“I am worried about Hasan Dar, young highness,” Bao said honestly. “But he is strong, and a fighter.” He smiled at Ravindra. “And your mother has ordered him to get well. I know he wishes to obey her.”
“Mama-ji said you saved many lives,” Ravindra said in a respectful tone.
“I tried.” Bao stretched out his hands, regarding them. “My mentor Master Lo could have done better, much better. But I did my best.”
“That is all anyone can do,” Ravindra said with dignity, his small face very serious beneath his purple turban. “I think you did very well indeed.”
Amrita gave me a sparkling sidelong glance, and I smiled back at her, thinking that these two were truly very good for one another. “Come!” She clapped her hands together. “Let us leave the horses to the stablehands and the treasure to the porters, and get everyone inside. You must all be very tired and hungry after your journey.”
To be sure, I was.
It was a relief, a blessed relief, to be back in this place where I had found sanctuary after a long ordeal; and with the shadow of the threat of Kurugiri’s assassins lifted, it truly was a place of sanctuary once more.
I didn’t know how Amrita went about settling her expanded staff within her expanded household, and I didn’t care. It was enough for now to know that she did. I trusted my golden Rani to keep her word.
In the chamber I shared with Bao, I removed the pouch containing the necklace with Kamadeva’s diamond from my pocket. It weighed heavy in my hand, singing softly to me. Although I’d thought myself jaded on treasure, this was no mortal gem. I had the urge to open the pouch and look at it once more, to gaze on the dark, shifting embers at the black diamond’s core. In Kurugiri and on the journey, there had been no time to think about it.
Now I couldn’t help but wonder how it would look around my neck, what I would be like wielding it.
“Tempted, Moirin?” Bao was watching me.
“No.” I set the pouch down quickly on a dressing table. “Just… wondering. I can’t help it.”
He came over to me. “You wonder what you would be like?” I nodded. Bao touched my cheek with his fingertips. “You would be desirable beyond bearing,” he said soberly. “You already incite powerful desire. Were you to don Kamadeva’s diamond, I think no one would be able to resist you, for the diamond would reflect your own considerable passions back at them. Men would walk through fire for the chance to touch your skin-and women, too. Men would gladly fight to the death for your favor without being asked. I daresay you couldn’t stop them from doing it. Is that what you want?”
“No!” I said. “Of course not.” And it was true, almost entirely true; but there was a tiny piece of me that said otherwise. The vanity and pride that was wounded by the fact that I had wanted Raphael de Mereliot more than he had wanted me; by the fact that I’d failed to seduce Aleksei in Vralia; even the fact that my lady Amrita had only offered herself to me out of compassion.
But I could envision the Maghuin Dhonn Herself turning away from me in reproach, Her eyes filled with immense sorrow and regret.
I sighed. “I will ask the Rani for a coffer with a strong lock, and I will put Kamadeva’s diamond in it and throw away the key. Let the priests worry about opening it when it is returned to the temple.”
Bao smiled. “I think that is wise. Such powerful objects are dangerous to mere mortals, even ones with the blood of the goddess of desire running in their veins.”
I put my arms around his neck. “Desirable beyond bearing, hmm?”
He nodded gravely, arms circling my waist. “Oh, yes.”
I kissed him. “I would like to have a bath, and a very large meal, and then I would like to sleep in a warm bed, possibly for two days straight through. After that, I would very much like to hear more about these strong desires I incite. Does that sound reasonable to you?”
“Yes, Moirin.” Bao’s dark eyes glinted, and he bent his head to return my kiss. “Very, very reasonable.”
His diadh-anam flickered against mine, gentle as a caress. Kamadeva’s diamond sang in its pouch, and somewhere the bright lady smiled.
“Oh, good,” I said with relief.
SEVENTY-SEVEN
A s it was, it took only a single night’s sleep to restore me to a semblance of normalcy; and we awoke to good news.
“Hasan Dar’s fever broke in the night,” the Rani Amrita informed us at the breakfast table, her face beaming. “His wound needs to drain yet, but the physician thinks he will recover fully.”
“That’s wonderful!” I said. “I’m so pleased to hear it, my lady.”
“Yes.” The light in her face faded a bit. “There have been far too many deaths already, eh?”
Bao heaped his plate with eggs cooked with vegetables and spices, warm flatbread, and savory fried lentil-cakes filled with pickled achar. “What of the others, highness?”
It brought back her vibrant smile. “Well, all are healing well!”
While we ate, Amrita and Ravindra told us what had transpired in our absence. It had caused a great scandal that Pradeep and the guards had transported the bodies of the fallen to the temple of funeral pyres, both their highnesses accompanying them. Although the Rani had not made a formal announcement rescinding the policy of treating no-caste persons as untouchable, the rumor was circulating, and opinion was divided.
“I have been taking counsel with priests,” she said. “Some of them are quite horrified at the prospect.”
“But not all of them,” Ravindra added. “My tutor is of the priestly caste, and he and I have been studying the sacred Vedas.” He inclined his head to me. “I think you may be right, Moirin-ji.”
I bit into a sweet, fried dumpling and swallowed. “How so, highness?” I asked.
“In the oldest of the Vedas, there is no mention of no-castes,” he said gravely. “Only the four castes. And in some places, one might almost infer that it is possible for someone born to one caste to rise to another through study, and worship, and clean and proper living. I would not dare to make such a claim, but my tutor thinks it is possible. So. That is why I think you may be right, and sometimes men have put words in the mouths of the gods, shaping the world to their liking.”
“I have been speaking with Laysa, too,” Amrita said, steepling her fingers in a mudra of contemplation. “She tells me that Sakyamuni the Enlightened One rejected the notion of caste when he founded the Path of Dharma.” She smiled in wonderment. “Although she has no formal religious training yet in this lifetime, she has carried great wisdom with her into this incarnation. She tells me she remembers hearing the Enlightened One himself speak about this matter many lifetimes ago.”
“Would you think to do the same, my lady?” I asked her. “Reject the notion of caste?”
“No.” The Rani Amrita shook her head, eardrops tinkling softly. “It is the way our world is ordered, dear one, and that is clear in the Vedas. But I am very interested in this notion that caste is not rigid and fixed, that the challenge of one’s kharma is not only to obey and endure one’s fate, but to transcend it. And I am interested in finding ways to help people do so, especially the less fortunate ones.”
“Start a school,” Bao said around a mouthful of eggs. I raised my brows at him. He swallowed hastily and wiped his mouth. “Forgive me, highness. But if you wish to lift people up, the best way is to teach them. Before I met Master Lo Feng, I knew nothing but an acrobat’s tricks and stick-fighting. He taught me to read and write, mathematics, enough of a physician’s trade to make myself useful. He taught me the path of the Way, taught me to think and reason and meditate, to focus my mind and will. I became a different person because of what Master Lo taught me.”