She made a sound she had not intended, soft and hungry in her throat.
At once he pulled away. “Forgive me,” he said, reluctantly drawing his hand out of her hair. He rubbed it across his chest as if it itched. “I have been rude.”
“Some would say a creature like me deserves no better.”
“Some lie. All living beings deserve respect.”
She could see he meant it. Dazed for more reasons than she could name, she obeyed his gesture to step inside. The room was small: a stone floor, a low, beamed ceiling. One arrow-slit window overlooked a snowy courtyard. The only furniture was an unlit altar and a pile of squared-off dusty cushions. Luisa assumed these were what she’d sleep on.
“I will bring blankets,” Martin said, “and a brazier.”
She smiled at him. “That would be kind. I think I must have been changed to suit the climate of my birth. I can stand more cold than most, but we do not have these extremes at home.” A burst of childish laughter drew her to the window. A group of boys were engaged in a kicking game with a ball. The shadows were long now, the sun sinking swiftly behind the peaks. After all she had been through, the lingering light did not affect her much.
“I hope the chelas will not bother you,” Martin said. “They like to play there between their lessons.”
“Chelas?”
“That is what we call young boys. Older students are trapas.”
“And you?” She turned to find him a step behind her.
His gaze remained on the scene outside. “I am also trapa. I have not been here very long. A year only. There were…reasons I could not join the lamasery as a boy. But someday I hope to be gelong.” If she had not been watching closely, she would have missed his tiny scowl. “Gelong is a special ordination. My teacher will tell me when I am ready.”
“You seem quite advanced to me. Your powers—”
He waved her words away with his hand. “Having power is not the same as being holy.”
“Certainly not in my case,” she said with a coaxing smile.
Martin did not return it. “I have been a monk before,” he said. “That is why my progress has been swift.”
“Before?”
“In previous lives.” He glanced at her, weighing her response to this exotic claim. “My memories drew me back to this place, to my teacher. He has never failed to guide me, even at my most stubborn. Always he took me in.”
Devotion rang in his voice. As if he heard it himself, and judged it unsuitable for display, he pulled himself straighter and stepped away. “Unless you have further need of me, I will take my leave.”
She inclined her head. “I await your teacher’s convenience.”
He paused beneath the lintel of the door. “If I bolt this, will it keep you in?”
She could not restrain a laugh. No one else would have expected her to be honest. “Probably not, but I pose no immediate danger to your colleagues.”
“I can bring food,” he offered. “Tea.”
“And I could pretend to drink it, but it would not sustain me.”
She watched him take this in, his thoughtfulness an echo of his teacher.
“Will you become ill if you do not eat?” he asked.
“There is time before that happens.”
“But you will not be comfortable.”
“No,” she agreed, “I will not be comfortable.”
He nodded at this. She sensed he also heard what she had not said: that she was more likely to take what she needed by force than to allow herself to grow much weaker. At any rate, she would try. From what she had seen of him, the outcome of a confrontation between them would not be sure.
Only when he pulled the door shut behind him did she remember where she’d first seen eyes his shade of blue.
“Clearly,” said Geshe Rinpoche, “the trader she met was your father. You must admit the coincidence is striking, as if Fate were taking a hand in bringing you together.”
Martin grimaced. That John Moore had drawn the woman here was hardly a point in her favor. A curse, more like, if she proved as unworthy of trust as he. Martin touched the pale jade horse that stood on the table by his teacher’s window. The carving was a gift from the Mongol khan, a thanks for an herbal healing. Nestled on a scarf beside it, the woman’s offering curled like a snake. It was a mala, a Tibetan rosary, a string of one hundred eight shining emerald beads.
Apparently she had not lied about being a prosperous merchant.
“I saw no sign she lied at all,” said his teacher, “though there was much she hid.”
His comment did not surprise Martin. He and his guide were so attuned Geshe Rinpoche could often read his mind. He, of course, would not presume to read his teacher’s.
“Haha,” laughed Geshe Rinpoche, “now I am presumptuous!”
Martin turned, face hot, but his embarrassment faded in the waves of warmth he felt from his friend.
“Yes, friend,” Geshe agreed, “for, as I have told you, you and I have shared many lives—lives in which I was not always the teacher.” He beamed up at Martin from the floor, still seated in the attitude of meditation, his legs crossed, his hands curled easily around his knees. After a moment, his smile softened into a look of deep compassion. “I know you are troubled. I would be surprised if you were not. After all, this woman is a living reminder that half of you belongs in another world.”
“None of me belongs anywhere but here,” Martin declared. “This is the country of my heart!”
Shamed by the passionate outburst, he hung his head.
“The wise man feels neither attachment nor aversion,” reminded his master with the patience for which he was renowned.
“I’m sorry, rinpoche. You know I am trying to follow the Path.”
His teacher released a quiet sigh. “Yes, I know you are trying. Too hard maybe. There are things I have seen in your future…But that is a talk for another day. You will choose your own way, as everyone does. For now you need only know that I have decided to help this woman. Tomorrow we will consult the medical lama. If our pilgrim is as earnest as she claims, I think we may accomplish much.”
“ ‘We,’ rinpoche?”
His teacher’s eyes held more than a hint of mirth. “Yes, ‘we.’ My meditation has told me you must help!”
3
The medical lama was a tall storklike man, as gauntly ascetic as Martin and the abbot were robust. He reminded Luisa of scientists she had known, truth seekers who burned for nothing but uncovering hidden things. She did not fear her nature would disgust him, only that at some point he would want to cut her open and look inside.
They had gathered—she, Martin, the medical lama, and the abbot—in Geshe Rinpoche’s surprisingly comfortable quarters. They’d come soon after midnight, not for Luisa’s sake but because midnight was when the lamasery’s day began. Every so often the chant of the morning service drifted up from the floors below. Distant as it was, the sound could not compete with the rapid-fire barrage of the medical lama’s questions.
Once he had taken her pulse at various places on her body, he interrogated her about her diet, her sleep habits, her strengths and weaknesses alike. Naturally, Luisa was reluctant to discuss the latter. She understood, though, that she must enter into this process wholly. As Geshe Rinpoche said: a doctor could not diagnose half a patient. All must be known or the treatment would not suit.
After an hour of this, the medical lama was so excited he was pacing back and forth across the colorful woven rug. “And you say you can consume food, but not digest it?”
“Yes.”
“But wine you can imbibe, as well as filtered juice and tea.”
“I cannot drink Tibetan tea,” she clarified with an automatic wrinkling of her nose. “The yak butter and soda disagree with me.”
The medical lama stopped to press his hands before his mouth. “Yes. Those additions are too coarse, too material. Blood is food a human has transformed for you and wine is sunlight on which the fruit has
done the work. Are you certain you do not remember how you were changed into what you are?”
“Quite certain,” she said. “The procedure is wiped from our memory as soon as it is done. Only the elders possess the secret and I’m afraid it is a power they do not choose to share. I do not even know how many of them exist. Two, according to my master, but I often thought he told me less than he knew. However great or small their number, they are shadow figures who rarely walk among their broods.”
“Pity,” said the lama as if their presence would present no more than a chance for intriguing study. Luisa was beginning to see that nothing in this world or any other could cow these Tibetan monks. The medical lama pondered the ceiling, then turned to the holy abbot. “I must study her tsakhor. Please instruct her to undress.”
“Scusi?” said Luisa with a mixture of amusement and affront. She might not be a fount of modesty, but once upon a time she had been. Even now she drew the line at standing naked before three men—at least, three men she did not intend to bed. That Martin’s presence inspired the most discomfort, she chose not to examine.
To her relief, the abbot intervened. “Tsakhor are wheels of force within your subtle body. Examining them will tell Lama Songpan how your inner mandala channels energy. Your clothing would interfere with the emanations.”
“If I understood more than two words of that,” Luisa said, “I might be convinced.”
Martin frowned at her as the medical lama threw up his hands. Calm as ever, the abbot smiled. “You must forgive us,” he said. “We do not think of nudity as you do. To us the body is simply the vehicle of the soul. But perhaps you have something simple beneath those clothes? An undergarment that would preserve your privacy?”
“I am wearing a smock,” Luisa conceded, suddenly feeling foolish. These were men of science, not a science she understood but that did not make them satyrs in search of thrills. Nor, given her history, was she in any position to throw stones. With a shrug at her own illogic, she doffed her fur-lined cloak. Her Turkish-style tunic and trousers spurred no comment, since they were more familiar to her watchers than the ruff and farthingale she would have worn at home.
Hiding her discomposure under her briskest manner, she stepped from the embroidered trousers and undid the tunic’s pearl-studded buttons. The sleeveless shift she wore beneath fell past her hips, a cobweb silk woven by her own bottega, the best cloth-working shop in all of Florence. The silk was fine enough to pull through a woman’s ring, as soft and shimmering as smoke. For all the shield it provided, she might as well have removed it. She kept it, though, perversely determined to maintain at least a pretense of maidenly reserve—not that Martin was likely to be fooled.
She stopped disrobing once she’d peeled off her long black gloves. Feeling the cold now, she handed them to Lama Songpan, who exclaimed in wonderment as he turned them back and forth.
“Not a crease,” he marveled. “Not a single sign of wear. Her garments are as fresh as if she never had put them on.”
The abbot hummed and rubbed his chin. Only Martin seemed to view her barely clothed body as more than a scientific object. He had crossed his arms as she undressed and, while his face remained impassive, his knuckles were nearly white. Knowing his gaze was on her abruptly heightened her awareness of her flesh.
Yes, she thought, you know I am a woman. A draft stirred her hair behind her back and a shiver swept her breasts. She felt a tightening at their tips as if they had been pinched by gentle fingers. Martin’s eyes met hers, hot now, and not the least bit monkish. She remembered carvings she had seen in India’s northern temples: gods with thick, rearing phalluses, their consorts small of waist and round of breast. Phantom hands seemed to grip her around the ribs, lifting her, impaling her even as she hung splay-legged in the air.
It was not a position with which she was familiar. Then she knew. These memories were not hers. Martin wanted her. He was imagining how she’d feel. Tiny beads of sweat dotted his brow.
Perhaps he did not, after all, prefer a woman to be a maid.
She smiled at him and he immediately turned away—not, however, before she had seen the flush that tinged his ears.
“I will light the brazier,” he said. “She is cold.”
Lama Songpan, of course, had missed this little drama. “Hm,” he said, circling her slowly on the rug. “In the average person, the earth’s energy is continually being tapped for the replenishment of the aura. The process is as automatic as the beating of the heart. But her aura’s barriers to penetration are very strong. I suspect this must serve some protective function, for she is virtually cut off from these natural forces. Her heart tsakhor in particular is quite guarded.”
“You say she is virtually cut off,” repeated the abbot, “but not completely?”
The medical lama crouched and laid the tips of three bony fingers on her feet. “I sense a small draw. Very small. Under normal circumstances not enough to sustain a child.”
“She must be taught to increase it,” said the abbot.
Lama Songpan rose creakily erect. “Perhaps. I do not know if she can.” He shrugged. “I would recommend a cautious attempt. Otherwise, I do not know what to suggest.”
“Very well,” said the abbot. “Thank you for your advice.”
His subordinate bowed and retreated, leaving the three of them alone.
The sound of Martin stoking the brazier seemed very loud.
Geshe Rinpoche turned to watch his student. From the look on his face, Luisa could only assume the abbot didn’t expect her to be watching him. For once, his expression was not that of an indulgent teacher. It was considering, rather, almost cool, as if Martin were a racehorse he meant to bet on.
An instant later she thought she must have imagined it because he smiled at Martin just as fondly as before. “Come away from there,” he said, a hint of laughter in the words. “If you keep that up, our guest will think we mean to roast her.”
Martin straightened so quickly he nearly dropped the poker. “I’m sorry, rinpoche. I—”
“Sh.” His teacher patted the air with open hands. “It is all right. Everything is well.”
To Luisa’s surprise, she caught a hint of her own gift in the lama’s voice. He was putting calm into Martin’s head, calm that was not really there. Given the expression she had caught a glimpse of, she couldn’t help wondering what his motives were.
But maybe she’d grown too cynical. The love the abbot felt for his student lit more than his eyes. Luisa was not easily deceived. She doubted she could have misread that.
“Come,” said Geshe Rinpoche, waving Martin closer. “I want you to show our guest how to pull up energy from the earth.”
“Me?” Martin’s reluctance was emblazoned on his face.
The abbot chuckled. “It is only a request, Martin. You may refuse. But she is drawn to you,” he said, proving he had seen their exchange, “as you are to her. This sympathy will make teaching her easier. I will stay, though, if you feel yourself in need of a chaperone.”
The implication that he intended to leave startled Martin and Luisa both. Did the abbot’s trust run so deep? Or was this meant as a test of his student’s self-command? Either way, Luisa was not certain she approved. She drew herself straighter, only to find that Martin had done the same.
“It shall be as you wish,” he said, his chin raised up with pride.
This pricked her temper in a different way. Martin himself wished to be alone with her. He simply did not want to admit it.
Martin tightened his jaw against further lapses of control. He might have succeeded had he not recalled those long black gloves peeling down her shapely arms. They were foreign, those gloves, Western, a symbol of everything he’d turned his back on.
Just as his father had turned his back on him.
The gloves’ removal should not have inflamed him, should not have dried his mouth or thickened the restless organ between his legs. They should not have aroused him even more than the sight of
her skin shining through her filmy shift. As to that, he should not have cared if she did resemble a goddess in a temple, her breasts impossibly buoyant, her belly a creamy curve. The body was simply a vehicle for experiencing earthly life. It was nothing to worship, nothing to lust over until one ached in every part.
But her beauty shattered his efforts to stay aloof. She was a lake at sunset, a mountain touched with gold. Her skin glowed in the lamplight and her hair…her hair made him clench his hands and break into a sweat. She smelled of violets and he wondered if all her kind shared this not-quite-human scent. But all her kind did not matter. Only she did. He wanted to burrow against her and breathe her in. She made him forget what he meant his life to be. For that alone he would have kept his distance.
That is, he would have if Geshe Rinpoche had not left them by themselves.
“Well,” purred his tempter, “why don’t you show me how it’s done?”
You know how it is done, he thought, far better than I.
“You seem to know what goes where,” she said with a satiny smile and a pointed glance at his loins.
The insinuation hardened him even further, his shock at odds with his arousal. She must have seen the pictures in his mind, the union of god and goddess in the flesh.
It seemed a travesty that this woman could read him as easily as his guide.
“You were thinking very hard,” she explained, her amusement gentler than it might have been. “Perhaps you were too distracted to shield your mind. I will stop listening if you prefer.”
“No.” He squared his shoulders. “Shielding my thoughts will not erase them. And you will learn better if you put no walls between us.”
“As you wish,” she said.
Her lashes fell in acknowledgment, then rose. Despite his reluctance, he could not look away. Her eyes were a rich, pure green, the color of innocence and nature, of drives both simple and complex. He forced himself to meet their unspoken promise. Whatever her experience in the sexual arena, he was her equal in many others. More to the point, he had faced lust down before. He was a man, after all, not a rock.
Fantasy Page 11