Naamah's Curse (4 page)

Yet somehow, it did.

T
he village was called Tonghe. There was nothing to distinguish it from the dozens of others through which I had passed along the way, and I would not have chosen to stay there if my inquiries in the market had not proved fruitful. When I described Bao using a combination of dialect and gestures, an elderly woman selling squashes nodded vigorously and pointed across the square toward a handful of men huddled over a set of dominoes.

Even though my
diadh-anam
assured me that Bao was many, many leagues away, my heart soared, and I had to look twice to assure myself he wasn’t among them. The squash seller tugged my arm and spoke volubly.

“I’m sorry, Grandmother.” I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

She scowled at me, then gave a penetrating shout. A boy of some ten years came at a pelting run, listening and nodding as she spoke to him.

“Greetings, Noble Barbarian Lady!” Despite his rough-spun attire, he addressed me in the scholar’s tongue, speaking with careful precision. He bowed three times in rapid succession and then straightened, his wide eyes taking in my horses, my robes, and the Emperor’s medallion around my neck. “I am Hui. Grandmother Fang says I am to translate for you. You seek the stick-fighter from Shuntian?”

“I do.” I smiled at him. “Was he here?”

“Oh, yes!” Hui pointed at the men playing dominoes. “That is his father.” His grandmother cuffed him and muttered. He lowered his voice. “Or at least, that is the husband of his mother.”

I tried to guess which of the men he was indicating. None of them looked like Bao—but then, none of them would. “I see.”

Grandmother Fang offered helpful commentary. The boy listened, then translated. “Once he was a farmer. Now he does nothing but drink rice-wine and gamble at dominoes all day. Do you want to meet him?”

“I do,” I said. “Is the stick-fighter’s mother here, too?”

Hui nodded and relayed the question to his grandmother. “Yes, but she works in a sewing shop, she and her daughter. They must make a living since Ang Shen has become a drunk.”

“I would like to meet all of them.” I clasped my hand over my fist and bowed from the saddle. “My thanks to you and your honored grandmother. Is there an inn where I might lodge?”

He shook his head, then turned to his grandmother. After another exchange, he said, “Grandmother Fang says you must stay with us as an honored guest. Your horses can stay in the pen with the goat.”

I inclined my head, touching the purse that hung from my belt. “Of course, she will allow me a small gesture of thanks.”

That at least needed no translation. Grandmother Fang grinned and gave an effusive nod.

I let Hui lead me to the home he shared with his mother, father, two younger sisters, and his grandmother on the outskirts of town, collecting my thoughts while he chattered excitedly, telling me that he was the prodigy of the family and he meant to sit for the scholar’s examination that would allow him to become a civil servant when he came of age. In the doorway of their humble house, his mother greeted us with gracious amazement, a round-faced toddler peering out from behind her skirts.

“Come around back!” Hui reached up to tug on Ember’s reins. “I will show you the goat pen.”

In the rear of the house, there was a sizable garden with well-tended crops of squash and soybean—and indeed, a small pen with a wise-eyed goat. With Hui’s assistance, I unsaddled Ember and unloaded Coal’s packs, stowing the gear beneath a weathered lean-to. He fetched a fresh bucket of water and watched with avid curiosity as I checked both horses’ hooves for cracks or stones.

“Why do you not have servants, Noble Barbarian Lady?” Hui asked.

I worked at prying a pebble loose from the frog of Ember’s right front hoof. The chestnut bent his neck and lipped my hair with idle affection. “Because I do not think the man I am following would like it if I came after him with an army of servants. And you may call me by my name, which is Moirin.”

“Moirin.” He pronounced it with the awkward Ch’in lilt I found charming. “Is it true what he said, then? The stick-fighter from Shuntian?”

“I don’t know.” I released Ember’s foreleg and stroked his neck. “What did he say?”

Hui glanced around. “It is rumored that he claimed to be one of those who guarded Princess Snow Tiger on her quest to free the dragon and end the war.”

“Aye,” I said. “It’s true.”

“You were there?”

I nodded. “I was there.”

Hui’s dark gaze travelled from the medallion around my neck to my face. “You’re
her
. The Emperor’s jade-eyed witch.”

I smiled. “Some say so. I say I am my own, and no one else’s. But aye, the tales are true, and I was there. So was Bao.”

“Oh.” The boy whispered the word, then swallowed visibly. “Ang Shen did not believe the stories. He told the stick-fighter to go away.”

My heart ached for Bao. “Mayhap Ang Shen will believe it when I tell him.”

Hui looked dubious. “Mayhap he will.”

He didn’t.

In the early hours of the afternoon, I returned to the village square to meet with Bao’s father—or at least, the husband of his mother. Hui came with me to translate, his pride in the task offset by a certain degree of anxiety. There were four men yet huddled over the dominoes, sharing a jar of rice-wine.

“Ang Shen?” I bowed politely to the man Hui pointed out to me, a Ch’in fellow with a prematurely lined face, his black hair peppered with silver, clad in well-mended clothes. Since he did not rise, I knelt to offer him the respect due an elder in Ch’in society, sitting on my heels in the D’Angeline courtesan’s manner that Jehanne had shown me. “I would speak to you of your son, Bao.”

Hui translated.

The other three domino players left off their game and stared at me with open fascination. Villagers drifted near to eavesdrop. Ang Shen grunted, fingered the tiles, and refused to meet my eyes. “I have no son,” he said in a rough variant of the scholar’s tongue.

“Your wife’s son, then,” I said.

His shoulders tensed. “My wife bore no sons.”

“Aye,” I said softly. “She did. And it seems he sought you out. ’Tis no business of mine to tell you how to respond to such circumstances. But one thing I will tell you. Whatever Bao told you was true, and I doubt he told you the half of it. He is a hero. I know, for I was there. He saved the princess’ life and mine at the cost of his own. He died, and was born again.”

Ang Shen shuddered and lifted his head, his expression fierce.
“Would I have sold such a son away?”
he demanded of me. Startled, I rocked back on my heels.
“No!”
His eyes blazed. “No, no, no! I would not have done such a thing, so this man claiming to be such a person must lie. Else, what am I? What monster, what waste of flesh? It cannot be true!”

“It is!” I insisted.

Both of us surged to our feet.

I hadn’t expected violence. If I had, I would have kept my distance from him. I would have brought my bow and quiver, the sturdy yew-wood bow my uncle Mabon had made for me. My fingers twitched, longing for the string as Ang Shen breathed hard in my face, leaning forward, his breath smelling of stale rice-wine, his expression adamant and anguished.
“I have no son.”

I bowed. “My mistake, sir. If you did, and if he had come seeking your acceptance, you would have been proud of him.”

I left.

Hui trotted after me. “That didn’t go so well, huh?”

“No.” I spied the slender figure of a girl hiking her robes to her knees and beating a hasty retreat across the square, the soles of her straw sandals slapping against her heels. Her fleet, agile grace struck a familiar chord. “It is obvious that Ang Shen is a proud man who feels grief and guilt. Hui, would that be his daughter?”

He glanced at her. “Uh-huh. That’s Ang Song.”

“Let’s follow her.”

Hui beamed. “Yes, Moirin!”

We followed Song to a modest sewing shop, arriving in time to see her being scolded by the proprietress, who had the girl’s earlobe pinched in a firm grip as she harangued her. Song protested and squirmed, more with dismay than discomfort.

“Excuse me, madame,” I said politely. “I would like to speak to this girl.”

Hui translated.

The proprietress turned on me with irritation, then gaped with comical surprise. She let go of Song’s earlobe and stroked the girl’s braided hair with an absentminded affection that belied her scolding, then questioned Hui in the local dialect. He grinned and replied. The proprietress bowed and spoke rapidly, gesturing at the door.

“Auntie Ai says you are most welcome here, Moirin,” Hui said helpfully. “Of course, you may come in and speak to Song and her mother. If you would like to purchase some very fine embroidery work, that would also be good.”

I smiled. “My thanks.”

Auntie Ai led us through the crowded front room with squares of embroidered fabric stacked in piles. Although most of the material was plain cotton, the quality of the embroidery was indeed quite fine. The girl Song stole glances at me, her face alight with eager curiosity. She was a pretty girl, and I saw traces of Bao in the shape of her ears, the angle of her jaw, and her full lips. She couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen, hovering on the brink of womanhood.

“You’re her?” she asked me shyly, speaking the scholar’s tongue with more skill than her father.

“I’m her,” I agreed.

She clapped her hands together with unbridled delight. Auntie Ai shook her head, but she smiled, too.

I knew Bao’s mother at a glance. She rose to her feet in amazement as we entered the sewing chamber, a tangle of fabric and silk thread spilling from her lap. One hand touched her lips, her eyes brightening with tears. “It’s true?”

“Aye, my lady,” I said gently.

A joyful laugh spilled from her. “I knew he would not lie! Oh, tell me! Tell me everything!”

So I did, once Auntie Ai had bustled around and served cups of hot, fragrant tea and sweet bean-cakes. I told the whole long story of how I had met Bao and Master Lo Feng in Terre d’Ange, how Master Lo had taken me on as a student. How I had accompanied them across many seas in a greatship when the Emperor’s men came to fetch Master Lo to tend to the afflicted princess.

“Is it true that Princess Snow Tiger
killed
her husband on their wedding night?” Song asked in a hushed whisper.

“Oh, yes.” I nodded. “It was a very awful thing. Everyone thought it was a demon that possessed her. But it was the dragon, waking in terror and panicking at finding himself trapped in her flesh.”

It was worse than they knew. The dragon had awoken while Snow Tiger and her bridegroom were engaged in the act of love. In his panic, the celestial creature had struck out in blind terror, and with dragon-infused strength, the princess had torn her bridegroom from limb to limb. I knew, I had seen her memories. After she had come to trust me, I had held her in the small hours of darkness when the nightmares came.

“But
you
saw the dragon inside her!” Song said triumphantly.

“Aye.” I smiled. “I did. And with the magic that is the gift of my mother’s people, I was able to let the princess see the dragon in the mirror.”

Bao’s mother, whose name was Yingtai, shook her head in wonder.

I told the rest of the story, from our escape from Shuntian and our journey in disguise across Ch’in to our victory at White Jade Mountain. Hui translated in a low tone for Auntie Ai. They knew it, of course. Everyone in Ch’in knew it. Bao had told it to them himself. But it was the sort of story that bore hearing over and over, the sort of story for retelling during long winter nights around the fire.

When I had finished, Yingtai sighed with profound pleasure. “I knew he was not lying,” she said in a soft, wistful voice.

“Your husband did not believe him,” I said.

“No.” Her brow furrowed. “Ang Shen is a good man at heart. After the Tatar raid, after it was clear that Bao was not his son… the shame of it broke him.” She glanced at her daughter. “Then, for many years, I did not get pregnant again. He… perhaps we did not try often enough. In ten years of trying, Song is our only child. When my Bao returned claiming a hero’s status, it broke him all over again.”