Naamah's Blessing

yes?”
    Ah, gods!
    Whatever Raphael had said to her, for a mercy, she hadn’t understood it. There was naught but a scared child’s innocence in the question, enough so that it made my heart ache for the girl. She was so very, very young. Maybe fifteen, no older than sixteen. Too young for whatever was being asked of her.
    “Would it make you less afraid?” I asked gently.
    Cusi nodded wordlessly.
    I sat on the feather pallet and patted it. “Come.”
    The simple comfort of human contact is a thing that transcends all boundaries. Beneath the woven blanket, Cusi burrowed against me, hiding her face against my shoulder. I put one arm around her and breathed the Breath of Ocean’s Rolling Waves, slow and deep, until I felt her own breath deepen into sleep and her body slacken.
    I lay awake.
    “What is the secret of the ancestors?” I asked the darkness. “What does it have to do with Bao? And why is Cusi afraid when she was not before?”
    In her sleep, Cusi whimpered.
    I stroked her hair. “Hush,” I whispered. “Hush, and sleep.”
    She did.
    In time, I did, too.

FIFTY-NINE

    I awoke to an empty bed.
    I found Cusi in the courtyard, tending to the ants. She had a pair of good-sized lizards in a basket. While I watched, she slit each one’s belly with a little bronze knife, carefully laying their still-twitching bodies amidst the swarming ants. Within a matter of seconds, both lizards were stripped to the bone.
    Cusi gave me an apologetic look. “It is not nice to see. I try to do while you sleep.”
    “It’s all right,” I assured her. “Lord Pachacuti told me that they prefer flesh.”
    “Yes.” She closed the empty basket. “It make them strong.”
    In the daylight, she no longer looked so frightened, but there were dark circles below her eyes, and it seemed to me that a shadow hung over her. I tapped my lips with one finger, considering her.
    “Why do you look at me so?” Cusi asked.
    “I am wishing you would tell me what frightens you,” I said.
    She looked away. “I cannot.”
    “Ever?”
    Her haunted gaze came back to me. “It is not for me to say.”
    “Forgive me,” I said to her. “I will stop asking. After I break my fast, I would like to visit my men again. Will you come or would you rather not?”
    “I will come.” She gave me another apologetic look. “You know I listen for Lord Pachacuti?”
    “I know,” I said. “You are in his service. I understand this, Cusi. You are only doing as he asks.” I smiled wryly. “And Lord Pachacuti tells me nothing I say matters. I think it pleases him to watch me scuttle around like one of his ants.”
    She shook her head. “That is not true.”
    “I have known him for many years,” I said. “Even before he was given a gift by the bad spirits. There is a streak of cruelty in him.”
    “Not that,” Cusi said. “The other thing.”
    With that, her face took on a shuttered look, and I did not press her. If I understood aright, she was denying that nothing I said mattered. All the more reason to choose my words with care.
    Upon reaching the field where our captive men labored, I received a piece of unwelcome news.
    “Your Nahuatl have deserted us,” Thierry informed me grimly. “They’ve entered Raphael’s service.”
    “
Both
of them?” It didn’t surprise me that Eyahue would do such a thing; the old
pochteca
was nothing if not an opportunist. It was a part of what had brought him such success as a trader. But Temilotzin’s desertion stung. I’d thought our Jaguar Knight would prove more loyal.
    “I’m afraid so, my lady,” Balthasar confirmed. He pointed toward a row of distant huts. “Along with that damned
cinchona
bark, we had a few sacks of trade goods, beads and mirrors, that de Mereliot didn’t bother to confiscate. That old rascal purloined everything but the bark. I daresay he means to use them for bribes.”
    “Aye, and trade them for the sacred herb of emperors if he can,” I muttered. “But why Temilotzin?”
    Bao dusted dirt from his hands. “He said such work was beneath a warrior’s honor, Moirin. That if there is fighting to do, that is where he belongs.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I know you harbored a fondness for him. And I do believe he waited to see if Raphael wouldhonor your request to allow his highness to leave. If he had, he would have accompanied your prince. But in truth, Temilotzin has no cause to care who wins the battle for Tawantinsuyo.”
    I thought of my vision.