Naamah's Kiss - Jacqueline Carey [119]
I fidgeted. "Even if doing so might result in great good?"
He looked troubled. "I am reluctant to disagree. You did a very good thing helping that young man's leg to heal, and Raphael tells me you helped him save a man's life. But I am reluctant to agree. Nothing good comes of going against nature."
"It's only for a little while," I assured him.
Master Lo Feng sighed. "I am an old man and you are something new under the sun. Who am I to advise you?" Bao snorted. His mentor ignored him and waved one hand at me. "Go, and come again tomorrow."
It was two weeks before the Circle of Shalomon met to make another attempt. I had a lesson with Master Lo Feng every day, concentrating on the three Styles of Breathing I had learned thus far and beginning to learn to alternate between them. It would get harder, he said, when I attempted to master and incorporate the last two.
For his part, Raphael alternated, too—alternated between being attentive to me and answering Queen Jehanne's summons.
At least for the first week.
The second was another matter.
I knew that he'd been with her, because I could smell her on him— her perfume and her. And I knew that they'd quarrelled because he was storming around the townhouse in a towering fury.
"What is it?" I asked him.
Raphael turned a glowering stare on me. "Nothing that concerns you, Moirin."
"Oh, of course not," I said wryly. "Why ever would it?"
He flung himself onto a couch, blew out his breath, and stared at the ceiling. "She asked me to give you up."
I felt an obscure pang of betrayal. "Why? I mean, why now?"
"Because there are rumors about the Circle and your involvement in it," he said grimly. "Because nothing, no matter how significant, is ever allowed to be more important than Jehanne. She's testing me."
"Does she know about the Circle?" I asked.
Raphael made an ambiguous gesture. "Not exactly. She knows I have certain esoteric interests."
I bit my tongue on a few hundred questions and picked one. "What do you mean to do?"
"What?" He gave me a startled look. "Name of Elua! I'm not letting you go, if that's what you're asking. That's why I said it's nothing to do with you. No, no. We've quarrelled before and we'll quarrel again. Jehanne needs to know I'll not be led around like a bull with a ring in its nose. I'll make it up to her in the usual way." He swung his feet off the couch. "I'm off to the jeweler's to commission a suitable gift."
He sent her a choker of pale blue topaz.
Two days later, I saw it in the Hall of Games, where Prince Thierry was teaching me to throw dice. Jehanne strolled through with an entourage in tow.
I hadn't seen her since the day of the hunting party. And before that…
My skin got hot all over again.
"Lady Moirin." The Queen paused beside our table. She held a little silken-haired dog in her arms. It wore a choker of pale blue topaz around its neck, echoing the hue of her eyes. Her gaze rested briefly on me. Whatever it held, it was more complicated than simple jealousy and animosity. "I see you're being corrupted. Do you enjoy games of chance?"
"Oh," I said uncomfortably. "Only a bit, your majesty."
Thierry gave her a brittle smile. "Do you mean to take a turn, Jehanne? If so, put up a stake."
"Why not?" She unlatched her lap-dog's choker and tossed it atop a pile of coins on the table. "Marcel?" She beckoned to one of the courtiers attending her. "Throw for me, will you?"
He threw two sixes and a five.
Neither Thierry nor I came close.
"Bad luck." Jehanne smiled sweetly as her courtier swept up her winnings—and then her smile faded, leaving that complicated something in its wake. "You're looking a bit peaked, Moirin. You oughtn't play games you're bound to lose."
"Can we not—" I began.
She shifted her lap-dog into the crook of one arm and touched my face, her fingertips lingering. "Think on it." I flushed, and Jehanne patted my cheek. "Anon."
Well and so, that was that encounter. What it meant, I couldn't say. Only that Jehanne had lost none