Naamah's Curse

Page 5

A fur-trimmed hat of felted wool that smelled of lanolin topped the ensemble. I wrinkled my nose at it. “Is this necessary?”
“Where you are bound, yes.” Peng adjusted it over my ears, tugging it in place. His fingertips brushed the skin of my temples, and he flushed at the unintended intimacy, taking a quick step backward. “It is a dangerous journey. Are you quite certain you must go?” He cleared his throat. “And quite certain that you must go without an escort?”
Desire.
I saw it in his flush, in the sudden heat of his eyes. There was a part of me that responded to it, my blood quickening. He was handsome and pleasant, and I was lonely. I did not know how many days or weeks or months it would take before I found Bao. When all was said and done, I was Naamah’s child, and I responded to desire. It was the path I trod and the element in which I swam.
My diadh-anam flared in rebellion.
“Aye,” I murmured. “I am.”
Chen Peng bowed. “Will you permit me one indulgence? I would beg you to ascend the wall and behold the scope of your task.”
I nodded. “All right.”
He escorted me to the right-hand gate tower. We climbed a winding stair and emerged atop the wall. The sky overhead was impossibly vast, a fathomless vault of vivid blue. I stood silent beneath it, gazing out at the endless expanse of grassy plain that stretched into the horizon as far as the eye could see. There were no farms, no villages. Nothing but grass and sky, and a few dots in the distance that might have been animals grazing.
“There is not even a road, you see,” Peng said quietly, watching me. “In the summer during peace-times, the Tatars drive their livestock here to trade.”
I felt Bao’s presence far away, the twinned spark of his diadh-anam calling to mine over the leagues. “I do not require a road.”
“They are a war-like folk.” The soldier nodded at the Emperor’s medallion. “And that will mean nothing to them.”
“I know,” I said. “But Ch’in is at peace with them now, is it not?”
He shrugged. “Peace is never certain with the Tatars. I beg you one last time, Noble Lady. Allow me to assemble an escort.”
The wind was cold on my cheeks. Standing atop the wall, I consulted my own diadh-anam one last time, trying to tune out the insistent call of Bao’s to discern the will of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself.
The open space of the gate yawned beneath the stone ramparts of the Great Wall. A powerful memory came to me unbidden. I had passed through another stone doorway long ago in Alba. It was a rite of passage among my people. Alone, I went through the stone doorway in the valley beyond the hollow hills into a world of dazzling night and shadowy day, a world of piercing beauty deeper and more profound than my soft, familiar twilight, a world where darkness and light were one and the same.
There, I had waited and waited, until the Great Bear Herself came to me, the Brown Bear of the Maghuin Dhonn.
At first, She came as a presence so immense She blotted out the stars. The earth had trembled beneath Her tread. With each slow, mighty pace, She had dwindled and shaped Herself to a mortal scale.
Her eyes had been so kind, so wise, so filled with compassion and sorrow.
She had breathed upon me, claiming me as Her own; and I had rejoiced, happy to bask in Her presence. And then She had shown me a vision of sparkling oceans filling the stone doorway behind me, and I had understood that I had a destiny to fulfill.
I still did.
And I would not find it until I found Bao, and somehow managed to reunite my divided diadh-anam.
I sighed.
Dangerous or no, foolish or no, this was my quest; and I was bound to undertake it alone. That was the meaning of my memory’s vision, confirming the truth of my reluctant heart. I breathed the Breath of Wind’s Sigh, feeling the space behind my eyes expand to encompass the enormous ocean of grass I beheld.
My kind soldier Peng waited patiently, hopeful.
Standing atop the wall, I turned back to face the Empire of Ch’in itself, breathing the Breath of Earth’s Pulse to ground myself. The land that had once seemed strange to me had become a familiar place, filled with folk I could easily love.
Somewhere behind me, Auntie Li was reading tea leaves and regaling customers with tales of the Emperor’s jade-eyed witch, who had seen fit to patronize her inn. Closer, Auntie Ai was fondly scolding Bao’s mother and sister, bent over their embroidery, jade bangles on their wrists, exchanging glances and smiling.
No doubt young Hui was already boasting of our acquaintance to anyone who would listen.
Snow Tiger….. what was my valiant princess doing? Sparring, mayhap, her slender sword darting and flashing steel-bright in her hands. Taking counsel with her father, the Emperor. Shooting at targets, reading the poetry she loved in the gardens of the Celestial City. Mayhap she was listening to music. Whatever she was doing, her faithful, hopelessly enamored guardsman Ten Tigers Dai would be hovering in the background, his bamboo staff at the ready. I hoped that when she thought of her erstwhile necessary inconvenience, she thought of me with the same poignant affection I held for her. I thought she did. My princess had sent me away with a smile as tender as a kiss.
The dragon…..
The dragon would be drowsing atop the peaks of White Jade Mountain—sleeping or near to it. His opalescent eyes would be half-lidded, gazing at his reflection in the translucent waters of the pond below him, his coils and possessive claws sunk into stone and indistinguishable from the mountain, guarding the secret treasure that might grow upon its inaccessible slopes, the Camaeline snowdrops I had planted there at the dragon’s bidding.
Master Lo Feng.
I bowed and breathed the Breath of Trees Growing, drawing strength from it. “Forgive me, Master,” I whispered, turning away from my past. “I will do my best to be worthy of the sacrifice you made.”
Beneath the vast blue sky, the distant horizon beckoned me.
“You are going alone,” Chen Peng said with regret.
“Aye.” I had nearly forgotten his presence. “I am.”
SIX
Grass.
Grass, and grass, and grass.
Once the Great Wall was no longer visible behind me, that was all I saw. Grass and sky. Grazing animals here and there, mostly sheep and cattle. Those, I avoided, knowing it meant there were herders nearby. Betimes, herds of wild gazelles.
It was lonely and peaceful.
I gave a wide berth to the Tatar encampments I saw, the distinctive domes of white felt dotting the plain. If Bao was living among the Tatars, sooner or later I would have to come into contact with them and discover if they were as fearsome as their reputation, but I was content to let it be later. There was no need to go begging for trouble, and I had no need to ask if anyone had seen Bao. Always, always, I could sense him ahead of me.
Hoping to catch up with him before the temperature dropped further, I travelled as fast as I dared; but even in the vast, empty plains, there were constraints. Travelling alone as I was, I couldn’t carry much fodder for my mounts. Chen Peng had assured me that the horses would find sufficient grazing to sustain them, but that meant a good portion of each day was devoted to allowing them to graze.
Then there was the matter of water. Again, I had waterskins that allowed me to carry enough for myself to live on for days, but not enough for the horses, too. I didn’t dare go more than a day or two without being in sight of water. When I found rivers winding in Bao’s general direction, I followed them.
Bit by bit, I made progress.
The nights were the hardest. During the day, I had the sun to warm me and lift my spirits.
At night it was different. It was cold—gods, so cold! It frightened me to think how much colder it could get. I slept in my clothing beneath a fur blanket in the small tent of felted wool that was the bulk of the burden my pack-horse, Coal, carried. Inside the tent, the warmth my body generated was enough to sustain me for now, but every night seemed a little colder than the night before.
The Tatars may have lived behind felt walls, but their walls were thicker and they had one gift I lacked: fire.
It wasn’t for lack of skill. I carried a good flint striking kit. And I’d helped my mother tend our hearth since I was four or five years old….. but, of course, I’d grown up in a forest.
There were no trees on the empty plain.
From time to time, I passed through an abandoned pasture where I could collect dried dung. Not often, for the Tatars scoured the plains and left little behind when they moved to new pastures. On those occasions when I was able to collect enough to build a campfire, it seemed like a profound luxury. I would fill the little iron pot I carried with water, dried noodles, and bean curd and nestle it amid the burning dung-coals. The resulting soup was chewy and flavorless, but it was wonderfully warm in my belly.
Alone save for the horses, I would huddle over my tiny, smoldering fire, watching the immense sky change colors as the sun sank below the horizon.
Most days, I made do with tough strips of dried yak-meat, gnawing as I rode, chewing and softening it until my jaws ached.
Most nights, I crawled into my narrow tent without the comfort of a fire, tying the flaps tight against the bitter cold and burrowing under my blanket.
It was harder than I had reckoned. Anywhere else in the world, I would have been well equipped to survive. I’d grown up in the wilderness. If there had been edible plants to forage, I would have found them.
There weren’t.
I was skilled with a bow. If there had been game to shoot, I could have shot it. But mostly, there wasn’t. Such birds as I saw were poor eating—buzzards and raptors. The small game mammals of the plains were already hibernating.
There were the occasional wild gazelles, growing shaggy with the increasing cold. If I’d had fodder for a proper fire, it might have been worthwhile.
But I didn’t.
It is a thing we take much for granted, fire. When all is said and done, it is the first, most primordial thing that separates humans from animals. Being children of the Great Bear Herself, the folk of the Maghuin Dhonn are closer than most to the animal realm; and yet, deprived of fire, I craved its reassurance.
I found myself scheming ways to attain it. I eyed the fresh, steaming turds of dung Ember and Coal deposited on the plains, wondering if there were some significance to the fire-names I had given them, wondering if I might rig some manner of woven rack that would allow their dung to dry as it was transported.
Of course, if I had had the materials to build such a rack, I would have had materials to build a fire.
I didn’t.
So I gnawed on my strips of dried yak-meat while we plodded westward, ever westward. I did my best to meditate on the lessons Master Lo had taught me. I cycled through the Five Styles of Breathing. I measured the dwindling distance between my diadh-anam and the spark of Bao’s.
I let my thoughts wander as far away as Terre d’Ange…..
Jehanne.
It was at night that I thought of her most, when the immense canopy of stars flung itself across the night sky. As fair as she was, with silver-gilt hair and skin so pale it was nearly translucent, blue-grey eyes that held an impossibly charming sparkle, I’d always thought of Jehanne in terms of starlight and moonlight.
She would have been appalled to find me here.
But she would have understood it.
I pictured her, her fair brows frowning. This peasant-boy, do you love him?
I think so.
Jehanne would have shrugged, her slender shoulders rising and falling. Well, then, mayhap you do. She would have smiled and beckoned to me anyway, her eyes sparkling. But you are still mine for now, my lovely savage.
And I would have gone to her. Once, on the greatship, I had asked Bao why he was jealous of Raphael but not of Jehanne. Might as well be jealous of the moon for shining as that one, he had said in a philosophical tone. There was no one in the world Jehanne couldn’t charm when she chose.
Thoughts of opulent Terre d’Ange were an incongruous thing on the Tatar plain, riding with dung beneath my fingernails, but they helped sustain me. It was good to remember that there had been a time when my world had consisted of more than endless grass plains, frigid, shivering nights, and dried yak-meat. There had been feasts with all manner of delicacies, bottomless pitchers of wine. There had been balls with music and dancing, splendid garments, a thousand shimmering lanterns. I’d had my own quarters at the Palace, the enchanted bower that Jehanne had caused to be made for me, warmed with braziers and filled with every kind of green, growing plant imaginable. Fragrant orange and lemon trees, dwarf firs in pots, tall fronds of ferns casting green shadows over my bed.
Here, there was grass, grass, and more grass.
I missed trees.
One day, I came across an unfamiliar structure. From a distance, it looked like a mound of sticks tied about with blue rags. Wary of human presence, I hesitated to approach it, but I sensed no one, and the prospect of wood drew me.
At closer range, I saw it was true. It was a conical cairn built of weathered branches—wood, firewood, enough for half a dozen merry campfires. I dismounted in haste, already calculating how best to bundle and load it, and how much additional weight Coal could carry, my cold fingers reaching eagerly to dismantle the structure.
And then my diadh-anam stirred in warning, and I hesitated.
Scarves of vibrant blue silk hung from the branches. There were little bowls nestled around the base of the cairn, tucked into niches. Some held a dried residue that might have been milk. Others held what looked to be the petrified remains of some kind of dumpling, pale and smooth as river-stones.
I sighed.
“This is a sacred place, isn’t it?” I said aloud, gazing at the immense blue vault of the sky. A breeze sprang up as if in answer, setting the blue scarves fluttering.
So be it.
I didn’t have milk or dumplings to offer, but I worked a strip of dried yak-meat free from the pouch that hung from my sash. Although I was worried about my stores growing low, I had learned in my travels that it was always wise to offer respect to foreign gods. I bowed and placed the meat in a bowl, hoping that it would not offend the original donor, hoping that whatever gods the Tatars worshipped would not think me stingy.