Naamah's Blessing

party was assembled in preparation for departure. I had to own, they looked quite resplendent. House Shahrizai had seen to it that our fighting force was outfitted in a manner appropriate to the climate and the need for extended foot travel, and all forty of Balthasar’s hand-picked men were clad in shirts of the finest chain-mail D’Angeline smiths could forge, over which they wore suede brigandines dyed Courcel blue and studded with rivets. Steel vambraces, greaves, and conical helmets that flared to protect their necks completed their ensemble, all polished to a high shine and glittering in the bright morning sun.
    “This is going to be beastly hot,” Balthasar predicted in a dire tone, donning his own helmet.
    Bao eyed him. “Is it really necessary for the journey?”
    Balthasar buckled his chin-strap. “If we want to command respect, unfortunately, yes.”
    Bao spun his staff with obnoxious good cheer, looking cool and comfortable in light attire. “Glad I fight better without it, then!”
    “No need to gloat,” Balthasar said sourly.
    Septimus Rousse, the only other unarmored, bare-headed man in our party, oversaw the matter of unloading one pack-horse and procuring Nahuatl porters in short order, and the horse was saddled and bridled with the mayor’s borrowed tack.
    “Lady Moirin.” Porfirio Reyes took my hand and bowed, kissing it. When he straightened, his heavy-lidded eyes were grave. “I would ask you one last time not to do this thing. I do not want your death on my conscience.”
    I felt guilty at having conceived a dislike for him, for he had shown us a good deal of courtesy and generosity. I did not think he was a bad fellow—just a man, with any man’s faults and flaws. “I’m sorry, my lord mayor,” I said gently. “But I must try. Please, be assured that this is on no one’s conscience but mine. I am grateful for your assistance.”
    He released my hand. “Farewell.”
    There was a finality to the word. Like Duc Rogier de Barthelme, the mayor of Orgullo del Sol did not expect to see me alive again. To his credit, at least the latter did not welcome the prospect.
    Still, I prayed I might prove them both wrong.
    “Moirin?” Bao touched my shoulder. “Ready?” When I nodded, he cupped his hands to give me a boost into the saddle.
    Unaccustomed to being ridden, the pack-horse sidled sideways and shook his head, ears flapping in protest at the change in routine. Leaving the reins slack, I touched its thoughts with mine, soothing it. “Be still, brave heart,” I murmured in Alban, reverting to my mother-tongue for the sheer comfort of it. “I do not weigh nearly so much as the burden you were meant to carry, do I? And I am told we must command respect here, you and I.” My mount planted his hooves and shivered; and then its head came up, ears pricked, and I stroked its withers. “Well done.”
    “I’d forgotten you talked to animals, Moirin,” Balthasar remarked.
    It evoked a long-ago memory of Jehanne, posing me a similar question in a sweet, poisonous voice, long before things had changed forever between us, long before Jehanne had become my unlikely rescuer, when she’d caught me whispering to the long-legged filly that had been Prince Thierry’s gift to me.
Do bear-witches speak to animals?
    Ah, gods! Even the memories of her early unkindness hurt to remember.
    “I do,” I said in D’Angeline, echoing my long-ago reply. “It doesn’t mean they speak back to me.”
    Balthasar Shahrizai, my unlikely ally, smiled at me. “Shall we go?”
    I inclined my head to him. “By all means.”
    Thus began our journey to Tenochtitlan, the heart of the Nahuatl Empire.
    For the first two days, we marched through tropical warmth, the men complaining and sweating through the padded gambesons they wore beneath their armor, the Nahuatl porters trudging uncomplaining in simple breech-clouts with packs on their backs and tump-lines bound around their foreheads; me feeling guilty at riding while others walked, feeling guilty at reveling in the palm trees that swayed above us, dreaming their hot, languid dreams. Whether or not Bao and Septimus Rousse felt guilty in their more comfortable attire, I could not say.
    At last, the smoking White Mountain of Iztactepetl drew nearer, and we began to pass beneath its shadow, glancing apprehensively at the plume of smoke that trailed from its peak, hoping the volcano rested easy.
    For now, it did.
    On the third day, another footroad converged