“She liked it that way,” he said eventually.
“Jagrati?” I asked softly. Bao nodded, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “Was it terrible there?”
“No,” he said after another long silence. “Or maybe it was. I don’t know how to talk about it. I was in a terrible place inside myself while I was there, thinking you were dead, thinking I had only myself to blame for it.” He shrugged. “It was a strange place. So much opulence, so much stolen treasure, hidden away in a stark fortress. Between her spell and the opium, it seems like a fever-dream now.”
“How did you get there?” I wanted to keep him talking.
“There’s a cauldron that hangs on a chain and a winch from a plateau above the trail,” Bao said. “I heard about it during my journey there. I petitioned Tarik Khaga to take me into his service. A day later, someone came to blindfold me and lead me through the maze. I thought…..” He shrugged again. “There is a kind of honor among thieves and thugs when it comes to the rules of combat. I thought perhaps there was among assassins, too. When I was granted an audience, I said I had come to claim you. I offered to fight any man among them for the right to take you away with me.” He gave me a sidelong look. “Stupid plan, huh?”
“Better than none,” I said. “So Jagrati ensorceled you instead?”
Bao shook his head. “Not right away, no. My story, our story….. it wasn’t what she expected. It intrigued her. She’s the one who rules Kurugiri, you know. Not him.”
“I know,” I said. “I saw.”
“So.” He blew out his breath. “No one had ever attempted to rescue someone they had taken before. She thought it was a piece of irony that the only living soul to do so had come on a fool’s errand. She wanted me to know it. She let me search to my heart’s content, questioning anyone I liked. She even gave me access to the harem. And there was no trace of you anywhere. By the end of the first day, I knew it must be true. The Great Khan had killed you, and sent me away in vain.”
I stroked Bao’s arm, not knowing what to say.
He glanced at the vivid zig-zag markings on his skin. “Then she unveiled Kamadeva’s diamond. I didn’t even care by that time. I was drowning in despair. Might as well drown in false desire and opium instead. And there were fights there, lots of fights. It suited my mood. I’d lost Master Lo, and then I’d lost you. The only two people I ever truly loved. I’d died a hero, and wasted the life that was given back to me on stupid choices. Running away from you, marrying Erdene. I didn’t care if I got killed again.”
I took a long, deep breath. “I am very, very glad that you weren’t.”
“Me too.” Bao fell quiet once more.
I waited a while before prompting him. “So the Falconer’s assassins quarrel amongst themselves?”
“Not exactly.” The muscle in his jaw twitched again. “Sometimes Jagrati would choose a favorite and keep him for days on end. Other times, she liked for us to fight for the honor of her favors. To the death, if she was in a foul mood.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say about that, either.
“I don’t know how long I’d been there when I felt something change,” Bao mused, touching his chest. “You, your spark was back, only it was all tangled with opium dreams and the spell of that cursed diamond, and I didn’t know what to believe.”
I nodded. “I felt the same way the other day.”
“You understand, then.” He looked relieved. “Jagrati does not like to lose what is hers. I do not know if she suspected the truth, but she set out to convince me that it must be a lie of some foul magic. And….. I believed it. Because I was so very sure you were dead, and it had been so very long.” Bao shook his head. “When I died, even though it was only minutes or hours, it seemed to me that days passed in Fengdu, in the spirit world. You had been gone for months. Whatever had come back, it couldn’t be Moirin. The other day in the meadow, I would gladly have killed the thing wearing your face.”
I shuddered. “And I am very, very glad that you didn’t.”
Bao shuddered, too. “So am I. I am quite sure it would have driven me mad. But….. then I began to doubt.” He touched his chest again. “Your spark, I’d felt it calling to mine in the meadow. I had to know the truth. And the rest, you know.” He turned to regard me, a rare vulnerability behind his eyes. “Do you hate me for it?”
“No,” I murmured. “Of course not! You crossed the Abode of the Gods to find me, you dared the Falcon in his eyrie and the Spider Queen in her lair. It wasn’t your fault it was all a lie. As for the rest…..” I smiled ruefully. “You saw how vulnerable I was to Kamadeva’s diamond. How can I blame you?”
“Well.” Bao smiled a little. “Desire. It is a particular weakness of yours, Moirin.” He laid one hand on my cheek, cupping it. “And a particular strength, too.”
I leaned upward to kiss his lips in reply, softly, lightly. It felt like enough for now. Enough to feel his diadh-anam entwine blissfully with mine. Naamah’s gift did not often counsel patience, but in these days, it did. The shadow of the Spider Queen lay between us, and there was too much yet to be done.
“So.” Bao cleared his throat. “Shall we speak of your royal lady? I must admit, I’d rather.”
“It’s not what you think,” I said to him.
The acerbic glint returned to his eyes, familiar and welcome. “It seems I’ve heard those words before. Only this time, there isn’t a dragon to blame.”
“No.” I traced my finger down the strong column of his throat, letting my fingertip rest in the hollow, feeling the sturdy beat of his pulse. “But there is a diamond, which left me much disturbed; and my lady Amrita does not like to see anyone suffer. Out of the goodness of her heart, she has shown me many kindnesses.” I kissed him again. “That was one of them.”
“The Rani must care for you very much to have endured such a hardship,” Bao said in a grave tone.
I thumped his chest with the heel of my hand. “You are insufferable!”
He laughed; and I could not help but be glad, dizzyingly glad, that despite everything that had happened, despite everything that had befallen us, despite the dangers and challenges we yet faced, laughter endured.
I had a feeling there would be precious little of it in the days to come.
SIXTY-SEVEN
I was right.
The next gambit from Kurugiri came sooner than expected, and it drove any thought of laughter or levity far, far from anyone’s mind.
We were in another interminable counsel session in which no progress was made and everyone was miserable and frustrated. The problem of Kamadeva’s diamond remained. Our young strategist Ravindra pushed chess pieces fruitlessly around the board. Hasan Dar pored over the maps he had drawn based on Bao’s information—a fairly detailed map of the path and an outline of the fortress itself. Having exhausted his stores of knowledge, Bao had little left to offer. Amrita was quiet and worried, and I daresay I was much the same.
For a brief moment, it was almost a relief when one of the guardsmen interrupted the meeting.
“Hasan-ji,” he said tentatively to his commander. “You said to report anything strange?”
The commander’s handsome head came up. “Yes?”
“It is the night-soil collectors,” the guard said in an apologetic tone. “The bucket-men. I am quite sure six came at dawn, but it seems to me only five have departed.” He shrugged. “It has been some time now.”
Bao tensed. “That is not good,” he said quietly to Hasan Dar. “It is how Jagrati stole Kamadeva’s diamond from the temple in the first place. It is a ploy any man serving her might use. Usually you pay no attention to those you deem beneath notice. One is now loose in the palace.”
Hasan Dar swore and pounded the table with his fist, jarring Ravindra’s chess pieces out of place. “In broad light of day again! Damn them. Go.” He pointed at Bao. “Take the Rani and her son and your dakini to the hidden room.” His voice turned grim. “Guard them well while we search. You seem to have a knack for it.”
Bao inclined his head, no words of assent needed. We fled, Hasan Dar uttering curt orders behind us.
The concealed doorway to the hidden room was located on a landing between the first and second floors of the palace. At night, it was guarded discreetly from above and below. During the day, it was guarded not at all, the better to protect its secret. Since he had saved my lady Amrita from the poisoner, Bao had been entrusted with the secret of the hidden room. Other than Bao and me, only the guards and the Rani’s most trusted attendants knew of its existence.
Even so, I felt the space between my shoulder blades itch and tingle at the thought of an assassin loose in the palace.
Bao drew back the tapestry of the goddess Durga riding a tiger, throwing open the hidden doorway. “Go quick! Hurry, hurry!”
Amrita went first, towing a stumbling Ravindra behind her. I followed them into the steep, narrow stairway. Behind me, Bao closed the door and shot the bolt, following close on my heels. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Safe, I thought.
This time I was wrong.
In the forest, in the green, wild spaces I knew so well, I might have sensed the fellow awaiting us, sensed his presence, sensed his intention. Not here, where my senses were confounded by thick marble and man-made space. Trapped in the stairwell, I couldn’t even see.
All I heard was my lady Amrita’s gasp as the assassin fell on her. One gasp, quickly choked.
Ahead of me, Ravindra.
Acting on panicked instinct, I drew a deep breath into my lungs, summoning the twilight with it. I blew it out, wrapping it around the boy and myself.
I don’t think Ravindra even noticed. Without hesitation, the boy gave a piercing shout and flung himself against the man attempting to garrote his mother, a cord wrapped tight around her throat and throttling her. Ravindra sank his teeth into the assassin’s hand, biting him hard and deep.
Bao had said it felt like being touched by a ghost. I could not imagine what it felt like to be bitten by one.
The assassin howled, dropping his garrote and glancing around in terror.
Scrambling out of the stairwell, I expanded my cloak of twilight and swirled it around Amrita, and the assassin released her with an involuntary hiss.
“Moirin!” Bao shouted behind me. “Get them out of the way, get them safe!”
“Come, come, come!” I whispered urgently, tugging them both to the farthest corner of the small room. Ravindra was trembling with a mix of fear and fury, and Amrita with shock, touching her abraded throat. I wrapped my arms around them both, praying I could keep them safe in the twilight, praying Bao could protect us all. In the twilight, I could actually sense the presence of Kamadeva’s diamond in the distance as though it were another kind of diadh-anam, a god’s bright spirit turned to malevolent purpose.
Bao sidled warily into the room, his staff held in a defensive pose; and that alone told me his opponent was good.
“Traitor!” The fellow spat on the ground. He had regained his composure in remarkable time. “I should have killed you in Kurugiri.” His hands snatched at his belt, and in the blink of an eye, he had throwing knives fanned like playing cards in his left hand, and one poised to throw in his right. The blades twinkled like stars in the twilight. He bared his teeth in a smile. “I’ll enjoy doing it now.”
“You think so?” Bao feinted at him.
A flurry of glittering blades flew from the assassin’s hands, one after another, quicker than the eye could follow. Bao’s staff whirled, making the air whistle, and then he hurled himself sideways out of the knives’ path in a horizontal spinning move that didn’t seem humanly possible, landing with his battle-grin in place.
“Got more?” he asked insolently.
Unfortunately, the assassin did. He flicked a blade low, forcing Bao to parry it awkwardly, and then flicked another blade high at his unguarded face.
Amrita gave a low cry of dismay, and I tightened my arms around her and her son, fearing for all of us.
But Bao was already in motion, flinging himself backward onto the floor and rolling in a somersault. Instead of coming up into a fighting stance, he stayed in a low crouch, his staff sweeping along the floor to strike hard at the assassin’s ankles while another flurry of blades flew harmlessly over his head to clatter against the wall.
The blow didn’t knock the fellow off his feet, but it staggered him; and in a heartbeat, Bao was up. The fellow caught himself before Bao could strike, a lone throwing knife held up in warning.
“Heh.” Bao’s grin widened. “Last one, huh?”
“Maybe.” The assassin’s hand went to his belt again, scattering a handful of bright, sharp objects on the floor.
Bao glanced down and swore, then glanced up in time to jerk out of the way of the last blade as it flew through the air. For a moment, the men regarded each other. I didn’t know what history lay between them, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. “You’re done,” Bao said simply, shifting his staff into an offensive pose.
Without a word, the assassin turned and dashed for the balcony.
And the purpose of the objects he’d thrown came clear as Bao went after him. They were shaped like a child’s jack-toys, only larger, with long, wickedly sharp tines, forcing Bao to kick them out of the way or suffer a punctured foot. They didn’t delay him long, but it was enough time for the fellow to gain the balcony and vault over it. In the garden far below, monkeys shrieked and chattered. Bao peered over the railing.