Naamah's Blessing - Jacqueline Carey [234]
At that, there were many soft, indrawn breaths of horror.
“And you agreed to this?” Lianne Tremaine asked in shock, her pen poised forgotten in her hand. “All of you?”
“I thought as you did, my lady poetess,” Thierry answered her gravely. “We all did, every one of us. But with the fate of the entire Quechua folk hanging in the balance, it was not our place to gainsay their faith. And I tell you this. I was one of a dozen men who escorted the maiden Cusi to the Temple of the Ancestors in the conquered city of Qusqu the night before Raphael’s coronation. There is no doubt in my mind, not even the slightest, that she knew herself to be chosen for this fate, and went to it gladly.”
“Nor mine,” Bao murmured.
“Nor mine,” Balthasar echoed. “She looked… sanctified. Holy.” He nodded to himself. “Yes, holy.”
I rubbed the faint scar on my palm. “She was.”
There was a moment of utter silence in the salon before Lianne gathered herself with a shiver, dipping her pen in the inkwell. “You have gotten ahead of yourself again, your highness. Tell us of the conquest of Qusqu.”
Prince Thierry obliged, for which I was grateful; but he could not relate the events that had transpired in the Temple of the Ancestors, only those that led up to them. Alone among our company, only Bao and I had actually witnessed Cusi’s sacrifice, the resurrection of the Quechua ancestors, the near-summoning of Focalor. The others had seen only the aftermath.
So it fell to me once more, and I told it as one might tell a vivid tale remembered from a poem.
The stone temple, the stairway and the bronze knife, the gold-masked priest who wielded it.
I did not tell them it was Bao.
Blood spilling over the stair, running in the carved channels.
Focalor manifesting in a storm raging in the doorway I opened onto the spirit world, and Raphael drowning in his essence.
Ancient skeletons wrapped in cerements, stirring beneath feathers and flowers and fine-spun wool, descending from the gallery.
The black river of ants swarming the ancestors in vain, rendered impotent in the face of death’s advance.
I told them of how Raphael found the courage and the strength to release me from my oath before the end, freeing me to banish Focalor a second time and close the doorway onto the spirit world. And closing my eyes, I told them how the Quechua ancestors had descended on him, slowly, so slowly, slow and inexorable, their rag-wrapped skulls blank-faced and impersonal, shredded marigold petals falling all around them, ornamental war-clubs raised in their bony, crumbling hands.
“I didn’t watch,” I said. “I couldn’t.”
No one spoke.
In the audience, I saw my father with tears streaking his face, and he was not alone in weeping. Beside me, Lianne Tremaine laid her pen down quietly.
“It is the end of a tale that began with the Circle of Shalomon,” Prince Thierry said into the silence, fixing his gaze on me. “But it is not the end of ours. Still…” He gave a faint smile. “Although it is very nearly finished, I think mayhap it is enough for today. As you can see, we are here to continue the telling of it, and that is cause enough for gladness.” He rose. “My thanks for listening.”
One by one, folk filed out of the salon, their faces somber and wondering. Thierry paused beside my chair to lay a hand on my shoulder, peering down at Lianne’s scribbled notes.
“Well, King’s Poet? Did you record the account in full?” he asked her.
“I did, your highness.” She stoppered her inkwell, then tapped her temple with one finger. “Pay no heed to my scratchings. Most of it is here. And believe me when I tell you I am very, very grateful for this opportunity.” Her voice took on a familiar note, wry and rueful, as she asked a question equally familiar to me. “May I ask how much of it was true?”
“All of it,” Thierry and I said at the same time.
“All save the parts left untold,” Bao said