“Thank you,” Jehanne whispered, and kissed me, first with infinite tenderness, and then with all the sweetness of desire, her tongue darting past my lips, the scent of night-blooming flowers and her all around us. Ah, gods! I had missed her so very much, and I wanted her so very badly. Sighing with pleasure, I unfastened the brooch on her ermine-collared cloak and let it fall to the ground, laying the graceful white lines of her throat and shoulders bare so I might kiss them, taste her silken skin-

And I awoke with a jolt in darkness.

My heart contracted painfully in my chest, a profound sense of loss growing so acute that an involuntary cry escaped me.

Startled out of a sound sleep, Bao scrambled wildly out of bed, reaching for his staff. “What is it?” he asked fiercely. “Moirin! What?”

An unreasoning wave of panic overcame me, words spilling out of my mouth. “Bao, I can’t marry you! I can’t! I’m not… I’m not a wife-type person! I love you, I do, but I can’t promise to love you and you alone for the rest of my life! That’s like… like asking me to love autumn, but not spring and summer! Or trees, but not flowers!”

Having determined we were in no immediate danger, Bao kindled a lamp and gazed at me with sleepy bewilderment. “Trees? Flowers? What in the world are you talking about?”

“You! Me! Us! Marriage!” I shook my head frantically. “I can’t do it, Bao! I can’t. I’m sorry! I may be many things, but I’m not an oath-breaker!”

He knelt on the bed and took my shoulders in his hands. “Moirin, calm down!”

“I can’t!”

“You can.” Bao gave me a gentle shake. “Calm down and breathe, you crazy woman, and tell me what this is about.”

It helped. I forced myself to breathe slowly, my thudding heart and racing pulse easing. “I dreamed of Jehanne.”

He looked confused. “Was it a bad dream?”

“No.” I flushed. “Not exactly. She wanted me to promise my marriage changed nothing between us. And… I did. I promised I would never say no to her. I… um, very much began to say yes instead.”

Bao’s expression turned grave. “It was only a dream, Moirin. I know you loved her, and a part of your heart will always be hers. But your Jehanne is no longer with us.”

“I know!” Tears spilled from my eyes, and I wiped impatiently at them. “But I wanted her-”

“Moirin,” Bao interrupted me. “I am not stupid, you know. I know you. I do not suppose I’m wedding some dull merchant’s daughter. I do not expect you to become a respectable matron. I am not asking you to swear any oath you cannot keep.” He shrugged, sitting on his heels and laying his hands on his thighs. “For whatever reason, the gods have joined us together, and I cannot imagine living without you. Can you?”

“No,” I murmured. “But-”

“But what?” He smiled a little. “Tomorrow, a dragon may decide to claim you as his mate. Or maybe your goddess Naamah will decide you need to seduce some spineless Yeshuite boy for his own good. I know this; and I am not afraid. It does not lessen what we are together, you and I. And since the gods have seen fit to join us, it is my thought that we should ask their blessing on our union. Is that so terrible?”

“No,” I admitted.

“I will not press you if you do not wish it,” Bao said. “Only know I do not expect you to be anyone but who you are.”

“And that is enough?” I asked uncertainly.

He laughed. “You crossed the Abode of the Gods and rescued me from the Spider Queen, Moirin. Yes. It is more than enough.”

My panic faded. “Aleksei was not spineless, you know,” I said to him. “He was a gentle soul, that’s all.”

Bao scoffed. “Oh, please! His mother had to convince him to free you.”

“He was very tall, with very broad shoulders,” I added. “And eyes the color of rain-washed flowers the name of which I only know in Alban.”

He smiled complacently at me. “Now you are only trying to make me jealous.”

“It’s not working very well, is it?” I observed.

“No.” Bao shook his head, the gold hoops in his earlobes glinting. “Because your spineless Yeshuite boy is a thousand leagues away, and I am here. If I were going to be jealous, I would begin with our beautiful Rani, who is much closer and a much greater threat.” He gave me another complacent smile. “Lucky for me, she does not share your unusual passions. Or at least not much, anyway. She is very fond of you.”

I gazed at Bao, at his still-sleepy face, unexpectedly beautiful. At the tousled shock of his hair, his corded forearms braced against his thighs, the stark zig-zag pattern of tattoos running down them. “So you still want to wed me?”

“Yes.”

I reached out and touched one of the gold hoops in his ears. “Why did you keep them? As a reminder of her?”

“Jagrati?” Bao stretched out his arms, regarding his tattoos. “No. I already have a reminder that cannot be removed.” Reaching up, he fingered one thick hoop. “These, I couldn’t figure out how to unfasten.”

I laughed.

This time, it was a healing laughter; and mayhap the laughter in my dream had been, too. Love as thou wilt, Blessed Elua had bade his people-my father’s people, and my people, too. I was a child of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, and a daughter of Naamah, too. I had loved, and loved well.

Jehanne; always Jehanne. But so many others, too. Last and always, my great-hearted bad boy Bao, gazing at me with a quizzical look.

“Do you hate them?” he asked, touching his earlobes. “I will rip them out if you do.”

I shook my head. “Let them stay. Now that I know, I do not mind.”

Leaning over, Bao blew out the lamp. “Then let us sleep, Moirin, and be at peace with each other.”

SEVENTY-NINE

Once Hasan Dar was on his feet again, the Rani Amrita began to implement a plan of change.

She made a round of the temples, performing the offering rituals and prayers as we had done when I first arrived, only this time, she also announced her intention at each temple to revoke the unwritten laws regarding the untouchables within a month’s time.

Although they had been forewarned, some of the priests were indeed horrified that she meant to go through with it.

“You would profane the temple with unclean persons?” one grey-bearded fellow asked in shock. “Let them lay hands on the Shiva Lingam itself?” He shuddered. “No, no, no, highness! You are a woman, and not of the priestly caste. You do not understand what you do.”

“I beg to differ, brother.” Ravindra’s tutor, who was known as Guru-ji and whose beard was whiter than the priest’s, addressed him politely. “Her highness understands it very well, and I am in agreement that it is restoring a lost tradition. I will gladly sit with you and discuss the oldest of the Vedas.”

“But they are unclean!” the priest protested, ignoring his offer. “Highness, I beg you, do not do this thing!”

Amrita’s hands were posed in a mudra of respect, but her face was calm and determined, and Hasan Dar and her guards stood behind her, hands on their sword-hilts. “Forgive me, Baba, but I am doing it.”

He bowed his head in dismay. “You would seek to bend the will of the gods at the point of a sword?”

“No,” the Rani said firmly. “But it is my true belief that the gods have revealed their will to me, and I will see it enforced. I will allow no bloodshed, but anyone who refuses to honor my edict will be banished.”

Not all of the priests were as resistant. The Rani Amrita had done what no ruler of Bhaktipur had accomplished in generations. She had defeated the Falconer of Kurugiri; and, too, she had retrieved Kamadeva’s diamond from the Spider Queen Jagrati. Clearly, the gods favored her.

So it was that some priests listened to her, listened to Guru-ji’s calm arguments and heeded them, while others continued to protest.