Naamah's Curse

TWENTY-ONE

With unctuous courtesy, the Patriarch of Riva introduced me to his family, my new jailors.

The older of the two women was his wife, Luba, a stern-looking woman with grey eyes and lips thinned with disapproval. The other woman, Valentina, was his sister. Although she was younger than her brother, she had the same velvety brown eyes and worn traces of beauty in her features. Both of them wore scarves wrapped around their heads.

Neither of them cared to meet my eyes, nor did the young man.

He intrigued me.

He hadn’t lifted his head once since Ilya escorted me into the temple, keeping his face stubbornly averted. Tawny hair, bronze streaked with lighter gold, fell to curtain his features, reminding me uncomfortably of Raphael de Mereliot.

It wasn’t just that, though. When I gazed at him, I felt the unmistakable stirring of Naamah’s gift within me, recognizing its presence in another. Without ever looking at me, the young man flushed beneath my gaze, a tide of red blood creeping upward to stain his throat and cheeks.

“Aleksei,” the Patriarch said in a somber voice. “She is a test and a trial of your faith as much as mine, and perhaps even more so. It is the only way you can ever redeem your mother’s sin.”

The young man nodded. “Yes, Uncle.” Squaring his broad shoulders, he lifted his head and met my gaze.

I drew in a sharp breath. He was half-D’Angeline, no doubt. The stamp of Terre d’Ange was on his features, that keen, fearful symmetry wedded to the rugged Vralian bones to form a different kind of beauty. His full lips were made for kissing, and his eyes, gods! They were a vivid hue of blue tinged with violet, like rain-washed speedwell blossoms.

At the moment, they gazed at me with a mixture of fascination and morbid fear.

His mother, Valentina, made a choked sound and turned away.

I let out my breath. “Is that what this is really about?” I asked the Patriarch, trying not to let my anger show. “Some D’Angeline laid a cuckoo’s egg in your sister’s nest, and I must be punished for it?”

“No, child.” Pyotr Rostov shook his head. “I spoke the truth. It is about sin and redemption-yours, mine, Aleksei’s, Valentina’s, and the whole world’s. It is about the Rebbe Avraham ben David, and the struggle for the soul of Vralia’s faith. It is about the prophecies of Elijah of Antioch… do you know of them?”

“No,” I said curtly.

“You will,” he said in a calm tone. “Have no fear, Moirin mac Fainche. I will teach you. Through Yeshua’s grace, I will guide you to the light of the One True God.”

“I would rather you didn’t,” I muttered.

The Patriarch laid a hand on my shoulder. “Child, you only think that because there are blinders on your eyes. I will remove them and teach you to see. What men call Hell is but the absence of God. When you learn to see, when you accept God’s presence in your life, you will understand that you have been suffering needlessly for a very long time.”

I jerked away from him, my chains rattling. “Will you remove these when I do?” I asked, holding out my shackled wrists.

“I will.” He beckoned to Ilya, still loitering discreetly behind us. Ilya came forward, fishing the key from a second chain around his neck, hidden beneath his robes. It was one of the first places I would have looked if I’d ever succeeded in bashing his head in. I wished I had. He handed it over with ceremony. The Patriarch let it dangle from his fist. “On the day that you pledge yourself heart and soul to the One True God and his son Yeshua, I will unlock your chains, Moirin.”

“I’ll do it now,” I offered, reckoning that under the circumstances the Maghuin Dhonn Herself would forgive me the lie.

He gave me a condescending smile. “True faith is hard won. I will know when you have won yours. You have not even made a beginning until you confess the full litany of your sins.” He stroked his beard. “I suspect that alone will take a long, long time.”

I was silent.

The Patriarch sighed. “There will come a day when you will thank me, but I do not expect you to believe me now. Now…” His nostrils flared. “I do believe you would be well served by a good scrubbing.”

With that, I was dismissed.

Luba and Valentina led me away. I glanced over my shoulder to see Aleksei kneeling at his uncle’s feet, the Patriarch’s hand resting on his head in benediction as he spoke to the young man in hushed tones.

There were living quarters attached to the temple, modest and simply adorned. The bathing chamber was a stark affair-a room with a tin tub filled with water, and a wooden bench with a ball of soap and a wire brush. As I wondered exactly how I was meant to bathe while I was still chained into my clothing, Luba exited and returned with a pair of sharp shears and a grim smile.

It wasn’t easy to cut through the thick Tatar wool and felt. She struggled, breathing hard, scoring my skin a number of times as she strove to find an angle that would give her leverage.

The third time it happened, I winced. “It would be a great deal easier if you just took off the chains for one bedamned moment.”

She ignored me.

“It’s not as though there aren’t enough of you to overpower me,” I added.

The tip of the shears dug into my spine. She gave a wrenching squeeze, and more thick fabric tore. I sighed.

“Luba does not speak your tongue,” Valentina said in a low voice. “You cannot tempt her to folly.”

“I was not trying-”

She gave me a sharp look. “Save your lies!”

At least she had looked at me. I breathed slowly and held my tongue, reminding myself to be patient. I needed some ally, any ally. I would not find one in this woman by insulting her intelligence.

It must have taken the better part of an hour for Luba to cut away the last of my filthy clothing. Avoiding my gaze, she gestured for me to climb into the tub. Naked and clanking, I did.

The water was cold, and although I would gladly have done it myself, Luba set about scrubbing me with relentless determination, as though the act were some kind of hateful duty. The lye soap was stinging and caustic, especially on the myriad nicks she had inflicted on my skin and the chafed welts that had begun to rise beneath my shackles. The wire brush was harsh and painful, taking off layers of skin. Unbidden tears came to my eyes.

“It is good to mortify the flesh,” Valentina said unexpectedly, an edge to her tone. “The flesh is weak and sinful. Only the spirit is pure.”

I sought her gaze. “Is that what you believe?”

She looked away. “You should not be here. My brother is a fool to bring you under his roof.”

I raised my hands helplessly. “Steal his key and set me free, and I will go, my lady. I will go so swiftly, it will be as though I were never here.”

Her shoulders tensed. “I dare not.”

“Are you afraid of him?” I asked softly. “Your brother?”

“Pyotr? No.” Valentina fixed me with a hard stare, pointing at me. “I fear you, and all you represent. I am afraid for myself, and I am afraid for my son. I am afraid of God’s judgment upon us. But if there is a chance that I am wrong and my brother is right, I will take it. If you are the penance we must endure, I will accept it.”

I was confused. “I don’t understand.”

She gave a short, harsh laugh. “You will in time.”

Luba spoke to her in Vralian, words that sounded like a warning; and then the Patriarch’s wife put her hand on the back of my neck, dunking my head forcibly beneath the cold water. When at last she allowed me to lift my head, I sputtered for breath. She scoured irritably at my long, tangled hair with the lye soap, then gave up and put out her hand for the shears, which Valentina gave to her.

I felt an unexpected pang. “Oh, please don’t-”

The shears closed with a sharp, snicking sound. I felt cool air on the nape of my neck. My wet hair swung forward, chin-length.

“Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!” Valentina said bitterly. “How weak is a woman’s spirit? How willing is she to succumb to the temptations of the flesh? How eager to tempt others into sin?”

“I am hardly in a position to tempt anyone,” I muttered. “Nor am I to blame for whoever led you into temptation.”

She shrugged. “We shall see.”

They took no chances with me, no matter how much effort it entailed. Once I was scrubbed and shorn, the two women worked together to pick apart the seams of a coarse woolen dress, then draped it around my chained body and sewed it in place. It was drab, shapeless, and grey, and the unrefined wool itched and chafed against my raw, abraded skin. Valentina wrapped a woolen scarf around my head, tucking the strands of my wet hair beneath it.

“You will learn to cover your head like a decent woman,” she said firmly. “Wear this at all times in the presence of men.”

“Lest I tempt them with my dazzling beauty?” I asked in a wry tone. Never in my whole life had I felt so thoroughly miserable and unappealing.

Even so, Valentina’s mouth tightened. She surveyed me with profound distaste and apprehension. “Yes.”

From the bathing chamber, they led me to my cell-another simple, stark room. It contained a bed with a thin pallet and a single blanket, a chamberpot, a straight-backed chair, a wooden stool, a stand with a ewer of water, and a tin cup. There was one high, narrow window, far too narrow for anything larger than a cat to squeeze through.

Luba spoke to Valentina, who nodded and translated. “Here, you will stay. Today and tonight, you will fast and think on your sins. Fasting clears the mind. Tomorrow, the Patriarch will begin your instruction.”

I unwound the head-scarf with a yank, shaking my damp, shorn hair loose in a defiant gesture. “Then I’ll not need this until tomorrow.”

“You would be wise to heed my advice and think on your sins.” Valentina’s gaze was bleak. “As my brother said, the path to salvation begins with confession. And he will demand a very full accounting.”

Pity stirred in me. “As he did of you?”

Her gaze slid away. “Think on it.”

The women left me, locking the door behind them with a firm click. I tried it anyway and found I couldn’t budge it.

I was alone with my sins, whatever they were.