Naamah's Blessing

noticed two things.
    One was that the other Aragonian guards were staring at me with open lasciviousness. One of them caught my eye and made a deliberately lewd gesture, licking his lips, grabbing his crotch, and pumping his hips.
    The other was that there was a palanquin adorned with gold sitting in the square, with a sturdy Nahuatl at each corner, along with a half dozen warriors with obsidian-studded clubs and another slender fellow in an elaborately embroidered mantle and a feather headdress standing beside it.
    “What in the world passes here?” I asked no one in particular.
    “I don’t know,” Bao said through gritted teeth, jerking his chin at the Aragonian guard who’d thrust his hips at me. “But I’m ten seconds from teaching that one a lesson.”
    I was on the verge of dismounting to seek out Septimus Rousse, whom I knew spoke fluent Aragonian, when the guard who’d left returned with another fellow, a handsome man with a pointed beard who I guessed to be Commander Diego Ortiz y Ramos.
    He, too, began railing at Denis in a voluble tone, waving his arms in the air, all the while ignoring Denis’ aggrieved replies. Balthasar attempted to inject himself into the conversation, and was roundly ignored by both of them.
    I lost my temper, and loosed a shout at the top of my voice.
“Enough!”
    It rang loud enough that it startled them into silence.
    I took a deep breath. “Thank you. Now, will someone please tell me what in the seven hells this is all about?”
    The Aragonian commander spat on the ground. “Have you no shame?” he demanded in a thick accent. “And you!” He glared at Denis. “To use a woman thusly! I did not think even D’Angelines would fall so low!”
    “Commander Ortiz y Ramos is under the mistaken impression that you’re a gift for the Emperor, Moirin,” Denis said wearily.
    “What?”
I stared at him in shock. “No!”
    Diego Ortiz y Ramos pointed at the palanquin and the waiting Nahuatl. “Then why have they come to take you to him?”
    “I don’t know!” I said helplessly.
    “Why don’t we
ask
them?” Denis said in an acidic tone. “As I recall, your grasp of the Nahuatl tongue was uncertain, messire.”
    Once tempers had cooled, the matter was sorted out. It seemed our spotted warrior friend Temilotzin had indeed spoken favorably of our encounter to the Emperor’s chief advisor, who in turn had reported it to Emperor Achcuatli himself. The tale of a D’Angeline noblewoman in Terra Nova had piqued the Emperor’s curiosity. Without bothering to wait for a request, he’d sent Lord Cuixtli—that was the slender fellow waiting beside the palanquin, who explained the matter to Denis with an air of bored patience—to invite us to the palace for an audience.
    “And the Emperor understands that I’m
not
a—a tribute-gift of some kind?” I was anxious to make that point perfectly clear.
    Denis conferred with Lord Cuixtli. “Yes, of course,” he reported. “That’s why he sent the palanquin as a gesture of honor.”
    I sighed with relief, and offered a slight bow to the Nahuatl lord. “
Tlazocamatli
, Cuixtli.”
    He inclined his head in reply.
    Grateful though I was, after ten days on the road, I’d vastly preferto meet the Emperor after a bath and a good night’s rest. Not trusting my tentative skills in the Nahuatl tongue, I asked Denis to ask Lord Cuixtli if it would give offense if I asked for a day’s grace, adding assurances that I would hasten to accept the Emperor’s generous offer if it would.
    The Nahuatl lord considered the request, his face impassive, at length giving his reply.
    “He says it would not give offense,” Denis translated. He gave Diego Ortiz y Ramos an uneasy glance. “If anyone has given offense here today, it is the Aragonians. Lord Cuixtli will return tomorrow two hours after dawn to escort you and five men of your choosing to the palace.”
    I thanked him again, and he gave me a faint smile, flicking his fingers toward his brow and chest in a casual approximation of the salute the spotted warrior Temilotzin had offered me. At a gesture, the warriors fell in line and bearers picked up the empty palanquin and began trotting toward the gates after him.
    “Well, then,” Balthasar Shahrizai drawled. “Now that
that’s
over, may I present Lady Moirin mac Fainche to you, Messire Ortiz y Ramos? As well as her
husband
, the esteemed Messire Bao?”
    The Aragonian commander had the decency to look abashed. “Forgive me,