Naamah's Curse

THIRTY-FIVE

The Patriarch of Riva had not expected defiance. He frowned at me, holy oil dripping from the tips of his fingers. “What do you mean you can’t?”

It had gotten very quiet in the temple. I could hear the low murmur of Aleksei translating for the Duke of Vralsturm, and faint whispers as those around him eavesdropped and passed on his words.

I’d gone ice-cold beneath my damp robe. My mind worked frantically. “I… It would be blasphemy, my lord. I cannot swear an oath to Yeshua on the troth that binds me to my diadh-anam.” My voice trembled. “You may as well ask me to swear it by the Maghuin Dhonn Herself! That cannot be right!”

Over the course of months, I’d gotten good at lying, good at dissembling. Not good enough. Not here, not now. He could see the panic in my eyes.

“I will be the judge of what is blasphemous or not, Moirin,” Pyotr Rostov said in a smooth tone. “Not you, a lowly catechumen. Will you swear the oath or not?”

I shook my head slowly. “No.”

He lowered the dish of holy oil. “Then I will cancel the ceremony.”

“My lord…” My mouth had gone dry. “Please, no. I’ve worked so very hard to obey you. This is your moment of triumph. Will you spoil it?”

The Patriarch’s eyes narrowed. I watched him weigh the decision. If he acceded, he would have his moment of mortal triumph intact and unspoiled, but it would be a lie, a holy rite violated in the temple of God. In the struggle for my soul, he would be acknowledging his failure.

All I could do was pray that his ambition outweighed his fanaticism.

It didn’t.

“I’m sorry, Moirin. More sorry than you know. I take no pleasure in what must follow.” He returned the dish to its stand, addressing the congregation in sonorous Vralian, his voice heavy with regret.

Shocked gasps rippled through the crowd. I didn’t know enough Vralian to follow everything he said, but I didn’t need to. Here and there, I caught words I knew. The reaction of the crowd and the look of dawning horror on Aleksei’s face told me everything I needed to know. All my hard work, all my patience, everything had unraveled in a matter of heartbeats. All for one oath unsworn.

“You’re condemning me to death, aren’t you?” I whispered.

Rostov didn’t look at me. “You leave me no choice.”

“No choice!” My long-repressed anger returned ten-fold, fueled by mindless terror. “Oh, please, my lord! You have chosen everything! Everything! You have chosen which of the prophets you will heed, and which you will ignore! You have chosen to elevate the harshest strictures over the kindest of Yeshua’s teaching!” I yanked off my sodden head-scarf, hurling it away from me. “You have chosen this endless fascination with sins of the flesh!”

His face darkened. “Moirin, be silent!”

“No!” I shouted at him. “I have been silent long enough! Do you think I do not know how it aroused you to hear my confession? How many times did you fornicate with him? Did you pleasure her with your mouth?” I asked, mimicking him. “Do you think I did not know it made your rod harden and swell to hear it?”

“You will be silent!” The Patriarch strode down from the dais and struck me hard across the face, knocking me to the floor in a tangle of chains and wet robes.

I scrambled backward, my head ringing, but I did not cease taunting him. “Does it harden even now, my lord?”

He strode after me, reaching down to grasp my chains and haul me to my feet, raising his hand to strike another blow.

And then the Duke of Vralsturm and his men were there to intervene, easing us apart. I gasped with relief at the reprieve and gazed at the Duke’s weather-beaten face, a spark of hope coming to me. I tried to think of a single word of Vralian, and failed. My wits were too scrambled. “Aleksei!” I looked frantically for him, found him and caught his arm. “Aleksei, I need your help.”

“Moirin…” Aleksei wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Just translate for me!” I said. He nodded reluctantly. Collecting myself as best I could, I turned to the Duke. “My lord, forgive me this scene. But I have been held prisoner here against my will for many months. I am a citizen of Terre d’Ange and Alba, and descended from the royal houses of both nations.”

Aleksei translated. The Duke listened and nodded, appraising me with his sharp blue-grey eyes. He asked a question, and Aleksei relayed it. “Descended how so?”

“I will give him my genealogy if he wishes,” I said. “Daniel de la Courcel, the King of Terre d’Ange, acknowledged me as kin. Ask the Patriarch himself; his own notes confirm it. I have no doubt his highness would reward my rescuer, as I have no doubt he would be most wroth if I were put to death here.”

It was a gamble, but King Daniel had always been fond of me. I wished now I had presented myself to the Cruarch before I’d left Alba.

Once again, Aleksei translated; once again, the Duke asked questions of him. These, Aleksei answered himself. The Duke bowed his head toward me and spoke at length, and there was regret in his voice.

“What did he say?” I asked dully.

“He said…” Aleksei cleared his throat and stared at the pebbled floor. “He said what you say may be true, but you have sinned against the Church nonetheless. You are far from home. No one knows you are here, and no one will know if you die here. And although… although it is a shame to destroy such exquisite beauty, any woman who can tempt the Patriarch of Riva to lose control of himself in the temple of God is too dangerous to live.”

“Oh.” My last spark of hope guttered and died.

The Duke of Vralsturm spoke to the Patriarch briefly, then beckoned to his men. Together, they exited the temple.

In the wake of their departure, the crowd began to surge forward. They may not have understood all that had transpired, but they were ready to drag me to the town square and stone me here and now.

“Aleksei…” My voice was high with fear.

With only a moment’s hesitation, he put himself between me and the crowd, reaching out his hands in a pleading gesture.

What would have happened if Pyotr Rostov had not addressed the crowd, I cannot say. But he did, and it quieted them. One by one, they began to file out of the temple.

I did not think it was much of a reprieve.

I was right.

The Patriarch turned to me. “Moirin mac Fainche of the Maghuin Dhonn,” he said with velvety malice. “For sins of the flesh, witchcraft, and blasphemy against the Church of Yeshua Ascendant, you will be put to death by stoning at dawn tomorrow. I recommend you spend the night meditating on your sins.”

“Go to hell, you stunted old pervert,” I muttered.

He gave me a creamy smile, not trying to hide it for once. “Nephew, I think it best if you have no further contact with the witch. Luba, Valentina, escort her to her cell.”

I glanced over my shoulder at Aleksei as we left. He was staring at the floor again, which didn’t bode well for me.

Luba was smiling, broadly and openly. For a piece of irony, it made her look pleasant and kind for the first time since I’d known her. I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear her burst into song.

Valentina was silent, her face shuttered and averted. When they made to leave, I caught her sleeve.

“Thank you, my lady,” I said softly. “For such small kindnesses as you have shown me. My mother…” My voice broke. “If she knew, my mother would be glad that her daughter did not die entirely friendless.”

She did not answer or meet my eyes, only freed my hand gently from her sleeve. They left, and I heard the key turn in the lock.

I was alone.

Tomorrow, I was going to die-and quite horribly.

It took some time for the enormity of that notion to settle over me. I had faced death before, more than once. I wasn’t afraid of death, not exactly. I had made peace with it. I knew what awaited me on the far side of the stone doorway. The precious spark of my diadh-anam shone inside me, a promise that the Maghuin Dhonn Herself would welcome me home, and I would be free at last.

The dying itself was another matter.

I wondered how long it would take, and how much it would hurt. A lot, I thought. The bones of my face ached where the Patriarch had struck me, and my cheek was bruised and swollen.

I prayed.

I cried.

I thought about all the people who would never know that I had died here and would always wonder what had befallen me. I wished I could speak to them. My mother, most of all-and Bao, a close second.

What would become of him? If I were right and I died with my diadh-anam unextinguished, he would live, condemned to wander the earth in search of the missing half of his soul, never knowing for sure.

Mayhap it would be better if I were wrong.

I thought about everything I had done here in Riva, wondering what I could have done differently. Something. Nothing. If I had not lost my temper and sworn the sacred oath of the Maghuin Dhonn earlier, mayhap the Patriarch would not have sought to bind me with it-or mayhap not. He had known of Berlik’s oath. Mayhap if I had not baited the Patriarch in the temple, the Duke of Vralsturm would have relented and aided me.

Mayhap.

Bao had accused me of being impulsive. He was right; he was usually right. But I had been patient for so very, very long; and Pyotr Rostov had already condemned me to death. I didn’t know if it would have made a difference if I had held my tongue.

I leaned my head against the wall and watched the light change in my narrow window, mellowing to an afternoon glow, fading slowly to dusk, a painful reminder of the twilight that was forbidden to me.

Come dawn…

They would gloat, those bedamned villagers. Hurling stones that broke my bones and tore my flesh, eking out a slow, painful death; oh yes, they would gloat, glorying in their almighty self-righteousness.

It was going to hurt a lot, for a long time. It was a bad way to die.

I closed my eyes, slow tears leaking beneath my lids. I wished I could be brave and defiant on the morrow, but I was fairly sure I would just be terrified. And I was fairly sure the Patriarch had granted me this day’s reprieve only that I might fully experience the depth of my terror.

No, I was sure.

When I heard the sound of a key turning in the lock of my cell door, I thought at first that I was dreaming.

I wasn’t.

My narrow window was dark. I sat upright on my narrow bed, watching a gilded wedge of lamplight enter my chamber as a lone figure slipped through the door, tall and rangy.

“Aleksei,” I breathed. “You’ve risked everything to free me after all?”

In the lamp-lit darkness, he shook his head. A silver key dangled from his fist on a chain. “Not I, no. My mother.”