Naamah's Curse

Page 32

“Go.” With an effort, she released her son, turning him loose. “Go. For what it is worth, go with my blessing.”
“A mother’s blessing is worth a great deal,” I murmured. “I will not forget this.” I kissed her cheek. “Thank you, a thousand times over. Thank you.”
Valentina nodded. “You are a mother’s child, too, Moirin. I can only begin to imagine how much she is missing you. For her sake, I pray you come home to her someday.”
Oh, it hurt.
“So do I.” It was all I could say, all I had to say. Valentina gave her son one last, long embrace, and then opened the door for us.
The street was empty and quiet. Aleksei squared his shoulders and began walking purposefully.
I ran after him. “Wait! Aleksei, you mean to go on foot?”
He gave me a blank look. “How else?”
“I was brought here in a wagon. I know cart-horses are not ideal for riding, but it’s faster than walking.” I cast around with my senses. “The stable’s over there, is it not?”
“Moirin, you can’t steal the Church’s horses!”
“Oh, yes, I can. Your precious Church didn’t hesitate to steal me.” Aleksei’s delicate sensibilities were beginning to grate on my nerves. I set out in the direction of the stable. “You’d best stay close to me,” I said over my shoulder. “Else you’ll lose the cover of the twilight. I can only extend it so far, for so long.”
He followed, silent.
The cart-horses were drowsing in their stalls, heads nodding low. I glanced around and quickly determined there was no riding tack, only the wagon and harness gear.
“That’s because they’re not for riding,” Aleksei murmured. “Moirin, can we please go now?”
Ignoring him, I spun the twilight over one of the horses. He lifted his head, lambent eyes open and gleaming. I blew softly into his nostrils, touching his thoughts. “You’re a big, strong fellow, aren’t you?” I whispered. “Strong enough to carry us both.” The cart-horse pricked his ears in agreement and lipped at the trailing ends of my head-scarf. I smiled and unlatched the door to his stall.
“Moirin!” Aleksei sounded near to panic.
“It’s all right.” There was no mounting block, but the wagon would serve. I clambered onto it. The cart-horse moved obligingly into place for me. I grabbed a double fistful of his mane and swung myself astride. “Come on,” I said to Aleksei. “You’ll have to ride behind me.”
He gazed uncertainly at me.
I sighed. “We’ll turn him loose at the end of the day. Like as not, he’ll find his way home.”
“It might give our direction away.”
“It might,” I agreed. “But not our destination, and we’ll have gained a sizable lead. Aleksei, I haven’t eaten in three days. Thanks to your uncle’s penance, I have shooting pains in my knees. I’m not even used to taking full strides. I won’t get far on foot. So are you coming with me or not?”
Without a word, he climbed onto the wagon, then scrambled awkwardly astride behind me while the patient cart-horse stood motionless.
“Ready?” I asked when Aleksei was settled. Although he’d wedged the bundle of supplies between us, his entire body was rigid at the forced contact with mine.
“How….. how are you controlling it?” His voice sounded small.
“I’m not,” I said. “I asked him if he’s willing to carry us, and he is.” I patted the horse’s sturdy neck. “So hold on, because we’re on our way whether you’re ready or not.”
The horse clopped steadily out of the stable, his abandoned stable-mate giving a low whicker. I wished we could have taken both of them, but it would have been too much effort to maintain a bond with both of them and keep my hold on the twilight. As it was, I was spreading myself thin.
On the street, I asked the cart-horse to pick up his pace. Once again, he pricked his ears in willing agreement and began walking at a good clip.
Behind me, Aleksei slid and jounced, nearly losing the bundle, grabbing for it and almost falling off in the process.
“Pass it to me.” I reached backward. “I’ll hold it, and you can put your arms around my waist.”
“I don’t…..” He sounded miserable. “It’s just that his back is so very broad.”
“I know.” I struggled for patience. “Aleksei, give me the bedamned bundle and put your arms around my waist.”
Tentatively, he did.
I settled the bundle of chains and supplies on the cart-horse’s withers, holding it in place with one hand and knotting the other in his mane, then asked him again for a swifter pace. He answered by breaking into a brisk trot.
Aleksei exhaled sharply, his arms tightening around my waist. Now I felt the entire length of his body pressed against me, his thighs firm against mine. Despite everything, it felt very good.
“You might as well enjoy it,” I said to him. “I am.”
“Moirin!”
“Hmm?”
“This is serious business we’re about,” he protested. “Please don’t try to scandalize me in the midst of it.”
“I’m sorry.” I let go the cart-horse’s mane and touched Aleksei’s knee lightly. “I cannot begin to imagine what it’s costing you to do this. I’m very, very grateful, and I don’t mean to bait you. In times of mortal danger, people often make jests. We’d lose our wits if we didn’t.”
“Oh.” He relaxed a little. “So….. you were jesting?”
Now he sounded disappointed. “No,” I said gently. “Only teasing. It feels very good to have your arms around me, Aleksei.”
“Oh.”
We rode in silence for a time while he contemplated that. The outskirts of Riva came into view and fell away behind us. The cart-horse continued at a steady trot. I glanced at the sky overhead, trying to determine if the moon was bright enough to see by if I released the twilight. Gauging it was, I let it go.
The gentle twilight faded, the world turning darker.
Behind me, Aleksei stiffened. “What—?”
“I let the magic go for now,” I said. “Now that we’re out of town, we’re safe enough under cover of darkness. In daylight, we’ll need it more.” I yawned. “I have to conserve my strength.”
“So you can’t do just anything you wish.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Not at all.”
He was quiet for a while longer. I breathed the Breath of Trees Growing, reveling in the presence of pine-trees along the road, listening to them dream of the sun’s return. Gods, it felt good to be free! Never, ever would I take it for granted again.
I only wished I wasn’t headed in the opposite direction from Bao. It worried me that the spark of his diadh-anam felt so far away and dim.
I pushed the thought away. Later. Survive first, worry later.
“Moirin?” Aleksei’s voice was low by my ear.
“Aye?”
“I like it, too.” His arms tightened a bit. “And you smell good.”
“It’s the odor of sanctity,” I said, referencing one of the signs by which saints were known.
“Moirin!”
I laughed.
“That was a jest, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, sweet boy.” I patted his knee. “It was a jest.”
There was a hint of a smile in his voice. “So says my heretic saint.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
We rode through the night and into the day, alternating between trotting and walking. For a mercy, we were following the curve of the vast lake and were able to pause from time to time to water the cart-horse and ourselves.
Willing soul though he was, I felt our unlikely mount’s strength begin to flag by midday, his steps beginning to plod. He was unaccustomed to carrying such a burden on his wide back. My own strength was failing, too. I was hoarding it as best I could, straining my eyes to catch sight of fellow travellers on the road so that I might shield us at need, but I was tired and hungry, and I began to find myself getting careless.
I daresay Aleksei felt it, too. When I suggested that we turn off the road, conceal ourselves in the pines, and catch a few hours of sleep, he agreed readily.
He watched in perplexity as I borrowed his little belt knife and cut a few long, narrow strips from the blanket in which we carried our supplies. “What on earth are you doing, Moirin? Making some sort of charm?”
I concentrated on braiding the strips together. “Hardly. I’m making a hobble for this big fellow.” I nodded at the cart-horse, who leaned down to lip at my head-scarf again. “I think he’s done in. We’ll turn him loose before we go, but this way he’ll rest without straying far, and we’ll gain a few hours before his return is discovered.”
“Oh. I’d never have thought of such a thing.”
“You might if you’d spent three months in shackles,” I said absently, knotting the makeshift hobble around the cart-horse’s hairy fetlocks. “Sorry about this,” I added to the horse, who responded by pulling the scarf clean off my head with his dexterous lips. I laughed and tugged it away from him, then kissed his velvety muzzle. “What, do you think you’re a goat now? Rest, great heart. I’m sorry I’ve nothing to feed you.” I turned to find Aleksei gazing at me in wonder. “What is it?” Realizing my head was bare, I touched my hair. “This? Aleksei, I will wear the scarf in public, I promise, but is there any chance you might endure it otherwise? It’s very itchy.”
He shook his head. “It’s not the scarf. It’s just….. you, Moirin. You’re not like I expected.”
“How so?” I sat cross-legged beside the blanket of supplies and cut myself a hunk of bread and cheese before passing them to him.
“I don’t know if I can put it into words.” He took a modest portion of food for himself. “For all that you tease me, for all the sins you’ve confessed to committing, there’s something oddly….. innocent….. about you.”
I laughed. “Innocent?”
Aleksei nodded. “Seeing you like this, yes.”
I shrugged. “Mayhap it’s just that you’re seeing me happy and free for the first time since you’ve laid eyes on me.”
“No, it’s something more.” He rolled a hunk of brown bread in his hand, then whistled softly to the cart-horse, who came over to accept it gratefully, his lips nibbling Aleksei’s palm. “They like bread, especially if you roll it like that,” he added. “I expect it’s the salt from one’s sweat. When I was a boy, I used to hide in the stables sometimes.”
I chewed and swallowed a bite of my own. “Oh, aye? So did I when I was younger, when I visited Cillian at Innisclan.”
“Who is Cillian?”
I forgot that unlike his uncle, Aleksei didn’t have knowledge of the vast litany of my sins. He knew I had confessed to them, but he wasn’t privy to all the salacious details. “My oldest friend, and my first lover.”
Aleksei flushed, but he didn’t look away. “Are you trying to shock me because I called you innocent?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t mind it. Only do not mistake me for something I’m not.”
He rolled another pellet of bread. “I don’t think I am.”
I watched him feed it to the cart-horse. “You remind me of him a little. Cillian, that is.”
His flush deepened. “Oh? How so?”
“You’ve a similar build,” I said. “Tall, long-limbed. And Cillian was a scholar, too, although it was tales of adventure and magic he loved.” I smiled sadly. “And he was only a little older than you when he died, I think.”
Aleksei’s face softened. “I’m sorry; I didn’t know. How did he die?”
“On a cattle-raid,” I murmured. “He was thrown and trampled.”
“I’m sorry,” Aleksei repeated.
“Thank you.” I was grateful for the simple gift of his sympathy, grateful that unlike his uncle, he was willing to allow me the privacy of my memories. I hadn’t forgotten his kindness when I was dealing with the worst of my grief at hearing of Jehanne’s death.
We ate together in companionable silence. When I had finished, I folded my head-scarf into a pillow, preparing to settle onto the pine-mast.
“Sleep for a few hours,” I suggested. “We’ll set out before dark, and walk through the night. It ought to be clear enough to see again, and it’s safer.”
He nodded. “If we do, we ought to reach the Ude River by noon tomorrow. I’m hoping we can buy passage on a barge.”
I smiled at him. “Ah, so you have thought this through, my hero.”
Aleksei returned my smile wryly. “It’s a poor excuse for a hero that has to be pushed by his mother into rescuing the maiden, then rely on the maiden to make their escape. But I am trying.”
“Heroes are not made overnight,” I murmured, curling up on the pine-mast and cushioning my head on the folded scarf and closing my eyes. “I think you’re doing very well.”
Worn out by exertion and fear, I fell asleep almost immediately, although it was a restless sleep. I dreamed I was back in Riva, back in chains, scrubbing the temple floor under Luba’s merciless gaze. Every time I thought I was finished with a mosaic square, she would point out ingrained dirt I had missed, forcing me to dip the scrub-brush back into the bucket of lye and begin over again, and it seemed to me in my dream that if I did not finish before the Patriarch came to inspect my work, I would be hauled to the town square and stoned.