Naamah's Blessing

been
too
long. And I am curious. I was very good once, you know.”
    “I know.” I smiled. “I’ve seen it.”
    Bao scoffed. “You’ve seen me perform tricks to amuse children, Moirin. Not
art
.”
    “It is not the art you chose to pursue, my magpie,” I said mildly.
    “True,” he admitted. “But I was good at it.”
    I did not doubt it, having never known Bao to boast in vain. At the age of three, his family had sold him to a travelling circus, where he trained and performed as an acrobat. At the age of thirteen, he decided he wanted to learn the art of stick-fighting instead. It was a matter of desire and pride—and there was a girl involved, too.
    He had asked Brother Thunder, the troupe’s best stick-fighter, to teach him. And Brother Thunder had agreed… for a price.
    I remembered Bao telling me about it on the greatship to Ch’in, naked in the bed we had just shared, his arms folded behind his head.
    So I ask and he say, you be my peach-bottom boy, I teach you
.
    Bao had agreed.
    He’d spent two years as Brother Thunder’s reluctant catamite,learning to fight. At the end of two years, he defeated his mentor. The fellow’s daughter, the girl in question, was angry at him for besting her father. She refused to honor her promise to run away with Bao.
    So he ran away alone, all the way to Shuntian, where he fought his way to becoming the leader of an unscrupulous group of thugs—until a young lad came asking to be taught.
    Bao had offered him the same bargain.
    The boy had agreed.
    And Bao had walked away from the bargain he had struck, walked away from the life he had built for himself. He had accepted an offer he had mocked only days before, and became Master Lo Feng’s magpie, setting him on the wandering course across the world that had brought us together.
    “Here we are!” our little attendant said cheerfully, opening the door onto the rear entrance of a theater. Beyond the door, one could hear the thuds and grunts and shouted comments of tumblers at practice.
    “You’re sure?” I asked.
    “Yes, Moirin.” Bao gave me an affectionate look. “I am sure, and I am grateful for your concern.”
    It was a vast space, filled with the various apparatuses of the tumblers’ art. There were trapezes hung from the rafters, and a high rope stretched across the vaulted ceiling. The floor was covered with mats of coarse fabric stuffed with chaff, dotted here and there with springboards.
    “Messire Bao!” Antoine nó Eglantine dropped from a hanging trapeze with a flip and a flourish. He bowed, his face flushed. “Lady Moirin! Congratulations. We heard the news.”
    “Already?” I asked in dismay.
    “His majesty issued a proclamation at noon,” he informed me.
    “Ah.”
    There must have been a dozen lithe adepts at practice, swinging from the trapezes, flinging themselves into space and catching oneanother; springing from the boards to deliver intricate flips and somersaults, forming human pyramids, walking the high rope, toeing the line, and putting one careful foot in front of the next.
    Antoine ran a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. “So, messire! What do you think?”
    “They’re very skilled,” Bao said, watching them with a practiced eye.
    “I am glad you think so.” Antoine offered a polite bow. “Do you suppose you have aught to teach us? Exotic secrets from faraway Ch’in?”
    “I might.” He glanced around the stage, taking stock of the equipment and props. “I don’t see any balancing poles.”
    “Gervaise is using one now,” Antoine said with a bewildered look, nodding at an adept crossing the high rope, holding a supple staff before him to aid in keeping his balance.
    Bao shook his head. “Not that kind. The kind you balance
on
.” He held his hands apart, then widened them. “So high to so high, with a small platform on one end.”
    The adept looked no less confused. “How does one use them?”
    “I will try to show you.” Bao unlashed his staff from across his back. “This is not right for it,” he said. “Too high, no platform. And I have not done it for a long time. But I will try to show you what I mean.” Planting the butt end of his staff at an angle, he grasped the top and vaulted into the air. How he did it, I couldn’t say, but he managed to stop the vault at its apex.
    The staff stood upright, wavering and bending. With careful precision, Bao kept his right hand atop it, extending his other limbs in a graceful pose in mid-air.
    A soft