Naamah's Curse (75 page)

His eyelids cracked open and a faint smile lifted his parched lips. “Now that you have commanded it, I’m sure I shall, highness.”

Amrita rose. “Let us make haste to the palace,” she said to Pradeep. “Did you tell the physician to meet us in the barracks?”

He bowed. “I did, highness.”

“Good.” She gave a brisk nod, then turned to address the servants of Kurugiri. “If you wish, places for all of you will be found in my household. I find we are quite shorthanded since taking in the Falconer’s harem.”

All save one of them looked profoundly relieved. I don’t think they had let themselves believe until that moment.

Only Sudhakar was not gazing at the Rani with gratitude. He was not gazing at the Rani at all, but kneeling and touching his brow to the ground. “Highness?” he asked in a muffled voice. “You know what I am.”

“Yes,” Amrita said firmly. “You are the young man who assisted Bao-ji tirelessly in tending to my injured warriors. You are the young man who offered to tend to the dead with honor.” Stooping, she put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a little shake. “And there is a place in my household for you, too. Perhaps you would like to be my physician’s apprentice, eh?”

A great shudder racked him, and he gave a single hoarse sob. The Rani straightened. Sudhakar knelt upright, gazing at her lovely face. She smiled at him. Bowing his head once more, he reached out with trembling hands and touched her bare feet in respect and gratitude. “Thank you, highness,” he whispered.

In my mind, Jagrati’s dark laughter fell silent.

“Yes, yes.” Amrita patted his head. “Only let us hurry, shall we? For Hasan Dar’s sake.”

Sudhakar leapt to his feet, his face shining. “Yes, highness!”

It wasn’t really possible to hurry through the crowded, narrow streets of Bhaktipur, especially with hundreds of folk turned out to observe the royal procession and the last of the returning heroes, but we did our best. When they saw the litters and the injured men within them, the Bhaktipuri people called out blessings, laying garlands of dried flowers on them. By the time we reached the palace, Hasan Dar was half-buried beneath a carpet of blossoms.

One by one, the wounded guards were transported by their bearers into the barracks. Amrita gazed after them, worried.

“Do you think they’ll be all right, Bao-ji?” Ravindra asked. “
All
of them?”

“I am worried about Hasan Dar, young highness,” Bao said honestly. “But he is strong, and a fighter.” He smiled at Ravindra. “And your mother has ordered him to get well. I know he wishes to obey her.”

“Mama-ji said you saved many lives,” Ravindra said in a respectful tone.

“I tried.” Bao stretched out his hands, regarding them. “My mentor Master Lo could have done better, much better. But I did my best.”

“That is all anyone can do,” Ravindra said with dignity, his small face very serious beneath his purple turban. “I think you did very well indeed.”

Amrita gave me a sparkling sidelong glance, and I smiled back at her, thinking that these two were truly very good for one another. “Come!” She clapped her hands together. “Let us leave the horses to the stablehands and the treasure to the porters, and get everyone inside. You must all be very tired and hungry after your journey.”

To be sure,
I
was.

It was a relief, a blessed relief, to be back in this place where I had found sanctuary after a long ordeal; and with the shadow of the threat of Kurugiri’s assassins lifted, it truly was a place of sanctuary once more.

I didn’t know how Amrita went about settling her expanded staff within her expanded household, and I didn’t care. It was enough for now to know that she did. I trusted my golden Rani to keep her word.

In the chamber I shared with Bao, I removed the pouch containing the necklace with Kamadeva’s diamond from my pocket. It weighed heavy in my hand, singing softly to me. Although I’d thought myself jaded on treasure, this was no mortal gem. I had the urge to open the pouch and look at it once more, to gaze on the dark, shifting embers at the black diamond’s core. In Kurugiri and on the journey, there had been no time to think about it.

Now I couldn’t help but wonder how it would look around my neck, what
I
would be like wielding it.

“Tempted, Moirin?” Bao was watching me.

“No.” I set the pouch down quickly on a dressing table. “Just… wondering. I can’t help it.”

He came over to me. “You wonder what
you
would be like?” I nodded. Bao touched my cheek with his fingertips. “You would be desirable beyond bearing,” he said soberly. “You already incite powerful desire. Were you to don Kamadeva’s diamond, I think no one would be able to resist you, for the diamond would reflect your own considerable passions back at them. Men would walk through fire for the chance to touch your skin—and women, too. Men would gladly fight to the death for your favor without being asked. I daresay you couldn’t stop them from doing it. Is that what you want?”

“No!” I said. “Of course not.” And it was true, almost entirely true; but there was a tiny piece of me that said otherwise. The vanity and pride that was wounded by the fact that I had wanted Raphael de Mereliot more than he had wanted me; by the fact that I’d failed to seduce Aleksei in Vralia; even the fact that my lady Amrita had only offered herself to me out of compassion.

But I could envision the Maghuin Dhonn Herself turning away from me in reproach, Her eyes filled with immense sorrow and regret.

I sighed. “I will ask the Rani for a coffer with a strong lock, and I will put Kamadeva’s diamond in it and throw away the key. Let the priests worry about opening it when it is returned to the temple.”

Bao smiled. “I think that is wise. Such powerful objects are dangerous to mere mortals, even ones with the blood of the goddess of desire running in their veins.”

I put my arms around his neck. “Desirable beyond bearing, hmm?”

He nodded gravely, arms circling my waist. “Oh, yes.”

I kissed him. “I would like to have a bath, and a very large meal, and then I would like to sleep in a warm bed, possibly for two days straight through. After that, I would very much like to hear more about these strong desires I incite. Does that sound reasonable to you?”

“Yes, Moirin.” Bao’s dark eyes glinted, and he bent his head to return my kiss. “Very, very reasonable.”

His
diadh-anam
flickered against mine, gentle as a caress. Kamadeva’s diamond sang in its pouch, and somewhere the bright lady smiled.

“Oh, good,” I said with relief.

A
s it was, it took only a single night’s sleep to restore me to a semblance of normalcy; and we awoke to good news.

“Hasan Dar’s fever broke in the night,” the Rani Amrita informed us at the breakfast table, her face beaming. “His wound needs to drain yet, but the physician thinks he will recover fully.”

“That’s wonderful!” I said. “I’m so pleased to hear it, my lady.”

“Yes.” The light in her face faded a bit. “There have been far too many deaths already, eh?”

Bao heaped his plate with eggs cooked with vegetables and spices, warm flatbread, and savory fried lentil-cakes filled with pickled
achar
. “What of the others, highness?”

It brought back her vibrant smile. “Well, all are healing well!”

While we ate, Amrita and Ravindra told us what had transpired in our absence. It had caused a great scandal that Pradeep and the guards had transported the bodies of the fallen to the temple of funeral pyres, both their highnesses accompanying them. Although the Rani had not made a formal announcement rescinding the policy of treating no-caste persons as untouchable, the rumor was circulating, and opinion was divided.

“I have been taking counsel with priests,” she said. “Some of them are quite horrified at the prospect.”

“But not all of them,” Ravindra added. “My tutor is of the priestly caste, and he and I have been studying the sacred Vedas.” He inclined his head to me. “I think you may be right, Moirin-ji.”

I bit into a sweet, fried dumpling and swallowed. “How so, highness?” I asked.

“In the oldest of the Vedas, there is no mention of no-castes,” he said gravely. “Only the four castes. And in some places, one might almost infer that it is possible for someone born to one caste to rise to another through study, and worship, and clean and proper living. I would not dare to make such a claim, but my tutor thinks it is possible. So. That is why I think you may be right, and sometimes men have put words in the mouths of the gods, shaping the world to their liking.”

“I have been speaking with Laysa, too,” Amrita said, steepling her fingers in a
mudra
of contemplation. “She tells me that Sakyamuni the Enlightened One rejected the notion of caste when he founded the Path of Dharma.” She smiled in wonderment. “Although she has no formal religious training yet in this lifetime, she has carried great wisdom with her into this incarnation. She tells me she remembers hearing the Enlightened One himself speak about this matter many lifetimes ago.”

“Would you think to do the same, my lady?” I asked her. “Reject the notion of caste?”

“No.” The Rani Amrita shook her head, eardrops tinkling softly. “It is the way our world is ordered, dear one, and that
is
clear in the Vedas. But I am very interested in this notion that caste is not rigid and fixed, that the challenge of one’s
kharma
is not only to obey and endure one’s fate, but to transcend it. And I am interested in finding ways to help people do so, especially the less fortunate ones.”

“Start a school,” Bao said around a mouthful of eggs. I raised my brows at him. He swallowed hastily and wiped his mouth. “Forgive me, highness. But if you wish to lift people up, the best way is to teach them. Before I met Master Lo Feng, I knew nothing but an acrobat’s tricks and stick-fighting. He taught me to read and write, mathematics, enough of a physician’s trade to make myself useful. He taught me the path of the Way, taught me to think and reason and meditate, to focus my mind and will. I became a different person because of what Master Lo taught me.”

“Teach them,” Amrita echoed.

Bao nodded. “From that one thing, ten thousand things will arise.”

“I like this notion,” the Rani said decisively, and Ravindra nodded in agreement. “Only… I think I shall wait until Hasan Dar is recovered to announce any sweeping changes, eh? Pradeep is a good man, but not as strong-willed and courageous.”

“Do you think there will be trouble, my lady?” I asked. “That folk will protest and resist?”

“Some will,” she said soberly. “It is inevitable. Both priests on high, angry at having their authority undermined, and low-caste workers, resentful at having to share their ranking with folk they despise.”

“But you are minded to do this?” Bao asked softly.

“Yes.” Amrita’s lovely face was set and grave. “I am. The gods sent three women all bearing the same message to me. First Moirin, then Jagrati, and now the
tulku
Laysa. I cannot turn a deaf ear to them.” She smiled a little. “Maybe when men fail to heed them, the gods turn at last to women, eh?”

“It took them long enough,” I observed.

Amrita shook her head at me in mild reproach. “The time of gods is not like the time of mortals, dear one.”

“Yes, my lady.” I ate another of the sweet, fried dumplings. “So are Laysa and her daughter staying?”

“No, no. Only through the winter. When the high passes are clear, I will send them to Rasa with an escort. The others are staying,” she added.

“Ah.” I smiled. “So you’re keeping the harem.”

My lady Amrita laughed and flushed the slightest bit, narrowing her lustrous eyes at me. “I am not
keeping
the harem, Moirin. They could not return home after what they have endured, for their families would reckon them disgraced. I have offered them sanctuary here, and they have accepted it.”

“Why would Mama-ji keep a harem?” Ravindra asked in bewilderment.

“Moirin was only teasing,” Bao informed him.

“Oh.” He continued to look puzzled.

“It is a grown-up kind of teasing, jewel of my heart,” Amrita said to him. “A very D’Angeline kind of teasing.”

Ravindra shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Anyway, it is very nice. It’s almost as though we have the big family you always missed, isn’t it, Mama-ji?” he asked. She nodded. “Would you like to come see?” he inquired. “We have opened a whole row of chambers along the lower level of the garden that have been closed for years.”