Naamah's Curse

FIFTY-THREE

I had a day of grace.

One day before I was scheduled to depart with Manil Datar’s caravan, one day to spend as I wished.

Contrary to what one might expect, I spent it indoors. As much as I loved the wild places of the world, I’d had a surfeit of them-and there was more to come. I passed the day playing with Dorje and Nyima’s daughters, indulging in the kind of revels I’d never known as a young child.

I taught them the Tatar counting word-game I’d learned from my young friend Sarangerel, and they taught me Tufani words in turn.

I let them unbraid and rebraid my hair, winding even more beads into the plaits.

We played at being animals-placid, long-horned yaks, prancing ponies, stalking snow leopards, and even slow-pacing bears.

Nyima watched over us with an indulgent gaze.

Dorje shook his head. “Is this the way great heroines are supposed to behave, Moirin?” he asked me.

“No.” I caught his youngest daughter around the waist, settling her on my lap. She nestled against me, content to toy with my braids. “Not in the slightest. But I did not ask for this. And I cannot be otherwise.”

“I wish you would stay the winter,” he said quietly.

I hugged his daughter, mindful of the insistent call of my diadh-anam. “I wish I could, my friend.”

Come the following day, dawn came bright and clear. I’d said my good-byes the night before. The girls had wailed, but they would forget me quickly enough. At such an age, children do. Nyima rose sleepily to brew salty yak-butter tea in the predawn light. I drank it down deep, grateful for its warmth.

Dorje escorted me to join the caravan, fussing over me all the while. “You have the purse I gave you?” he asked for the third time.

“Yes, Dorje.” I patted the folds of my long coat. “Safely hidden.”

“I hope it is enough,” he said in a worried tone. As he had promised, in addition to paying the fare Manil Datar had demanded, Dorje had given me coin he deemed sufficient for a lengthy stay in Bhaktipur. “None of us were certain what value to place on the Imperial medallion. I do not want to think we cheated you, Moirin.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” I said. “And I am just grateful to know it will not be used in a way that betrays the Emperor’s trust.”

He shook his head vigorously. “No, I will not allow it!”

We found the caravan assembling for departure, an array of men, horses, and heavily laden yaks, breath rising in frosty plumes in the clear dawn air. Manil Datar strode around briskly, making sure all was in readiness. He greeted me with a courteous smile and a Bhodistani salute, which I returned. The porters eyed me with open curiosity, which earned one of them a casual cuff from Datar.

“I do not like the way they look at you, Moirin,” Dorje fretted.

I shrugged. “Men do, Dorje. It looks as though Manil Datar runs his caravan with a firm hand.”

He ignored me. “Look at that fellow!” With a subtle jerk of his chin, he indicated a hulking, broad-shouldered man with terrible scars disfiguring his face. “Surely, he means no good.”

The scarred fellow was tending carefully to a yak’s pack-harness. “Why?” I asked. “Because the poor man was injured once?”

Dorje sighed, exhaling a frosty cloud. “I am being foolish, I know. If Tashi Rinpoche is not afraid for you, I should not be. But a monk is not a man with daughters. A man with daughters knows what it is to be afraid. And after seeing you playing with mine, I am afraid for you.”

“I’m afraid for me, too,” I said. “But I still have to go.”

“I know.” He handed me a soft, cloth-wrapped bundle. “Tsampa,” he said, referring to a roasted barley-grain mixed with lumps of butter that was a Tufani staple. “Nyima packed it for you in case Manil Datar does not feed you well enough. It is enough to last a few days.” He smiled ruefully. “For a trader’s wife, she does not understand the distances between places very well.”

I tucked it in my pack. “Thank her for me.”

“I will.”

And then Manil Datar gave a sharp whistle and a gesture, indicating that we were ready to depart. He beckoned to me with a pleasant smile, indicating that I should ride beside him. Before I mounted, I gave Dorje a warm hug. “Thank you, my friend. Whenever I need to remember there are good people in the world, you and your family are among those I will surely recall.”

He returned my embrace. “Be safe, Moirin. I hope you find your young man, and if fate wills it, our Laysa, too.”

And with that, I was off once more.

Although the journey would grow more arduous in the days to come, the road leading southward out of Rasa was easily wide enough for two to ride abreast. True to his word, Manil Datar set about teaching me to speak Bhodistani, pointing at objects and naming them in his native tongue, making me repeat the words until I got them right. Horse, yak, saddle. Eyes, ears, nose, mouth. Sky, mountain, path. I had learned a bit of Tufani, which he spoke fluently, and it made the process easier.

I was grateful for his kindness, and he seemed pleased to offer it, although truth be told, given my preferences, I would rather have ridden alone, left to my own thoughts. The encounter with the boy monk Tashi Rinpoche had unsettled me.

When I had set out from Shuntian a year ago, my quest had seemed a simple one. All I wanted to do was cross the steppe and find Bao. And although I’d vastly underestimated the rigors of a Tatar winter, in a way, it had been that simple.

Now…

Now I felt like a pair of dice, swept up and shaken in a cup, cast on the gaming table over and over, the stakes growing higher each time.

It seemed like it never ended.

The quest I had undertaken in Ch’in to free the princess and the dragon should have been enough for anyone’s lifetime. But oh, no! Not for Moirin. The Great Khan had betrayed me, the gods had scooped me up and tossed me back onto the gaming table, sending me to Vralia, where the Patriarch of Riva dreamed of destiny, dreamed of a Yeshuite empire built on bloodshed and loathing.

I had put an end to his dream.

I had armed my sweet boy Aleksei with the courage of his convictions that he might continue the fight against his uncle’s vile legacy, raising a voice in favor of love, compassion, and understanding, altering the course of his world.

And yet it wasn’t enough.

No, now I must be shaken and rattled and tossed once more, hurled back into the fray, pitted against this legendary Falconer and his bedamned Spider Queen with her unknown charms that held grown men in thrall. And it was not enough that I find the missing half of my soul, no. A boy-monk with kind, gentle, ancient eyes was depending on me to rescue the reincarnation of one of the Enlightened Ones.

And that, he had informed me, was only the beginning of my journey.

I had further oceans to cross.

It was a considerable weight to carry, a considerable weight to place on the shoulders of a young woman who had grown up in a cave in the Alban wilderness. And I felt very, very alone beneath my burden.

It wasn’t that I failed to recognize the aid I’d found along the way. I did. And I was grateful to all of them: to kindhearted Batu and Checheg, to poor Valentina and my sweet Aleksei, to steady Vachir and his wife, Arigh, to stormy Erdene, to my young friend Dash, to gentle Dorje and Nyima.

And yet…

Again and again, the dice were cast. Swept up on the tide of my fate, I left them behind and carried on alone.

“Moirin?”

I realized that Manil Datar had spoken my name several times over, and blinked at him. “Aye?”

“You were far away,” he said in Tufani, and then repeated it in Bhodistani, slowly and carefully. “You were far away.”

I echoed it back to him, memorizing the words. “Yes. I was far away.”

“Where?” Leaning over in the saddle, he stroked my braided locks, setting the coral and turquoise beads to rattling.

Lacking words, I shrugged. “Far.”

His fingertips brushed my cheek. “Do not go so far.”

I felt a tickle of alarm at the base of my spine. I made myself smile at him. “Not so far, no. I am sorry.”

Manil Datar smiled back at me, a smile that did not reach his eyes. “Good.”