Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [84]
And go… where?
Alarmed by the unspoken menace in my face, Luba retreated a few cautious steps, fixing me with a seething gaze. She pointed toward the temple doors far behind us, interlacing her fingers with a sharp gesture. She pointed at my chains, and mimed rattling them, mimed stones being thrown. She shook her head slowly at me, pointing at the bucket and the floor.
In the Tatar lands, I had come to recognize how easily two people of like minds could converse without a common tongue. Checheg with her gentle, unremitting kindness and hospitality had taught it to me, long before I had mastered the rudiments of her language.
This was the other side of the coin.
And I understood it full well. The meaning of Luba’s gestures was clear. The temple doors were locked, inside and out. Even if I could escape, my chains marked me as a witch, singled out for death in eastern Vralia.
Here, I would be stoned.
I dipped my brush into the harsh lye and scrubbed at the second square, intoning the prayer the Patriarch had taught me.
“Yeshua the Anointed, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Again.
Again.
Again.
I kept count during that first row. There were one hundred and fifty squares in it. Each and every one, I scoured. Over each and every one, I uttered the same prayer.
I reached the end of one row, moved on to the second one. The temple was at least twice as long as it was wide, which meant there were at least three hundred rows. I was no mathematician, but by my calculation, that meant I had some forty-five thousand squares in total.
I drew a long, shaking breath, trying once more not to weep.
Luba smirked.
I shuffled on my bruised, aching knees, bowing my head to the task. I was sweating and itchy beneath the coarse woolen dress. My back began to ache from bending. The words of the prayer began to blend together into one long stream of meaningless syllables.
Yeshuatheanointedsonofgodhavemercyonmeasinner.
Although she did not speak D’Angeline, Luba had a good ear. When my prayer degenerated into an inarticulate mumble, she tapped me on the shoulder and made a gesture with both hands as though stretching a rope, telling me without words to slow down and do a proper job of it.
“Yeshua the Anointed, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” I said with fierce precision, dipping and scrubbing. “Yeshua the Anointed, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
The only small mercy that Yeshua the Anointed saw fit to grant me was that by the time I had finished the second row, Valentina came to replace Luba on sentinel duty. Her, at least, I could bear.
And she did not badger me when I paused to wipe my sleeve over my sweating brow and stretch my aching back. My spine made unpleasant crackling sounds. I shifted on my sore knees, trying to find a position in which the pebbles didn’t dig into my flesh so.
“He assigned me this penance, too,” Valentina said in a low voice. “For sins committed with Aleksei’s father.”
“Did you find redemption in it?” I asked wearily.
“Yes,” she said simply. I gave her a sharp look, and for once she did not look away. “There is peace to be found in surrendering to God’s will and begging his forgiveness.”
I shook my head. “For his children, mayhap. I am not one of them.”
“We are all God’s children,” she replied.
I smiled bitterly. “Tell that to the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, who claimed me as Her own.”
“Where is she, then?” Valentina gestured around. “You are here in the temple of God and his son Yeshua, Moirin. Where is your bear-god? Where is your D’Angeline whore-goddess Naamah? They have abandoned you.”
“No.” I touched my chest. “Perhaps they cannot find me, with my spirit shrouded in chains and charms. But I carry the divine spark of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself within me. I carry Naamah’s gifts in my blood.