THREE
The inn was fine; more than fine.
An hour after our arrival, I sank into the depths of a generous marble tub, submerging my entire body. I scrubbed months’ worth of shipboard grime from my skin and washed my salt-stiffened hair. Servants of the inn brought bucket after bucket of freshly heated water to replace the dirty water, until the chamber was filled with steam.
The third time they entered, Bao followed.
“Come to join me?” I inquired.
He flashed a grin at me. “Uh-huh. Think there’s room?”
I smiled. “Aye, I do.”
The attendants left, giggling as Bao began to strip off the embroidered Bhodistani tunic and breeches he wore, revealing his lean-muscled fighter’s body. He paused, gazing at me with half-lidded eyes. “You look like something out of those stories sailors tell. What is the word in D’Angeline?”
I stirred the water. “Mermaid?”
“That’s it.” He climbed into the opposite end of the marble tub, dunking his whole head, coming up streaming water. “Soap?”
“Here.” I handed the ball of soap to him and watched him wash, taking pleasure in the sight. The black zig-zag tattoos he had acquired in Kurugiri stood out in stark contrast against the brown skin of his corded forearms, marking the way up and down a secret passage through a mountainous labyrinth, at the top of which the Spider Queen Jagrati and her husband the Falconer made their lair. Or at least they had, until we overthrew them with the help of the Rani Amrita and her army.
We had lived through a lot together, Bao and I.
“Do you ever think of her?” I asked him.
He followed my gaze, lifting one arm and letting it drop. “Jagrati? Sometimes, yes. I try not to. Why?”
I shrugged. Bao had spent long months under her thrall, bound by Kamadeva’s diamond and opium. Believing me dead, he had been content to wallow in darkness. “I just wondered.”
Bao leaned against the back of the tub. “Your presence keeps the memories away, Moirin,” he said in a serious manner; and then his grin returned. “Leo asked me if I was a prince in my own land. I told him that I was, but I gave up my kingdom to be with you.”
I raised my brows. “That is stretching the truth, my magpie.”
“Only a little,” he said in an unrepentant tone. “I’m sure the Great Khan would have gifted me with a territory of my own if I had remained wed to his daughter.”
“It’s possible,” I admitted.
“Anyway, Leo thought it was a very admirable story.” Bao nudged me with one foot. “Am I royalty now that I’m wed to you?”
“Does it matter?” I asked.
His dark eyes gleamed. “No, of course not. I only wondered if I was entitled to be called Lord Bao.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, well.” Bao gave a good-natured shrug. “Still, pretty good for a bastard peasant-boy with no family name.”
“I’ve no lands to my name, you know,” I commented. “None of the Maghuin Dhonn do. We are allowed to dwell in the wild places of Alba in the terms of a sacred trust forged by Alais the Wise many years ago, but we do not own them. I have no title. Lady Moirin is just an honorific acknowledging my heritage.”
“I am only teasing, Moirin.” Bao leaned forward, tugging me so that I slid to straddle his waist. Water slopped over the edges of the tub. Intensity heated his gaze. “I love you, and I would choose to be with you whether in a slum or a cave or a palace. All right?”
I cupped his face and kissed him. “Aye.”
His callused hands slid over my slippery skin, creating a glorious friction. I rubbed myself against him, feeling his arousal.
One of the inn’s servants opened the door to the bathing-chamber, then closed it with a soft laugh.
Bao reached down into the bath-water, grasping his taut phallus, fitting the swollen head between my nether-lips. “You see?” His other hand slid around the nape of my neck, pulling me down for a kiss as he pushed himself into me. “For you, I will even learn to be more like a D’Angeline.” His hips thrust upward. “Depraved and scandalous.”
I drew a long, shuddering breath as he filled me, my fingers digging into his shoulders. “Indeed.”
He smiled. “I have always been a clever student.”
Laughing, the bright lady agreed.
In the morning, with young Leo’s eager aid, we set about procuring passage overland to the City of Elua.
After the close quarters I had endured on the ship, I could not bear the thought of being cloistered in a carriage for days. Mercifully, Bao understood, knowing that there was a part of me that chafed at being confined, all the more so since the ordeal I had undergone in Vralia.
So it was that we bartered with a horse-trader that Leo assured us was reputable for a pair of saddle-horses and a pair of pack-horses. Bao watched with considerable amusement as I introduced myself to all four, cupping their velvety, whiskery muzzles and breathing into their nostrils, touching their placid equine thoughts with my own, leaning my brow against the bony plates of theirs.
“Does she really talk to them?” Leo asked in a loud whisper.
“I’m not sure,” Bao whispered in reply.
One of the saddle-horses gave a dignified whicker. I patted his withers. “Well said, my friend.”
The trader, testing the purity of our Bhodistani coinage bite by bite, widened his eyes.
I smiled sweetly at him. “We will take them.”
He coughed and nodded.
There was scant hope in outpacing gossip anywhere in the world, and least of all in Terre d’Ange. I did not try. Within a day of our arrival, word had gone out ahead of us that Moirin mac Fainche had returned to D’Angeline shores.
I hadn’t expected otherwise. Still, it galled me a little. Only because my reputation had sunk so low in Marsilikos, where I was reckoned to have seduced Jehanne and ruined Raphael. And now, thanks to Bao’s creative reinvention of history, it was rumored I had seduced a prince of faraway Ch’in to my own ends.
It made Bao laugh.
I scowled at him. “I did not seduce you! Stone and sea! You chose this!”
He shrugged with amusement. “No, Moirin. I was helpless before your charms. Haven’t you heard?”
I eyed him. “I wish!”
“But I am,” he said guilelessly, fluttering his lashes at me.
“I should have left you to Jagrati,” I muttered.
At that, Bao caught me by the shoulders, giving me a shake. “Not that,” he said fiercely. “Not ever! Don’t say it, Moirin. Don’t even think it.”
I nodded. “Don’t jest, then.”
Bao took a deep breath. “I am sorry. It is only that my mistakes lie behind me, while yours…” He shrugged again. “They’re still awaiting us, aren’t they?”
Raphael…
Jehanne. Jehanne had not been a mistake. Never, ever would I believe it. She had saved me from myself.
“Aye,” I said firmly. “And I will deal with them, husband of mine. We will deal with them, one by one as they come. Agreed?”
Bao nodded. “Agreed.”
Two days after our arrival, we left the city of Marsilikos behind us.
I was not sorry to see the last of it; but if I thought my reputation would be restored as we grew closer to the City of Elua, I was mistaken.
Contrary to gossip in Marsilikos, I hadn’t left Terre d’Ange in disgrace, but I had left under a cloud of scandal. There was a kernel of truth to Leo’s accusation. Raphael de Mereliot and a group of scholars calling themselves the Circle of Shalomon had been involved in the arcane pursuit of summoning fallen spirits, rumored to possess the ability to bestow fabulous gifts on their summoners.
And I had helped them; at first because I foolishly believed myself in love with Raphael, and in the end, because he extracted a promise from me in exchange for helping to save my father’s life.
With my aid, the Circle of Shalomon had succeeded—at least in summoning spirits.
Spirits who tricked them, over and over. The only gift ever bestowed on the members of the Circle of Shalomon was the ability to speak the language of ants. Still, they kept trying.
Focalor, a Grand Duke of the Fallen, was the last spirit summoned, the price for saving my father’s life. He had found a flaw in the chains that bound him and broken free, attempting to take possession of Raphael’s body and killing a woman in the process.
If it hadn’t been for Bao and Master Lo coming to the rescue, Focalor would have succeeded. With their aid, I’d managed to force him back through the gateway my gift had opened.
The next day, I’d left the City of Elua, bound for Ch’in, called to destiny by my diadh-anam.
I remembered how Jehanne had insisted on giving me a royal escort to the gates of the City. She had made a production of bidding me farewell so that everyone would know I wasn’t leaving in disgrace, had kissed me, and given me a bottle of her perfume to remember her by.
I had it still.
And if Jehanne had lived, it might have been enough. Despite whatever cloud of rumor hung over me when I departed, I would be returning in triumph to a royal favorite’s welcome. But I had left, and Jehanne had died.
It was enough to make folks eye me with resentment and suspicion; and to be honest, I couldn’t blame them for it. It might not be fair, but I blamed myself, too.
“You could disguise yourself,” Bao suggested at the end of our second day on the road. “Dress like a respectable matron.”
I stroked the edge of the green silk sari I wore, another gift from our lady Amrita. The border was a handspan deep with gold embroidery. “Do you think it would help?”
“No,” he said honestly. “Not really. You couldn’t look respectable if you tried, Moirin.”
I sighed.
“Moirin.” Bao pulled me close. “You are Emperor Zhu’s jade-eyed witch, who freed a dragon and saved an empire. You are the Rani Amrita’s dakini, who helped conquer Kurugiri and rescue Kamadeva’s diamond.” He kissed me, then looked serious. “Do not forget these things are true.”
I ran my fingers through his thick, unruly hair. “Remind me again?”
He lowered his head to kiss me again. “Anytime, my disreputable wife.”
Despite everything, it made me laugh.