Naamah's Blessing

they torment the little ones before death so that their tears dampen the earth; and that is but one of the gods they worship.” He shook his head. “No, no. You’ll find nothing to love about them. They’re a barbaric folk, in some ways scarce better than animals.”
    Clearing his throat, Balthasar changed the subject. “If I may return to the matter at hand, we’re most grateful for your counsel, my lord mayor. But if the Emperor did not see fit to appoint the Dauphin a guide, what makes you think he’ll grant our request?”
    The mayor laced his hands over his belly. “Because thanks to me, you know to ask for it. And you’re not here to upset the balance of order, are you?”
    “No,” I murmured. “Only to attempt to find Prince Thierry and the others, I swear it.”
    “Listen, my lords, my lady.” There was sympathy in Porfirio’s drooping gaze. “I spoke truly when I said it was a sad tale. No one wanted your Dauphin and his men to meet a foul end. We hoped only that the rigors of the jungle would dissuade them, that they would accept defeat, turn back, and abandon the notion of encroaching on Aragonia’s claim here. If I’d known what would happen, I would have turned him away here.”
    Bao stirred. “Why didn’t you?”
    He smiled wryly. “I didn’t want to provoke a diplomatic incident; and quite frankly, our garrison here wasn’t yet fully staffed. If the Dauphin had refused my order, I doubt I could have enforced it.”
    “Pity,” Balthasar said. “It would have saved a lot of trouble.”
    “Indeed.” Porfirio Reyes lifted his brandy glass and drank the last of its contents, then rose and patted his belly before giving us a sweeping bow. “And now I shall bid you good evening, my lady, my lords, and retire.”
    All of us took his cue. In the room Bao and I shared, both of us gazed at the wide-seeming bed with its comfortable pallet and clean linens.
    “Do you…?” Bao asked uncertainly.
    I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I’ve lost my appetite for lovemaking tonight.”
    “Oh, good,” he said with relief, taking a seat on the bed and prying off his boots. “Never thought I’d say
that
.”
    I sat beside him. “It’s a lot to stomach.”
    “It is.” Bao put his arm around my shoulders and kissed my temple with uncommon tenderness. “Let’s just get some sleep, huh? We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”
    It was sound advice, but sleep evaded me. Bao… Bao could sleep anywhere, no matter what the circumstances. I lay on the bed in the sheltering curve of his arm, trying to take comfort in his deep, even breathing, trying to dispel the images of bloodstained temples and crying children that haunted me.
    A stone face and a stone heart
.
    You’ll find little to love in the Nahuatl…
    Mayhap it would prove true, but I’d found little to love in the Aragonians in Terra Nova thus far, too.
    The killing pox…
    I remembered summoning the fallen spirit Marbas with the Circle of Shalomon. While they had bartered in vain with a spirit who had appeared in the form of a lion, under no obligation to answer as a human, I had spoken to him in the twilight.
    Among the many gifts Marbas could bestow was the cure for any disease. I had begged him to relent and give one to Raphael de Mereliot.
    The lion’s eyes had glowed.
It’s not so simple
, he had told me.
To learn the charm to cure, you must learn the charm to cause. Leprosy, typhoid, pneumonia, plague… I can teach you to invoke and banish any one of these. Would you possess such knowledge? Would you put it into
their
hands?
    I had refused.
    That, no one knew. I’d never told anyone. But after tonight’s conversation with Mayor Porfirio Reyes, I was convinced that that was one of the wiser decisions I’d made in my young life. Even without a fallen spirit’s charm to invoke, the Aragonians would have gladly seen the vast majority of the population of the Nahuatl Empire wiped from the face of the earth by the killing pox.
    And it was a piece of irony that even without Marbas’ gift, Raphael de Mereliot had spared the Nahuatl from that fate.
    A small part of me that had once loved Raphael was glad for his sake.
    I hoped he was, too.

THIRTY-FIVE

    C ome morning, we broke our fast with the mayor of Orgullo del Sol, dining once more in the courtyard on fresh fruit, eggs topped with a spicy sauce, and more of the flatbread Porfirio Reyes told us was made from a grain called
maize
. It was the staple item of the Nahuatl