Naamah's Blessing
Page 41

His allies murmured in agreement, and others looked uncertain.
“Don’t let him get the upper hand, my lady,” Septimus Rousse murmured in my ear. “If you do, he’ll never relinquish it.”
Bao nodded. “He’s right, Moirin.”
I took a deep breath. “My lord Guillard speaks the truth! I don’t know where we’re bound. The task is harder, and the journey longer, than I knew.”
“That is not what I had in mind,” Bao muttered.
I ignored him. “But I do know that Thierry de la Courcel lives, and I know it is my oath-sworn duty to attempt to rescue him.” The spark of my diadh-anam blazed steadily in my breast, lending me strength. I pointed at Alain Guillard. “You volunteered for this, my lord. All of you did. You begged for the chance to accompany us. Will you turn back now, just because it is hard?”
A few men chuckled.
Alain glared at me. “Do you think it is easy for one of Azza’s scions to admit he made a mistake?”
“No,” I said softly. “I don’t.” I glanced at the D’Angeline dead lined up beside the open grave, at Clemente DuBois, his slit throat gaping, his empty blue eyes gazing at the sky. He would never make another nervous jest.
Stooping beside his body, I closed his eyelids gently.
I straightened. “If anyone wishes to turn back, now is the time,” I announced. “My lord Guillard is right. In a few days’ march, you may return to the protection of Emperor Achcuatli’s realm.” I glanced at Arnaud Latrelle with his arm in a splint, and Gregoire d’Arnes, the fellow with the broken clavicle. To be sure, there was no point in their continuing onward. “You can escort the injured to safety. You can carry word to the crew of Naamah’s Dove in Orgullo del Sol that the journey to Tawantinsuyo is harder and longer than we knew, and order them to wait for us. I will not compel anyone to accompany this expedition. But I mean to press onward. I mean to find Prince Thierry, and restore him to the throne of Terre d’Ange as the rightful heir to his father’s realm.”
At that, there were cheers, and a few murmurs of dissent.
I ignored the latter. “Who is with me?”
As it transpired, quite a few—but not all. We lost Alain Guillard and two out of his three allies. The third, a fair-haired young man named Mathieu de Montague, changed his mind.
“Will you trust me to address them, my lady?” Balthasar asked me discreetly.
I nodded. “Of course.”
“D’Angelines!” Balthasar got their attention in a ringing tone. “All of you who are hale and unharmed, think well before you make your final choice here.” He locked gazes with Alain Guillard, contempt creeping into his voice. “Will Azza’s famous pride allow you to sleep at night knowing yourself a coward and a quitter, Alain?”
The fellow reddened, but did not reply.
Balthasar turned to Mathieu de Montague. “And you, Messire de Montague! Do you imagine you can have another change of heart at the next skirmish?” He shook his head. “Don’t. Lady Moirin is overly generous. She is in command of this expedition, but I am in command of you.” He glanced around at all the men. “I will not attempt to gainsay her generous offer, but I will say this. It will not be repeated. Make your choices here and now. From this day forward, anyone who argues for turning back will be considered guilty of fomenting mutiny!” His voice hardened. “Is that clear?”
There were nods all around.
“See, Moirin?” Bao said to me. “That’s what they needed to hear.”
“I suspect they needed to hear both things,” Septimus Rousse said diplomatically. “Commanding men unwilling to serve is a dangerous business.” He nodded toward the picket-line. “That is a lesson we may take from Pochotl’s betrayal.”
And a bitter lesson it was, too.
Once the matter of rebellion was settled, we buried our dead. Each of the slain men was wrapped in a cloak and lowered into the grave as gently as possible.
I’d witnessed battles and tended to the dead before. In Kurugiri, Bao and I had been the only ones willing to handle the corpse of Jagrati the Spider Queen, winding her into a shroud to lend a measure of dignity to her death. But I’d never been responsible for the actual burial of the dead.
There was a terrible finality to it. Once the last body had been lowered into the grave, we stood about uncertainly. I did not know the protocol for such matters, but I suspected I knew who did.
“My lord captain,” I addressed Septimus Rousse. “Would you be willing to offer an invocation?”
He inclined his head to me. “Of course.” He knelt to gather a handful of loose soil, then rose and stretched out his closed fist, holding it over the grave. “Today we bid farewell to six dear companions,” Septimus said in a firm, steady voice. “They perished in pursuit of a noble cause. May they pass through the bright gate into the Terre d’Ange-that-lies-beyond, and may Blessed Elua and his Companions receive them gladly.” Opening his hand, he let the soil trickle into the grave. “Blessed Elua hold and keep you.” He nodded at Balthasar. “Will you commence the speaking of their names, my lord?”
Balthasar stepped forward to gather a fistful of soil. “Clemente DuBois,” he murmured. “You were the most annoying companion with whom I’ve ever shared a living space. Now I will miss your dreadful jests.”
There was a brief, shocked silence; and then men laughed and groaned in rueful acknowledgment. With a quiet smile, Balthasar sprinkled dirt on the grave.
Another fellow came forward. “Richard de Laroche,” he said in a ragged tone. “You were a good man and a good friend to me. I promise not to tell your mother that you died because you couldn’t manage to buckle your helmet properly.”
One by one, others came forward.
All the dead were named, all were acknowledged with a last tribute and a fond jest. When it was done, the mounds of dirt painstakingly hewed from the plain were shoveled by hand into the grave and tamped into place.
And then there was nothing left to do but carry onward. Men with damaged gear sorted through the armor and weapons of the slain, replacing pieces as needed. Septimus Rousse outfitted himself with a full set of gear. Bao declined an opportunity to do the same.
“You might at least consider a helmet,” I said to him.
He shrugged. “It does not suit the style of a stick-fighter. The weight would unbalance me. Besides, I have a very hard head, Moirin.”
I eyed him. “The gods know that’s true.”
In accordance with our plan, all the unclaimed armor and weapons were loaded onto a pair of pack-horses and carried half a league downstream to be dumped into the deepest part of the river. Temilotzin and Eyahue regarded this development with obvious regret, but neither of them spoke against it.
Despite Balthasar Shahrizai’s speech, there had been no shifting in the lines of rebellion that had been drawn. Alain Guillard and his two allies remained firm in their resolve to turn back. Our injured fighters raised no protest. Although they were not happy about the prospect, they recognized their limitations. And having relocated his courage, Mathieu de Montague remained desperately adamant that he would not lose it a second time.
I could not help but pity the lad, who was another of the youngest members of our party.
“There’s no shame in it,” I said gently to him. “A warrior’s path is not for everyone.”
Young Mathieu flushed, the blood creeping in a crimson tide beneath his alabaster skin. “Do you think me unworthy, my lady?”
“No!”
“Moirin, don’t coddle him,” Balthasar said in passing, slapping the lad on the back. “You’ll do, won’t you?”
“I will!” the lad said fiercely.
“That’s the spirit,” Balthasar noted with approval. “Remember, if I can do this, anyone can.”
Keeping a sharp eye on the distant mountain-top settlement of the Cloud People, our fighting men at last allowed themselves to wash the dried gore of battle and the dirt of its aftermath from their skin in the river.
I consulted with the knowledgeable Septimus Rousse and the pochteca Eyahue regarding what we could spare from our goods to aid those turning back toward the Nahuatl Empire in their journey.
Some hours past noon, we parted ways. It might have been wiser to wait, but no one wanted to linger on the plain beneath the shadow of the Cloud People’s mountain where their dead awaited retrieval.
I’d allotted one pack-horse, a sack of ground maize and a quarterfull sack of cacao beans to our rebels, reckoning it generous.
“You needn’t do this, my lady,” Alain Guillard said in a stony voice, not meeting my gaze. “We’ll find a way to manage.”
“I am not doing it for you,” I said calmly, nodding toward the injured men. “I am doing it for them.”
He said nothing.
And so we parted, trudging across the plain in opposite directions.
Terra Nova stretched endlessly before us.
FORTY-SIX
For many days afterward, our company was on edge, nerves raw and frayed. We took it as a matter of faith that we remained on the trail of Prince Thierry’s expedition. We posted shifts of multiple sentries at night and avoided settlements of the Cloud People whenever possible.
But it seemed Eyahue was right. There were no further attacks. And bit by bit, we began to relax. Grumbling over the rigors of the journey, which had abated in the wake of the battle and subsequent rebellion, resumed. It seemed to be of a harmless nature, and I was content to let the men complain.
We’d been so long on the road, I almost didn’t believe Eyahue when he announced we had reached the isthmus that connected the northern land-mass of Terra Nova to its southern counterpart. But several days onward, our trail ascended into a forested mountain range, following along the shoulder of a long, winding spine that snaked southward.
And when we scaled the first peak, we caught a glimpse of the sea—not the sea we had crossed on our journey to Terra Nova, which lay to the east of us, but a vast, uncharted sea to the west.
All of us stared at it in awe.
“Name of Elua!” Balthasar murmured. “What do you suppose lies on the other side of it?”
“We can’t confirm it without navigating it,” Septimus Rousse said. “But if the theories are correct, I’d say Messire Bao’s homeland.”
Pointing to the highest peak some leagues ahead of us, Eyahue informed us that if we were to climb to the very top, we would see both the eastern and western seas from its heights.
Septimus’ eyes gleamed. “I’d like to see that! Is there perchance a river that connects the two?”
Eyahue shook his head when the question was translated for him. “No. Many rivers, yes, but not one such as that.”
“A pity,” Septimus said with disappointment. “One could sail all the way around the world if there were.”
Denis de Toluard unbuckled his helmet and removed it to ruffle his sweat-damp hair. “Waterways can be built,” he said thoughtfully. “Look at what the Nahuatl accomplished with canals in Tenochtitlan, or the Caerdicci in La Serenissima. If the isthmus is as narrow as Eyahue says, it might be possible to devise one using existing rivers.”
The two men exchanged a glance.
“It would be a mighty endeavor,” Septimus mused.
“Aye, and it’s an endeavor for another day,” I said firmly. “If we live through this, you can plan it.”
It was a lush land, and a sparsely inhabited one. There were no great settlements, only small villages along the way whose denizens appeared peaceable and regarded us with wonder and curiosity.
Eyahue assured us with disdain that they were beneath a pochteca’s notice and had nothing worth trading for save food goods. They spoke myriad dialects, of which he spoke but a smattering. Whenever he was able to question villagers regarding a party of white-faced strangers passing through before us, he received blank looks and head-shakes in reply.
“Do not worry.” Eyahue patted my hand after the third such failed attempt. “It is likely that they took a different route thinking it would be easier to travel through the lowlands. They were wrong. That is why you are lucky to have me.”
I prayed he was right.
There was abundant animal life in the unpopulated areas between villages, and thanks to the absence of human predators, they were quite fearless. On several occasions, I was able to procure deer with very little effort, although I could not help but feel a pang of guilt shooting creatures that stared at me with the same mild wonder as the villagers. Temilotzin, who had equal success with his throwing spear, laughed at my discomfort.
At length, our path descended from the shoulder of the mountain range into the dense lowland jungles.
“The worst is ahead of us,” Eyahue announced. He pointed south. “This jungle is not so bad. But in two, three days, we will reach the swamp. That will be bad.”
It was.
I didn’t mind the jungle. It was hot and dense, and I felt awful for the men laboring in their armor, but it was beautiful, too. We travelled along narrow footpaths through the thick greenery. Here, we began to see the flowers of surpassing beauty that Denis had mentioned so long ago—an incredible array of orchids that sprouted from the trunks of living trees or rose defiantly from the decay of fallen trunks, ladders of delicate blossoms nodding on long, slender stems, impossibly lovely.
Iridescent emerald hummingbirds darted here and there amidst the blossoms, their wings a buzzing blur. Monkeys chattered at us from the trees, and birds with dazzling plumage took flight with raucous cries.
“It reminds me of Bhaktipur,” Bao said to me.