Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [114]
Once our hosts escorted us to our chamber and the door closed behind us, the pleasant fiction ended. There was one bed in the chamber, big enough for two, but with little room to spare. Aleksei eyed it sidelong, nervous as a green-broken colt shying at a fence, fidgeting with the worn blanket that had served to carry our possessions. “I… I will sleep on the floor. I don’t mind. I’m used to it.”
“Mortification of the flesh?” I asked.
He nodded.
I was sorry, but not surprised. “As you wish, sweet boy,” I murmured, turning back the bed-linens. “Sleep well.”
FORTY
I slept.
I slept without dreams, long and hard and deep. I slept the sleep of finding respite after profound fear and exhaustions—luxurious sleep, healing sleep. I slept well past dawn and awoke to slanting sunlight and a sense of being watched.
Opening my eyes, I found Aleksei sitting awkwardly on the foot of the bed, his hands clasped in his lap.
“How long have you been watching me?” I asked sleepily.
“Hours,” he murmured.
I propped myself on my elbows. “Did you not sleep well?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Oh.” Half-awake, I yawned and ran a hand through my hair, untangling the silken strands. It had grown a few inches since Luba had cropped it, long enough to fall over my shoulders. “I’m sorry. Tonight, you will take the bed, and I the floor. You’ll sleep better for it, I promise.” I paused. “Is there some reason you’re staring at me, Aleksei?”
“Yes.”
It was one word, one syllable, but something in the way he spoke it caught my attention. That, and the way he was sitting—awkwardly, aye, and yet as still and grave as a carved saint.
I hauled myself upright, rubbed my eyes, and shook my head, trying to dispel the last dregs of sleep. “I am listening.”
“Moirin…”
I waited. “Aye?”
Aleksei took a deep breath. “I have been thinking. And praying. And yes, watching you while you slept. Watching you at your most vulnerable, with no magic to protect and conceal you, no teasing to bait and entice me. No tales of depravity to shock me. I have been trying to see that unclean spirit in you which seeks to tempt me and lead me astray.”
I opened my mouth to speak.
“Wait.” He raised one hand, his face solemn. “I don’t see it, Moirin. I don’t. Only you, mortal and fallible, and… yourself. Beautiful, yes. Impetuous. Uncanny, to be sure. But a girl, only a girl, too—one apt to kiss a horse on the nose, and quick to delight in a meal of roasted chicken and dumplings. A mother’s child far from home. And I have been asking myself, if it is not to fulfill my uncle’s dream, why has God set you in my path?”
“To test you?” I murmured.
Aleksei spread both hands. “If that is so, I have already failed. I have betrayed my uncle to aid you. Does it matter how much farther I fall?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I.” His chest rose and fell as he took another sharp breath. “And so… so I am thinking, I will never know if I do not accept what you offer. And I believe strongly enough in Yeshua’s forgiveness that I am willing to risk damnation in pursuit of truth.”
I laughed.
I couldn’t help it, I laughed aloud for the sheer joy of it; and I flung myself forward, putting my arms around Aleksei’s neck, kissing his face. “You mean it?”
“Yes!” He pushed me away, blushing furiously. “Only not this very moment, all right? Give me some time to grow accustomed to the notion.”
“All right.” I sat back on my heels, beaming at him.
He scowled. “You needn’t look so pleased.”
“Why ever not?” I asked. “I am pleased.”
“To have won?”
“No!” Gods, he was as infuriating as Bao in his own prickly way. “No, of course not.” I took one of Aleksei’s hands and kissed it. “Your choice makes me happy, sweet boy. That’s all. I pray it will make you happy, too.”
It mollified him, and restored a sense of brightness to the day. In the common room, we broke our fast with brown bread and fresh-churned butter. Our hostess promised a hot bath would be made ready in a few hours’ time, so we set out for the marketplace to begin purchasing supplies for the journey south.
I was happy,