Naamah's Curse

SEVENTY-THREE

It was a long, difficult night.

There was a great deal of work to be done, little of it pleasant. But at least it began on an auspicious note as Pradeep came to report that the harem had been secured without any difficulty. The churlish messenger had been the only one to resist, and he was dead.

The Rani insisted on visiting it straightaway. It was crowded with women and children, and dozens of additional servants who had taken shelter there. None of them seemed to have been harmed in an obvious way, but they greeted us with profound gratitude, many of them weeping with joy and relief, overwhelmed at being rescued from captivity in Kurugiri.

I watched my lady Amrita go among them, talking to the women and some nine or ten children of varying ages, assuring them that they were safe and would be well cared for. It made me smile for what felt like the first time in years.

One of the women caught my eye and returned my smile. She had Tufani features, and her smile was as gentle and radiant as dawn breaking through mist. I remembered the boy-monk in Rasa giving me a message for the yak-herder’s daughter.

“Are you Laysa?” I asked her.

“Yes.” There was a little girl who looked to be five or six pressed against her side, and Laysa stroked her hair. “How did you know?”

“I met a young monk in Rasa, a… a tulku.” I dredged the word from memory. “Tashi Rinpoche. He said he was one of your teachers in your last lifetime together, and that it puzzled him that he was born younger than you this time. But now it makes sense, for you have lost ten years of your life. He is waiting in Rasa to teach you again.”

Her radiant smile widened. “That is very good news!” She kissed her daughter’s brow. “Is it not, my little Kamala, my little lotus?” The girl nodded warily, staring at me. Her mother whispered something in her ear, making her giggle and hide her face. “She was frightened by your green eyes,” Laysa said. “I told her it is because you are a magical deva sent to look after us. Now she is shy.”

My throat tightened.

It seemed impossible that such goodness could endure and blossom in this cruel place. The world had been unkind to Laysa, mayhap not as unkind as it had been to Jagrati, but near enough. Her family had been slaughtered, and she had been forced to endure servitude in the Falconer’s harem. The thought of Tarik Khaga with his hawk-nose and muscular paunch heaving and grunting atop her sickened me.

He’d gotten her with child; and she loved the child. A child she had been compelled to raise in fear that one day her daughter would be forced into an incestuous union with her own cursed father.

And still, there was joy and kindness in her smile.

“Why are you weeping, deva?” Laysa inquired, hugging her daughter. “Today is not a day for sorrow!”

I smiled at her through my tears. “Joy and sorrow both, I fear. Today has come at a cost. But I am honored to meet you, my lady.”

“Ah.” Her expression turned grave. “I am sorry for your losses. I will pray for them, and for you.” She regarded me with compassion. “Your journey is a long one, I think.”

“It has been,” I agreed.

Laysa shook her head. “I mean the journey that yet lies ahead of you.”

I sighed.

Her smile returned. “Do not fear, deva. You have a very great heart, and your gods love you very much.”

“Moirin?” Bao appeared at my side, sliding an arm around my waist. “You have that look on your face. Who are you falling in love with now? Some new royal lady?”

“No.” I leaned against him, grateful for his strength. “A yak-herder’s daughter who is the reincarnation of one of the Enlightened Ones on the Path of Dharma. This is Laysa, and she says I have a long journey ahead of me yet.”

“Yes,” Laysa said helpfully. “A great ocean yet to cross.”

Bao tightened his arm around me and kissed my temple, and I felt the flicker of his diadh-anam entwined with mine. “Good thing you don’t have to cross it alone, huh?”

I nodded. “A very good thing.”

“I remember you,” Laysa said to Bao. “You came here looking for a green-eyed woman. Where did you find her after all?”

“I didn’t.” He smiled at her. “She found me.”

That was the best part of the night. The rest of it was a nightmare of complicated logistics. We had dead and injured men within the fortress of Kurugiri, and injured men left in the winding paths of the maze where they might freeze to death. Living men who required food and rest to tend to the others. Horses left to stray outside the fortress, also requiring tending, food, and rest.

Bao shone.

He procured torches and led the expedition back into the maze to retrieve the wounded armed with blankets to serve as makeshift slings. Two of our men had not survived, but Bao’s party was able to rescue four others including Hasan Dar, as well as the young lad Sudhakar, bewildered and confused at the death of Jagrati and the loss of Kamadeva’s diamond’s influence.

“Who is our new mistress, Bao?” Sudhakar asked uncertainly, glancing from me to Amrita. His broken nose had swollen and his eyes were beginning to blacken. “How are we meant to serve her?”

“The Rani Amrita is your new mistress,” Bao said in an absent tone, examining Hasan Dar. “And you are meant to serve her by making yourself useful. Bring me all the bandages and medicines you can find. A basin of water and soap. And a sewing kit, and shears, too.”

“Yes, Bao.” The young man trotted away with alacrity.

When the fellow returned with the requested supplies, Bao cut Hasan’s tunic away from the deadly round quoit that protruded from it. Despite his efforts to be gentle, the commander gave a stifled groan.

Amrita winced in sympathy. “Will he live?”

“I hope so, my lady.” Bao pressed his ear to Hasan’s back, listening. “His lungs are clear, so that is good.” He met my eyes, looking worried. “I wish Master Lo were here. Or even your damned Raphael.”

“Do your best, Master Lo’s magpie,” I murmured. “There are others waiting.”

“I’ll need your help to sop the blood. And maybe others to hold him still. It’s going to hurt.” A thought came to him. “Sudhakar!”

“Yes, Bao?”

“Fetch a pipe and a lamp. And opium, lots of opium.”

“Yes, Bao!”

“He’s very obedient,” I observed as he trotted off again.

“He was trained to be,” Bao said in a flat voice.

When Sudhakar returned a second time, Bao filled the bowl of the long, slender pipe with sticky brown poppy resin, coaxing Hasan Dar to lean on one elbow and take the mouth-piece of the pipe between his lips. He then held the oil lamp beneath the bowl until a sweet-smelling smoke arose. Hasan Dar sucked gratefully on the pipe, while Bao watched with an expression somewhere between hunger and envy.

“Don’t even think about it,” I warned him. “I am not nursing you through that twice.”

“Not even a wife yet, and already you nag,” he retorted, drawing a pained chuckle from Hasan.

The opium took effect quickly. Seeing the commander’s limbs relax, Bao nodded in satisfaction and beckoned to Sudhakar. “Take the pipe, and see that it’s given to anyone who wants it.”

“Yes, Bao!”

The quoit was lodged in Hasan Dar’s ribcage, closer to his back than his front, three or four inches protruding and the rest sunk deep into his flesh. After washing his hands, Bao gave it a cautious tug, wary of the razor-sharp outer edge. Hasan hissed between gritted teeth, but the thing didn’t move.

“I think it struck bone,” Bao muttered. He glanced around. “Are any of the household servants here?”

I shook my head. “Pradeep has them busy.” He was in charge of rounding up food and bedding, not to mention a hundred horses left to stray.

“Sudhakar!” Bao called. “A change of plan. Do you know where his lordship keeps his hunting gear?” The lad came hurrying back, nodding. “Good. Fetch me a falconer’s glove.”

“Yes, Bao!”

“The Falconer really was a falconer?” I asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“I did not know that,” Amrita remarked. She looked pale and anxious. “Is there anything I can do to help, Bao?”

“Can you sew?” he asked.

The Rani turned even paler. “Yes, but…” Her gaze skated over the quoit sticking out of Hasan Dar’s side, and her expression turned determined. “Yes, I can try.”

“Sorry, my lady,” Bao apologized. “I did not mean for you to sew the commander’s wound.” He nodded at the sewing kit, which contained curved needles and sturdy, waxed thread. “But if you could thread a needle for me, it would be a great help.”

“Of course.” Kneeling gracefully, Amrita bent to the task, glad to be of use, her hands calm and steady.

I rubbed Hasan Dar’s back in a circular motion and breathed the Breath of Ocean’s Rolling Waves, the most calming of all the Five Styles. His breathing slowed to match mine, the jutting edge of the quoit rising and falling, glinting in the lamplight.

Sudhakar returned with a falconer’s glove, a thick padded affair made of tough leather. Bao donned it, flexing his fingers.

“Ready?” he asked the commander, who gave a dreamy grunt of assent. Bao took hold of the steel quoit and gave it a sharp yank.

Strong as he was, it still took three yanks to free it; and there was a sharp, cracking sound as the quoit came loose, along with a hoarse cry from Hasan Dar. The wound gaped, a white shard of bone jutting out of it, blood pulsing over the commander’s skin. Bao swore, tossed the quoit aside, and stripped off the glove, plucking out the bone-shard and probing the wound for others, extracting two smaller splinters with his bare hands.

“It’s clean,” he said breathlessly. “My lady? Moirin?”

I blotted the wound with clean bandages, while Amrita silently handed Bao the threaded needle.

Bao sewed.

I swabbed.

When it was done, a ragged line of stitches sealed the wound shut, the flesh seeping a little. After uncorking and sniffing different unguents and ointments, Bao chose one to slather on the wound. Together, we worked to bandage it, wrapping clean cloths around Hasan Dar’s torso.

“So this is what war is like,” our lady Amrita said in a low tone. “It is a very terrible thing!”

“So it is, my lady.” Bao swiped his forearm over his brow, which was damp with sweat, then settled onto his heels. “All right.” He plunged his hands into the basin of clean water, soaping and washing them as Master Lo had taught him to do. “Sudhakar! Tell me, who is next?”