Naamah's Blessing (18 page)

The urn itself was a massive thing, dark blue enamel etched in silver with the swan insignia of House Courcel. It rested in a stand atop the dais, canted toward the crowd. It had a narrow opening, but its large, rounded belly contained some five hundred porcelain tiles stamped with the royal seal, forty-nine of which were gilded and could be presented to admit the bearer to the ceremony.

As the sun climbed toward its zenith, the crowd grew louder and louder; but it was a joyous sound, and I was glad of it.

There were a handful of others on the dais with us, including the Secretary of the Presence representing the King’s authority, and a priest or priestess representing each of the orders of Blessed Elua and his Companions. My father was there for Naamah’s Order, smiling with quiet pride. But it was Bao and I who were presiding over the event, and it was toward us that the eager, hopeful citizens directed their shouts and pleas.

A great cheer arose as distant bells sounded the hour. The Captain of the Royal Guard offered me a courtly bow. “Are you ready, my lady?”

“I am, my lord captain.” Raising my voice, I called, “Let the lottery begin!”

The crowd cheered again.

With a smile, the captain ushered the first aspirant forward. A burly fellow with a blacksmith’s knotted muscles stuck his meaty hand into the mouth of the urn, fishing around inside it. He had a difficult time drawing his clenched fist out, prompting laughter and cat-calls from the crowd.

“Maybe we need to send for some goose-grease, Moirin?” Bao suggested cheerfully.

“No, no! Not yet!” Easing his hand out of the aperture, the smith opened it to show us a white porcelain tile. “No luck today, eh?”

“I’m sorry, messire,” I offered with sympathy.

He lifted his wide shoulders in a shrug. “Still, it’s something to tell the grandchildren, eh? Thank you for the chance, lady,” he added. “Not many folk would have thought of it.”

“Nor did I,” I said honestly. As much as I would have liked to take credit for the notion, it seemed unworthy—especially with my father and assorted priests and priestesses in attendance. “I must confess, the idea was another’s.”

The smith laughed deep in his chest. “Ah, gods! It took a bear-witch to make an honest peer!” He thrust out one big hand. “I like you better for it, lady. You keep that young princess safe now, mind?”

I leaned down and clasped his hand, squeezing it warmly. “I swear I will do my utmost.”

The crowd liked that, too.

One by one they came to take their chances at the urn, escorted by the solicitous guardsmen. None of the first dozen had the good fortune to draw a gilded tile, but they bore their failures in good spirits. Many of them took the opportunity to beg blessings of one or more of the priests on the dais.

Many of them thanked me, too, waving aside any protestations on my part.

I had entered D’Angeline society as Raphael de Mereliot’s unlikely protégée, and I had left it as Jehanne de la Courcel’s unlikely companion. But that day, on the dais beneath Elua’s Oak, surrounded by ordinary citizens of the realm, was the first time I truly felt myself to be part of Terre d’Ange and its folk. When an elderly woman supported by a pair of strapping grandsons drew the first gilded tile and opened her trembling fist to show it to me, her eyes damp with gratitude, I cheered as loudly as anyone.

Bao whooped and did a careless handspring, pleasing the crowd further.

I laughed for sheer gladness.

So it went throughout the day. It took several hours. I commiserated and congratulated until the urn was empty, and the royal guardsmen had to disperse the lingering crowd.

My father embraced me. “That,” he said, “was exceedingly well done, daughter of mine.”

I gave him a tired smile. “Was it?”

“It was,” he said firmly.

Elua’s priestess stepped forward, clad in sky-blue robes. “You did well, Lady Moirin,” she affirmed. “Very well. Have you given thanks to the gods?”

I shook my head.

“You should.” She kissed my cheek. “Think on it.”

I prayed in my own way that day, laying my hands on the trunk of Elua’s Oak and communing with it.

Once again, I felt its age. It
remembered
. It had been planted by Blessed Elua himself long centuries ago when there was no City, only a tiny village in a river valley. Elua had held an acorn cupped in his hands, and his Companion Anael the Good Steward had blown on it, coaxing it to grow. Together, Elua and Anael had planted it here, and the City had grown around it.

My father was descended from Anael’s line as well as Naamah’s, and it seemed I had inherited that gift, sparked to life by the inherent magic of the Maghuin Dhonn.

I still wondered what it meant.

In Bhaktipur, I had coaxed a field of marigolds to bloom out of season, spending my strength to breathe summer into winter, creating a miracle that lent the appearance of divine approval to the sweeping change the Rani Amrita was implementing. Ordinary folk had celebrated that day, too, weeping and laughing and rejoicing; most especially the folk of the lowest caste, those reckoned unclean and untouchable.

Mayhap it was enough. It ought to be, but I wasn’t sure.

Elua’s Oak held no answers, only memories and the sleepy thoughts of impending winter. I took my hands away to find the guards waiting patiently, and Bao regarding me with fond bemusement.

“If you are done talking to the tree, Moirin, I think the priestess’ suggestion is a good one,” he said. “I have not visited any of the temples of the gods of Terre d’Ange but Naamah’s.”

“And I have not visited them since Jehanne was trying to get with child and had little time for me,” I said softly, remembering. “It would be good to visit them again, to thank the gods for their gifts and offer prayers on Desirée’s behalf.”

Bao nodded. “It seems fitting.”

In the days leading up to the ceremony, we made a pilgrimage of the City’s temples, beginning with the Temple of Eisheth where the feisty Sister Marianne Prichard presided.

She gave me a firm hug in welcome, unexpectedly strong for her age. “Have you come to light a candle to Eisheth, Lady Moirin?”

“No.” I smiled. “Not yet.”

Sister Marianne cast a dubious eye on me. “Don’t wait too long, child! How old are you now?”

I hazarded a guess. “Twenty… one?”

“We’ve come to give thanks and make an offering on the young princess’ behalf,” Bao interjected. “Later, perhaps, I can persuade Moirin to beseech Eisheth to open the gate of her womb.”

The elderly priestess chuckled. “You do that, lad! Spring’s a good time, when all the world is fertile.”

“Fat babies,” Bao reminded me. “Round as dumplings.”

My
diadh-anam
flickered, telling me it was not time yet; and I knew Bao felt it, too. “We will see, my magpie.”

There was a garden in the inner sanctum of Eisheth’s temple where a spring burbled through the rocks to feed a natural pool. An effigy of the goddess knelt beside it, her cupped hands extended over the healing waters. Having paid our tithes, Bao and I made our offerings, pouring incense of hyssop and cedar gum into Eisheth’s hands and kindling the incense with wax tapers.

Fragrant smoke rose.

The marble effigy knelt, streaked with traces of green moss, her head bowed in modesty.

We knelt, too.

I breathed through a cycle of the Five Styles, clearing my mind. I gave thanks to Eisheth for her gifts of healing and music, and for the kindness she had shown us in sending one of her priestesses to tend to my lady Jehanne’s daughter. I prayed that Eisheth would ever grant good health to Desirée. When we had finished, both Bao and I dipped our hands in the sacred pool and drank the healing waters with their acrid tang of minerals.

It felt good and right.

At the temple of martial Camael, I meditated on the battles I had seen, gave thanks for having survived them, and prayed that Desirée would ever be spared the horrors of war.

I felt myself humble at the Temple of Shemhazai, the greatest scholar among Elua’s Companions. I thanked him for his gifts, and prayed that he would grace Desirée with wisdom.

Bao gazed for a long time at the effigy of Azza, whose gift to the D’Angeline folk was pride and knowledge. Azza held a sextant with which to explore the world in one hand, the other raised in warning.

“What are you thinking?” I asked Bao.

“I am thinking that pride is a dangerous gift,” he murmured. “But betimes a necessary one.”

I prayed that Desirée would find pride in good measure.

At Anael’s temple, I gave thanks for the gift that the Good Steward had given me. I prayed that I might be worthy of it, whatever its ultimate purpose, and that the young princess might grow up to understand the worth of tending to the world with loving care.

We visited the great Temple of Naamah in the City, releasing doves beneath the dome of the temple and laughing, confident in the bright lady’s love. I thanked her for the gifts, so many gifts, that she had given me; and for allowing me to serve as the vessel for her blessing.

I prayed that Desirée would know it, too.

And I understood Kushiel’s worship far better than I had the first time when we visited
his
temple.

Expiation.

The penitents who sought out Kushiel’s untender mercies had cause. I gazed at the bronze-faced effigy with his rod and flail crossed on his breast, remembering the penance that the Patriarch of Riva had laid upon me. I had not found expiation in it, but nor had I believed myself guilty of sin. Valentina, who had freed me, told me she
had
found comfort in performing penance for her own sins; and I understood that it was a gift for those in need.

By the expression on his face, Bao was thinking similar thoughts. “I punished myself in Kurugiri,” he said somberly. “This way is better.”

“It is,” I agreed.

There, I prayed that Desirée would never be in need of such penance; but that if she did, she would find comfort in Kushiel’s mercy.

Lastly, on the eve of the ceremony, we paid a visit to the great Temple of Elua.

It was the oldest temple in the City. In the antechamber, a priest and priestess welcomed us with the kiss of greeting and accepted our tithes. A graceful acolyte knelt and removed our shoes and stockings that we might walk unshod in the presence of Blessed Elua, and gave us garlands of dried anemone flowers for our offering.

The ground was cold and hard beneath our bare feet, the autumn grass damp and yellow. Blessed Elua’s marble effigy towered atop an altar beneath the open sky, flanked by four roofless pillars and oak trees almost as ancient as Elua’s Oak in the square of the City.

The statue of Elua smiled down upon us, one hand extended in offering, the other cupped to reveal the mark of the wound he had inflicted upon himself in reply to the One God’s messenger.

My grandfather’s Heaven is bloodless, and I am not
.

Without thinking, I summoned the twilight for the first time in many weeks, drawing it deep into my lungs and breathing it out, spinning it around Bao and myself like a cloak.

Bao uttered a startled sound.

In the soft, muted hues of the twilight, Elua’s effigy glimmered, shadows in the creases of his smile. I laid my garland of dried flowers
on the altar, and stooped to press my lips to Elua’s marble foot. In my heart, I thanked him for the many gifts of love that had graced my life.

And ah, gods! I
had
been blessed.

From the stalwart love of my mother in Alba to the discovery of my father in Terre d’Ange; from Cillian’s youthful ardor and friendship to the mercurial affections of my lady Jehanne, whose daughter I would vow to protect on the morrow. Noble Master Lo Feng. My proud, reserved princess, Snow Tiger; my treasured friend, the celestial dragon whose spirit she had harbored within her mortal flesh. My sweet boy Aleksei, and my golden, laughing Rani Amrita. All the myriad folk I’d met along the way who had shown me kindness and generosity.

Bao.

He, too, laid his garland on the altar. Our eyes met in the twilight. “I am grateful for the gift of you, Moirin.”

I nodded. “And I, you.”

Beneath the twilit shadow of Elua’s effigy, Bao kissed me, the shared spark of our
diadh-anam
entwining.

I wound my arms around his neck and returned his kiss; and I prayed with all my heart that Blessed Elua would be as kind and gracious to the young princess Desirée as he had been to me.

Elua smiled.

TWENTY

T
he oath-swearing ceremony was a solemn affair, as it should be.

It took place in the throne room of the Palace. There was not the large crowd that would be present later at the royal theater for the celebratory performance, but there were still some thirty or forty peers in attendance, including the royal minister, Rogier Courcel, Duc de Barthelme.

For a mercy, none dared show disapproval in the King’s presence, although I knew full well many of them felt it. Duc Rogier wore a look of studied neutrality that spoke volumes, and I could sense tension between him and my father, who couldn’t conceal his pride.