Naamah's Blessing

as a tragic romance, thedoomed expedition led by a woman from across the sea, who left behind the Emperor to lay flowers on Xochiquetzal’s altar in vain.
    And back in Terre d’Ange, my name would become a hallmark for folly, the half-breed bear-witch whose pride and arrogance compounded the realm’s grief.
    I prayed to Blessed Elua and his Companions, and to the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, that it would not be so.
    The first weeks of our journey were easy enough as such things go. We were within the confines of the Nahuatl Empire. Achcuatli had sent out runners carrying word that we were under his protection, and no one troubled us. While one could not exactly say Balthasar and his recruits were inured to the hardship of marching beneath the hot sun in chain-mail and brigandines, they bore it more easily. As soon as we were out of sight of Tenochtitlan, I’d dismounted and taken to walking like the others, reckoning sharing the hardship was the least I could do. I’d done my part to command respect, and my mount was better used carrying supplies and trade goods, which we redistributed accordingly.
    Every few days, we came across inns catering to the large parties of
pochtecas
, where we were able to refresh ourselves with baths and skillfully cooked meals. Septimus Rousse, who had served as a galley-cook as a lad, had taken on himself the duty of overseeing the preparation of meals in the field, but many of the ingredients in the stores we’d bartered for were unfamiliar to him. His overgenerous use of dried chiles to flavor the
maize
porridge he made had my eyes watering more than once.
    As an added benefit, we were able to inquire if anyone remembered a party of fair-skinned strangers from across the sea passing through over a year ago. More often than not, we were able to confirm that we were still on the trail of Prince Thierry’s expedition, something that heartened all of us and made the following day’s journey easier to bear.
    And at the first inn we visited, I introduced Bao to the pleasure of the
temazcalli
, the Nahuatl steam-bath.
    It had the purgative effect I’d hoped for. Although I knew Bao had spoken truly when he said he was not angry at me, I knew he was angry nonetheless, and matters had been uneasy between us since he’d struck Diego Ortiz y Ramos.
    There in the
temazcalli
, the tension melted away. We sat cross-legged and side by side on the stone ledge, wreathed in steam, breathing it deep into our lungs, sweat streaming down our naked bodies.
    When Bao glanced sidelong at me through the steam, there was a familiar gleam in his eyes. “You look… slippery.”
    I eyed him, noting his phallus was hard and erect, curving toward the shining trail of sweat trickling down his flat, lean-muscled belly. “You look… interested.”
    “Did you do this with
him
?” he asked. “In the steam-bath?”
    I shook my head. “No.”
    Bao smiled, unfolding his legs. “Good.”
    And it was good; slippery and awkward and good. The hard stone of the ledge dug into my knees as I straddled him, my hair falling from its lover’s-haste knot in damp tendrils that clung to my cheeks. Bao braced me as we kissed, his hands firm on my hips, our tongues dueling. Skin slid against sweat-slick skin as I reached down and fitted his phallus to me, sinking onto him, leaning against him to press my breasts against the hard plane of his chest, clinging to his shoulders, rising and falling to impale myself on him amidst the clouds of steam.
    Whether or not our Nahuatl innkeepers knew and were scandalized, I never knew. If they were, they did not say.
    Afterward, things were easier between us. An unspoken accord had been reached, and I felt lighter in my heart for it.
    As our unlikely caravan journeyed farther and farther southward, all of us came to know one another better.
    Eyahue, our senior
pochteca
, was unexpectedly garrulous for a Nahuatl, telling long, rambling tales of heroic trade expeditions he’d undertaken during his younger days. Due to his missing teeth, his diction was imperfect and I often had a difficult time understanding him,but the Jaguar Knight Temilotzin found his tales worthy of thigh-slapping hilarity, roaring with laughter. Bit by bit, I came to gather that Eyahue had ventured into the river-laced jungles of Tawantinsuyo in pursuit of various herbs that could be obtained nowhere else, the specific details of which the old fellow was cagey about revealing.
    “All you need to find is your