Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [151]
“I’m sure you didn’t,” I said. “And I am just grateful to know it will not be used in a way that betrays the Emperor’s trust.”
He shook his head vigorously. “No, I will not allow it!”
We found the caravan assembling for departure, an array of men, horses, and heavily laden yaks, breath rising in frosty plumes in the clear dawn air. Manil Datar strode around briskly, making sure all was in readiness. He greeted me with a courteous smile and a Bhodistani salute, which I returned. The porters eyed me with open curiosity, which earned one of them a casual cuff from Datar.
“I do not like the way they look at you, Moirin,” Dorje fretted.
I shrugged. “Men do, Dorje. It looks as though Manil Datar runs his caravan with a firm hand.”
He ignored me. “Look at that fellow!” With a subtle jerk of his chin, he indicated a hulking, broad-shouldered man with terrible scars disfiguring his face. “Surely, he means no good.”
The scarred fellow was tending carefully to a yak’s pack-harness. “Why?” I asked. “Because the poor man was injured once?”
Dorje sighed, exhaling a frosty cloud. “I am being foolish, I know. If Tashi Rinpoche is not afraid for you, I should not be. But a monk is not a man with daughters. A man with daughters knows what it is to be afraid. And after seeing you playing with mine, I am afraid for you.”
“I’m afraid for me, too,” I said. “But I still have to go.”
“I know.” He handed me a soft, cloth-wrapped bundle. “Tsampa,” he said, referring to a roasted barley-grain mixed with lumps of butter that was a Tufani staple. “Nyima packed it for you in case Manil Datar does not feed you well enough. It is enough to last a few days.” He smiled ruefully. “For a trader’s wife, she does not understand the distances between places very well.”
I tucked it in my pack. “Thank her for me.”
“I will.”
And then Manil Datar gave a sharp whistle and a gesture, indicating that we were ready to depart. He beckoned to me with a pleasant smile, indicating that I should ride beside him. Before I mounted, I gave Dorje a warm hug. “Thank you, my friend. Whenever I need to remember there are good people in the world, you and your family are among those I will surely recall.”
He returned my embrace. “Be safe, Moirin. I hope you find your young man, and if fate wills it, our Laysa, too.”
And with that, I was off once more.
Although the journey would grow more arduous in the days to come, the road leading southward out of Rasa was easily wide enough for two to ride abreast. True to his word, Manil Datar set about teaching me to speak Bhodistani, pointing at objects and naming them in his native tongue, making me repeat the words until I got them right. Horse, yak, saddle. Eyes, ears, nose, mouth. Sky, mountain, path. I had learned a bit of Tufani, which he spoke fluently, and it made the process easier.
I was grateful for his kindness, and he seemed pleased to offer it, although truth be told, given my preferences, I would rather have ridden alone, left to my own thoughts. The encounter with the boy monk Tashi Rinpoche had unsettled me.
When I had set out from Shuntian a year ago, my quest had seemed a simple one. All I wanted to do was cross the steppe and find Bao. And although I’d vastly underestimated the rigors of a Tatar winter, in a way, it had been that simple.
Now…
Now I felt like a pair of dice, swept up and shaken in a cup, cast on the gaming table over and over, the stakes growing higher each time.
It seemed like it never ended.
The quest I had undertaken in Ch’in to free the princess and the dragon should have been enough for anyone’s lifetime. But oh, no! Not for Moirin. The Great Khan had betrayed me, the gods had scooped me up and tossed me back onto the gaming table, sending me to Vralia, where the Patriarch of Riva dreamed of destiny, dreamed of a Yeshuite empire built on bloodshed and loathing.
I had put an end to his dream.
I had armed my sweet boy Aleksei with the courage of his convictions that he might continue the fight against his uncle’s vile legacy,