphael’s direction when she thought no one was watching. The last was another linguist, Orien de Legasse, a pretty, fragile-looking lad whose pale blond hair put me in mind of Jehanne. He wore glass spectacles with gold rims that made his eyes look owlish.
The Circle of Shalomon.
There were no servants present in the parlor. Denis de Toluard poured us cups of a strong, fiery cordial himself.
“To success,” he said, raising his cup in toast. “To knowledge.”
I echoed the toast dutifully and drank.
Raphael’s eyes glinted. “The hour’s nearly upon us.” He laid one hand on my shoulder. “Shall we?”
Claire Fourcay sniffed. “What exactly do you expect her to do, my lord de Mereliot?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He smiled at me. “But wondrous things seem to occur when Moirin summons her magic. Give her a chance, won’t you? We’ve tried everything else.”
She sniffed again. “She makes our numbers wrong.”
Raphael ran his hand down my arm and took my hand in his, entwining our fingers. “Consider us one flesh.”
“Let’s just get on with it,” Balric Maitland said curtly.
Denis de Toluard beckoned. “Come.”
We followed him to a hidden doorway and traipsed down a set of stone stairs to a lower level. I felt man-made stone closing all around and above me and shivered. Raphael’s fingers tightened on mine.
“Breathe,” he whispered in my ear.
I breathed.
There was an antechamber that might have been a cellar once. I smelled the faint, lingering odor of root vegetables. Now it was lit by a handful of clear-burning lamps, shadows flickering in the corners. There were shelves with garments of white linen laid ready and waiting, and a standing washbasin in the center of the room. The water smelled of an herb I didn’t know.
“Hyssop,” Raphael said in response to my inquiring glance.
One by one, the members of the Circle stripped and donned the white linen robes, then washed their hands and faces in the basin. I followed suit. The flagstones were cool and moist beneath my bare feet. The water felt good. And then the silversmith Balric went around, handing out engraved medallions on silver chains.
I examined the design. “What is this?”
“One side bears the Seal of Shalomon; the other, the sigil of Valac.” He hung it around my neck, gazing at me with hooded eyes. “One of the lesser spirits. That is who we seek to summon tonight.”
“Oh.”
Raphael’s hand slid beneath my hair. “A modest beginning,” he said. “Valac’s gift is to reveal things hidden.” He smiled at me. “Particularly serpents. I thought it fitting in light of your exploits the other day.”
“I see,” I offered.
He laughed and kissed me. “Pray that we all do.”
We filed into the chamber proper.
It was a vaster space than I would have reckoned from the ante-chamber. Groin vaults arched, the ceiling soaring. More lamps flickered. I gazed up at the gathering shadows, then down at the floor.
There.
An insignia similar to the Seal of Shalomon engraved into one side of my medallion was engraved on the floor itself. This one contained a circle with a six-pointed star within it. There was a brazier at its center. Words in a language I couldn’t read were inscribed along its circumference. Members of the Circle drifted around its perimeter and took up established positions at each point of the star.
“Come.” Raphael beckoned, holding out his hand.
I took it.
“Claire?” Denis lifted his head. “Will you speak the first conjuration?”
She did.
Whatever she said, it was in a language wholly unfamiliar to me. The longer she spoke, the more her voice grew in strength. I let it wash over me. The air seemed to pulse and tighten, but nothing happened.
“The second conjuration,” De
nis prompted her.
She spoke again at length in the strange language; and then again, the third conjuration. The air grew tighter and tighter. In the center of the star, it shimmered. An image formed in my mind of a closed doorway with light streaming around the frame. At one point, Balric Maitland drew a sword and extended it over the brazier, something dangling from its tip. The brazier flared briefly. The light around the doorway in my mind grew stronger.
More words.
“Moirin,” Raphael muttered. “Now!”
I took a deep breath, summoned the twilight, and pushed.
The doorway in my mind opened and vanished. Crimson light streamed upward from the floor. When it faded, the figure of a beautiful young boy in a white tunic stood in the center of the star.
“Elua!” someone breathed.
The room swam in my vision and only Raphael’s hand sliding beneath my elbow kept me on my feet. I’d lost my grip on the twilight. Claire Fourcay, her voice trembling, spoke in a rush of words. The boy’s image flickered, then steadied. He made a reply to her in a high, sweet voice.
“It’s him,” she whispered. “Valac.”
“Ask him!” Orien de Legasse’s voice was feverish. “Ask him to tell us the charm for revealing hidden things!”
“You speak Habiru as well as I.” She was pale. “You ask.”
Lamplight flashed off his spectacles as Orien made his inquiry. The boy smiled and replied sweetly, then raised one finger and began to write on the air. Fiery letters in a strange alphabet formed and faded in the wake of his finger.
“Damn it!” Raphael swore. “Lianne, can you commit it to memory?”
“I’m trying!”
I felt dizzy and very much as though I might faint. I breathed the Pulse of the Earth, willing myself to remain upright. Everyone was watching the boy, rapt. With the last of my strength, I summoned the twilight and took refuge in it, hoping to draw strength there. The room turned dim and muted, the fiery golden-orange letters turned to soft silver flame.
The boy turned toward me.
You.
He looked different in the twilight. His eyes were yellow with vertical pupils like a goat’s. He wore only a clout of cloth around his loins and his slender chest was bare. Wings as black as raven feathers sprang from his shoulders.
Kushiel 03 - [Moirin 01] - Naamah's Kiss Page 27
