Naamah's Blessing

matters at hand.”
    “Yes, there are.” Lianne resumed her seat, regarding me with a critical eye. “And I’ve a few thoughts on them, starting with your attire.”
    I ran a fold of my gold-embroidered orange sari through my fingers. “Too exotic?”
    “Too foreign,” she said bluntly. “To be sure, I suspect we’ll see the influence emerge in the next season’s fashions, but in the meanwhile, you ought to pay a visit to the couturiere.”
    I nodded in understanding. “I’ve not had time, that’s all.”
    “Make time, you and your husband both. And this business ofyour living at the Temple of Naamah…” Lianne shook her head. “It’s not good. It suggests you’re merely seeking sanctuary along the way. Folk in the City need to have the sense that your presence here is more permanent. I understand that your… your
diadh-anam
may send you elsewhere, but you can’t afford to maintain the appearance of some pair of romantic vagabonds.”
    “The Royal Minister offered us a suite at the Palace,” I noted.
    “I suggest you accept the offer.”
    “All right.” It would evoke painful memories, but it was a small sacrifice to make if it rendered this process more acceptable, and kept any hint of the politics involved far, far from Desirée’s notice. “What else?”
    Her topaz eyes glinted. “Antoine nó Eglantine promises that the performance will be a great spectacle. The royal theater holds only so many seats, and every peer in the City will be clamoring for one whether they support you or not. I’d advise his majesty to reserve a block of seats to be allotted to the commonfolk, awarded by lottery. They’ll adore the gesture.”
    “That’s a good thought,” I said.
    “I’ve a cunning mind,” Lianne said unapologetically. “Be grateful I’m putting it at your service.”
    “I am.” I glanced at the window. “I should leave; the morning’s passing. Thank you for your counsel.”
    “Thank you for your candor.” She paused. “The tale you told me, your adventure in Ch’in, the princess and the dragon, the Divine Thunder… Moirin, tell me. How much of it was true?”
    I rose. “All of it.”
    Her mouth twisted. “I feared as much.”
    “Feared?” I echoed curiously.
    “I’m envious.” She gave another shrug. “ ’Tis a poet’s curse to live in placid times.”
    “Do you think so?” I asked. “The Ch’in have a saying that speaks to it. That it is better to be a dog during peacetime than a man during a time of chaos.” I gazed at her clever, sharp-featured face, feelinga memory not my own surface in my thoughts: a young Lianne Tremaine, no more than a child of nine or ten years, huddled over a rough-hewn plank by the light of a single guttering candle, scrawling urgently on it with a hunk of charcoal while an unseen woman’s voice harangued her. I felt the yearning in the child—a yearning for greatness, for an opportunity for glory beyond what her meager life afforded her.
    Lianne turned away. “Don’t
do
that!”
    “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Truly, my lady! I cannot help it. It comes upon me unbidden.”
    When she glanced back at me, unshed tears glittered in her eyes, and I understood that despite her penitence, Lianne Tremaine would always hunger, always yearn. And that she would always hate me a little bit for having lived through events she longed to have witnessed.
    If she had, I thought, she would feel differently.
    It was one thing to hear tell of the weapons of Divine Thunder. It was another thing to have ridden across that battlefield, to see our brave, good-hearted comrade Tortoise jouncing in the saddle, one hand clinging to the pommel, the other clutching his reins, his face terrified but determined as he rode to the aid of the dragon-maddened princess.
    To hear the weapons cough and boom, to feel the acrid wind pass overhead…
    To see the smoking crater where Tortoise had been…
    What Lianne saw in my face, I could not say. “I don’t—” She broke off her thought, clearing her throat. “You should go, Moirin. We’ve work to do, you and I. Best we get to it. I’ve poems to write—better poems, gods willing. And you’ve much to do in a month’s time.”
    I bowed in the Ch’in manner, hand over fist. “Aye, my lady. I’m sorry.”
    She scowled at me. “For what?”
    I didn’t answer.
    “Oh, go!” Lianne’s scowl deepened. “Go! Don’t stand there being all polite and obsequious and… and gods-sodding
understanding
.I