Naamah's Blessing - Jacqueline Carey [33]
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Because I was bad?” Her earnest eyes were the hue of rain-washed lilacs.
“No!” I stroked her hair. “No, dear heart. It’s not your fault at all.” I chose my words carefully, mindful that she was a precocious child, but a very young one, too. I wanted to be truthful with her, but I didn’t want to teach her acrimony, either. “It’s frightening when things change all of a sudden, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“Well, it is the same for grown-ups. We’re scared, too. Change can be a good thing, a happy thing. But sometimes when we’re scared, we don’t wait long enough to find out.” I handed her the kerchief. “Here, blow your nose.”
She obeyed. “Why was Nurse scared?”
“Because you are growing older, and there have been changes in your life, which means changes in her life, too.”
“She didn’t want Bao to study with me,” Desirée said. “She didn’t like him. Or you.”
“Perceptive child,” the tutor Aimée murmured.
I silenced her with a look. “Now, that’s not true. Nurse didn’t wait long enough to know for sure if she liked us or not. That’s why it’s important to be patient. Sometimes we think we know things about people that turn out to be all wrong. Did I tell you about the winter I spent with the Tatars?”
She shook her head.
I spun a tale of that long winter; how I had ventured into Tatar territory believing them to be a ferocious and dangerous folk; how I had avoided them until a blizzard drove me to seek sanctuary among them; how I found them to be kind and generous, defying all my expectations. I described the felt huts called gers, the warm, salty tea we drank, the layers and layers of thick clothing we wore, the numbers and rhyming game the children taught me.
Worn out by her tantrum, Desirée fell asleep in my lap, listening to the sound of my voice. Her tutor took the opportunity to steal quietly from the nursery with a hushed promise to return on the morrow.
“You’ve a knack with the child,” Paulette said softly. “Do you want me to take her? I daresay she’ll nap for a time.”
“Aye, my thanks.” Rising, I shifted my burden into her arms.
Clinging to her nursemaid, Desirée roused sleepily. “Bao?” she asked. “Where were you when Moirin was with the Tatars?”
“Oh…” He met my eyes. “Well, you might say I was hiding, young highness. A big change, a very big change, happened in my life. I was scared, and I ran away from it. But in the end, I learned it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I would not be here if it hadn’t.”
“I’m glad you are, even if Nurse doesn’t like you. I do.” She hesitated. “Can I still have tumblers?”
“Oh, yes!” Bao grinned. “I will make sure of it.”
THIRTEEN
As one might expect, the City of Elua was also divided over the matter of Eglantine House’s invitation to perform at the ceremony, which was scheduled to take place in a month’s time.
The announcement was made in the grand salon of Eglantine House in the evening of the day the invitation was received, and it was accompanied by Lianne Tremaine declaiming a poem she had composed for the occasion.
By the next day, the poem was on everyone’s lips.
The former King’s Poet hadn’t held back. The poem lauded the King’s decision as a return to the true origins of the Montrèvan Oath, the oath that Anafiel Delaunay had sworn to his beloved, Rolande de la Courcel, to protect his infant daughter Ysandre. Lianne Tremaine made the bold claim that this was the first time in generations that the honor had been bestowed in keeping with the spirit of that oath, making much of my having returned from great tribulation to accept the role.
“Thus was the sorrowful spirit of the lamented Queen at long last appeased/For knowing her eldritch lover would stand guard over the child, her grieving heart was eased,” Lianne quoted with a shudder. “Dreadful pap, but I had to work quickly. ’Tis the sentiment that matters. Does it