Naamah's Curse (33 page)

I resumed my penance, scouring squares. I uttered the prayer that the Patriarch had given me.

In time, I was allowed to attend another service. I had no visions or fits. I did not assault Luba.

It was without a doubt one of the most excruciating things I’d been called upon to do in my young, but eventful, life. I was not a patient person by nature, but it seemed the gods were hell-bent on teaching me to become one.

Betimes I thought of my restlessness during the long Tatar winter when I was frustrated by the knowledge that Bao was so very near, and I could have laughed in despair at the irony. I would have traded this hardship for that one in a heartbeat.

Then I’d had the kindness of Batu and Checheg and their family to sustain me, the innocent ardor of the children to fulfill my yearning for the warmth of human contact. I’d had chores that made me feel useful and welcome, not pointless ones that left my body sore and aching.

I’d had the escape of the vast, wide-open steppe, the immense blue sky. I’d had the distraction of horse races and archery contests. And ah, gods! I’d had the solace of being able to summon the twilight.

Now I was a prisoner wrapped in chains, condemned to harsh labor and the tedium of memorizing the tenets of a faith I would never embrace. I had a captor I despised. My senses and my magic were stifled.

And Bao… like as not Bao was a thousand leagues away from me by now, heading determinedly in the wrong direction, taking the missing half of my soul with him. I wondered what would have befallen him if I
had
taken Yeshua’s hand in my vision, if I
had
lost my
diadh-anam
.

Would his be extinguished, too? Would he survive it?

Somehow, I didn’t think so. Master Lo had given his life that Bao might live, but it hadn’t been enough. It had required the divine spark of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself to rekindle his life. If that were gone… I feared death would reclaim Bao.

It was a terrifying thought.

I wondered, too, what would happen to Bao if I were to die. I didn’t
think
it was the same. If I died with my
diadh-anam
alight, it would not be extinguished. I would pass through the stone doorway to rejoin the Maghuin Dhonn Herself.

But I wasn’t entirely sure, and that thought terrified me, too. So I applied myself diligently to my scrub-brush and my studies, and I became far more skilled than I had ever been at lying and deception in the service of my purported redemption, pretending to be humble and earnest in my desire for God’s forgiveness.

Even so, had it not been for Aleksei, I would have lost my wits. To be sure, he was a very peculiar young man and there were times when I couldn’t understand him in the slightest. But since he had compromised his conscience and agreed to help me on his own terms, he was a bit easier in my presence.

For my part, I abandoned the myriad small ways in which I’d sought to tempt him. Of course, the matter lay between us nonetheless. Naamah’s gift could be suppressed, but it could not be extinguished. It was no ephemeral spark like my
diadh-anam
. It was written in flesh as well as spirit, written in the quickening of the blood, the gladdening of the heart, the language of desire.

I had to own, the boy had a formidable will to resist it. I didn’t doubt that much of it was due to having a lifetime’s worth of repression and discipline drilled into him. Still, in his own way, Aleksei was as stubborn as Bao.

Unlike my stubborn magpie, who had once posed rather unconvincingly as a travelling monk sworn to celibacy, I thought Aleksei
would
make a good priest… if he were ever to free himself from the shackles of the Church of Yeshua Ascendant and its harsh strictures and embrace the kinder tenets Rebbe Avraham had espoused, as he so clearly longed to do in his heart of hearts.

He liked the role of teacher, and he was good at it. When I pleaded with him, he relented and began teaching me a few words of Vralian along with the Yeshuite scriptures. When I escaped, I meant to vanish into the twilight and stay there as long as possible, but there might be times when I would need to communicate.

But Aleksei listened, too. True to my word, I told him the tale of Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève and her quest to find the Name of God. Fascinated and horrified, he hung on my every word. He thought about it for days, although the things he pondered were often issues that never would have occurred to me.

“This lost tribe, the Tribe of Dân. Did they embrace Yeshua as the
mashiach
once they learned of him?” he inquired.

“The
mashiach
?”

“The Anointed One,” he clarified. I had learned that along with the D’Angeline tongue Aleksei had learned that he might one day use to convert us all, he spoke and read fluent Habiru.

“No, I don’t think so.” I knew only a little about the matter, having overheard discussions among members of the Circle of Shalomon regarding various Habiru scholars.

Aleksei looked astonished. “Why ever not?”

I shrugged. “I think they believe the true
mash
… Anointed One is yet to come.”

He couldn’t stop gaping. Clearly, the notion rocked the foundations of his world. As intelligent and well studied as he was, he had led an extremely insular life.

“The world is a vast place, Aleksei,” I said softly. “I know you are very sure that your God is the One True God, but… I do not believe it. If there is a truth beyond all other truths, I think Master Lo has the right of it. The Way that can be told is not the eternal Way. It comes before all else, and everything comes from it. Even gods.”

Aleksei shook his head at me. “You
are
a heretic!”

“To you, aye.” Deciding it had been too long since I’d seen his blush, I gave him a wicked smile, letting it linger on my lips. “But decidedly not a saint.”

His color rose; but he’d found his own ways of dealing with me. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “If you bait me, I will not teach you Vralian, Moirin.”

“Oh, fine.” I let my smile fade.

“Anyway, I am not so sure,” Aleksei said unexpectedly, once again taking the conversation in a direction I couldn’t have anticipated. He bowed his head, his tawny hair falling over his brow, bronze locks shot through with gold. I longed to run my fingers through it. “I wonder… I wonder, why
has
God sent you to tempt me? Surely, you have suffered in the bargain. Are you
my
heretic saint? What am I meant to learn from this?”

“I don’t know,” I murmured.

“It is hard, so hard,” he said, more to himself than to me. “I wish I knew.”

I did, too.

And because I had come to care for Aleksei, compassionate, damaged soul that he was, I wished I could comfort him. I wanted to go to him, put my arms around him, offer the solace of human warmth and kindness.

I didn’t dare.

He might have accepted it—
might
have. Or he might have pushed me away and fled, fearful that I meant to seduce him. The stakes were too high, and I was too afraid. So I remained where I was and stifled my urge to give comfort, reckoning it was but one more casualty in the ongoing war for my soul.

B
eneath the Patriarch’s stern gaze, I dipped my brush in the lye bucket and scrubbed the last square of my penance.

“Yeshua the Anointed, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

It was done, twice over. Over the course of weeks and months, I had finished one complete circuit and begun anew.

Now that was done, too.

I clambered wearily to my feet, my stiff back and bruised knees protesting. “Again, my lord?”

“No.” Pyotr Rostov placed both hands on my shoulders. “No, child. You have done well, so very, very well, and I am proud of you.” His velvet-brown eyes shone with genuine warmth. “Moirin mac Fainche of the Maghuin Dhonn, are you prepared to be baptized into the Yeshuite faith?”

I would have danced naked in the village square if it meant getting rid of these hateful chains.

I lowered my gaze. “Do you think me worthy?”

He embraced me. “I do.”

I made myself glance shyly at him beneath my lashes. “Then it would be my honor, my lord.”

“Good, good!” The Patriarch embraced me again. I managed not to shudder with revulsion. After a moment, he let me go, regarding me and steepling his fingers. “The Duke of Vralsturm comes next week for the festival. I shall arrange for your baptism and chrismation to coincide with his visit, that he might see God’s glory at work. I trust you do not mind?”

I shook my head. “No, my lord. I am privileged to serve as an example.”

His creamy look came and went, replaced by one of solemn gravity. “And I to serve as the vessel of your redemption.”

“Yes, my lord.”

In the privacy of my cell, I wondered if he believed it. I daresay he did. Like Raphael de Mereliot, he was a man of great ambition. Unlike Raphael, I had no idea what forces had shaped the Patriarch’s nature. I only knew he had a profound hunger to believe himself the conduit of his God’s will.

Well and so, I would let him.

Like Aleksei, I did not feel wholly good about our endeavor. Alone in my cell, I addressed Yeshua ben Yosef in quiet prayer.

“Forgive me,” I whispered. “I do not wish to lie. But I do not wish to die, either. So when the time comes, I will lie. If Berlik was right about you, you will understand and forgive me, along with the oath-breakers and the murderers, and everyone else who has fallen low. Will you?”

Yeshua did not answer me—but then, gods seldom did.

The following week, the Duke of Vralsturm arrived in Riva, where he was received with great fanfare. I was not permitted to take part in any of the celebrations, but I could hear them through the narrow window of my cell. Hard as it was for me to imagine them rejoicing, the folk of Riva sounded merry.

My baptism was to take place the following day on the shores of Lake Severin, for one of Yeshua’s apostles had decreed that it was best done in living water. There was to be a solemn procession through the town wherein the Patriarch and a coterie of lesser priests led me in my chains to the lake. There I was to be submerged in water three times, and then led in procession back to the temple, where the final ceremony of the chrismation was to be performed.

I was not looking forward to it.

But Pyotr Rostov had promised that once I was baptized and anointed, once he had pronounced me born anew in the Yeshuite faith, he would unlock my chains and set me free; and Aleksei claimed his uncle was a man of his word.

Stone and sea, I hoped so.

For two days before the ceremony, I was made to fast. I would have reckoned it yet another punishment, but the truth was, these Yeshuites were mad for fasting. Aleksei regularly fasted for days at a time. I wondered if they would be quite so keen on the practice if they’d ever had to endure a long, lean winter.

Probably. In Aleksei’s case, definitely. He would welcome the opportunity to offer his suffering up to God. Me, I could not help but think that there was more than enough suffering in the world without adding to the balance.

The morning of my baptism, Valentina came to fetch me. I was to be given a thorough bath and dressed in a clean garment of white wool. Gods willing, I thought, it would be the last time I had to be sewn into my clothing.

Although she had shown me occasional small gestures of tenderness since my whipping, today Valentina handled me with impersonal efficiency, draping the shapeless robe of white wool over me once I was scrubbed clean. Her face was more careworn than usual, and she looked unhappy.

“What is the matter?” I asked softly. “Is this not the very outcome you desired upon my arrival, my lady?”

She gave me a sharp look. “Is it?”

“Your son has helped guide me on the path toward redemption.” I’d developed a certain fondness for poor Valentina, forever punished for her transgression, unable to help yearning for beauty nonetheless—but not enough to trust her with the truth. “Is that not pleasing in God’s eyes? Does it not suggest he has forgiven you?”

Valentina laughed, a broken sound. “It begs the axiom, does it not? Beware what you pray for, lest God grant your prayers.”