Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [225]
“No,” I admitted.
“I will not press you if you do not wish it,” Bao said. “Only know I do not expect you to be anyone but who you are.”
“And that is enough?” I asked uncertainly.
He laughed. “You crossed the Abode of the Gods and rescued me from the Spider Queen, Moirin. Yes. It is more than enough.”
My panic faded. “Aleksei was not spineless, you know,” I said to him. “He was a gentle soul, that’s all.”
Bao scoffed. “Oh, please! His mother had to convince him to free you.”
“He was very tall, with very broad shoulders,” I added. “And eyes the color of rain-washed flowers the name of which I only know in Alban.”
He smiled complacently at me. “Now you are only trying to make me jealous.”
“It’s not working very well, is it?” I observed.
“No.” Bao shook his head, the gold hoops in his earlobes glinting. “Because your spineless Yeshuite boy is a thousand leagues away, and I am here. If I were going to be jealous, I would begin with our beautiful Rani, who is much closer and a much greater threat.” He gave me another complacent smile. “Lucky for me, she does not share your unusual passions. Or at least not much, anyway. She is very fond of you.”
I gazed at Bao, at his still-sleepy face, unexpectedly beautiful. At the tousled shock of his hair, his corded forearms braced against his thighs, the stark zig-zag pattern of tattoos running down them. “So you still want to wed me?”
“Yes.”
I reached out and touched one of the gold hoops in his ears. “Why did you keep them? As a reminder of her?”
“Jagrati?” Bao stretched out his arms, regarding his tattoos. “No. I already have a reminder that cannot be removed.” Reaching up, he fingered one thick hoop. “These, I couldn’t figure out how to unfasten.”
I laughed.
This time, it was a healing laughter; and mayhap the laughter in my dream had been, too. Love as thou wilt, Blessed Elua had bade his people—my father’s people, and my people, too. I was a child of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, and a daughter of Naamah, too. I had loved, and loved well.
Jehanne; always Jehanne. But so many others, too. Last and always, my great-hearted bad boy Bao, gazing at me with a quizzical look.
“Do you hate them?” he asked, touching his earlobes. “I will rip them out if you do.”
I shook my head. “Let them stay. Now that I know, I do not mind.”
Leaning over, Bao blew out the lamp. “Then let us sleep, Moirin, and be at peace with each other.”
SEVENTY-NINE
Once Hasan Dar was on his feet again, the Rani Amrita began to implement a plan of change.
She made a round of the temples, performing the offering rituals and prayers as we had done when I first arrived, only this time, she also announced her intention at each temple to revoke the unwritten laws regarding the untouchables within a month’s time.
Although they had been forewarned, some of the priests were indeed horrified that she meant to go through with it.
“You would profane the temple with unclean persons?” one grey-bearded fellow asked in shock. “Let them lay hands on the Shiva Lingam itself?” He shuddered. “No, no, no, highness! You are a woman, and not of the priestly caste. You do not understand what you do.”
“I beg to differ, brother.” Ravindra’s tutor, who was known as Guru-ji and whose beard was whiter than the priest’s, addressed him politely. “Her highness understands it very well, and I am in agreement that it is restoring a lost tradition. I will gladly sit with you and discuss the oldest of the Vedas.”
“But they are unclean!” the priest protested, ignoring his offer. “Highness, I beg you, do not do this thing!”
Amrita’s hands were posed in a mudra of respect, but her face was calm and determined, and Hasan Dar and her guards stood behind her, hands