Naamah's Blessing

to her in the Bhodistani fashion, my palms pressed together. “Well met, young highness.”
    “Who are you?” Her childish voice was high and clear.
    I shifted my hands into a calming
mudra
that Amrita had taught me, steepling my middle fingers. “Come down and find out.”
    “No.” Considering it, she shook her head. “I don’t want to.”
    “Well, then, you will have to wonder,” I said.
    Behind us, the nursemaids whispered while the steward questioned them in a frantic hiss, wondering how the child had gotten up there in the first place. It seemed she had climbed the staggered blocks one by one, and refused to come down.
    “She’s uncommonly agile for her age!” the older nursemaid said in an aggrieved tone. “And uncommonly precocious!”
    I ignored them.
    Bao whistled through his teeth, inspecting the toys stored in the hollow cubes. “Look at this, Moirin,” he said cheerfully, showing me a miniature carriage. “The doors open, and the wheels turn.”
    “That’s
mine
!” Desirée said with a flash of temper.
    He glanced up at her. “But you’re not playing with it.”
    “It’s
mine
!” Her perfect pink lips formed a pout. Bao shrugged and put the toy back.
    “Your mother used to pout when she didn’t get her way,” I informed her. “But even she admitted that it was tiresome.”
    Her fair brows knit. “You knew my mother?”
    I nodded. “Very well.”
    “I’m coming down,” Desirée announced, beginning a precarious descent.
    Both nursemaids rushed forward to aid her.
    “Don’t,” I murmured under my breath. “She’s Jehanne’s daughter; she thrives on drama of her own creation. Don’t encourage her. It’s all right. Bao will catch her if she falls.”
    She didn’t.
    Once she reached the floor safely, her nursemaids descended on her, chastising her, hastening to get her clothed in a miniature satingown stiff with elaborate beadwork. Desirée bore it with surprising patience, all the while keeping her eye on Bao and me.
    “I am being good now,” she said when her nursemaids had finished with her. “Now you have to tell me.”
    “Moirin.” I knelt to sit on my heels opposite her. “That is my name, young highness.”
    She tilted her head. “And him?”
    Bao threw a standing somersault, drawing startled squeals from the nursemaids, landing and settling to sit cross-legged in one fluid movement. “Bao.”
    “Bao?” Desirée mimicked his inflection exactly, capturing the rising and falling tone with a child’s careless ease.
    He grinned. “Uh-huh.”
    She studied him. “Why do your eyes look so funny?”
    “Mine?” Bao touched the outer corners of his almond-shaped eyes. “I am from Ch’in, young highness. This is how we look. There,
you
would be funny-looking.” Dragging down his underlids, he widened his eyes. “Round eyes!” Making a beak with forefinger and thumb, he touched his nose. “A big nose, like a bird.” Stretching out one arm, he compared his tawny-brown skin to hers. “And so pale! In Ch’in they would ask, what happened? Did someone leave you in the bath too long, so all your color faded away?”
    Desirée giggled. “That’s silly!”
    “I suppose it is,” he agreed gravely.
    I could sense the royal steward hovering behind us, and turned to him. “Please, do not wait on us, Messire Lambert. I know my way around the Palace. Tell his majesty I am at his disposal whenever he pleases. We’ll be some while making her young highness’ acquaintance. If that’s all right?” I added with an inquiring glance at her nursemaids.
    The younger glanced at the older, who shrugged. “After you coaxed her down from yon perch? Take all the time you like, my lady! I don’t care if it
is
magic.”
    I smiled. “No magic. She’s got her mother’s temperament. I knew it well, once.”
    The royal steward departed with a relieved bow, and the younger nursemaid left to bid the princess’ tutor to delay the morning’s lesson.
    “Do you like your tutor?” I asked the child. “What do you study together?”
    “Manners and counting and singing,” she answered obediently. “And I am learning my letters. Nurse says I am too little for letters, but mademoiselle says she could read whole books by the time she was four.” She considered. “Most of the time, she is nice.”
    “Only most?”
    Desirée looked down, plucking at the beaded hem of her gown. “Not when I am naughty.” She looked back up at me, her expression achingly candid and