Naamah's Blessing (10 page)

Bao gave me a serene look. “Jealous?”

“A little,” I admitted.

He laughed.

We sat on a cushioned bench in the foyer, drinking our wine and listening to the lovely songs coming from a nearby salon. It wasn’t long before Lianne Tremaine appeared.

I stood without thinking.

She halted a few paces away, regarding me uncertainly. The last time we had seen each other, a woman had died—poor Claire Fourcay, enamored of Raphael de Mereliot. Focalor, Grand Duke of the Fallen, had inhaled her life’s essence and breathed it into my lungs, forcing me to remain alive to keep the doorway between our world and the spirit world open.

And then he had very nearly taken possession of Raphael, before Bao and Master Lo swept into the chamber, holding the fallen spirit at bay with a whirling staff, fire-powder, and mirrors, allowing me to thrust Focalor back into his world and close the door I had opened.

Lianne Tremaine looked as I remembered her, with light brown hair, topaz eyes, and sharp, intelligent features that put me in mind of a fox. But the uncertainty in her gaze was new.

“I wasn’t sure you’d see me,” she said in a low voice.

“Neither was I.”

She took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling. “May we speak in private?”

I nodded. “I think it’s best.”

After being formally introduced to Bao, she escorted us to her chamber, a generous room at the top of one of the turrets. It had windows that looked out over the whole of Mont Nuit, autumn sunlight streaming in to illuminate the space. The walls were lined with shelves and cubbyholes, holding a small fortune in books and scrolls.

“Please, sit,” Lianne said. With a nervous gesture, she indicated a cozy arrangement of four upholstered chairs around a low table. “Shall I send for wine? Tea and pastries?”

I remembered that she had been the first formal visitor I had entertained
in Terre d’Ange, when I had been a guest in Raphael’s home. Raphael’s maid had had to prompt me to offer the niceties of hospitality.

It seemed like a long, long time ago.

“Thank you, no,” I said politely.

The former King’s Poet twined her hands together before her. “Lady Moirin… words are my métier. I use them to puncture the inflated sensibilities of pompous souls who hold themselves in high regard. I use them to soothe the tender spirits of offended lovers. I use them to build edifices to raise up and celebrate the achievements of worthy heroes, past and present. I use them to charm, to cajole, to sway. But I confess, I do not know how to use my words to frame the apology you deserve.”

“Maybe you should stop trying so hard to make it sound pretty and just say it,” Bao suggested

A brief flare of irritation came and went in her eyes. “You’re right. I should.” Lianne Tremaine met my gaze. “I did wrong by you, Moirin, and I am sorry for it. Can you forgive me?”

“I’m not sure yet,” I said honestly.

She sighed, and took her seat. “I cannot fault you for it. Those of us in the Circle of Shalomon, we knew what we were doing was dangerous. We knew Raphael was putting undue pressure on you to aid us. We saw the terrible toll that the summonings took on you. And yet we persisted.”

“You were stupid,” Bao said bluntly.

Lianne spread her hands. “I do not argue the point, Messire Bao. But to come so close to succeeding in our long quest… it was more heady and intoxicating than
joie
on the Longest Night. Compulsion gripped us like madness, ever driving us to make just one more attempt, just one more.” She shook her head. “I do not seek to justify it, only to explain.”

Bao was silent.

Having tended him through the ravages of opium-sickness, I suspected that he understood her explanation better than he wished. “You’ve made no further attempts?” I inquired.

“No.”
Her tone was adamant. “None. I swear it.”

“Good.”

She looked steadily at me. “Moirin, I confess it; I resented you. All of us did. It seemed unfair that we, who had studied for so long and worked so hard, were dependent on a backwoods Alban half-breed blessed with a gift of undeserved magic for our success.”

I raised my brows at her.

“But I was wrong to do so,” Lianne admitted. “I have a poet’s trained memory. I have lived and relived those moments over a thousand times, and I have come to realize that the voice of protest you raised was a wise one. And to conclude that mayhap there are forms of wisdom that owe nothing to diligence, ambition, and intellect; and that mayhap the gods in their own wisdom bestow their gifts accordingly.”

Her expression was sincere, and as close to humble as I suspected it ever came. I toyed with the bangles on one wrist, thinking. “I asked you why you did it, once. Do you remember what you told me?”

Lianne tilted her head, the sunlight making her golden-brown eyes glow. “Of course.”

“You told me that there are always further thresholds to cross,” I said slowly. “That despite the skills you already possessed, you sought words of such surpassing beauty that they would melt the hardest heart of stone.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

I looked northward. “I thought of those words in a country far, far away. In Vralia, where I was held captive in chains that bound my magic, by a man whose beliefs were as rigid as stone. I tried and tried to tell him truths his faith would not allow him to hear. I would have paid any price to succeed.”

It piqued her poet’s ear. “I would hear that story.”

“It’s a terrible story,” Bao muttered. “I hate that story.”

I ignored him. “I will tell it to you if you like; that, and others, too. And I will grant you my forgiveness… for a price.”

Lianne Tremaine smiled wryly. “You’re not exactly the naïve backwoods soul you were, are you?”

“His majesty Daniel de la Courcel means to appoint me his daughter Desirée’s oath-sworn protector,” I informed her.

Her lips parted. “That’s… awkward.”

“It is,” I agreed. “It will be unpopular in certain circles. But I have accepted the offer for the child’s sake.”

There was a shrewd look on her face. “You want my aid.”

“I do.”

“It’s a good story.” Lianne drummed her fingertips against the arms of her chair. “A story that gets to the heart of all that Terre d’Ange holds sacred. A love-match, an unlikely love-match… no, not one. Two, three… ah, Elua! You’re a descendant of Ysandre de la Courcel and Drustan mab Necthana. Alais the Wise and her Dalriadan harper-boy. Then there is your mother’s liaison with a Priest of Naamah. It may not have been a love-match, but it was certainly unprecedented.” There was compassion in her gaze as it settled on me. “And you and Jehanne de la Courcel—the courtesan queen and her unlikely companion.” She paused. “You did love her, didn’t you?”

My throat tightened. “Stone and sea! Aye, I did.”

She met my gaze evenly. “I can work with this.”

“
Will
you?” I asked.

“Yes.” Lianne’s expression was candid. “Have I not made myself clear, Moirin? I crossed the will of the gods, and I have paid a price for it. I do but seek to regain their favor.”

“This is not only a means of redemption,” Bao warned her. “A child’s happiness is at stake. She should not suffer for the cause of politics.”

She gave him a brisk nod. “That is exactly what I shall seek to ensure.”

ELEVEN

I
t was a good meeting, and we parted on good terms, with a promise of more meetings to come. I wanted to speak further with her about the Circle of Shalomon, and most especially about Raphael de Mereliot in the aftermath of the fatal summoning and his near-possession by the spirit Focalor, but there was time. We had the long winter months ahead of us before the Dauphin’s expedition returned in the spring, and the matter of the Montrèvan Oath was more pressing.

One of Eglantine House’s young attendants was waiting for us at the foot of the stair.

“Lady Moirin, Messire Bao.” She curtsied. “Messire Antoine asks if you would like to watch the tumblers at practice.”

“I suspect we would,” I said, glancing at Bao.

“We would,” he confirmed.

She escorted us through the halls of Eglantine House. It seemed a joyful establishment, filled with music and laughter. We passed a salon where a group of patrons and adepts were engaged in a game of poetic word-play, each seeking to outdo the other in extending a clever metaphor.

“This
is
a… a place of whores, is it not?” Bao asked me in a low voice.

Not so low that the attendant did not hear him. “Oh yes, Messire Bao!” She glanced over her shoulder. “Like all of the Houses of the
Night Court, Eglantine House is dedicated to Naamah’s Service. But we celebrate all the arts, not only the arts of pleasure.”

“Forgive me,” he said to her. “I did not mean to use an impolite term. I am still learning your tongue.”

“You speak it very well, messire,” she assured him.

Bao switched to the scholar’s tongue of Shuntian. “Do they begin so young, Moirin? That one cannot be more than twelve.”

“No.” I replied in the same language. “Only as attendants. They are not allowed to take their vows until they are sixteen.”

He looked relieved. “I am pleased to hear it.”

“Were you thinking of the past?” I asked.

Bao nodded. “It has been a long time since I have seen tumblers perform. Just the thought stirs memories.”

I touched his arm. “We don’t have to do this.”

“No.” He shook his head. “It has been
too
long. And I am curious. I was very good once, you know.”

“I know.” I smiled. “I’ve seen it.”

Bao scoffed. “You’ve seen me perform tricks to amuse children, Moirin. Not
art
.”

“It is not the art you chose to pursue, my magpie,” I said mildly.

“True,” he admitted. “But I was good at it.”

I did not doubt it, having never known Bao to boast in vain. At the age of three, his family had sold him to a travelling circus, where he trained and performed as an acrobat. At the age of thirteen, he decided he wanted to learn the art of stick-fighting instead. It was a matter of desire and pride—and there was a girl involved, too.

He had asked Brother Thunder, the troupe’s best stick-fighter, to teach him. And Brother Thunder had agreed… for a price.

I remembered Bao telling me about it on the greatship to Ch’in, naked in the bed we had just shared, his arms folded behind his head.

So I ask and he say, you be my peach-bottom boy, I teach you
.

Bao had agreed.

He’d spent two years as Brother Thunder’s reluctant catamite,
learning to fight. At the end of two years, he defeated his mentor. The fellow’s daughter, the girl in question, was angry at him for besting her father. She refused to honor her promise to run away with Bao.

So he ran away alone, all the way to Shuntian, where he fought his way to becoming the leader of an unscrupulous group of thugs—until a young lad came asking to be taught.

Bao had offered him the same bargain.

The boy had agreed.

And Bao had walked away from the bargain he had struck, walked away from the life he had built for himself. He had accepted an offer he had mocked only days before, and became Master Lo Feng’s magpie, setting him on the wandering course across the world that had brought us together.

“Here we are!” our little attendant said cheerfully, opening the door onto the rear entrance of a theater. Beyond the door, one could hear the thuds and grunts and shouted comments of tumblers at practice.

“You’re sure?” I asked.

“Yes, Moirin.” Bao gave me an affectionate look. “I am sure, and I am grateful for your concern.”

It was a vast space, filled with the various apparatuses of the tumblers’ art. There were trapezes hung from the rafters, and a high rope stretched across the vaulted ceiling. The floor was covered with mats of coarse fabric stuffed with chaff, dotted here and there with springboards.

“Messire Bao!” Antoine nó Eglantine dropped from a hanging trapeze with a flip and a flourish. He bowed, his face flushed. “Lady Moirin! Congratulations. We heard the news.”

“Already?” I asked in dismay.

“His majesty issued a proclamation at noon,” he informed me.

“Ah.”

There must have been a dozen lithe adepts at practice, swinging from the trapezes, flinging themselves into space and catching one
another; springing from the boards to deliver intricate flips and somersaults, forming human pyramids, walking the high rope, toeing the line, and putting one careful foot in front of the next.

Antoine ran a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. “So, messire! What do you think?”

“They’re very skilled,” Bao said, watching them with a practiced eye.

“I am glad you think so.” Antoine offered a polite bow. “Do you suppose you have aught to teach us? Exotic secrets from faraway Ch’in?”

“I might.” He glanced around the stage, taking stock of the equipment and props. “I don’t see any balancing poles.”

“Gervaise is using one now,” Antoine said with a bewildered look, nodding at an adept crossing the high rope, holding a supple staff before him to aid in keeping his balance.