Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [94]
Unlike my stubborn magpie, who had once posed rather unconvincingly as a travelling monk sworn to celibacy, I thought Aleksei would make a good priest… if he were ever to free himself from the shackles of the Church of Yeshua Ascendant and its harsh strictures and embrace the kinder tenets Rebbe Avraham had espoused, as he so clearly longed to do in his heart of hearts.
He liked the role of teacher, and he was good at it. When I pleaded with him, he relented and began teaching me a few words of Vralian along with the Yeshuite scriptures. When I escaped, I meant to vanish into the twilight and stay there as long as possible, but there might be times when I would need to communicate.
But Aleksei listened, too. True to my word, I told him the tale of Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève and her quest to find the Name of God. Fascinated and horrified, he hung on my every word. He thought about it for days, although the things he pondered were often issues that never would have occurred to me.
“This lost tribe, the Tribe of Dân. Did they embrace Yeshua as the mashiach once they learned of him?” he inquired.
“The mashiach?”
“The Anointed One,” he clarified. I had learned that along with the D’Angeline tongue Aleksei had learned that he might one day use to convert us all, he spoke and read fluent Habiru.
“No, I don’t think so.” I knew only a little about the matter, having overheard discussions among members of the Circle of Shalomon regarding various Habiru scholars.
Aleksei looked astonished. “Why ever not?”
I shrugged. “I think they believe the true mash… Anointed One is yet to come.”
He couldn’t stop gaping. Clearly, the notion rocked the foundations of his world. As intelligent and well studied as he was, he had led an extremely insular life.
“The world is a vast place, Aleksei,” I said softly. “I know you are very sure that your God is the One True God, but… I do not believe it. If there is a truth beyond all other truths, I think Master Lo has the right of it. The Way that can be told is not the eternal Way. It comes before all else, and everything comes from it. Even gods.”
Aleksei shook his head at me. “You are a heretic!”
“To you, aye.” Deciding it had been too long since I’d seen his blush, I gave him a wicked smile, letting it linger on my lips. “But decidedly not a saint.”
His color rose; but he’d found his own ways of dealing with me. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “If you bait me, I will not teach you Vralian, Moirin.”
“Oh, fine.” I let my smile fade.
“Anyway, I am not so sure,” Aleksei said unexpectedly, once again taking the conversation in a direction I couldn’t have anticipated. He bowed his head, his tawny hair falling over his brow, bronze locks shot through with gold. I longed to run my fingers through it. “I wonder… I wonder, why has God sent you to tempt me? Surely, you have suffered in the bargain. Are you my heretic saint? What am I meant to learn from this?”
“I don’t know,” I murmured.
“It is hard, so hard,” he said, more to himself than to me. “I wish I knew.”
I did, too.
And because I had come to care for Aleksei, compassionate, damaged soul that he was, I wished I could comfort him. I wanted to go to him, put my arms around him, offer the solace of human warmth and kindness.
I didn’t dare.
He might have accepted it—might have. Or he might have pushed me away and fled, fearful that I meant to seduce him. The stakes were too high, and I was too afraid. So I remained where I was and stifled my urge to give comfort, reckoning it was but one more casualty in the ongoing war for my soul.
THIRTY-FOUR
Beneath the Patriarch’s stern gaze, I dipped my brush in the lye bucket and scrubbed the last square of my penance.
“Yeshua the Anointed, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
It was done, twice over. Over the course of weeks and months, I had finished one complete circuit and begun anew.
Now that was done, too.
I clambered wearily to my feet, my stiff back and bruised knees protesting. “Again, my lord?”
“No.” Pyotr Rostov placed both hands on my shoulders.