Naamah's Blessing (36 page)

“I think so.” I laid one hand on his cheek. “Are you?”

He shrugged. “Ask me after I’ve had a look at the Emperor’s youngest wife.”

Despite everything, it made me laugh. “Bao!”

He gave me a wry smile. “I knew who and what you were when I wedded you, Moirin. And maybe I deserve this. Maybe it’s fate’s way of repaying me for running away from you for so long.”

“Not to mention marrying your Tatar princess,” I reminded him.

Bao kissed me. “That, too.”

Lord Cuixtli cleared his throat with polite impatience.

Reluctantly, I left the safety of Bao’s embrace. His arms fell to his sides, letting me go. Our bickering D’Angelines had fallen silent.

“I swear to you, I am not doing this because Emperor Achcuatli coerced me,” I said to them. “I am doing it because Naamah wills it. I do not understand why, but the gods do not always make their reasons clear to us. So…”

I didn’t know what else to say.

It was Septimus Rousse who responded first, addressing the void my faltering silence had left and laying his big hands on my shoulders. “No one doubts your word or questions your integrity, Lady Moirin,” he said in a firm voice meant to warn the others as much as to assure me. “If you say it is Naamah’s will, then it is so.
I
do not doubt you. It is well known in my family that the gods make unexpected choices, and use their chosen hard.” Bending low, he kissed my cheek. “You have won a great boon for us today. May Blessed Elua keep and hold you.”

My eyes stung. “Thank you, my lord captain.”

One by one, the others followed suit.

And one by one, they departed for the Aragonian settlement, until only Bao and I were left with Lord Cuixtli.

He beckoned to us. “Follow me.”

Apparently, the palace did not lack for guest-chambers. Lord Cuixtli led us to one and indicated that Bao was to consider it his own for the day.

“A servant will come soon,” he said, speaking slowly for our benefit. “Ask for what you need. Come and go as you like. At sunset, the Emperor’s youngest wife, Omixochitl, will be sent to you. Do you understand?”

Bao nodded. “Yes.”

“Good.”

By the time Lord Cuixtli escorted me to my own chamber, there were two Nahuatl women already present.

“They will serve you,” Cuixtli said. “Ask for what you need. The Emperor will send for you when he is ready.”

“I understand,” I said. “Thank you.”

Once Lord Cuixtli departed, there was an awkward silence as the two Nahuatl women and I eyed one another. Remembering the reticence of Porfirio Reyes’ servants, I wondered if it was a part of the culture, if mayhap Nahuatl women were discouraged from conversing with foreigners, or even conversing at all.

But then the younger of the two broke the silence. “You come from across the sea?” she asked shyly.

I smiled at her. “Yes. Very far.”

That was all it took. In short order, we were having a lively, albeit occasionally halting, conversation about what the land beyond the sea was like, about why I was here, and why no other women had ever made the journey. And while the women were not effusive, they were friendly and interested. I began to suspect the servants in Porfirio Reyes’ house had cause for their reticence and cause to resent foreigners.

After a time, the elder of the two glanced out the window to ascertain the sun’s position, and asked if I wished to partake of the
temazcalli
.

“House of heat?” I echoed the words slowly, not sure I’d understood.

She nodded. “For the rite of cleansing.”

I knew the word for bath—all D’Angelines were quick to learn that one—and it was different. “I do not know this thing.”

That made the younger one giggle. “Come, see!”

Curious, I consented.

The
temazcalli
was indeed a house of heat, or at least a heated room adjacent to an inner courtyard in the palace. It was a square chamber with a low ledge for sitting and a pit in the center of the room. My attendants assisted me in disrobing, and indicated that I should sit while they used water-soaked wooden tongs to place fire-heated stones from a kiln outside the room in the pit. Once that was done, water was ladled over the hot stones.

The stones hissed, clouds of steam arising. The Nahuatl women retreated, closing the door behind them.

I sat naked and cross-legged on the ledge, breathing slowly through the cycle of the Five Styles to allay any anxiety at being confined in a man-made place of stone, steam filling my lungs as I breathed in and out. A sheen of sweat broke out on my skin. All along my hairline, I began to sweat until it ran in rivulets down my temples. Droplets of sweat gathered in the hollow of my throat, trickled between my breasts.

Surprisingly, it felt good.

Cleansing.

After the purgative effects of the
temazcalli
, a cool bath felt wonderful. My attendants scrubbed me from head to toe with a soapy root that had a pleasant smell and produced a considerable lather.

You’ll find little to love in the Nahuatl…

“Well, I have found one thing,” I said aloud in D’Angeline to the absent Porfirio Reyes. “Mayhap that is why Naamah wills this.”

“My lady?” one of my attendants inquired. “Is it well?”

I smiled at her. “It is well.”

When we returned to the chamber allotted me, gifts from Emperor Achcuatli had arrived.

There was a sleeveless shirt and matching skirt of fine embroidered cloth, blue and yellow and green. There was a headdress of shimmering green feathers, bordered with embroidered bands of blue and gold. There was a mantle of multicolored, iridescent feathers that lay light as a whisper over my shoulders. And although they did not have soles of gold, there were sandals that laced to the knee.

But there was gold—armbands of solid gold, wrought with the faces of unfamiliar gods staring out at me.

Piece by piece, I donned everything.

Naamah, the bright lady, approved.

THIRTY-NINE

I
did not expect kindness.

In that, I was mistaken. The Emperor Achcuatli gazed at me long and hard when I was escorted once more into his presence, and there was desire in his gaze, but there was also a gentleness he hadn’t shown before. At length, he smiled. “It is pleasing to see you dressed in my gifts.”

I bowed. “They are very beautiful, my lord.”

He gestured to a chair across the table from him. “Come, sit. We will take
chocolatl
.” At that, I must have brightened, for he laughed. “You know it?”

I sat opposite him. “Yes, my lord.”

While attendants prepared the frothy concoction, sweetening, spicing, and whisking it, Achcuatli studied me. “You are not scared or—” The second word was unfamiliar. Naamah may have graced my tongue, but not my vocabulary—at least not in a permanent manner.

“No, my lord. I am not scared,” I said. “I do not know the other word.”

Achcuatli pressed a fist to his belly. “To feel sick inside at an unclean thing.”

The image of the skulls flashed before my eyes again, and once again, I pushed it away. “There are things about the Nahuatl I find… hard to understand,” I said slowly, choosing my words with care. “Desire is not one of them. It is a sacred thing to my father’s people.”

His obsidian eyes were intent. “Is that why it is so strong in me for you?”

Attendants set golden goblets of foamy
chocolatl
before us. I waited for the Emperor to drink before taking a sip, reveling in the wondrous mixture of bitterness and sweetness, the rich taste of it. “Yes.”

“A sacred thing,” he mused.

I took another sip. “I am a child of the goddess Naamah, to whom all desire is sacred.”

Achcuatli’s mouth twisted. “The men of Aragonia would have had us believe they were gods, too.”

I shook my head. “I do not say that. Only that Naamah is—” I didn’t know the word for ancestor. “My father’s hundred-times-ago mother.”

His face cleared. “I see. Yes, such things are known.”

“Did you think it was true?” I asked. “About the Aragonians?”

“No.” The Nahuatl Emperor was silent a moment. “I knew they were men. They fight and bleed and die like men. But I thought their gods had favored them, giving them knowledge to build great ships that cross the sea, giving them armor against which our
macahuitls
shattered and broke, and great beasts to master and ride. And so I let them stay. I was young, and knew no better.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask why he did not send them away now, but not wanting to provoke a diplomatic incident, I did not voice it.

Achcuatli guessed anyway, giving me a shrewd look. “Now it is too late. There are too many to defeat with ease, and they have made bargains with other people, tribes we have conquered, who would be pleased to see this empire fall. Foolish people, who think the men of Aragonia would keep their bargains.”

Once again, I held my tongue, grateful that I’d learned a measure of discretion.

And once again, he knew. “You do not wish to speak against them,” he observed. “That may be wise. But I know what they wish. If they could defeat us and rule over this empire, they would.” He
shrugged. “I know what they say. They think their Nahautl servants are too stupid to learn their tongue, and we have let them think it. They speak freely before their servants. They think we are little better than animals.”

“I do not think that,” I said.

“No.” Achcuatli considered me. “You are different. And yet Cuixtli tells me the sight of the
tzompantli
sickened you.”

“Yes.” I didn’t need to know the word to guess it referred to the rack of skulls. And while I didn’t want to give offense, I thought it best not to lie when doing Naamah’s business. “It did.”

The Emperor drained his goblet. “Come,” he said. “I wish to show you something.”

Obediently, I rose to accompany him. Attendants hastened to brush the ground before our path. Achcuatli dismissed them from the task with mild irritation. I noted that he’d exchanged his gold-soled sandals for more practical plain ones, and thought that the Nahuatl Emperor also knew a good deal about the value of appearances.

Followed by a discreet throng of attendants and guards, we exited the palace into an extensive pleasure garden, one so vast and ornate it made me catch my breath. There were oak trees, cypresses, and palms, and others I could not identify with thick barrels and wide, spreading leaves. There were countless flowers in a riot of color. All of them were healthy and vibrant, reaching exuberantly toward the sun. I breathed the Breath of Trees Growing, drinking in the green scent of the place.

Achcuatli led me toward a large structure. At a distance, I thought it a gazebo of sorts, but as we drew nearer, I saw that it was an aviary built of wood and wicker, filled with growing trees. There must have been a hundred birds inside it. I hadn’t seen such brilliant plumage since leaving Bhodistan.

“See there?” He pointed to a bird with emerald-green feathers and a ruby breast. It perched on a branch, regarding us with big round eyes. Splendid green plumes as long as my forearm trailed from its tail. “That is the
quetzal
. It is a sacred bird.”

I glanced at Achcuatli’s headdress, recognizing the plumes, and lifted one hand involuntarily to touch the feathers on my own.

“Yes,” he said as though in answer to an unasked question. “It is an honor to wear them.”

“You are kind.”

Achcuatli touched my cheek, a feather-light touch. Even so, I felt a spark of desire leap between us. It was the first time he had touched me. “I would have the world know that the Nahuatl know how to honor a woman.”

“I will tell them,” I said.

His black eyes glinted. “Good.”

When he withdrew his hand, I felt a pang of loss; and at the same time, a pang of guilt, thinking of Bao. But Naamah’s gift enfolded me, assuring me that I was doing her will. I put my guilt aside. Later, there would be time to confront it.

As if the aviary wasn’t impressive enough, there was a bestiary, too. Upon visiting it, Achcuatli stood for a long time before a cage that contained a pair of immense spotted cats that paced back and forth, lashing their tails. Now I knew where Temilotzin’s hides came from. Brushing their thoughts, I felt a mixture of boredom and frustration.

“Some days I feel like them,” Achcuatli said at length. “Trapped in a cage I did not make.”

“So free them,” I murmured.

He shook his head. “It would be a terrible omen.”

I wondered at the Emperor speaking so freely to me; but then, betimes it was easier to confide in a stranger. And I was a foreigner. I would not think less of him for revealing he did not possess a stone face and a stone heart. Indeed, quite the opposite.

We left the bestiary to stroll the garden. As odd as the situation was, I couldn’t help but take pleasure in the lush greenery. Achcuatli paused before a bed of vivid dahlias, stroking their intricate petals with one finger.

“Greet the sky and live, blossom!” he said unexpectedly. “Yet even as the wind stirs your petals, flowers fall. My flowers are eternal, my
songs live forever. I lift them in offering; I, a singer. I cast them to the wind, I spill them. The flowers become gold, they come to dwell inside the palace of eternity.”