Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [85]
There was sympathy in her gaze. “It would be better for you if you did.”
“I know.” I picked up the brush, dipped it in the bucket, and began scrubbing anew. “Yeshua the Anointed, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
I had completed a grand total of four rows when Valentina bade me stop—not out of any sense of pity, but because it was time to prepare the temple for the afternoon liturgy.
I got gratefully to my feet, pain shooting through my abused knees and stiff, aching back. I felt a hundred years old. “Does it get any easier?”
“No,” she said. “Harder.”
I’d assumed as much. I wiped my tired, stinging hands on the woolen dress. I stank of lye and sweat. “My lady, is it possible to have a bath?”
She hesitated.
“I do not ask with an eye toward seducing your son, who seems to be avoiding me anyway.” Even my voice was tired, my throat raw from endless prayer. “I’ve been chained in the same garment for many days. Whatever else you may think of me, I do not like being unclean.”
For a mercy, another small mercy, Valentina relented. She even let me scour myself, although I suspected it was due to a reluctance to get anywhere close to touching my skin. I could feel the tension in her haste as she sewed me into a fresh, sack-shaped woolen dress just as drab, prickly, and hateful as the first one.
Still, it was something.
My soul might be black with sin, but my flesh was clean.
THIRTY
I was wrong about Aleksei.
To my surprise, he came in the early evening to read to me. I hadn’t expected him, and I was in a morbidly foul mood. My entire body was sore and aching. In something like three hours of scrubbing, I’d gotten through four rows.
If my rough calculation was remotely accurate, that left at least two hundred and ninety-six to go.
And then I could start over.
I didn’t bother rising from the narrow bed where I had flung myself, greeting Aleksei with silence and a sullen glare.
It took him aback. “What is it?”
“What do you think?” I asked in a cool tone. “Have you ever knelt on that bedamned floor?”
His blue eyes were wide and earnest. “Many times, yes.”
“For three hours?”
“No.” He flushed a little, looking away from me in that skittish way. “Moirin… your head is bare.”
I hadn’t put on the head-scarf when I heard the key in the lock, expecting Valentina or Luba. “Oh, for the love of all the gods! My hair is cropped like a twelve-year-old boy’s. How tempting can it be?”
Aleksei shivered. “It’s… very shiny.”
“It’s clean,” I said rudely.
“And soft-looking,” he whispered.
“Oh?” I hauled myself upright, tilting my head. My hair fell forward in a short, glossy curtain. “You may be interested to learn that there is an act of love in Terre d’Ange called Winding the Spindle,” I said in a conversational tone. “One twines one’s hair around a man’s erect phallus, then pulls it away slowly. To be done properly, it is done without using one’s hands, only swirling one’s head gently around the phallus.”
He stared at me in shock. I’d never spoken to him thusly before.
“My lady Jehanne says that the technique is a tricky one,” I said sweetly. “But she assures me that men find the sensation subtle and exquisite, and the sight most provocative. I fear it will be some time before I’m able to attempt it, since your aunt Luba saw fit to shear me like a sheep.”
“Why—” Aleksei’s voice cracked. “Why are you saying such things?”
“Don’t you like it?” I raised my brows. “Your uncle does. Nothing brings him greater pleasure than hearing me confess to unclean acts.”
“That’s not true!”
“Aye, it is.” I gave him a pointed look. “Do you think I cannot tell when a man is aroused?”
“I… yes. No.” His chest rose and fell as he took a deep breath, struggling for self-control. “You’re being cruel, Moirin. That’s unlike you.”
“True.” I rattled my chains with a theatrical gesture. “Today, I entertained the notion of throttling your aunt. A wolf in the wild will leave you alone. If you capture it and put it in chains, do not be surprised when it tries to bite your