Naamah's Blessing

Page 56

“No one,” I murmured.
“Oh, but you must if you wish to spare the lass.” He pointed at a pretty Quechua maid, and then another. The young women blanched, trembling, and trying not to show it. After last night’s revelation in the temple, none of them were so eager to sacrifice themselves for Lord Pachacuti’s sake. “Her? Or mayhap her?”
I shook my head. “I will not play this game with you, Raphael.”
His fingers tightened like pincers on my throat, digging in hard enough to bruise. “Then do not complain to me, Moirin mac Fainche of the Maghuin Dhonn!” With an abrupt gesture, he thrust me away. “I find it tiresome.”
I staggered and caught myself, massaging my bruised throat. “No more than I, I assure you.”
Returning to his throne, Raphael waved one languid hand. “Go, then.”
I turned to obey.
“Wait.”
I halted.
“Why did you wed him?” There was a genuine note of curiosity in Raphael’s voice. “Master Lo’s surly lad?”
“Why do you care?” I turned back, unnerved by his mercurial mood shift.
He shrugged. “I’m curious. Indulge me, won’t you? Otherwise, I might have to, oh, forbid you to see him. I haven’t done that yet, have I? All in all, I think I’ve been quite generous with you.”
“All right.” I took a deep breath. “First of all, he’s a man, not a lad. And he’s not surly. If he seemed so in Terre d’Ange, it was only because D’Angelines had given him little cause to love them.” I gave him a tight smile. “You, in particular.”
“I never said a word to the lad!” Raphael retorted in an offended tone.
I raised my brows. “Aye, and I suspect that may have had somewhat to do with it, my lord. Bao is stubborn and proud. You treated him as less than a man. You’re doing it still. Do you blame him for resenting it?”
Raphael blinked. “I treated him as I would treat any servant.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I lived in your household, Raphael. You treated your servants with a courtesy you never afforded Bao, with a courtesy you do not afford your Quechua handmaids.”
He lowered his voice. “They are a simple folk, Moirin! They worship their rulers. If I treated them otherwise, they would not respect me.”
“Mayhap,” I said. “Or mayhap it is that like many D’Angelines, you think so very highly of yourself, you have a hard time reckoning others your equals.”
Raphael scowled at me. “Mayhap it is your own bitterness that speaks!”
“Mayhap it is,” I admitted. “How many times did you see fit to remind me that I was naïve and unsophisticated? I grant you, it was true, but it did not make me less than you. Different, but not less. You never saw me as aught but a useful tool for your hands to wield, the very thing you called me today.”
“And so you are.” Leaning his head against the back of his throne, Raphael closed his eyes. “One that grows tiresome once more. Never mind. Go away, Moirin.”
“No.” I stood my ground. “Since you asked, I will answer your question. I wed Bao because I love him. I love his pride and stubbornness, even when it exasperates me. I love his refusal to succumb to despair. He makes me laugh. And he makes me feel… safe.”
Raphael’s eyes cracked open. “That sounds dull.”
“It’s not,” I said.
“I think you harbor a deep-seated resentment against full-blooded D’Angelines,” he said.
I laughed out loud. “If I did, would I have travelled to the far side of the world to rescue one of them? No.” I shook my head again. “I have found much to love in Terre d’Ange. I find the worship of Blessed Elua and his Companions, the celebration of love and desire, to be beautiful and unique among realms. I found my father, and my lady Je—” I stopped myself before I said Jehanne’s name. “I have found myself guilty of misjudgment,” I said instead, “and discovered that a beautiful face and a facile wit can conceal great strength of character.”
He stirred. “Do not speak of her!”
“I wasn’t,” I said. “If anyone misjudged her, it was she herself. I was speaking of Balthasar Shahrizai.”
“Oh.” Unexpectedly, Raphael’s mouth quirked. “I imagine he’s despising every minute of this, isn’t he?”
“Indeed,” I agreed.
The thought seemed to cheer him. “All right, you’ve had your say. Now be gone with you. I mean it this time, Moirin.”
I took my leave with alacrity, glad to be out of his presence. Raphael had always been tempestuous, but he had never been violent. The bruises on my throat were a reminder that everything was different now. Cusi was right, I had to do what he expected to avoid arousing suspicion, but I needed to be careful about provoking him. It was a piece of luck that my reference to Balthasar had amused him, pandering unwittingly to the streak of cruelty within him.
Upon returning to my quarters, I found that Cusi’s replacement had already been assigned to me, a serious-looking young woman named Machasu, a few years older than Cusi. She pointed gravely at my injured hand. “Sister of one, sister of all,” she said in softly accented D’Angeline.
It was a relief to hear. “Sulpayki, thank you. Yes.”
Machasu nodded. “Eat now, lady?”
I shook my head. “I must speak with my men. Lord Pachacuti hasn’t forbidden it, has he?”
“No.” She fixed me with an intent gaze. “But I have to tell him what you do and say. Ocllo says, say what you tell me. This, I will do.”
“I am grateful.” I hesitated. “Machasu, is it just the Maidens of the Sun who are willing to help, or are there others?”
“No others yet, but some women may help if Ocllo asks.” Her grave look deepened. “But she must be very, very careful.”
“I understand,” I said. “What about the men?”
“No.” Her tone was flat.
“I would like to speak to your Prince Manco nonetheless. Not about this,” I hastened to add, raising my wounded hand as Machasu’s expression turned to one of alarm. “Not about the secret of the ancestors. But about Lord Pachacuti.”
“Prince Manco will not listen to you,” she said with distaste. “He thinks he is a great warrior chosen by the gods. You cannot trust him. Anything you say, he will say to Lord Pachacuti.”
“I know,” I said. “But it only amuses Lord Pachacuti to see me try and fail. And it may be that seeds of doubt planted now will blossom later.”
Machasu looked dubious. “I will ask.”
Another thought struck me. “Machasu, I may have to reveal the secret of the ancestors to all my men, not just Bao. If I ask them to trust blindly, knowing nothing, I fear they will rebel. But I do not want to betray the trust of the Maidens of the Sun, either.”
She was silent a moment. “You are our sister,” she said at length. “Ocllo trusts you. Do as you must.”
With that, we set out to trek across the terraced fields.
My heart ached at the sight of Bao’s indomitable grin as he caught sight of me. Everything I had told Raphael was true, but it didn’t begin to encompass the bond between us. There was the way my diadh-anam quickened with joy at being reunited with his, a sensation I couldn’t even begin to describe. There was an unshakeable solidarity born of having survived so many trials and hardships together—aye, and wonders, too.
There was love, always love.
I did not relish the task of telling him what I had to tell him today. In the benighted Temple of the Sun, it had seemed at once a noble sacrifice and a necessary horror. In the bright light of ordinary day, sweat trickling beneath my gown, it merely seemed a horror, an unthinkable horror.
But it wasn’t an ordinary day. No day under Lord Pachacuti’s rule was ordinary. A living, seething moat of ants ringed the field, an ever-present reminder of the unnatural straits in which we found ourselves.
Bao read my expression, his grin faltering. “What is it, Moirin? More trouble?”
“No.” My eyes stung. “Worse. Hope, but it is a grim one.”
His sharp gaze skated over Machasu. “That is a different maid,” he said in the scholar’s tongue. “Is she also a spy?”
“No,” I said. “An ally.”
The others began to gather, eager for news. There was not a man among them one would have taken at a glance for the pampered, gossip-loving scions of D’Angeline nobility many of them had been, quick to revel in luxury and indulgence. They were lean and work-hardened, hands callused by paddles and digging-sticks, fair skin burnt brown by the sun. But there was a fierce light in their eyes. Whatever fight there was to be fought, they were ready for it.
“Lady Moirin.” Prince Thierry de la Courcel, naked above the waist, greeted me with a courtly bow that did not disguise the hunger in his expression. “Tell us, what passes?”
I swallowed. “I would speak to Bao alone.”
A muscle in Thierry’s jaw twitched. “Why?”
Balthasar Shahrizai laid a grimy hand on Thierry’s shoulder. “They’re husband and wife, man,” he said in a deceptively easy tone. “Give them a moment, won’t you?”
Prince Thierry kept his gaze hard on mine. “Whatever news you have to deliver, it concerns all of us, does it not?”
“Aye,” I said. “But none more than Bao.”
The rightful heir to the throne of Terre d’Ange hesitated, then nodded, taking a step backward. “Of course. As you will, my lady.”
A stream of ants detached from the river to follow Bao and me into the field as we went some distance from the others. The sun-warmed earth between the rows of growing potatoes was soft and crumbling beneath my sandal-shod feet. Once we were out of earshot, Bao took my arm in a firm grip.
“Tell me,” he said.
I did.
I told him the whole of what I had learned from Ocllo and Cusi and the Maidens of the Sun. I told him the secret of the ancestors, and their belief that one who was twice-born would wield the key—would wield the knife— to offer the blood sacrifice that would call forth the ancestors out of death into life.
When I had finished, Bao walked away.
He did not go far, only a few paces. But he stood with his back to me, his head bowed, hands clasping his elbows. I gazed at him, seeing the bright shadow that had hung over him since his death gather and darken.
“Bao…” I whispered.
“Do you think it will work?” he asked without turning around. “This business of sacrifice?”
I went to him then, wrapping my arms around his waist, pressing my face against the back of his neck and inhaling the scent of his skin. “I think it is our only hope.”
Bao took a deep breath, his ribcage rising and falling beneath my arms. “I should have known there would be a further price to pay,” he said. “There is always another price. I do not wish to do this thing, Moirin.”
“I know,” I said.
“She’s scarce more than a child!”
I leaned my brow against his taut shoulder blades. “I know. Ah, gods, Bao! I know. But it is her choice, and she has chosen.”
“I want to speak with her,” Bao said abruptly.
“Cusi?”
He turned in my arms. “Yes. I do not doubt you, Moirin. I don’t. But for my own sake, I must hear it from her lips.”
I nodded. “Then I will make it happen. What will you tell the others?”
Bao shrugged. “Whatever is needful.”
SIXTY-THREE
Time was running short. Upon returning to my quarters, I was visited by Eyahue, who brought the latest details of the conflict to come.
“Lord Pachacuti has sent chasquis to Qusqu to demand the Sapa Inca Yupanqui’s surrender,” he announced to me in Nahuatl. “Swift runners stationed throughout Tawantinsuyo to relay messages. Once he receives a reply, he will move.”
“How long?” I asked.
“Soon,” Eyahue said. “Days. The chasqui system is very efficient.”
“What do you think the Sapa Inca will do?”
He sucked his teeth. “I think he will refuse. I do not think Yupanqui will believe Lord Pachacuti’s threat. It is as I said before, lady. Neither Temilotzin nor I think you can stop this from happening.”
“Nor do I,” I said. “Not here, anyway. My thanks, Eyahue.”
“Is there aught else I can do?” he asked.
I shook my head. “For now, no. I’ll send word if there is. This is Machasu,” I added, indicating my new handmaid. “You may trust her.”
“Oh, aye?” Eyahue eyed her with shrewd interest. “Got rid of the other one, did you?”
“It seems she had other duties.” I trusted the old pochteca to a degree, but not enough to give him leverage over us. He was too garrulous and too much the opportunist. When the time came, I would tell him.
After Eyahue’s departure, I dispatched Machasu on a pair of errands; the first to seek an audience on my behalf with Prince Manco, and the second to carry word to Ocllo that I needed to arrange a meeting between Cusi and Bao.
While she was gone, I sat cross-legged in the courtyard and breathed the Five Styles, trying to clear my mind and focus my thoughts.
I wondered what Bao was telling the others. I did not think they would be pleased to receive the news that the entirety of my plan was to stake everything on a long-kept Quechua secret and one young woman’s sacrifice. And yet it seemed to me that all the signs indicated it was our only hope.