Naamahs Curse

by Jacqueline Carey

Page 4

 

  Song fidgeted. “Father is disappointed that I am a girl. ”

  “Perhaps he might think on the pride that Emperor Zhu takes in his daughter,” I suggested. “A pride the entire Empire shares. ”

  That made her smile. “Is Princess Snow Tiger as beautiful and brave as they say?”

  “Every bit and more,” I assured her. “Now, tell me about Bao. How long did he stay? How long has he been gone? Did he say where he was bound?”

  “He was troubled. ” Bao’s mother’s gaze rested on me, careworn and concerned. “I did not understand…. . he died? And you brought him back to life?”

  I had skipped that part of the tale, reckoning it was not something a mother wanted to hear. “He died, yes, struck by one of Black Sleeve’s poisoned darts. It was Master Lo Feng who used my magic to trade his life for Bao’s. ”

  Yingtai looked away. “I could see that there was a shadow over him. He was at odds with himself. He asked me…. . he asked me about the Tatar who fathered him. If there was aught I could tell him. ”

  The sewing room was very quiet.

  “Was there?” I asked at length.

  “Yes. ” She looked back at me. “He had a scar, here. ” She drew a line from brow to cheek over her right eye. “I have not forgotten. ”

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured.

  Yingtai gave a stoic shrug. “Men can be cruel. I begged Bao not to seek him out. Even if he succeeds, I can see no reason for it. ” She folded her hands in her lap, studying me. “Although he did not declare his feelings, his face changes when he speaks of you,” she said softly. “At last, I asked him. Why, when his feelings for you were written so clearly on his face, was he going in the opposite direction? He could not explain it to me. ”

  “I don’t think he knows,” I said. “Not really. ”

  She nodded. “He is searching for an answer for which no question exists. ”

  I smiled ruefully. “That sounds about right. ” Feeling the weight of strong emotion in the cloistered room, I changed the subject. “How did you learn the scholar’s tongue? You speak it well. ”

  “From my grandfather. ” Yingtai stroked her daughter’s hair. “A long time ago. I taught Song as much as I remember. ”

  Song cast a sharp glance toward Hui, who was surreptitiously stuffing the second to last of the sweet bean-cakes into his mouth. “If I were a boy, I would sit for the examination one day!”

  He sputtered a defiant, unintelligible reply. Auntie Ai cuffed his head absently and snatched the plate away, offering it insistently to me. I took the last sweet out of politeness, the jade bangles around my wrist tinkling as I reached for it.

  “Oh!” Song touched one of the bangles. “So beautiful! May I see?”

  “Of course. ” I extended both arms. Her slender fingers danced over the polished stone bracelets. “That one is the exact color of the reflecting pool beneath White Jade Mountain, where the dragon gazes at himself,” I said when she paused over my favorite, a vivid translucent green bangle. “The very place where we freed him. Princess Snow Tiger chose it herself. ”

  “And this?” She pointed at the bangle next to it, a deeper, more intense shade of green.

  “That’s called Imperial jade. ” I touched another, a pale milky-white bangle with cloudy patches. “This is leopard jade. And this, this red one is said to bring luck. Which is your favorite?”

  Song contemplated the six bangles I wore with great seriousness. “This one,” she said at length, touching a clear, pale green piece with honey-colored highlights. “It looks like a river in sunlight with fish swimming in it. ”

  I worked it free. “Then it is my gift to you. ”

  Auntie Ai’s eyes bulged, and she hissed in urgent dialect.

  “No, no!” Bao’s mother said in protest. “It is too much!”

  I ignored her. “Pick one for your mother,” I whispered conspiratorially to Song. “Which one do you think she would like?”

  “Moirin. ” Hui tugged at my sleeve, glancing over his shoulder. “Ah…. . Auntie Ai does not think you know how much those are worth. ”

  I ignored him, too. “Which one?”

  One by one, Song walked her fingers over the remaining five bangles that hung from my wrists, slow and deliberative. “I think Mother would like this one that looks like the dragon’s pool,” she said somberly. “But it would be wrong to take it from you. So I choose this one. ” She touched the bangle of Imperial green jade, glancing up at me. “The one that is the color of your eyes. ”

  I smiled and began to work it loose. “A very good choice. ”

  “No!”

  I pressed the jade bangle into Yingtai’s resistant hands. “Bao came to you penniless, didn’t he? If he had stayed, if he had not fled, the Emperor would have rewarded him generously for his service. Please. ” I folded her hands over the bracelet. “Accept this small token. ”

  Bao’s mother shook her head. “Ang Shen will insist—”

  Song flinched.

  “I will speak to him,” I said. “I will tell him that if he sells these bracelets to drink and gamble, it will bring such a curse down upon him that he will reckon his life has been paradise before now. ”

  Hui stared at me, his eyes stretched wide. “Can you do such a thing?”

  “Of course,” I lied. “I am the Emperor’s witch, am I not?”

  Tears filled Yingtai’s eyes. “You cannot understand what this means. ” She turned the bangle in her hands. “A jade piece of such quality, a gift from his Celestial Majesty’s own hands…. . Moirin, it is enough to provide Song with a dowry to marry well, better than I ever dared to hope for her. ”

  I smiled at her. “Then I have done a better thing than I reckoned,” I said.

  We spoke for a while longer. They told me about Bao’s visit, and that he had departed several weeks ago, bound to cross the Great Wall through the gateway a dozen li to the north and enter Tatar territory.

  “You mean to follow him?” Yingtai asked me. “Even there?”

  I nodded. “I do. What Master Lo did to restore Bao to life…. . it bound us together. I have waited long enough. If he will not come to me, I will go to him. ”

  She shuddered. “I will pray for you every day. ”

  “Will you come back?” Song asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I cannot promise it. No matter what happens with Bao, I have a home of my own, or at least family of my own, far, far away. I miss them. Especially my mother. I would like to see her again very much. But I do promise that I will never, ever forget you. ”

  Song smiled at me with shy pleasure, toying with the bangle around her slim wrist. “I understand. I will pray for you, too, Lady Moirin. ”

  With their assistance, I chose two embroidered squares to purchase from Auntie Ai—one of Song’s worked with a pattern of flowering bamboo, and one with a stark black-and-white pattern of magpies that Yingtai had just completed.

  “I thought of my Bao as I sewed this piece,” his mother murmured. “He told me that the Venerable Master Lo Feng called him his magpie. ”

  “Aye, he did. ” A wave of sorrow came over me. “I hope it will remind Bao of many glad memories. ”

  “I hope so, too,” she said.

  Outside the sewing shop, we said our farewells. A small crowd had gathered to watch, trying without the slightest bit of success to appear nonchalant. At Auntie Ai’s urging, Hui made a point of displaying the fabric squares I had purchased ostentatiously over his arm. I didn’t begrudge her, for it was obvious she had shown much kindness to Bao’s mother and sister. Let the tale spread that the Emperor’s witch had found her wares worthy.

  Yingtai bowed formally to me, her eyes bright with fresh tears. “I bless the gods for sending you to us, Lady Moirin. I pray they guard your path. ”

  I returned her bow. “And yours, my lady. ”

  In a public display of
emotion uncustomary to the Ch’in, Song flung her arms around my neck and hugged me hard. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she said fervently aloud, then whispered in my ear, “I hope my brother chooses to be with you. He would be very, very stupid not to, I think. ”

  I laughed and kissed the top of her head. “I think so, too. Be well, little sister. ”

  Hui and I retraced our steps to the village square, our indiscreet entourage of onlookers trailing behind us.

  Ang Shen and his companions were still there, squatting beside a jar of rice-wine and lingering over their dominoes in the slanting, late-afternoon sunlight. His head tilted at our approach, although he didn’t deign to look up.

  “Ang Shen?” I called. “I have given your wife and your daughter gifts of jade today. I am told it is sufficient to provide Song with a good dowry. And I am telling you that these gifts carry a blessing and a curse. Do you leave them be, it will be a blessing on your household. ” Thinking of my mother and how imposing she could be, I made my voice stern. “But do you think to take and sell them, my curse will be upon you, and I swear to you by stone and sea and all that it encompasses, you shall wish you had never been born. ”

  Lest my words be mistaken, Hui translated them in a high, clear voice.

  The village onlookers murmured.

  Without looking at me, Bao’s mother’s husband gave a subtle nod of acknowledgment. I nodded in an unseen reply and turned to go.

  “Moirin. ”

  I turned back.

  Ang Shen had risen. He wavered a bit on his feet, but his gaze was steady. “That is your name, is it not?” I nodded. He executed a precise bow. “Moirin, I thank you for this gift you have given my family. ”

  Unexpectedly, my heart ached for him.

  “Here. ” I worked loose the last bangle on my right wrist, the red jade bangle, and held it out to him. “Take this. If it does not bring you the luck it promises, you may sell it and do what you will with the profit. It is yours, and yours alone. ”

  For a moment, I thought he would refuse my gift; but then he took it, clutching it in gnarled, work-worn fingers, a world of wariness in his dark eyes. “Do you seek to force hope upon me?”

  “I do,” I said.

  He bowed a second time. “I accept it. ”

  FIVE

  On the morrow, I departed Tonghe.

  I left in the early morning. As much as it had delighted me to meet Bao’s mother and sister, the increasing chill in the autumn air made me eager to be on my way. My young companion Hui’s father, a gentle, sensible fellow, advised me to make haste.

  “Winter’s coming sooner rather than later, Lady Moirin,” he said with concern, his son translating for him. “You don’t want to be caught out on the steppes without shelter. ”

  “I grew up in the wilderness,” I said with an assurance I didn’t entirely feel. “I can take care of myself. ”

  He shook his head. “You will not have experienced a cold such as this one. Perhaps it would be better to turn back. You could winter in Shuntian. ”

  I had suggested that very thing to Snow Tiger. Gently but firmly, she had sent me on my way, telling me it was time to go.

  My diadh-anam agreed. And I was too close to crossing a threshold to turn back now.

  So I set out, armed with Hui’s father’s advice regarding items to purchase at the Blue Sky Gate market. Hui followed me, shouting and waving, until I lost him in the distance.

  It took no more than an hour to reach the Great Wall, the Blue Sky Gate, and the market that sprawled within the shadow of the wall. For those who have not seen it, the wall that the Ch’in built to keep the Tatars at bay is an awe-inspiring sight. It is high and unthinkably vast, sprawling for countless leagues in both directions. It is constantly being built and repaired, and an untold number of laborers have died in the process.

  This northern section was one of the oldest in its original incarnation, which had been little more than fortified earthworks that had crumbled over the centuries, allowing the Tatar raids that had begotten Bao. Since that time, it had been replaced with new construction, solid and imposing, with an outpost of Imperial soldiers manning the gate towers and a market sprung up to serve them.

  I wandered the marketplace astride Ember, my pack-horse, Coal, trailing behind us, listening to the shouts of the hawkers falter as they paused to stare at me, a buzz circulating in my wake. It wasn’t long before one of the Imperial soldiers hurried over to approach me on foot, a handsome young fellow with a merry face beneath his conical helmet.

  “Greetings, Noble Lady,” he said with a bow, speaking a dialect close enough to the scholar’s tongue that I understood him. “I am Chen Peng. And I think you must be—”

  I smiled. “The Emperor’s jade-eyed witch, aye. ”

  He laughed. “Swallower-of-memories, I was going to say. Is it true that you seek the twice-born one?”

  “It is. ” It occurred to me that for a country as vast as Ch’in, it had a powerful and extensive rumor network.

  Chen Peng read my expression. “I fought at White Jade Mountain,” he said in a more somber tone. “When the dragon descended onto the battlefield, I was there. So please tell me, how may I assist you?”

  I stroked Ember’s neck. “I’m in the market for attire fit to endure a Tatar winter. And such supplies as I will need to survive, at least until I find my stubborn peasant-boy. ”

  He bowed. “I will see to it. ”

  He was as good as his word, marshalling other soldiers to the task. Within an hour’s time, I had acquired a variety of supplies, including a long coat of padded cotton, worn sashed over thick trousers tucked into leather boots lined with layers of felt.