Naamah's Blessing

green seedlings emerged from the earth, unfurling leaves and tendrils, I breathed the Breath of Wind’s Sigh and the Breath of Embers Glowing, welcoming them to the open sky and the sun’s warm kiss.
    I do not know how many days it lasted, or how many leagues Iwalked amidst the fields, following furrow after furrow. I felt weightless and insubstantial, suspended between sky and earth.
    There was day and night, the fields and seedlings, and nothingness. But the crops grew. They quickened. The Quechua farmers tended them assiduously, weeding the fields and nurturing the growing plants.
    Betimes the Maidens of the Sun walked the fields with me, adding their prayers to the gods of Tawantinsuyo. In the palace, Machasu fussed over me, insisting that I ate every night before I slept. Betimes I suspected her of giving me her share of whatever food there was, but she denied it indignantly, and I was too tired and hungry to argue.
    Always, I had Bao at my side, a constant and reassuring presence, his
diadh-anam
burning steadily when mine guttered low. Others accompanied us in shifts: Thierry and Balthasar and Septimus Rousse, and Jean Grenville and Brice de Bretel, who sang L’Agnacite hymns I found soothing. The Jaguar Knight Temilotzin, who watched me like a worried hawk, as quick as Bao to lend a shoulder when I faltered.
    And the crops grew.
    Seedlings thickened into stalks, sprouting arching plumes of leaves. Knee-high, then waist-high, then taller than my head. I walked between row after row, letting my trailing hands touch the leaves. The stalks sprouted buds of tasseled flowers that grew, thickening and lengthening. In the potato fields, the tendrils turned to vines and issued broad leaves, then white and lavender blossoms.
    I summoned the twilight and breathed life into them. The flowers expended themselves, withering and dying on the vine.
    I thought of the skulls in the
tzompantli
in the city of Tenochtitlan, and the poem the Nahuatl Emperor had recited to me.
    I thought of Cusi, and petals falling like rain.
    And the crops grew and grew.
    Until the day when I rose at dawn and walked out to the fields as I had done so many times before, and found them thronged with Quechua workers, hundreds upon hundreds of them, busy hands plucking and digging. All I could do was blink, uncomprehending.
    “What are they doing?” My voice sounded hoarse with disuse. I tried to remember the last time I’d spoken, and couldn’t. It had been days.
    “They’re harvesting,” Bao said in wonder. Loosing a victorious shout, he turned to me with a fierce grin, a grin I’d feared I might never see again. “They’re
harvesting
, Moirin!” Laying his hands on my shoulders, he gave me a little shake. “You did it!”
    I felt bewildered. “I did?”
    Bao cupped my face in his hands and gave me a resounding kiss. “Aye, Moirin. You did.”
    “He is right, little warrior,” Temilotzin added. “You have won this battle.”
    I looked.
    It was true. Even as I looked, a woman with a friendly, careworn face, some Quechua farmer’s wife, approached us, a pair of young children following in her wake as she traversed the field. She held an ear of
maize
in her hands, cradling it like an offering.
    “See,” she said reverently, peeling back the limp silken tassels and the coarse, pale green leaves to reveal rows of healthy kernels. “It is ripe!”
    My knees gave way, so swiftly neither Bao nor Temilotzin caught me before I sank to the earth. “Oh…!”
    The Quechua woman smiled. “This is for you, lady.” She pressed the ear of
maize
into my hands, patting them gently. In the manner of children everywhere, her toddlers peered at me around her skirt, their eyes wide and bright with a mixture of wariness and curiosity. “You have caused this to happen, and I come to give it to you. It is the first fruit of the harvest, and you should have it.”
    “Sulpayki,”
I whispered, clutching her offering. “Thank you.”
    Her smile broadened, revealing unexpected dimples that tugged at my heart. “
Imamanta
,” she replied. “You are welcome.”
    Now it was truly done.

SEVENTY-FOUR

    Q usqu would survive.
    There was a feast that evening, and it was a joyous thing to see the streets of the splendid city filled with folk celebrating the harvest. Exhausted as I was, the sight gladdened my heart, and I felt stronger for it.
    A good deal of negotiating had transpired while I walked the fields in a waking daze. Counting on my success,