Naamah's Blessing - Jacqueline Carey [6]
He smiled. “I have always been a clever student.”
Laughing, the bright lady agreed.
In the morning, with young Leo’s eager aid, we set about procuring passage overland to the City of Elua.
After the close quarters I had endured on the ship, I could not bear the thought of being cloistered in a carriage for days. Mercifully, Bao understood, knowing that there was a part of me that chafed at being confined, all the more so since the ordeal I had undergone in Vralia.
So it was that we bartered with a horse-trader that Leo assured us was reputable for a pair of saddle-horses and a pair of pack-horses. Bao watched with considerable amusement as I introduced myself to all four, cupping their velvety, whiskery muzzles and breathing into their nostrils, touching their placid equine thoughts with my own, leaning my brow against the bony plates of theirs.
“Does she really talk to them?” Leo asked in a loud whisper.
“I’m not sure,” Bao whispered in reply.
One of the saddle-horses gave a dignified whicker. I patted his withers. “Well said, my friend.”
The trader, testing the purity of our Bhodistani coinage bite by bite, widened his eyes.
I smiled sweetly at him. “We will take them.”
He coughed and nodded.
There was scant hope in outpacing gossip anywhere in the world, and least of all in Terre d’Ange. I did not try. Within a day of our arrival, word had gone out ahead of us that Moirin mac Fainche had returned to D’Angeline shores.
I hadn’t expected otherwise. Still, it galled me a little. Only because my reputation had sunk so low in Marsilikos, where I was reckoned to have seduced Jehanne and ruined Raphael. And now, thanks to Bao’s creative reinvention of history, it was rumored I had seduced a prince of faraway Ch’in to my own ends.
It made Bao laugh.
I scowled at him. “I did not seduce you! Stone and sea! You chose this!”
He shrugged with amusement. “No, Moirin. I was helpless before your charms. Haven’t you heard?”
I eyed him. “I wish!”
“But I am,” he said guilelessly, fluttering his lashes at me.
“I should have left you to Jagrati,” I muttered.
At that, Bao caught me by the shoulders, giving me a shake. “Not that,” he said fiercely. “Not ever! Don’t say it, Moirin. Don’t even think it.”
I nodded. “Don’t jest, then.”
Bao took a deep breath. “I am sorry. It is only that my mistakes lie behind me, while yours…” He shrugged again. “They’re still awaiting us, aren’t they?”
Raphael…
Jehanne. Jehanne had not been a mistake. Never, ever would I believe it. She had saved me from myself.
“Aye,” I said firmly. “And I will deal with them, husband of mine. We will deal with them, one by one as they come. Agreed?”
Bao nodded. “Agreed.”
Two days after our arrival, we left the city of Marsilikos behind us.
I was not sorry to see the last of it; but if I thought my reputation would be restored as we grew closer to the City of Elua, I was mistaken.
Contrary to gossip in Marsilikos, I hadn’t left Terre d’Ange in disgrace, but I had left under a cloud of scandal. There was a kernel of truth to Leo’s accusation. Raphael de Mereliot and a group of scholars calling themselves the Circle of Shalomon had been involved in the arcane pursuit of summoning fallen spirits, rumored to possess the ability to bestow fabulous gifts on their summoners.
And I had helped them; at first because I foolishly believed myself in love with Raphael, and in the end, because he extracted a promise from me in exchange for helping to save my father’s life.
With my aid, the Circle of Shalomon had succeeded—at least in summoning spirits.
Spirits who tricked them, over and over. The only gift ever bestowed on the members of the Circle of Shalomon was the ability to speak the language of ants. Still, they kept trying.
Focalor, a Grand Duke of the Fallen, was the last spirit summoned, the price for saving my father’s life. He had found a flaw in the chains that bound him and broken free, attempting to take possession of Raphael’s body and killing a woman in the process.
If it hadn