Bao smiled and narrowed his eyes.
“Ah…” Forgetting he wore a chain-mail shirt beneath his brigandine, Denis de Toluard wiped his brow with one forearm and winced. “Lady Moirin’s husband is a prince from a faraway land, even farther than ours, across many seas. He gave up his throne for love of her, that he might accompany her on this quest.”
“Is that even remotely true?” Balthasar whispered to me.
I hushed him.
The Nahuatl Emperor rose and descended from his throne. Attendants with handheld brooms bent low, hastening to brush the path before his gold-shod feet. They were forced to back out of the way when Achcuatli stopped before Bao and thrust his face close to Bao’s, staring aggressively at him.
Bao planted the heel of his staff with a thump and stared back at the Emperor without blinking.
Someone chuckled.
Belatedly, I realized the Jaguar Knight Temilotzin was among the warriors attending Achcuatli.
The Emperor smiled, returning to his throne. Once again, he spoke deliberately enough for me to understand. “Before I consider this request, I must be assured your warriors have skill sufficient to protect any pochteca I might assign you.” He made a careless gesture. “I know one who is curious. Temilotzin?”
The spotted warrior sprang into action, his obsidian-studded club raised high above his head.
“Mine!” Bao called out gleefully, already in motion, his staff a blur. No one contested him for it.
It was a short skirmish. It ended with the Jaguar Knight upended and sprawling on the floor of the throne-room, undone by unfamiliar tactics and weapons, the butt of Bao’s steel-laced bamboo staff hovering over his vulnerable throat. Our D’Angelines looked startled and a bit sick at the suddenness of it all. I couldn’t help but wonder if any of them could have dealt with the challenge as effectively, and if Temilotzin would have slain them if they hadn’t. By the looks on their faces, they were wondering the same thing.
“Interesting,” Achcuatli mused.
My skin prickled.
“Enough.” With a flick of his fingers, the Nahuatl Emperor ordered Bao to disengage. Bao obeyed. Temilotzin climbed to his feet, massaging his throat. The Emperor regarded us. “Your company is worthy, but there is another matter to consider. I have been dishonored.”
I shot Denis a bewildered look, and he gave his head a little shake, spreading his hands. “Forgive us, your majesty. Have we given offense?”
“You have not given it, but you have caused it.” Achcuatli pointed at me. “The Aragonians thought this one was a gift for me.”
“Yes, but it was a misunderstanding,” Denis protested.
The Emperor’s mouth hardened. “And did Lord Cuixtli misunderstand their shock and horror?”
Denis glanced at me.
I answered for myself, forcing myself to meet Achcuatli’s black gaze. “No, my lord. He did not.”
The Emperor nodded. “They take our women without a thought, and yet the thought of me taking one of theirs is—” He used a word I didn’t know, but the meaning was clear. His fingers drummed. “I find that a grave offense.”
My pulse hammered in the hollow of my throat. “I am not Aragonian,” I said quietly.
“You are a stranger from across the sea.” He kept his gaze fixed on me, hard and implacable. “I offer you the chance to make good on this offense.” He held up one finger. “One day and one night. It is all I ask.”
The uneasy feeling in my belly shifted, turning to the dove-winged flutter of Naamah’s gift awakening. Belatedly, I remembered the warning Jehanne had brought me in a dream the night Edouard Durel had attempted to steal the logbook.
I am here to tell you that the sacrifices Naamah asks of us may not always be so pleasant and easy. You have a hard choice coming.
It seemed it was here.
THIRTY-EIGHT
On the heels of the Emperor’s proclamation, the throne-room burst into a babble of D’Angeline voices raised in protest.
Only Bao and I were silent.
Ah, gods! For reasons I could not fathom, Naamah willed this. I felt it in every part of my being. She had showered her blessings on me even though I was not sworn to her service, allowing me to serve as a vessel of her grace when it pleased me, never asking for aught in return.
Until now.
I glanced at Bao. Whether he sensed Naamah’s will through our shared diadh-anam, or he simply knew me well enough to read me, he returned my gaze with an expression as stoic as any Nahuatl warrior and said one word to me. “Bargain.”
I raised one hand, and the D’Angelines fell silent. “You ask me to dishonor my husband, my lord.” The Nahuatl words came more easily to me than before, as though Naamah’s presence had graced my tongue—and mayhap it had.
Emperor Achcuatli permitted himself a small smile. “I offer an exchange. For one night, I will send my youngest wife to your husband.” The various lords, warriors, and attendants in the throne-room murmured in surprise, and Achcuatli’s smile took on a tinge of satisfaction. “That is more than enough honor for any man.”
“Moirin, you don’t need to do this,” Balthasar murmured to me. “Thierry wouldn’t want you to.”
“He’s right,” Denis agreed.
I ignored them both. Naamah’s gift was alive within me, coiling through my veins. The prickly heat I’d felt earlier had turned to glowing warmth. Achcuatli eyed me speculatively, his smile fading.
He felt it, too.
The Nahuatl Emperor had asked for me out of pride, not genuine desire, but he had invoked Naamah’s presence nonetheless.
“I am a priest’s daughter,” I said softly. “I am the descendant of three royal houses. I have been a companion to queens and princesses. I am the Emperor of Ch’in’s jade-eyed witch and swallower-of-memories, and the Rani of Bhaktipur’s dakini. I have ridden in a dragon’s claw, and I have seen the face of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself. If I agree to this, it is more than enough honor for any man.”
Stone and sea! I wasn’t sure where the words had come from; I wasn’t even sure what language I’d spoken. And yet it seemed everyone in the room had understood them, at least their general meaning.
To be sure, Achcuatli had. Although his face remained expressionless, I could sense an answering heat rising in him.
“Agreed,” he said, his voice taking on a slight edge of hoarseness.
The image of rows and rows of grinning skulls flashed before my eyes, threatening my composure. With an effort, I forced it away. “And if I do, will you grant our request and give us the aid we seek?”
The Emperor inclined his head. “In exchange for your tools of steel, I will supply your journey and order two pochtecas familiar with Tawantinsuyo to guide you.” He glanced at the spotted warrior, who grinned. “As well as the services of Temilotzin here.”
I took a deep breath. “Then we have a bargain, my lord.”
Emperor Achcuatli smiled to himself and made a gesture of dismissal. “Go with Cuixtli. I will send for you.”As soon as we were escorted out of the Emperor’s presence, the D’Angeline firestorm of protest reignited.
“It is contrary to Blessed Elua’s precept!” Brice de Bretel fumed. “You should not have to do this thing because the damned Aragonians have given offense!”
“Not to mention the fact that the damned Aragonians will now think they were right about us all along,” Balthasar said in a biting tone. “Don’t mistake me, I’m a great advocate of Naamah’s Service, but it’s a sacred calling, and never meant to be coerced. And I speak as one who knows a great deal about coercion.”
Once again, I ignored them.
Bao put his arms around me, blocking out the cacophony. “Are you all right?” he whispered in my ear.
“I think so.” I laid one hand on his cheek. “Are you?”
He shrugged. “Ask me after I’ve had a look at the Emperor’s youngest wife.”
Despite everything, it made me laugh. “Bao!”
He gave me a wry smile. “I knew who and what you were when I wedded you, Moirin. And maybe I deserve this. Maybe it’s fate’s way of repaying me for running away from you for so long.”
“Not to mention marrying your Tatar princess,” I reminded him.
Bao kissed me. “That, too.”
Lord Cuixtli cleared his throat with polite impatience.
Reluctantly, I left the safety of Bao’s embrace. His arms fell to his sides, letting me go. Our bickering D’Angelines had fallen silent.
“I swear to you, I am not doing this because Emperor Achcuatli coerced me,” I said to them. “I am doing it because Naamah wills it. I do not understand why, but the gods do not always make their reasons clear to us. So…”
I didn’t know what else to say.
It was Septimus Rousse who responded first, addressing the void my faltering silence had left and laying his big hands on my shoulders. “No one doubts your word or questions your integrity, Lady Moirin,” he said in a firm voice meant to warn the others as much as to assure me. “If you say it is Naamah’s will, then it is so. I do not doubt you. It is well known in my family that the gods make unexpected choices, and use their chosen hard.” Bending low, he kissed my cheek. “You have won a great boon for us today. May Blessed Elua keep and hold you.”
My eyes stung. “Thank you, my lord captain.”
One by one, the others followed suit.
And one by one, they departed for the Aragonian settlement, until only Bao and I were left with Lord Cuixtli.
He beckoned to us. “Follow me.”
Apparently, the palace did not lack for guest-chambers. Lord Cuixtli led us to one and indicated that Bao was to consider it his own for the day.
“A servant will come soon,” he said, speaking slowly for our benefit. “Ask for what you need. Come and go as you like. At sunset, the Emperor’s youngest wife, Omixochitl, will be sent to you. Do you understand?”
Bao nodded. “Yes.”
“Good.”
By the time Lord Cuixtli escorted me to my own chamber, there were two Nahuatl women already present.
“They will serve you,” Cuixtli said. “Ask for what you need. The Emperor will send for you when he is ready.”
“I understand,” I said. “Thank you.”
Once Lord Cuixtli departed, there was an awkward silence as the two Nahuatl women and I eyed one another. Remembering the reticence of Porfirio Reyes’ servants, I wondered if it was a part of the culture, if mayhap Nahuatl women were discouraged from conversing with foreigners, or even conversing at all.
But then the younger of the two broke the silence. “You come from across the sea?” she asked shyly.
I smiled at her. “Yes. Very far.”
That was all it took. In short order, we were having a lively, albeit occasionally halting, conversation about what the land beyond the sea was like, about why I was here, and why no other women had ever made the journey. And while the women were not effusive, they were friendly and interested. I began to suspect the servants in Porfirio Reyes’ house had cause for their reticence and cause to resent foreigners.
After a time, the elder of the two glanced out the window to ascertain the sun’s position, and asked if I wished to partake of the temazcalli.
“House of heat?” I echoed the words slowly, not sure I’d understood.
She nodded. “For the rite of cleansing.”
I knew the word for bath—all D’Angelines were quick to learn that one—and it was different. “I do not know this thing.”
That made the younger one giggle. “Come, see!”
Curious, I consented.
The temazcalli was indeed a house of heat, or at least a heated room adjacent to an inner courtyard in the palace. It was a square chamber with a low ledge for sitting and a pit in the center of the room. My attendants assisted me in disrobing, and indicated that I should sit while they used water-soaked wooden tongs to place fire-heated stones from a kiln outside the room in the pit. Once that was done, water was ladled over the hot stones.
The stones hissed, clouds of steam arising. The Nahuatl women retreated, closing the door behind them.
I sat naked and cross-legged on the ledge, breathing slowly through the cycle of the Five Styles to allay any anxiety at being confined in a man-made place of stone, steam filling my lungs as I breathed in and out. A sheen of sweat broke out on my skin. All along my hairline, I began to sweat until it ran in rivulets down my temples. Droplets of sweat gathered in the hollow of my throat, trickled between my breasts.
Surprisingly, it felt good.
Cleansing.
After the purgative effects of the temazcalli, a cool bath felt wonderful. My attendants scrubbed me from head to toe with a soapy root that had a pleasant smell and produced a considerable lather.
You’ll find little to love in the Nahuatl…
“Well, I have found one thing,” I said aloud in D’Angeline to the absent Porfirio Reyes. “Mayhap that is why Naamah wills this.”
“My lady?” one of my attendants inquired. “Is it well?”
I smiled at her. “It is well.”
When we returned to the chamber allotted me, gifts from Emperor Achcuatli had arrived.
There was a sleeveless shirt and matching skirt of fine embroidered cloth, blue and yellow and green. There was a headdress of shimmering green feathers, bordered with embroidered bands of blue and gold. There was a mantle of multicolored, iridescent feathers that lay light as a whisper over my shoulders. And although they did not have soles of gold, there were sandals that laced to the knee.