Naamah's Blessing (67 page)

The ants fled, pouring through the temple door in an endless stream, joining throngs of their fellows in the streets. It was a considerable exodus.

Atop the stair, Bao stooped and gathered Cusi’s body tenderly in his arms. He supported her head as carefully as though she were a newborn babe, so the gash that had opened her throat didn’t gape. Everyone in the temple watched, silent and wordless. There were no words for what had transpired here.

Step by step, he descended. Cusi’s hair trailed over his arms. Despite the blood that stained her white garment, her face looked peaceful, a faint, impossible smile curving her lips. With tears of grief drying on his face, Bao laid her body on the altar, arranging her limbs with dignity.

“Now it is done,” he said quietly. “No more.”

I opened my mouth to agree, but it seemed the temple tilted sideways. I heard Bao’s voice calling my name—and then I knew no more.

I slept; and did not know how long I slept. I dreamed of doorways and blood and flowers, of darkness and storms. I dreamed of jungles and mountains and bones and maidens, and of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself lowering Her mighty head to breathe on me in approval.

I did not want to wake.

But in time, I did.

I awoke to sunlight and unfamiliar surroundings. I felt as empty and hollow as a scraped gourd. It took all the strength I had to drag myself to sit upright, and my
diadh-anam
guttered low in my breast.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor beside my pallet, Balthasar Shahrizai startled. “Moirin!” He ran his hands through his hair and yawned. “Forgive me, I fear I dozed for a minute.”

Alarm surged through me. “Where’s Bao?” I touched my chest, but my
diadh-anam
was so faint, I could not sense his. I feared that mayhap he had been punished for sacrilege—or worse, punished himself. “Is he—?”

“He’s fine,” Balthasar said in a soothing tone. “As well as can be expected under the circumstances.” Turning his head, he called into the next chamber. “Machasu! Lady Moirin awakes. Will you send for Messire Bao?”

Machasu peered around the door, her solemn expression lightening with relief at the sight of me. “It is true! I will summon the twice-born.”

I ran my hands over my face. “How long did I sleep?”

“Three days.” Balthasar rose and poured a cup of water from an earthenware jug, handing it to me. “Bao was at your side most of the time, sick with worry. I finally convinced him to let me take over for a spell a few hours ago that he might sleep.”

I had to use both hands to hold the cup steady, but the water tasted good. Until I drank it, I hadn’t realized how parched my throat was, or how empty my belly. I drained the cup, and Balthasar refilled it.
“So.” Glancing around, I determined we were in a chamber in the palace. I even saw my yew-wood bow and battered quiver propped in a corner. “I take it we’re not in disgrace?”

“No.” Balthasar perched on the edge of my pallet, holding the jug at the ready while I drank. “We are the honored guests of the
Sapa Inca
Huayna.”

“Huayna?” I repeated.

“The eldest son of the
Sapa Inca
Yupanqui,” he clarified. “He was coronated two days ago. We’re not in disgrace, Moirin. We’re heroes. There was some confusion for a time, but the Maidens of the Sun explained everything. In light of what happened, the priests had no choice but to forgive us.” His mouth twisted wryly. “Would that I’d witnessed the scene in the temple! The aftermath alone was terrible and wondrous beyond belief.”

I held out my cup, and Balthasar refilled it obligingly. “Is all well now?” I asked, uncertain. “As well as can be?”

He hesitated.

My empty belly rumbled in complaint. I drank more water, pressing my fist against my belly. “Forgive me, I’m famished. What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I fear you’ve touched on it.” Balthasar’s face was grave. “The black river is gone, but it left precious little in its wake. Raphael’s commands kept their appetite in check.”

“The Quechua folk?” I whispered. “But I saw the ants flee the temple!”

He shook his head. “Not the Quechua. After Raphael’s death, his ants didn’t deign to take on large prey. But they stripped the fields, and devoured all manner of small livestock. They ravaged the land, Moirin.” His lips tightened. “I daresay everything between Qusqu and Vilcabamba is a wasteland.”

I felt sick. “The Quechua have stores…”

“Not enough,” Balthasar said simply. “We raided all that lie to the north on our march here. The new
Sapa Inca
has sent out runners to the south ordering the storehouses emptied, and he’s called for the
slaughter of pack-animals. No one thinks it will be enough to prevent starvation on a considerable scale. And for a surety, there are not enough stores to supply our return journey.”

I could have wept at the futility of it all, but at that moment, Bao entered the chamber, the familiar length of his bamboo staff once more strapped across his back. Both my heart and my
diadh-anam
flared as his dark gaze met mine. With no memory of having risen, I found myself in his arms, my face pressed against his shoulder as he held me close.

“Balthasar told you, didn’t he?” Bao murmured. “I saw it in your face.”

I nodded against his shoulder.

“Moirin.” He stroked my hair. “The high priestesses Iniquill and Ocllo have an idea you may be able to help.”

A profound wave of weariness sapped me. “Oh, Bao!” I laughed in despair. “Do they imagine I can quicken the crops of an entire city?”

“The crops would need to be planted anew,” he said. “And yes.”

“No.” Pulling away from him, I shook my head. Thinking on the leagues and leagues of stripped and barren fields that would need to be replanted, the thousands upon thousands of plants that would need to be quickened from mere seeds, the enormity of the task seemed daunting and impossible. Never, ever had I even entertained the thought of attempting somewhat on that scale. Hot tears burned my eyes. “It’s too much! It was difficult enough to coax a single field of marigolds to bloom out of season in Bhaktipur, and I wasn’t drained to the dregs as I am now! Stone and sea, there’s not enough
left
of me! I cannot do it.”

Bao was silent. The shadow of Cusi’s death lay behind his eyes. He had done the unthinkable.

I’d thought that banishing Focalor and closing the doorway was the hardest task I faced; but I was wrong.

That was merely reparation for my own folly.

Trust me
.

I had been spared the loss of my
diadh-anam
for a reason. The gift
of life, Iniquill had called it. The Maidens of the Sun had wagered on my gift, pitting it against the black tide of death Raphael had brought. Cusi had offered herself as a sacrifice to save her people, and the ancestors had answered her.

I could not dishonor her memory. I could not let her people starve—and my own alongside them.

I bowed my head. “Do they at least have seeds to plant?”

“They do.” It was Balthasar who answered, standing off to the side, his voice unwontedly soft. “Seed grains and potatoes. The
Sapa Inca’s
set a guard on their stores. They’re the staples of life here in Tawantinsuyo. And we’ve had ample experience in planting them, my lady,” he added, striving gallantly for levity, rubbing his work-hardened hands together. “Thierry bids me tell you he will wield a digging-stick one last time if you think his efforts might bear fruit.”

Lifting my head, I drew a long, trembling breath, placing one hand on Bao’s chest. “Do you truly believe I can do this thing?”

“I do.” Bao covered my hand with his own. “Can you look me in the eye and love me still, Moirin? Knowing what
I
have done?”

“Aye.” Twining my fingers with his, I raised his hand to my lips, kissing his knuckles. “You did what was needful.”

He shuddered. “It was awful.”

“I know,” I whispered. “I was there. And I am here.”

Exactly when Balthasar Shahrizai made his discreet withdrawal, I could not say. Only that he did.

Lying entwined on the pallet, Bao and I held each other, taking solace in silence. I rested my head on his chest and listened to the slow, steady beat of his heart. I felt the spark of my
diadh-anam
grow stronger, the presence of his nurturing it. We were alive. We had survived. Focalor had been banished. Raphael, Lord Pachacuti with his army of ravenous ants, was no more. The starved ants, poor things, would return to their rightful habitats in the distant jungles.

The future I had seen in which the great empires of Terra Nova were crushed and eradicated would not come to pass. Cusi’s sacrifice had ensured it. And so, ironically, had Raphael’s actions. The physi
cian with the healing hands I’d once thought I’d loved had taught the Nahuatl to stave off the killing pox.

“Mayhap there is a purpose in all this after all,” I murmured. “Mayhap the gods have their reasons after all.”

Bao’s arms tightened around me. “I believe it must be so,” he said, his warm breath stirring my hair. “But I hope they are done with us soon.”

I raised my head to kiss him. “So do I, my magpie. So do I.”

SEVENTY-THREE

I
spent the day at rest, breaking my fast with a bowl of thin stew that Machasu brought. It was mostly water, but there were bits of potato and stringy meat in it. I ate it slowly, trying to make it last.

Various visitors came and went. When Prince Thierry arrived, I heard the whole tale of the nerve-racking night he and his hand-picked dozen men had spent in the temple, and the struggle to subdue the priests with
wurari
poison. There had been a number of scuffles while they waited for the poison to take effect, but no one had been harmed.

“It wasn’t easy,” Thierry said wearily. “A few of them fought like mad once they realized what we were about.”

“But you kept your head, your highness,” Bao said with quiet respect. “And you saw to it that the others kept theirs. It was well done.”

“It was done,” Thierry said. “And that is all that matters.” They exchanged a glance, and I saw that the respect between them was mutual. “Moirin, I am sorry to have doubted you.”

“Don’t be,” I said. “I doubted myself.”

I did not add that if I could have stayed Bao’s hand there at the end, I would have. He did not need to know that, ever.

On the morrow, we met with the
Sapa Inca
Huayna and went to view the devastation the ants had wrought.

At that, I did weep. All the terraced fields were stripped bare, the
earth churned and barren. In their hunger, the ants had laid bare every stalk, burrowed the length of every furrow. Women and children scavenged the fields, sifting through the dirt with their fingers in the hope of finding an overlooked tuber.

But the ants had been thorough. Their passage had cut a swath a league wide across the land, a broad trail of lifeless brown leading eastward as far as the eye could see. Everywhere the land was cultivated, it had been ravaged.

“Ah, gods!” I whispered to the newly crowned
Sapa Inca
. “I’m so sorry.”

Huayna gave a stoic shrug. “You did not bring the plague of ants upon us, lady. Lord Pachacuti did, with my foolish youngest brother’s help.” His expression softened. “I do not forget that you wept for my father’s death, too.” He held out one hand. Three kernels of
maize
lay in his palm. “In the past, we would seek to appease the gods with sacrifices were such a tragedy to occur. But the Maidens of the Sun say you possess a gift of life, and it is to life we must now trust. Is it so?”

I took a deep breath. “I pray it is.”

He lowered himself to one knee, poking the kernels into the earth and making a mound. “Show me.”

I knelt, pressing my hands into the soil. Summoning the twilight, I breathed softly over the mound. I felt the kernels awake and quicken, sending out green shoots that pierced the mound.

The
Sapa Inca
Huayna’s eyes widened. “Can you do this for all?” He gestured across the devastated landscape. “
All
of this?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly, brushing dirt from my hands. “Not like this, I think. Not all at once. But if you will set every man, woman, and child to replanting your fields, I will do my best to quicken them.”

“It is a risk,” he said slowly. “Many claim it would be better to eat the seeds we have in store, for there is no time for crops to ripen. Better to consume what we have, and send for new seed in the spring.”

Trust me
.

I echoed the words aloud. “Trust me.”

His black gaze weighed me, and after a moment, he nodded. “We will attempt this thing.”

It was a prodigious undertaking. True to his word, Prince Thierry lent his own hand to the endeavor, ordering our entire company to do the same. Under the direction of the Quechua farmers, D’Angeline noblemen burnt brown by the sun worked side by side with the denizens of Qusqu, digging and stooping in endless rows, planting multicolored kernels of
maize
and sprouting chunks of seed potatoes.