Naamah's Kiss - Jacqueline Carey [180]
"She never see jade eyes," he said to me. "She ask if it a witch-sign."
"No, of course not." I frowned. "They were docked in Marsilikos for days. Surely they saw other D'Angelines."
He shook his head. "Not close. They stay on the ship."
I stared at him. "After six months at sea, travelling all that way, they never left the ship? Are you jesting?"
"No." Another head-shake. "They here for the soldiers." He grinned. "Mostly." The women conferred, then the bold one—Suyin, I thought—addressed Bao again. Whatever she said made him chuckle. "She say you almost beautiful for a foreigner," he told me. "If you like, she can help. She shave you eyebrows and show you how to paint them like a willow leaf. Lend you cream to make your skin white. Make you beautiful like a Ch'in woman."
I glanced at Suyin, who smiled and bobbed her head, gesturing helpfully at her white-painted face etched with eyebrows as fine and narrow as the blade of a willow leaf. It had a certain haunting charm, but it wasn't a look I was eager to embrace. "Ahhh…"
"What?" Bao asked me, his eyes glinting. "You not want to look like a bald egg with a face painted on it?"
I flushed. "Not especially, no."
He laughed. "I thank her for you anyway."
Nonetheless, the meeting marked a threshold of sorts. I left it pleased by the warmth that the women had shown me—and they seemed to find me less alarming. I practiced the Ch'in that Bao taught me daily and began to pick up an odd word of different dialects here and there. I kept mainly to my cabin and our deck, but the soldiers and sailors I encountered appeared more comfortable in my presence. They came to consult with Master Lo Feng on matters of health and he treated many of them for ailments and minor injuries. I tended to his snowdrop bulbs, coaxing along their faint song.
We sailed.
And sailed.
My ability to speak the Shuntian tongue improved. My mastery of the Five Styles increased. Betimes I visited with Suyin and Mei and a few of the other women, communicating with gestures and broken phrases when Bao wasn't on hand to interpret. Mostly, he was. The women enjoyed his company, and I gathered from their demeanor that his prowess with a staff had other implications. I gathered, too, that Bao had a reputation of his own that owed naught to being Master Lo's magpie; but on that topic, he remained close-mouthed.
I had to own, it intrigued me. Ever since the day I'd first seen him fight, I'd looked at him differently. But despite having teased me earlier about falling in love with him, on the ship, he treated me with a friendly diffidence that began to irk me.
If it hadn't been for Master Lo Feng's tonic, that might not have changed.
By my reckoning, we'd been almost three months at sea when Master Lo asked us to sample a decoction he had rendered from the dried and powdered bulb of a Camaeline snowdrop. Bao and I were sitting on our straw mats on the sun-warmed deck, anticipating a lesson in the Five Styles.
"You are skilled enough to practice this discipline on your own," he said in his serene manner, pouring liquid from a flask into tiny porcelain cups and extending them to us. "All ways lead to the Way. Now drink."
Bao drank without question and set down his empty cup.
I took a sip.
At first, it was bitter, with none of the headiness of the joie I'd tasted on the Longest Night. But the taste changed in my mouth. It unfurled inside me, turning to something deep and rich, at once earthy and sharp-edged.
I gasped, and drank the rest.
"Very tonic." Master Lo's eyes twinkled. "Good for stimulating the blood. I will leave now. Tell me if you experience increased vigor."
Beyond the ship's ornate railings, the changeless sea rolled past us, waves peaking and sparkling in the sunlight. The air was warm, and yet I tasted mountain air. High places, cold places. The bulbs buried in a pot in my cabin sang. My skin prickled, drinking in the sunlight and craving more. Touch, sensation. The golden spiral of Naamah's gift rose from my core, awoken from slumber. All at once I felt hot and cold, my heart