Naamah's Blessing

tell you is that if I had to make the choice over, knowing what would come to pass, in sorrow and grief, I would choose as I did.”
    Wordlessly, the King bent to kiss my brow, then straightened. “Would it please you to meet her?” he asked. “Jehanne’s daughter?”
    “Aye, my lord. Very much so.”
    The King’s gaze drifted onto the distance. “I do not see her as often as I ought,” he murmured, half to himself. “I should. But it is… painful.” I waited in silence, not knowing what to say, until his gaze returned, and he beckoned to the royal steward. “Messire Lambert will escort you to the nursery. It is what Jehanne would have wished. Later, mayhap, we will talk.”
    I curtsied in the D’Angeline manner. “My thanks, my lord.”
    “Moirin.” After I thought myself dismissed and had turned to follow the steward, the King’s deep voice called me back. With considerable effort, he summoned another weary smile. “I am glad you are here.”
    My eyes stung, and my
diadh-anam
gave an unexpected flicker of agreement hinting at the presence of destiny’s call. “So am I.”

SIX

    W hat do you suppose it means?” Bao asked as we followed Messire Lambert, the royal steward.
    I didn’t have to ask what he meant; Bao had felt the spark of our shared
diadh-anam
quicken as surely as I had. “I don’t know.”
    “Do you ever?” he asked.
    “Seldom precisely.” I smiled ruefully. “The Maghuin Dhonn Herself may guide us in certain directions, but She leaves us to make our own choices. Especially the difficult ones.”
    “I don’t see a choice here,” Bao remarked. “Difficult or otherwise.”
    “Not yet,” I agreed.
    We climbed the wide, winding staircase to the second floor and followed the steward down the hall. Outside the door of a corner chamber, Messire Lambert hesitated. Beyond the door came the sound of women’s voices raised in frantic pleading.
    “Wait here, please,” the steward said to us before knocking.
    The door opened a crack, and a woman with a pretty, harried face peered out, her eyes widening at the sight of the steward in the livery of House Courcel. “Oh, messire! Tell me his majesty’s not sent for her!”
    “No, no,” he assured her. “But his majesty sends visitors. Lady Moirin mac Fainche, and Messire… Bao.”
    Her eyes widened further, showing the whites. “Jehanne’s
witch
?”
    The steward cleared his throat. “As I said, Lady Moirin and her husband.”
    The young woman shuddered. “Elua have mercy! All right, all right, messire. Give us a moment.”
    She closed the door behind her. Sounds of a heated argument interspersed with urgent pleas ensued. Bao raised his brows at me. I shrugged in reply. The royal steward looked profoundly uncomfortable.
    “Oh, let them in!” a second woman’s voice said in frustration, loud enough to be heard clearly through the door. “If the Queen’s witch can lay a spell on the child before she breaks her stubborn neck, so much the better!”
    “Fine!”
    The door was flung open wide. The young woman dropped a curtsy, her face flushed. “Welcome, my lady, my lord.” She made a sweeping gesture. “Forgive us. Her young highness is as you find her.”
    I entered the nursery chamber, and caught my breath.
    It was a pleasant, sunlit chamber with a canopied bed set into the near wall. Against the far wall stood an array of ornately painted cubes filled with cunningly made toys and dolls. Atop a dangerous perch on the highest cube sat a girl of some three years of age, kicking her heels and giggling.
    Jehanne’s daughter.
    Belatedly, it struck me that that was what King Daniel had called her—Jehanne’s daughter, as though she were not his own, too.
    Gazing at her, I understood why. Desirée de la Courcel was her mother in miniature, a picture of gossamer beauty. A thin white shift adorned her small figure, leaving her arms and legs bare, skin so fair the pale blue tracery of her veins showed through it. Her pink lips formed a perfect bow. Her white-blonde hair curled in soft ringlets, haloing her head. Her eyes were Jehanne’s eyes, an ethereal blue-grey.
    And ah, gods! How they sparkled.
    It wasn’t just the resemblance; it was Jehanne’s mercurial spirit that shone forth from her, delighting so shamelessly in her own misbehavior that one could not help but be charmed by it. At least, I couldn’t.
    My heart contracted sharply. Beside me, Bao chuckled.
    Desirée stopped giggling and contemplated us.
    I bowed