Naamah's Curse

FORTY

I slept.

I slept without dreams, long and hard and deep. I slept the sleep of finding respite after profound fear and exhaustions-luxurious sleep, healing sleep. I slept well past dawn and awoke to slanting sunlight and a sense of being watched.

Opening my eyes, I found Aleksei sitting awkwardly on the foot of the bed, his hands clasped in his lap.

“How long have you been watching me?” I asked sleepily.

“Hours,” he murmured.

I propped myself on my elbows. “Did you not sleep well?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Oh.” Half-awake, I yawned and ran a hand through my hair, untangling the silken strands. It had grown a few inches since Luba had cropped it, long enough to fall over my shoulders. “I’m sorry. Tonight, you will take the bed, and I the floor. You’ll sleep better for it, I promise.” I paused. “Is there some reason you’re staring at me, Aleksei?”

“Yes.”

It was one word, one syllable, but something in the way he spoke it caught my attention. That, and the way he was sitting-awkwardly, aye, and yet as still and grave as a carved saint.

I hauled myself upright, rubbed my eyes, and shook my head, trying to dispel the last dregs of sleep. “I am listening.”

“Moirin…”

I waited. “Aye?”

Aleksei took a deep breath. “I have been thinking. And praying. And yes, watching you while you slept. Watching you at your most vulnerable, with no magic to protect and conceal you, no teasing to bait and entice me. No tales of depravity to shock me. I have been trying to see that unclean spirit in you which seeks to tempt me and lead me astray.”

I opened my mouth to speak.

“Wait.” He raised one hand, his face solemn. “I don’t see it, Moirin. I don’t. Only you, mortal and fallible, and… yourself. Beautiful, yes. Impetuous. Uncanny, to be sure. But a girl, only a girl, too-one apt to kiss a horse on the nose, and quick to delight in a meal of roasted chicken and dumplings. A mother’s child far from home. And I have been asking myself, if it is not to fulfill my uncle’s dream, why has God set you in my path?”

“To test you?” I murmured.

Aleksei spread both hands. “If that is so, I have already failed. I have betrayed my uncle to aid you. Does it matter how much farther I fall?”

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do I.” His chest rose and fell as he took another sharp breath. “And so… so I am thinking, I will never know if I do not accept what you offer. And I believe strongly enough in Yeshua’s forgiveness that I am willing to risk damnation in pursuit of truth.”

I laughed.

I couldn’t help it, I laughed aloud for the sheer joy of it; and I flung myself forward, putting my arms around Aleksei’s neck, kissing his face. “You mean it?”

“Yes!” He pushed me away, blushing furiously. “Only not this very moment, all right? Give me some time to grow accustomed to the notion.”

“All right.” I sat back on my heels, beaming at him.

He scowled. “You needn’t look so pleased.”

“Why ever not?” I asked. “I am pleased.”

“To have won?”

“No!” Gods, he was as infuriating as Bao in his own prickly way. “No, of course not.” I took one of Aleksei’s hands and kissed it. “Your choice makes me happy, sweet boy. That’s all. I pray it will make you happy, too.”

It mollified him, and restored a sense of brightness to the day. In the common room, we broke our fast with brown bread and fresh-churned butter. Our hostess promised a hot bath would be made ready in a few hours’ time, so we set out for the marketplace to begin purchasing supplies for the journey south.

I was happy, happy with Aleksei’s choice, happy that he wasn’t fussing about me needing to conceal myself today. Those bedamned chains had been a weight on both our minds. And in truth, he needed my counsel to provision us for the journey. I saw to it that we spent our coin wisely.

In a rag-merchant’s shop, we bought a canvas satchel, a spare blanket, and a change of clothing for both of us. A leather-worker sold us a pair of generous waterskins, and also a pair of well-made boots for me to replace the shoes Valentina had given me, which pinched my feet and gave me blisters. We purchased several tallow candles and a flint-striking kit from a chandler.

Other than a sack of barley we bought, we decided food supplies could wait a few days. Aleksei reckoned it best if we gave it a week before heading south. Still, we identified a smoke-house where we could purchase dried meat, and a baker and a cheese-maker for additional, fresher fare.

Our greatest expense would be horses and tack, and both of us were eager to have the matter settled and our escape secured. There was one horse-trader in the city, a squinty-eyed fellow. I didn’t like the look of him, and I liked him less when he offered to sell us a sway-backed mare, an elderly gelding, and a spavined pack-horse for an outrageous price.

When Aleksei glanced at me in inquiry, I shook my head. “Walk away,” I murmured in D’Angeline. “Don’t argue, don’t haggle. Just walk away in disgust.”

He did, me at his side.

The horse-trader ran after us, protesting and apologizing, claiming that he had merely been testing us to see if we were any judges of horse-flesh.

It took the better part of an hour to conclude a deal with him, but in the end, we struck a bargain to purchase a trio of sturdy little horses, as well as tack and grain. After living on the steppe, I could tell that these horses had Tatar stock mixed in their lineage, and I knew full well how swiftly and willingly they travelled. After some more haggling, the squinty-eyed fellow agreed to board them for another week for an additional fee.

“Well, that’s done, then,” Aleksei said after we left the horse-trader. He looked pleased with himself. “Are we finished?”

I shook my head. “We’ll want a tent. Mayhap there are sail-cloth merchants along the wharf who make such things. And a pot… it might be best if you returned to the smithy alone. We don’t want him linking my face to those chains. And a bow and arrows, if we can find a fletcher.”

“Ah…” He hesitated. “I’ve never shot a bow, Moirin.”

I smiled. “I have.”

“You?” Aleksei looked dubious.

“I’ve shot for the pot since I was ten years old,” I told him. “Believe me, after days of dried meat, you’ll be grateful for fresh when we can get it. Besides, I’ll feel safer with a bow at hand. One never knows what one might encounter on the road.”

It seemed there was no fletcher in the city of Udinsk, but our inquiries led us to a camp of Tatar traders on the outskirts of town. Given my history with the Great Khan, I was reluctant to approach them; but Aleksei didn’t speak the Tatar tongue, and I was determined to procure a bow for myself.

The sight of felted gers with smoke trickling out of the holes at the apex of their domes made me feel nostalgic. A young woman at the first ger we tried greeted us politely and directed us to seek out a fellow named Vachir, a renowned archer.

“He may have a bow to sell you, or he may not,” she said. “I do not know.”

I thanked her. “May your herds prosper, my lady.”

We found this Vachir some distance away, squatting outside his ger and working on the very thing I coveted, a fine-looking bow. I began to greet him in the Tatar tongue when he glanced up, and my heart skipped a beat.

I knew him.

His eyes widened, and he rose to his feet. “You!”

“Moirin?” Aleksei said behind me. “What is it?”

“I know him,” I said helplessly. “Or at least I’ve met him. More to the point, he knows who I am.”

Another man would have sworn; Aleksei’s voice tightened. “I knew this was a bad idea!”

The fellow came forward, unfinished bow in one hand. I took a step backward, bumping into Aleksei. The renowned Tatar archer Vachir, who happened to be the last man I’d defeated in an archery contest, smiled quietly and clapped his free hand on my shoulder. “I am pleased to see you alive, lady,” he said with a gentleness that reminded me of Batu and Checheg.

I blinked. “You are?”

He blinked back at me. “Yes, of course! It was a fair contest. I have no quarrel with you. Many wondered what befell you when you vanished. I would hear your tale. Will you accept the hospitality of my roof?”

I relaxed. “It would be an honor.”

With a bewildered Aleksei trailing behind me, I followed Vachir into his ger. He introduced us to his wife, Arigh, who served us bowls of hot, salty tea, the steaming liquid’s surface slick with butter-fat.

Beneath the felted dome, I told them how the Great Khan Naram had betrayed me to the Vralians. It was impulsive, aye, but all my instincts told me I could trust them. They listened with disapproval, shaking their heads.

“Batu’s tribe had acknowledged you as kin,” Arigh said firmly. “Not even the Khan himself had the right to do what he did.”

“Moirin, you will explain all this to me, will you not?” Aleksei asked in a low voice.

I nodded. “My lord, my lady, do you know what happened to Bao? General Arslan’s son who wed the Khan’s daughter?”

They exchanged a glance and shook their heads. “That young man vanished, too,” Vachir said. “No one knows where or why. Only that the Great Khan’s daughter Erdene was very angry at her father.”

I sighed.

“Are you seeking the young man?” Arigh asked in a gentle voice.

“Aye.” I spared a guilty glance at Aleksei. “He’s nowhere close, though. Far away. Right now, I come seeking to purchase a bow for the journey. My quest led me to you.”

Husband and wife exchanged another look. Arigh rose and went to the back of the ger, returning with a Tatar-style bow smaller than the one Vachir had been working on outside, as well as a quiver of arrows.

“For you,” she said simply. “My husband made it for me. I wish you to have it.”

“Your own?” I shook my head. “No, I cannot accept it.”

She thrust it at me. “You can.”

“Take it, please,” Vachir added. “I will make her another. It will go a little way toward settling the debt you are owed.”

I closed my fingers around the bow. “You’re sure?”

Vachir smiled, his eyes crinkling. “Would you have me set a price on it? I will, then. Give me a chance to reclaim my honor. Grant me a rematch, here and now.” He saw me hesitate. “You are fearful. I promise you, no one among us will endanger you. I have granted you hospitality. I swear by the sky itself, we will protect your secret as our own.”

“All right, then.” I smiled back at him. “A rematch.”

It being a Tatar encampment, naturally there was an archery range with targets already established. Word swept through the camp as we ventured out to the range, and folk abandoned their chores to watch.

“Moirin, this is foolish!” Aleksei pleaded with me. “Whatever you’re doing, I wish you wouldn’t.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “I trust them.”

He shook his head in mute dismay.

Vachir and I agreed to a simple contest-the best of three shots at the distance at which we had last competed. He let me take a couple of practice shots to accustom myself to the feel of a new bow. It was different, very different, from the yew-wood bow my uncle Mabon had made me. It was shorter and stiffer, and the ends curved sharply outward, making for a tighter, more concentrated draw, the bow recoiling sharply when the string was loosed.

On my first shot, I missed the target altogether, provoking good-natured laughter from the onlookers. But I got the feel of it and adjusted quickly, acquitting myself well enough with my three official shots.

And then Vachir stepped up to the mark, drawing and releasing three times in quick succession, clustering three arrows in the center of the crude red heart painted on the stuffed target.

I laughed and bowed to him in the Ch’in manner, one hand clasped over the other. “Your honor is restored.”

He smiled his quiet smile. “I suspect we would be closer matched if you had more time to practice with an unfamiliar bow. May it serve you well, lady archer.”

After I had thanked Vachir and Arigh for their generous gift one last time, Aleksei and I took our leave of the Tatar camp. I gave him the bow and quiver to carry, reckoning it would look less conspicuous on the streets of Udinsk. He listened silently to my explanation of how I had come to compete against Vachir in the archery contest at the spring gathering.

“Are you angry?” I asked when I had finished. “Truly, I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think we could trust them. The laws of hospitality are sacred among the Tatars.”

“Not angry, no,” Aleksei said slowly. “You lived among them, you know their ways. It was just… strange… seeing you thusly. Strange, and beautiful. It made me understand why the old Hellenes gave one of their goddesses a bow. Every time I think I am coming to know you, Moirin, I discover a new you. It’s as though I turned a corner I thought was familiar, and found myself in a hallway I hadn’t known existed.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure how to respond.

He gave me a sidelong glance. “Are there many more of you?”

I thought about it. “Well, there is the Moirin of Terre d’Ange who served as royal companion to the Queen, who went about in jewels and finery, attending balls and concerts and poetry recitals. And there is the Moirin who was Master Lo Feng’s pupil, and learned to master the Five Styles of Breathing and studied the Way. But they are all me, Aleksei. Does it trouble you?”

“No.” He frowned. “It’s just that I’ve only ever been one person, I suppose.”

I took his arm. “You’re an uncut gem, sweet boy. Time will reveal your facets. The Aleksei I met three months ago is not the Aleksei who offered to teach me to lie to his uncle, and that young man is not the Aleksei who plotted our escape. Of a surety, none of them are the Aleksei who consented this very morning to accept Naamah’s blessing.” I raised my brows. “Or had you forgotten?”

“No.” Aleksei flushed and looked downward, his dark lashes shuttering his eyes. “Oh, no.”

“Good.” I squeezed his arm. “Now let us see if that bath is ready.”