Naamah's Blessing (2 page)

I wasn’t looking forward to a repeat encounter.

It was early afternoon when we made port. I hoped we would be able to disembark without fanfare. The ship was a Bhodistani trade-ship, our passage having been arranged by the Rani Amrita’s family in the coastal city of Galanka. I’d thought Bao and I might slip out of the harbor unnoticed among the sailors and traders; but it was not to be. No sooner had we arrived on the quay, surrounded by our trunks carried by Captain Ramchandra’s able sailors, than a horde of sharp-eyed, half-grown youths descended on us, shouting offers.

“Hey, messire, hey, messire! Best price porter, best guide! Best lodging for you and the noble lady!”

Bao caught my eye and grinned. “I told you not to wear so much jewelry.”

I spared a glance at the bangles that adorned my wrist: the jade bangle the color of a reflecting pool that had been a gift from our
Ch’in princess Snow Tiger, the many gold bangles Amrita had insisted on gifting me. “True.”

The young mercenaries pressed closer, clamoring. With one fluid motion, Bao whipped his bamboo staff loose over his back, twirling it before him so fast it was a blur that made the air sing.

Our would-be porters and guides yelped with alarm and delight, jumping backward and falling silent.

Bao’s grin widened. “So!” He planted the butt of his staff on the quay with a resounding thud. “I am the best at what
I
do. Which of you is the best at what
you
do?”

A copper-haired youth with eyes almost as green as mine stepped forward without hesitating. “Me, messire!” He jerked his head, and four more youths fell in behind him. “You want the best of everything for you and the beautiful lady? Best guide, best lodging?” With a smile that managed to be at once sly, reverent, and wise beyond his years, he kissed his fingertips. “Best pleasure-houses for a noble foreign couple? Oh, yes! Let Leo be your guide.”

I hid a smile of my own. Only in Terre d’Ange would a stripling street-lad offer to escort an apparently high-born couple to a pleasure-house within seconds of their arrival. “Lodging first,” I said firmly. “Anyplace with a nice bathing-chamber.”

The lad Leo blinked in surprise at my near-flawless D’Angeline accent. It wasn’t my mother-tongue, but I’d learned to speak it at an early age, and Bao and I had been practicing on the ship to improve his fluency. Leo gave me an appraising look, seeing past the foreign bangles and jewelry, past the bright orange and gold-trimmed silks I wore wrapped and draped in the Bhodistani fashion, past my honey-colored skin and black hair, registering my half-D’Angeline features. His brow furrowed in confusion. “You speak awfully good for a foreigner, madame.”

“She’s not a foreigner,” a new voice said behind us. “Not exactly.”

I turned to see the harbor-master, a stern-faced fellow I vaguely recognized from four years ago.

He inclined his head to me. “Lady Moirin mac Fainche, I believe. Welcome home.”

“Thank you, messire.” I raised my brows at the coolness of his tone. “You do not come bearing another summons, I hope? I do not wish to trouble the Lady of Marsilikos with my presence.”

“No.” A shadow of sorrow crossed his features. “I fear the Duchese Eleanore de Mereliot succumbed to a grave illness these two years gone by.”

“Oh!” My breath caught in my throat. “I’m sorry,” I said sincerely. “Did Raphael inherit—” Belatedly, I remembered that Marsilikos was always ruled by a woman, and the question died on my lips.

The harbor-master shook his head. “No. Her Grace the Duchese Laurentine de Mereliot, a near kinswoman, rules in Marsilikos now.”

Despite everything, my heart ached a little for Raphael. He had lost so very, very much in his lifetime. “I’m sorry,” I repeated inadequately. “So he’s… he’s not here, is he?”

Beside me, Bao shifted slightly. He disliked Raphael de Mereliot, and for good reason, but I had to ask. Whatever the unfinished business between us was, I’d as soon see it swiftly concluded.

“You hadn’t heard?” The harbor-master looked surprised for a moment. “No, but of course, you’ve been away, or you’d have known about the Lady. Forgive me, I wasn’t thinking. After his sister’s death, Lord Raphael joined the Dauphin’s expedition to Terra Nova.”

Ah, gods! My heart sank, and Bao gave me a stricken glance. The vast lands of Terra Nova, only discovered within my lifetime, lay on the far side of the world.

But the harbor-master was still speaking. “… expedition is due to return in the spring.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Gods be thanked! That’s good news, then.”

“Indeed.” The man looked uncomfortable. Based on my unfortunate history with House Mereliot, he might not have been kindly disposed to me, but he wasn’t heartless. “Lady Moirin, Terre d’Ange has suffered other losses in your absence. Were you aware that Queen Jehanne…?” Like me earlier, he let the sentence dangle unfinished.

“Aye,” I murmured. “That, I heard.”

He straightened his shoulders. “Well, then. I would not be remiss in my duty to a descendant of House Courcel.” He gestured at young Leo and his crew of street-lads, listening and gaping silently. “Shall I disperse this ragtag rabble for you? I can assign a cadre of guards to assist you with your needs.”

I hesitated.

“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” Bao interjected, slinging one arm over Leo’s shoulders, causing the lad’s eyes to brighten. “We like… how do you say it? Ragtag rabble.”

The harbor-master bowed formally. “As you wish.”

After he took his leave, we said our thanks and farewells to Captain Ramchandra, who had escorted us safely to these shores. He bowed to us in the Bhodistani manner, his palms pressed together.

“It has been my very great honor!” he said. “I give thanks to you for restoring Kamadeva’s diamond to its proper place.”

Bao glanced sidelong at me, amused.

I cleared my throat. “It was our honor to do so.”

We had done that, Bao and I. The Rani Amrita had charged us with the task of returning Kamadeva’s diamond, a black jewel forged from the ashes of the Bhodistani god of desire, to the temple from which it had been stolen by Jagrati, a woman reckoned by her own people to be
untouchable
. I had carried it in a locked coffer for leagues upon leagues, fearful of its temptations.

All too well, I knew its power.

So did Bao, better than I did.

But we had carried it willingly for the sake of our lady Amrita; she who had withstood its allure when Jagrati the Spider Queen bore it; she who had had the strength to surrender it. In the temple where it had resided for many, many hundreds of years, we watched the priests break open the coffer, daring with trembling hands to transfer the diamond with its fiery heart filled with dark, shifting hues into the cupped and open hands of the god Shiva’s effigy.

There, it resided—a blessing ready to be invoked by all who sought it, and not a weapon to be wielded by any one soul.

The bright lady had approved.

“Hey, lady!” young Leo called breathlessly, trotting beneath the weight of one of our trunks. “I know who you are! I remember!”

“Oh, you do, do you?” I glanced at him. He couldn’t have been more than nine or ten when I’d left Terre d’Ange, but there was no underestimating the D’Angeline capacity for gossip.

“Oh, aye!” His face was flushed, but his eyes shone. “It was when the biggest ship in the world was in the harbor! D’ye remember, Michel?” he asked one of his companions. The other lad grunted in assent. “We went to look at it every day! From Ch’in, they said. You look like one of their sailors,” he added to Bao.

“Was he uncommonly handsome?” Bao inquired cheerfully.

“No!” Leo’s flush deepened. “I mean, not like one particular fellow. You look like all of them.”

Bao raised his brows at me.

“Uncommonly handsome,” I assured him.

“Anyway,” Leo continued heedlessly, “I remember! We went to watch the ship set sail, too. It was like watching a floating palace set out to sea! And everyone said that half-breed”—he lowered his voice—“
bear-witch
who summoned demons and ruined Lord Raphael and seduced the Queen was being sent away on the ship! That was you, wasn’t it?”

I sighed. “First of all, they were fallen spirits, not demons—”

He interrupted me. “What’s the difference?”

“Ah… I’m not sure,” I admitted. “At any rate,
I
didn’t summon them, I just… helped.”

“Those idiots couldn’t have done a thing without you,” Bao scoffed. “Your magic opened the doorway that let the demon through.”

“You’re not helping,” I informed him.

“So you really
can
do magic?” one of the other lads asked, wide-eyed. He stumbled over a cobblestone, and would have dropped the trunk he was carrying if Bao hadn’t caught it. “Can you turn into a
bear
?” He looked excited and horrified at the thought.

“No,” I said gently. “The Maghuin Dhonn Herself took that gift away from us long before I was born. Do you know the story of Prince
Imriel?” All of them nodded; it was one of the great tales of Terre d’Ange. “Well, that’s why She took it away. Now all my people have left is a small gift for magic meant to conceal and protect us.”

“But it can be used for other things, too,” Bao added. “Good and bad. Moirin was very foolish to use it to help summon demons, but it was not her idea. It was your Lord Raphael’s idea. And she was not sent away. She left to accompany me and my wise mentor, Master Lo Feng, to save a princess and rescue a dragon in faraway Ch’in.” He gave me an inquiring look. “Better?”

“Better,” I agreed.

The lads looked skeptical. “There’s no such thing as a dragon,” Leo said.

“Oh, there is!” Bao grinned. “Maybe not here, but in Ch’in. We have ridden in one’s claw as he soared through the sky and called the thunderstorms.”

“Also, I did not
seduce
the Queen,” I put in stubbornly. They blinked at me, having forgotten the initial topic in the talk of dragons and faraway lands. “Queen Jehanne,” I reminded them. “Tell me, does her daughter thrive?”

Leo nodded vigorously. “Oh yes, madame! They call her the Little Pearl. She is much beloved in the City of Elua.”

“And his majesty King Daniel?”

He hesitated. “It is said he is… sad. He grieves deeply for the loss of the Queen, and he quarreled bitterly with the Dauphin when Prince Thierry insisted on leading an expedition to Terra Nova.”

I fell silent, thinking and remembering while Leo pressed Bao for more talk of dragons and cursed princesses.

I hadn’t known Daniel de la Courcel well, but I had liked him. Even before Jehanne’s death, sorrow at the loss of his first wife, Prince Thierry’s mother, had marked him. He was a grave and honorable man whose only fault, if it could be called one, was that he was overly cautious. While other countries had launched explorations into Terra Nova, and Thierry had pressed for the right to do the same, King Daniel had refused to allow it.

Not until Jehanne conceived had Daniel relented, promising to let his firstborn son and heir sail off in pursuit of glory if a second child was born hale, securing the line of succession.

Knowing of him what I did, I could well imagine Daniel would have had a change of heart upon Jehanne’s death. He had loved and lost two women; I did not think he had it in him to risk losing a third. He would have refused to remarry and he would have wanted to keep both his heirs close and safe.

But it seemed Thierry had held his father to his word, and now he was in Terra Nova—and Raphael with him.

“Moirin?” Bao’s voice broke my reverie. “We have reached the inn. Do you find it acceptable, or do you wish to inspect the bathing-chamber?”

Meeting his gaze, I saw the sincere concern behind his jesting, and summoned a smile. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

He nodded. “I told you this homecoming would be hard.”

“Aye.” I took a deep breath. “So you did.”

THREE

T
he inn was fine; more than fine.

An hour after our arrival, I sank into the depths of a generous marble tub, submerging my entire body. I scrubbed months’ worth of shipboard grime from my skin and washed my salt-stiffened hair. Servants of the inn brought bucket after bucket of freshly heated water to replace the dirty water, until the chamber was filled with steam.

The third time they entered, Bao followed.

“Come to join me?” I inquired.

He flashed a grin at me. “Uh-huh. Think there’s room?”

I smiled. “Aye, I do.”

The attendants left, giggling as Bao began to strip off the embroidered Bhodistani tunic and breeches he wore, revealing his lean-muscled fighter’s body. He paused, gazing at me with half-lidded eyes. “You look like something out of those stories sailors tell. What is the word in D’Angeline?”

I stirred the water. “Mermaid?”

“That’s it.” He climbed into the opposite end of the marble tub, dunking his whole head, coming up streaming water. “Soap?”

“Here.” I handed the ball of soap to him and watched him wash, taking pleasure in the sight. The black zig-zag tattoos he had acquired in Kurugiri stood out in stark contrast against the brown skin of his corded forearms, marking the way up and down a secret passage through a mountainous labyrinth, at the top of which the Spider
Queen Jagrati and her husband the Falconer made their lair. Or at least they had, until we overthrew them with the help of the Rani Amrita and her army.