Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [147]
I nodded.
He blew out his breath in a long, soft sigh. “This! Yes, to the right person, this would be worth a fortune.”
“So I have been told.” I swallowed. “Dorje, it was given to me in trust by the Emperor of Ch’in. I am reluctant to betray that trust, but I find myself with little choice. Although…” The memory of Unegen reaching around to squeeze my buttocks came to mind unbidden. “That’s not true, I suppose,” I said slowly. “Naamah lay down with strangers in the gutters of Bhodistan to get coin that Blessed Elua might eat. There is no reason I could not do the same for Bao’s sake.”
Dorje looked at me in horror. “Moirin, you mustn’t!”
“Why not?” I shrugged with a nonchalance I didn’t feel. It had seemed a much more romantic notion in tales than it did in the cold, gritty light of reality. I was no goddess whose very nature sanctified any union of her choosing, only a young mortal woman, tired and dirty and far from home. “Surely it would be worth the cost of passage, and I would not need to betray the Emperor’s trust.”
“No, no, no, no!” He shook his head in violent disapproval. “That is not acceptable.” He rocked back on his heels, thinking. “Let me confer with the others.”
“All right.” I watched him rise with alacrity and trot over the scree to discuss the matter with the other Tufani traders. Two of them nodded in eager agreement; the others appeared to accede with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
Dorje returned beaming, dropping into a careless squat. “As soon as we have been paid for delivering our goods in Rasa, we will buy the Imperial medallion from you.”
“You?” I stared at him.
He looked offended. “You said that you trusted me, Moirin! Why not? We would buy it from you in return for negotiating passage to Bhaktipur, and all that you require. Blankets and clothing and coin to spare. And I can promise you, it will not fall into the wrong hands.” His voice took on an indignant tone. “I will not let that happen, not ever. We may even use it ourselves. So. Is it a bargain you can accept?”
I laughed with relief. “It is.”
“Good.” Dorje looked as relieved as I felt. “Shared journeys forge connections. You became as an older sister to the boy Dash, and you have become as a younger sister to me. I could not let you do such a thing.”
I felt an obscure need to defend the notion. “It is a sacred calling among my father’s people, you know.”
Dorje raised his brows. “Are you called to it now?”
I paused, then shook my head. “No,” I admitted. “I have been called to serve Naamah in different ways before. Not this way.”
He nodded, satisfied. “Then it is decided.”
I gave him an impulsive hug. “Thank you, Dorje.”
He extricated himself and patted my head in a tentative manner. “You are welcome, Moirin. I hope it will help you to remember that there are more good people than bad in the world.”
I did, too.
FIFTY-TWO
Days later, we arrived at Rasa.
It had been a harsh, grueling journey and it ended in a city atop a wind-swept plateau, an arid, dizzying place of dun-colored rock and cutting winds, ringed about with snow-capped mountain peaks.
Even so, it was not without beauty.
I had come to love the thin air and the heights, the hardy cedar and poplar that grew beneath the treeline of the mountains, with their stubborn, insistent thoughts. I had come to admire the tough yaks and sheep that found pastures in the valleys where village folk tilled the rocky soil and planted barley.
I had grown fond, very fond, of Dorje and his fellow Tufani traders.
Even so, it was difficult to place my unstinting trust in them. And yet I did, praying silently to the Maghuin Dhonn Herself that it was not misguided.
While they concluded their bargaining, I stayed with Dorje’s family—his wife and two bright-eyed daughters, and also his elderly father. The houses in Rasa were two-story affairs, built that animals might shelter below, while humans lived on the second floor. The buildings were white with brightly