Naamah's Curse (27 page)

My voice shook. “How is that not a sacred thing to worship?”

The Patriarch did not answer, not right away. He sat very still, gazing at me with fixed intensity, until I had to look away. “It is not your fault that you were born into sin, Moirin,” he said at length. “But your actions are your own. If you cannot learn to acknowledge them for what they are, I cannot help you.”

“I am
trying
!” I said in frustration.

“Not hard enough.” He took his line of questioning in a different direction. “Let us move forward in time. You spent a great deal of time travelling with the Emperor of Ch’in’s daughter. Did you serve as a royal companion to her?”

It caught me unaware, and I felt the breath go out of me. Pyotr Rostov’s lids drooped and his lips curved in the beginning of his creamy look, sensing he had landed a blow.

A cold, hard anger settled over me. He could tell himself whatever he liked, but deep inside, this confession he was forcing from me titillated him.

“Yes,” I said coolly, watching his creamy look deepen. “I had the honor of serving as her confidante on several occasions.”

That drove the smirk from his lips. “That is not what I asked.”

“It is exactly what you asked, my lord,” I retorted. “You were not listening when I spoke of trust and loyalty.”

His brows rose. “You deny a physical relationship with her?”

“Physical?” I shrugged. “Not entirely, no. I offered such comfort as she would accept. The princess suffered from night terrors, memories of her bridegroom’s death. When it was very bad, when she would awaken shaking and trembling, sometimes she would let me hold her until she fell asleep.”

The Patriarch studied me with a hooded gaze. “But that is not the whole truth, is it, Moirin?”

“It is!” I protested.

His lips curled. “Do you think you can lie to me? I am a servant of God, and I hear the lie in your voice. I see it festering on your soul. Tell me, did you debauch the Emperor’s daughter under the guise of giving comfort to her?”

Gods, I hadn’t been prepared for this. Too much of my life was an open book. I’d known I couldn’t protect my memories of Cillian, of Raphael such as they were, of Jehanne, or Bao when it came his turn. I’d conducted my affairs in far too public a manner.

But it should have been different with Snow Tiger, my fiercely private and reserved princess.

What had passed between us in the beginning at the dragon’s insistence, neither of us had chosen—and only Bao knew about it. What had passed between us at the end was another matter altogether. She had blushed to the tips of her ears when she had asked me to invoke Naamah’s blessing for her, charming me beyond words. She knew how deeply she was wounded, but she was proud and it had not been easy for her to ask.

And Naamah… Naamah had granted her blessing when I prayed for it, placing words in my mouth that took the fear away, every last bit of it. Snow Tiger had laughed out of sheer wonder—laughed, and kissed me. I had laughed, too, pulling her down atop me.

I wasn’t willing to give up that memory, either. The Patriarch was merely guessing in his ungodly perceptive way, probing at my vulnerabilities. I couldn’t bear to have him sully it with his vulgar accusations. He didn’t know. No one knew, except mayhap a few discreet servants who loved their mistress too well to gossip. I had gladly given the princess every ounce of pleasure I had to offer, gladly accepted it in return, delighting in the healing she found in it, delighting in
her
.

But I had not sought it out.

And I hated the Patriarch for trying to make it something vile. He awaited my answer with infernal patience.

I remembered how the fallen spirits had tricked the Circle of Shalomon over and over, finding loopholes in the commandments given them even as they obeyed to the letter, and I parsed my words with care.

“You are asking if I seduced her, and the answer is no.” I met his gaze steadily, my anger a cold blaze within me. “Do you need to hear truth in my voice, my lord? Very well, I will swear to it.” I uttered the sacred oath of the Maghuin Dhonn, each word precise. “By stone and sea and sky, and all that they encompass, by the sacred troth that binds me to my
diadh-anam
, I swear I did not seduce the Emperor’s daughter.”

My chains shivered, the sigils and inscriptions etched on them flaring briefly. This time, it was the Patriarch who flinched.

“Witch!” he hissed.

The spark of my
diadh-anam
was undiminished. Although I had pared it to the bone, I had spoken the truth. “It is the sacred oath of my people,” I said coldly. “The one Berlik the Cursed broke. I do not swear it lightly.”

Pyotr Rostov mastered his unease, resuming his study of me. “And yet you are angry,” he observed. “Angrier than the question warrants. Even under oath, you withhold the greater truth.” His creamy look returned. “You say you did not seduce the princess, but you do not deny making the attempt.”

I looked away, willing him to believe it.

“Yes.” He nodded to himself in satisfaction. “I think it is so, child. You tried and failed. Is it not so?”

“Must you humiliate me as well?” I muttered.

“It is for the good of your soul,” he said sternly. “You must confess it.”

It seemed I
could
lie to the Patriarch after all—so long as it was a lie he already wished to believe.

I let my shoulders slump. “Yes, my lord,” I lied in a defeated whisper. “In the small hours of the night, when she was lonely and frightened, I sought to entice the Emperor’s daughter. I failed.”

“Good, very good.” His pen skated over the page. “The Ch’in are a heathen folk, but they have a great respect for custom and propriety,” he said in an absent tone. “Take heed from the lesson of the Emperor’s daughter, Moirin. The temptations of the flesh
can
be resisted. All it takes is discipline.”

I bowed my head. “Yes, my lord.”

W
hen Aleksei came to read to me the following morning, he was moving stiffly, as though he were in pain.

I eyed him. “Are you hurt?”

Predictably, he flushed. “No…
no
!” He shrank away from me as I ignored his protestations, stooping beside the stiff-backed chair and unlacing the ties of his linen shirt, peeling back the lapels. “Moirin, please don’t.”

“Let me see.”

“No!”

I did, though. I caught a glimpse of the garment he wore beneath the outer layer of his clothing, a crude goat’s-hair vest.

My nostrils flared. “Stone and sea!” I gagged. “Aleksei, this thing is crawling with lice. How is
that
not unclean?”

“It helps me ignore the distraction of temptation.” He pulled away from me, lacing his shirt. “Even the lowest of the low is part of God’s creation, and may serve his purpose. Do you not see the beauty in it?”

“No.” Yesterday’s anger lingered in me. I paced my cell, taking precise, mincing steps. “No, Aleksei. I do not. I am sick unto death of hearing about your God and his everlasting fascination with things he has decided are abominations. Apparently, that includes everything in my life I have ever done that brought me joy.”

“False joy,” he whispered.

I rounded on him. “How in the name of all the gods would you know? Filled with abject terror as you are?”

He shuddered away from me.

That, and the sight of that crude, stinking vest seething with lice, broke something inside me.

I sank to my heels, covering my face with my hands. “I’m sorry. I’m
sorry
!” I forced myself to breathe slowly, fighting a losing battle with tears.

Aleksei hovered anxiously in front of me, undone by my tears. “Don’t cry! Moirin, please.” Greatly daring, he knelt and held out his hands. “Come, pray with me. It will help, I promise.”

His glorious blue eyes were filled with genuine pity and compassion. Unlike his uncle, I’d never seen anything less in him. I took one of his hands in mine, rubbing at my tears with the other.

His breathing quickened, and his long fingers stirred in mine. I stroked them gently. “Sweet boy, do you know what I see when I look at you?” I whispered. He shook his head, tawny locks shining in the sunlight that slanted through my narrow window. “I see a bird raised in captivity, taught that his wings were a curse and flight a sin. A beautiful bird taught from birth to love his cage and fear the open sky.”

Aleksei’s lips parted. “You must not say such things!”

“It’s true.” I lifted my free hand, chains dangling. “Your uncle has clipped my wings. But he will not be content until he has broken every bone in them.”

“It’s
not
true!” He wrenched himself away from me, fumbling back toward the chair for his book. “I will read to you. Only… be still, and listen. I keep telling you, you must open your heart and listen, Moirin!”

“I
have
listened,” I said wearily. “And yes, there are moments of glory and wonder in your tales. Yes, your Yeshua sounds like a decent fellow for a god, filled with love and kindness toward mankind. But there are also great, long boring bits about the genealogy of the Habiru, which holds little interest for me, and there are tales that make no sense at all, and other parts that are simply harsh and cruel.”

He looked aghast. “Only because you do not understand them yet!”

“Do you think so?” I shook my head. “No, I think I am beginning to understand. These scriptures, they were written by mortal men. And mayhap some of them were moved by divine grace, but others were petty, jealous fellows moved by the ordinary concerns of everyday life, like being cuckolded by a straying wife.”

“Now you throw my mother’s sin in my face?” For the first time, he sounded angry. “I have spent my life trying to atone for it!”

I winced. “No. I’m sorry, I forgot.”

“I suppose your D’Angelines would not reckon it a sin,” Aleksei said bitterly. “I suppose it’s just
fine
for a woman to betray her husband, to give a man a bastard son and expect him to call it his own.”

“No, it’s not.” That brought him up short. “For all her infidelities, my lady Jehanne knew full well that was the one betrayal the King would not tolerate. But unlike your mother, I suspect, she loved her husband.”

“That’s a cruel blow,” he said in a low voice.

“Yes,” I agreed. “It is. And yet if your mother had been allowed to wed for love instead of prestige, would she have strayed?”

“D’Angelines do.”

“Many, aye. Within their culture, it is permitted. Blessed Elua allows what God and Yeshua forbid.” I shrugged. “And it
is
possible to love more than one person.”

Aleksei swallowed hard, the words evoking a yearning in him that he could not hide. “Have you?”

I held his gaze. “Yes.”

Gods, I could almost
taste
the ache of desire in him! And not only for sex, no. He was Naamah’s child, as surely as I was. His poor, caged spirit longed to love freely. To share Naamah’s gift within him, to delight in pleasures ranging from the sheer carnal bliss of pleasure to all of love’s myriad tendernesses. Oh, he hungered for it so.

He turned away, his shoulders hunched. “I will read to you.”

I sighed. “As you will.”

Later that day, the Patriarch returned with his hateful desk and his hateful quill to resume the hateful process of hearing my confession.

“So, Moirin,” he said when he had everything in readiness, pen poised above his account of my sins. “Let us speak of this young Tatar prince.”

I almost laughed, picturing Bao’s insolent grin at hearing himself described thusly. “Bao?”

“Bao, yes.” Pyotr Rostov frowned. “I must confess, I am confused. Is he Ch’in or Tatar?”

“Both,” I said. “His mother was a Ch’in woman, ravaged by a raiding Tatar warlord. Although to be fair,” I added, “Bao’s father sought to avenge the loss of his own wife, taken by the Ch’in. It is a complicated matter.”

He stared at me. “And this Bao, who is the Great Khan’s son-in-law, is also the companion of the physician Lo Feng?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“You travelled from Terre d’Ange to Ch’in in his company?”