Naamah's Kiss

Page 44

She raised her brows. "Why? Do you imagine for an instant I wasn't enjoying myself? I haven't bothered to feign pleasure since I made my marque."
"No." I smiled. "I didn't think that. But I do think you may have saved my life."
"Ah." Jehanne gave me one of her complicated looks, then smiled back at me. "Mayhap I did at that."
With that, my unlikely rescuer departed.
I fell asleep with the scent of her still lingering on my skin.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The hardest part about recovering was facing the Court. "You're stalling," Jehanne accused me at the end of a week's time. "You're obviously feeling well enough."
I sighed. I couldn't deny it, having just demonstrated it at length and with considerable enthusiasm. "Will Raphael be there?"
She shook her head. "He's not been to Court since the night of the ball. He's in a furious sulk." She paused. "Are you ready to talk about him?"
"Nooo." I wound a lock of her hair around my fingers. "Will Thierry be there?"
"It's a state dinner," Jehanne said wryly. "Yes, the Dauphin will be present. But don't worry, the brunt of his anger is directed at me." She sighed, too. "It's my own fault. I shouldn't have dressed him down in public."
"He had strong feelings for you once," I said.
"I know." She pillowed her head on one arm. "I realized it too late. I would have handled it differently if I'd known. I should have treated him as a young man, with respect. Instead, I treated him like a boy who'd lost his mother." One shoulder shrugged. "I was young; I thought it was the proper thing to do. He was insulted, and he resented me for supposing I could take her place."
"Did you?" I asked.
"Never." Jehanne traced the line of my collarbone. "Thierry never understood that his father could let himself love me because I'm nothing like his mother." She smiled sadly. "Nor that she'll always be the one woman I can never compete with. She'll always be first in Daniel's heart."
"That's why Lianne's poem made him so melancholy?" I asked.
She nodded. "And that's why he tolerates my foibles. We're unfaithful to one another in different ways."
"Sad," I murmured.
"Yes, and I'd forgotten you were spying on us that night."
"I wasn't—"
"You were." Jehanne kissed me and bit my lower lip lightly. "Come to dinner, my lovely witchling. People are starting to say I've locked you away in a dungeon."
I glanced around the room filled with sunlight and greenery. "It's a pleasant prison."
"And you're a charming prisoner, but I don't think you're meant to be kept in a cage, Moirin." She untangled her body from mine and slid out of bed. "Besides, I like to parade my conquests."
I eyed her, trying to guess if she was jesting.
I didn't think so.
Jehanne smiled sweetly at me. "Come to dinner."
So I went to dinner.
At the beginning, it was every bit as uncomfortable as I'd feared it would be. I dressed carefully with a maid's assistance. I wore the bronze gown I'd first worn at Court, though not the emerald eardrops Raphael had given me, and surely not the comb that had been Thierry's gift. Jehanne sent her Captain of the Guard to escort me. He was unfailingly polite. Still, the moment we entered the dining hall, there was a little silence, followed by covert stares and murmurs. It was much the same as my first appearance at Court—and altogether different.
Across the hall, Thierry glared daggers at me. His comrades whispered.
I breathed the Breath of Earth's Pulse, slow and deep.
"Lady Moirin." King Daniel clasped my hands and bent to give me the kiss of greeting. "I'm pleased you're feeling better."
I flushed. "Thank you, your majesty."
Jehanne gave me a wicked smile. "Ever so much better, aren't you?"
I scowled at her and she laughed, linking her arm with mine. "Come, sit. Try not to knock over any wineglasses."
And that, it seemed, was that.
I'd been Raphael's witch; now I was the Queen's witch. The speculation was confirmed and the gossip swirled elsewhere. At the far end of the banquet table, a passionate discussion about sending an embassy to Terra Nova broke out.
King Daniel's face darkened.
And I watched Jehanne turn the tide of conversation deftly, charming him, cheering him. Seated uncomfortably across the table from me, Prince Thierry looked disconsolate.
"You'd like to go, wouldn't you?" I asked him. "To Terra Nova."
He glowered at me. "What do you care?"
"I care," I said softly.
"Yes." His tone was stiff. "I'd like to go. I'd like to see Terre d'Ange reclaim its role in the world. I'd like a taste of glory and adventure. Is that so wrong?"
I shook my head. "No, of course not." I lowered my voice. "Listen, Thierry….. I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you."
He toyed with the food on his plate. "You look well," he said at length. "Like you did when I first saw you."
"I'm wearing the same gown."
That won a brief smile from him. "I don't mean the gown, Moirin."
I smiled back at him. "I know."
"She's fickle," Thierry warned me. "Fickle and vain and self-absorbed."
I glanced at Jehanne's exquisite profile. "I know that, too."
"Well. As long as you know." He took a bite of roasted capon, chewed and swallowed. "When all's said and done, I'm glad someone pried you out of de Mereliot's clutches. I just never expected it to be her."
I laughed. "Nor did I."
After that exchange, things were easier between us. It would be an exaggeration to say the balance of the evening was pleasant, but it was tolerable. There was an awkward moment when the King and Queen retired for the night, bidding us to stay and enjoy their hospitality. Everyone rose and bowed or curtsied at their departure. I hesitated, unsure if I was meant to stay or go. I'd never been a royal companion—if that was what 1 was—before.
Jehanne saw the uncertainty in my face and murmured something to the King, letting go his arm. He nodded.
I had a sudden fear that she meant to ask me to join them. "Your majesty, I hope you don't expect—"
"Elua, no!" Jehanne glanced at Thierry. "Moirin, you're my guest. Stay as long as you wish. Enjoy yourself." She reached up to cup the back of my neck and kissed me before the entire Court, then whispered in my ear, "Only remember, I don't like to share."
I understood. It was unfair and unreasonable—but mayhap also for my own good. I agreed to it without a second thought. "I'll see you on the morrow?"
She nodded, eyes sparkling. "If you behave."
I watched them depart the dining hall together—the King and Queen of Terre d'Ange, her hand resting in the crook of his arm. My royal mistress and her royal husband, leaving to share the royal bedchamber, the ghost of his lost love between them.
Thierry passed me a flagon of brandy. "Here. It helps."
I sighed, poured, and drank.
It helped.
But despite everything, the days that followed were a good time. I was content to be Jehanne's companion. It was a refuge. Her mercurial moods didn't trouble me. She liked talking to me. I liked to listen to her and I never tired of looking at her. I took a great deal of pleasure in pleasing her; and she took a great deal of delight in introducing me to new pleasures.
"Such a sweet bottom begging to be plumbed." Jehanne's voice, cooing. Already, I hovered on the precipice. Her hands, cupping my buttocks. "You're still a virgin there?"
"Aye," I gasped.
She smiled. "Not for long."
"I don't think—" My back arched and I grabbed at the bedsheets. "Oh!"
Jehanne de la Courcel was very, very skilled in Naamah's arts.
In that first month, I saw Raphael only once. I'd resumed my lessons with Master Lo Feng and I encountered Raphael in the halls of the Academy. He was walking and talking with Claire Fourcay.
I had to own, my heart quickened at the sight of him.
He stopped dead, his jaw clenching.
"Raphael," I pleaded. "Can we not be civil with one another?"
He swept past me without a word, Claire hurrying in his wake. None of the members of the Circle were speaking to me save Lianne Tremaine. I didn't care about the others, but Raphael's anger troubled me.
"You feel guilty," Jehanne said later. "That's why you don't want to talk about Raphael de Mereliot and his occult schemes."
I wrapped my arms around my knees. "I promised I wouldn't. It would feel like betraying him twice over."
"He was intent on using you toward his own ends," she observed. "You don't think that's a betrayal of sorts?"
I shrugged. "I consented. And he meant well."
She studied my face. "Do you miss him?"
"Do you?" I countered.
"Some days." Jehanne pulled me against her, sinking her hands into my hair and kissing me until the image of Raphael's face blurred in my memory. "Not today." Her grey-blue eyes gazed intently into mine. "Tell me one thing. Are they likely to succeed in whatever they're attempting?"
"No," I murmured. "Not without me."
She kissed me some more. "Good."
Winter deepened. Snow fell, churned to slush in the streets of the City by horses' hooves and carriage wheels. Preparations began for the Midwinter Masque to take place on the Longest Night. My father had promised to return by then, but there was no word of him.
"You're sure?" I asked Noemie d'Etoile at the Temple of Naamah.
"I'm sure." She patted my hand. "Don't fret, Moirin. It's not unusual for Phanuel to be gone for months at a time. Like as not, he's solving some other lovers' dilemma. Problems needing to be solved have a way of finding him."
"I wish he were here, that's all."
The priestess smiled. "Of course you do. Is everything all right with you otherwise? Does being in the Queen's service suit you?"
"Oddly enough, it does."
Noemie laughed. "Not so odd. It's in your blood, after all. By all accounts, it seems to suit her majesty. They say you're a calming influence."
That I hadn't heard. "They do?"
She nodded. "It's been over a month since she made a chambermaid cry. Thirty-two days and counting. That's a new record. They're taking wagers on how long it will last at Bryony House."
I had to smile. "Folk in this City really need to find new pastimes."
At the Academy, Master Lo Feng praised my progress in the Five Styles of Breathing and began teaching me the rudiments of herbal medicine. To the disappointment of both of us, I didn't have a knack for it. Despite my affinity for the plants themselves, I didn't have a head for the complex formulas he taught me—nor any talent in diagnosing ailments. Thanks to the breathing exercises, I did better at sensing the flow of energy and its blockages, but I didn't have Raphael's gift for manipulating it.
Whatever I was, it wasn't a healer.
At least not of humans.
Plants were another matter. Master Lo Feng was particularly intrigued by the Camaeline snowdrop, a rare white flower that grew in the mountains of Camlach province and blossomed in the snowdrifts there once a year. The flowers were pressed and their essence distilled to make joie, a liqueur that was traditionally served on the Longest Night.
"Very tonic," Lo Feng said in approval. "And you foolish people have not even begun to explore the properties of the bulb!"
To that end, the King had arranged to have a shipment of living snowdrops collected in the high mountains and delivered to Master Lo Feng. I was there in the courtyard the day they arrived, delicate flowers already drooping in the burlap sack that held them.
I touched one. It sang a frail, fading song to itself.
Master Lo Feng watched me. "His majesty says no one has ever kept one alive. They only grow wild in the mountains."
"They're pining for deep snow and thin air," I told him. Bao—
Bao was already in motion. He thrust his omnipresent staff over his shoulder through a loop of leather and began scooping up snow that had gathered in the corners of the courtyard. I helped. Together, we packed the sack full of snow.
"Better?" Bao asked me.
"Better," I agreed. My diadh-anam pulsed in my breast. I knelt gingerly on the cold flagstones and listened to the snowdrops' frail song. I closed my eyes and breathed the Breath of Trees Growing, feeling the energy spread throughout my body and thinking about the cycles of giving and taking that linked all living things. And then I breathed the Breath of Wind's Sigh, drawing air up and up behind my eyes, thinking about the cold, high places where the snowdrops grew.
I summoned the twilight, touched the flowers, and blew on them.
Their song grew stronger and clearer.
And I felt less drained than I ever had exercising my gift. I felt the rightness of it. Master Lo Feng had been right about teaching me to breathe and right in his analogy of the waterwheel. What I had given would be returned to me. I could feel the surety of it in the marrow of my bones. When I opened my eyes, my mentor was smiling his subtle smile.
"Magic," he said serenely. "You could keep them alive all the way to Ch'in."