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I studied him, studied the rugged planes of his young face, graced with that unmistakable D’Angeline symmetry. I tried to guess his age. Sixteen, mayhap; seventeen at most.
A year younger than me? Two years? Or mayhap three? Gods, I wasn’t even sure how old I was anymore.
He had only just begun to grow into the newfound strength of his adult frame—broad-shouldered and rangy, with long, loose limbs and oversized feet and hands. I remembered Cillian at that age.
And I remembered Jehanne at Cereus House, where she had first seduced me as a ploy in her ongoing game with Raphael de Mereliot, her fair skin flawless in the sunlight, her blue-grey eyes sparkling like stars as she caressed my face, uttering one of desire’s truths. Do you know how long it’s been since I let myself indulge in the headlong rush of youth’s untutored passion?
No.
She had kissed my lips, a kiss as sweet as a promise. Far, far too long, my gorgeous young savage.
And I had succumbed to her charms—oh so gladly!
The memory hurt. Neither of us could have guessed that that moment would lead us into a far more significant and complicated bond, one that I would never, ever regret. I had loved Jehanne, and I had loved her well. I took a deep breath, steeling myself against the pain, and contemplated young Aleksei, a tightly wound knot of desire and denial, sitting hunched on my wooden stool.
He was filled with youth’s untutored passion, taught to consider it a curse. Perhaps Naamah had some purpose for me here after all. One thing was sure; I was in desperate need of an ally.
I loosed my breath. “Read to me,” I said gently to him. “I will listen, I promise. ”
Aleksei bowed his head and read to me, his tawny-gold hair falling about his face.
I listened, and began to plot.
TWENTY-FOUR
Seducing Aleksei might well prove to be my best chance at finding an ally to help me escape, but if I had any illusions about how difficult it would be, they were shattered the following day when his uncle the Patriarch returned to bear witness to my confession.
“Can it not wait a bit longer?” I asked him. The prospect of laying my life bare for him repulsed me. “Aleksei’s reading is very instructive, but I am only just beginning to learn to understand what God wants of me. ”
“No, child. ” Pyotr Rostov gave me a compassionate look. “Let me put it to you in a way you might understand. You have studied the healing arts, have you not?”
“A little. ” I knew enough to assist Raphael, and later Master Lo, though not enough to consider myself skilled.
He steepled his fingers, which meant he was in a lecturing mood. “Suppose you had a patient suffering from festering boils. Is it more important to lance the boils, or to serve the patient a nourishing broth?”
“To lance the boils,” I murmured.
“Even so. ” The Patriarch nodded. “You are that patient, Moirin. The scripture that Aleksei reads to you is a fine, nourishing broth. But your unconfessed sins are boils festering on your soul. Left untouched, they will poison your soul, heart, and mind. Confession is the needle that will burst them, and repentance will heal the abscesses. Do you understand?”
I nodded reluctantly. I didn’t like it, and I didn’t agree with it, but I understood his meaning.
“Very good. ” He had a portable writing desk on his lap. Now he dipped a quill pen in the inkpot. “I will record your confession. I do not expect to succeed all at once. It may be that some boils are more stubborn than others, and must be lanced many times before they are fully drained. This document will be helpful, and I hope my notes will prove useful over the course of history. ”
“I’m so very pleased. ” I could not keep the bitterness from my tone. “All that was missing in my life was a written catalogue of my every folly. ”
The Patriarch’s expression turned stern. “We are not speaking of mere folly, child. We are speaking of beast-worship, witchcraft, unholy fornication, demon-summoning, and blasphemy. These are things that are abominations in the eyes of God. ”
“Why?” I asked.
He blinked, startled. “Have you not been listening to the scripture Aleksei reads to you? Did you not just say you were beginning to gain understanding of God’s will?”
“What he wills, aye, but not why he wills it,” I said honestly. “Not always, anyway. Obviously, it is a very bad and foolish idea to summon fallen spirits, and if God wishes to call it a sin, I will not argue. I wish—” It was on the tip of my tongue to say I wished I had never taken part in it, but then I remembered the gift that the spirit Marbas had given me, the charm to reveal hidden things. Had it not been for Marbas’ gift, the dragon’s spirit would have remained trapped in the princess’ mortal being.
Rostov was still staring at me with incomprehension. “Yes? You wish what?”
I took a different tack. “For greater understanding. Why does it matter who I bed, so long as we are both consenting?”
“Naamah’s curse has a strong hold on you indeed,” he murmured. “But do not despair, Moirin. No one comes to understanding without guidance. It is my role to help you understand the word of God and his son Yeshua. ”
I waited.
“Our goal in life is to join with God in a perfect spiritual union,” he said patiently. “That is pure joy, and pure love. Anything that distracts from this goal is a trap, and the pleasures of the flesh is one of the greatest traps in existence. God allows us the sacrament of marriage that we might obey his command to be fruitful and multiply. To abuse the flesh in pursuit of carnal pleasure is an abomination to him, for it causes us to stray far, far from our true goal. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I think so. ” Again, I didn’t agree, but at least the logic was clearer to me. “Thank you, my lord. ”
The Patriarch rewetted his pen in the inkwell. “Let us set aside matters of the flesh for the moment,” he said in a judicious manner. “Let us begin at the very beginning. Is it true that the Maghuin Dhonn worship a bear?”
I did my best to answer his questions honestly, reckoning I had nothing to lose; and too, I was wary of his perceptive shrewdness. He could track a lie like a hound on the scent. The truth was a greater struggle for him.
It had always been difficult to explain the existence of a diadh-anam to folk who had none, and the Patriarch of Riva was no exception. And I had no words to describe the Maghuin Dhonn Herself.
The irony of it was that when he spoke of a perfect union with his God, of pure joy and pure love, I knew what he meant. Beyond the stone doorway, when the Maghuin Dhonn Herself had come to me, I had felt it. Half-blood though I may be, with my patron D’Angeline gods attendant on my life, She had claimed me as Her child, then and always. She had laid a grave destiny on me, but She had claimed me.
It had been a moment of perfect bliss, and if it had gone on forever and ever, I would have been content.
But I could not convey it—not the joy, not the immense, overwhelming nature of Her presence. Not the way the earth had trembled beneath Her tread, not the awe and humility I had felt as She dwindled willingly and shaped Herself to a mortal scale. Surely, surely, not the profound depth of sorrow and compassion in Her eyes.
No, to everyone but my people, She was a bear, only a bear.
Eventually, he gave up on that line of questioning, turning instead toward magic. “When did you begin to practice witchcraft?”
I shrugged, already weary of explaining myself. “My mother taught me to summon the twilight when I was some five years of age. ”
Pyotr Rostov’s pen hovered over the page. “Summon the twilight?”
“Aye. ”
His eyes took on a gleam. “What is it? How is it done?”
I told him, but he didn’t like that truth, either. It was too simple, too elemental. He did not want a gentle magic that came as naturally as breathing. He wanted charms, incantations, dire rites fill
ed with chanting and blood sacrifices. It did not satisfy him when I said it was a small gift, meant to protect and conceal us. That in Alba I had only ever used it to hide, to catch fish with my bare hands, and to coax plants to grow.
“Is that a sin?” I asked.
The Patriarch set down his pen and pinched the bridge of his nose as though to alleviate the pressure of an aching head. “Plants. ”
“Aye, plants. ”
He sighed. “I do not believe it is addressed in the scripture. But this gift, how did you describe it? Taking a half-step into the spirit world?” I nodded. “In Terre d’Ange, you found other purposes for it. ”
I looked away. “It is more as though they found me. Is that what you wish to speak of next, my lord?”
“No. ” He took up the pen with grim determination. “Let us proceed in the proper order. I believe we have come to Cillian mac Tiernan, and the sins of the flesh. ”
So we had.
On the point of having ensorceled Cillian, I resisted stubbornly. It was a false accusation, and one that still pained me, inextricably linked as it was to the sorrow of his death. At length, the Patriarch relented, although only on that single point.
“But you did fornicate with him out of wedlock?” he persisted.
“Yes,” I murmured.
His pen hovered. “How many times?”
I shook my head slowly. How many times? I hadn’t counted. Cillian had come to me whenever he could. In the spring and summer, we had lain together in the Alban meadows, flowers and plumy grasses springing around us. I’d come to know his body as well as my own, reveling the feel of him between my thighs, his strong, young phallus plowing my depths. Afterward, I had counted the freckles on his fair skin, his long, muscled limbs tangled with mine. Once, I had coaxed a dragonfly with translucent wings to land on my fingertip, and he had marveled at it, asking if it was magic. Only the ordinary, everyday kind, I had told him.
Was that sin?
In hindsight, it seemed a profoundly innocent time.
The Patriarch dipped his pen, tapped it impatiently against the inkwell. “How many times?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Many. ”
“And then he died. ”
“Yes. ” I closed my eyes, tears leaking from beneath my lids. Since the news of Jehanne’s death, my grief was still very, very close to the surface. “Cillian died in a cattle-raid. ”
“Because of you?”
“No. ” I rubbed my face. “Yes. I don’t know. It was foolish and unnecessary. He shouldn’t have gone. Cillian was a scholar, not a warrior. But he felt he had somewhat to prove. ”
“To you?”
“To me, to his father, to the Dalriada. I don’t know. I don’t know. ” The tears wouldn’t stop coming. “If I had loved him better, if I had agreed to wed him, mayhap he would not have gone. ”
I bowed my head against my knees, and wept.
There was a rustling sound as the Patriarch gathered his accounting, and then the scraping sound of chair legs as he stood. “Now you begin to see, Moirin,” he said in a gentle tone. “Had you engaged in the holy sacrament of marriage, matters would have fallen out differently. Your sorrow stems from failing to obey God’s will. ” He laid one hand on my shaking shoulder. “It is a good beginning. Tomorrow, we will continue. ”
He left me alone, locking the door behind him. After my tears had run their course, I rose and splashed cool water from the ewer on my face.
It didn’t feel like a good beginning to me. I felt hot, flushed, confused, and miserable. I’d always felt a powerful measure of guilt for Cillian’s death. At the same time, I knew in my heart of hearts that I could never have been the faithful wife he wanted me to be. It would only have led to a different kind of sorrow and acrimony.
Now…. .
Somehow, the confession the Patriarch had dragged from me had soiled every aspect of my relationship with Cillian. Was our lovemaking a sin? I didn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it.
And yet the mere act of confessing it made it seem so. My memories had been violated—and it was only the beginning.
With beliefs so deeply ingrained, seducing Aleksei was going to be very, very difficult indeed.
Still, I meant to try.
TWENTY-FIVE
I n Terre d’Ange, seduction is reckoned an art and a sport alike, and yet I’d never had cause to practice it, not really.
When I arrived in the City of Elua, I fell straightaway into Raphael de Mereliot’s schemes—quite literally, from the moment his carriage struck me down unwittingly in the street and he found the signet ring around my neck identifying me as a descendant of House Courcel.
And from the moment Raphael made me a pawn in his complicated game with Jehanne, I became a target, a prize to be claimed.
I’d known it when I let Jehanne seduce me.
I’d known it when Prince Thierry courted me, and I bedded him in a moment of loneliness.
I’d been prey, not a hunter, albeit rather willing prey. Now that would have to change, and I would have to play a very subtle game with my oh so skittish prey.
Well and so, I knew how to hunt. Unlike D’Angelines, I had never practiced it as a sport. It was a means of survival.
So was this. And as Batu had said, survival was the best reason of all.
Any overt move on my part would send Aleksei fleeing, of that I was sure. I could sense it in the nervous tension in his body when he was alone in my cell with me, in the way his voice broke and faltered as he read to me, in the way he avoided my gaze. But a good hunter observes his prey, and a very good hunter makes the prey come to him. For now, I was content to wait and observe Aleksei.
I sat demurely on my stool and listened to him read, keeping my expression open and earnest. I learned to look away when he faltered, for those were the times when he allowed himself to steal glances at me.
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