It was exactly as Manil Datar had said.
I frowned, thinking. “I’ve seen the paths up the mountain to Kurugiri. It is a maze, yes, but there are only so many ways. Why not…?” I didn’t know the word for blockade. “Put men there so no one can come or go? Would they not starve, and…?” I didn’t know the word for surrender, either. “Do as you say?”
The Rani Amrita shook her head gently, the filigreed gem on her brow swaying. “You cannot see it from below, but there is a valley in Kurugiri. Not so green and good as Bhaktipur, no. It is higher, much higher. But enough grows there that they would not starve, and they raise yaks.”
“So they do as they wish?” I asked, frustrated. “Take what they wish? Who they wish?”
“Yes,” she said simply. “Here and there, the falcon takes a few lambs. Such is the cost of living. The shepherd dare not abandon his flock to the wolves in order to seek the falcon’s lair; and I am the shepherd here. I am sorry, but I have no aid to give you.”
“Why did he not take you?” I flushed. “Forgive me, highness. That is not a nice question. But he wanted you. I try to understand, only. He killed your husband. And you are still very beautiful. How did it go?”
Amrita was silent a moment. “There is a hidden room in the palace,” she said presently. “A hidden room with a hidden passage. My lord Chakresh Sukhyhim, who was my husband, knew the risks of bringing a young bride to this place. He hid me, and hid me well, choosing to face the assassins himself. Alas, his men were unable to protect him. Afterward…” Her shoulders rose and fell. “I was widowed and with child. That is displeasing to Tarik Khaga, and he no longer wanted me.”
“Oh,” I said.
We gazed at one another.
“Are you really a dakini?” the Rani Amrita inquired.
I smiled. “Close your eyes, my lady.”
She obeyed.
I looked at her because it pleased me to do so, because she was beautiful, and I liked beauty. I tried to guess her age. Twenty-seven, maybe twenty-eight. Maybe younger, even. She had wed young, I thought.
I breathed the twilight deep into my lungs, took it deep into myself. I blew it out around her, around us both, as soft as a kiss.
“Open your eyes.”
“Oh!” Her eyelashes fluttered alert, her face filled with wonder. “You can do this?”
I nodded. “It is a gift of my people, meant for hiding. Here, no one else can see us.” I sighed. “If I knew the path, I could go to Kurugiri unseen. I suppose I’ll have to try,” I added reluctantly. The prospect filled me with dread, but I couldn’t see any other way.
The Rani frowned. “It would please me if you would stay for a time, Moirin. Many have sought the path to Kurugiri, and many have died trying. None have found it. You have been very sick; and the gods must have sent you to me for a reason. Wait, and grow stronger. Let us go to the temples and make offerings. Perhaps your purpose here will become clear.” She searched my face, her dark eyes touched with silvery luster in the twilight. “Will you do this for me?”
I wanted to, oh so very much.
Bracing myself for the inevitable flare of alarm from my diadh-anam, I opened my mouth to refuse with regret.
My diadh-anam was silent.
“Yes,” I said gratefully. “Yes, my lady. I will stay.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
It was the first true respite I’d known since Aleksei and I had escaped to Udinsk.
Now, as then, I knew it was only temporary. Kurugiri and its deadly maze were waiting for me; Tarik Khaga and his bedamned Spider Queen were waiting for me; to the best of my knowledge, Bao continued to languish under her spell, ensorceled by the Black Diamond of Kamadeva.
Or not; mayhap Manil Datar was right, and my stubborn peasant-boy was happy in her thrall.
I didn’t believe it, but nor did I believe Bao was in imminent danger at this point. So I was more than grateful to accept this respite, and pray that the gods revealed their will.
I offered prayers of my own to the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, and to Blessed Elua and his Companions, and most especially to Naamah.
I went with the Rani Amrita to make offerings to her gods.
There were temples to Sakyamuni the Enlightened One in Bhaktipur, but like most of her folk, my lady Amrita worshipped the gods of Bhodistan, of which there were a bewildering array further complicated by the fact that many of them existed in multiple incarnations. I have to own, I never did get all of them straight in my head.
“It does not matter, Moirin,” Amrita said kindly. “Only that you open your heart to them.”
I tried.
We went first to the temple of the goddess Durga to whom rats were sacred. She was the patron-goddess of Amrita’s husband’s family, who were descended from one of her incarnations. Rats had aided the goddess in a battle against a demon that took the form of a buffalo, nipping and harrying its heels as they fought. One of Durga’s later incarnations decreed that the spirits of her descendants would not go into the keeping of the god of the dead, but be housed in rats before being reborn.
It was very confusing.
I liked the temple, though. It made me glad to see hundreds of rats swarming over the marble floors, bright-eyed, glossy, and well fed, tame and friendly. There were tiny secret passages throughout the walls, so they darted and scurried about, emerging from unexpected nooks and crannies. The rats flocked to Amrita, scuttling around her ankles in a moving carpet of fur. When she stooped to place an offering tray of grain on the floor, a stream of rats poured over her hands as though to caress her, for which I did not blame them in the least.
“So you see, Moirin!” She smiled at me. “The Lady of Rats.”
I smiled back at her. “I see.”
We made an offering to the goddess herself, who was depicted as a beautiful warrior woman seated on a tiger. I thought of my warrior princess Snow Tiger, and hoped it was a good omen.
Over the course of days, we made offerings at more temples than I could remember: Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, who I understood formed a great triad that created the beginning, middle, and end of the world. Krishna the lover, generous Lakshmi, and fierce Kali with her out-thrust tongue and her necklace of skulls; and others I could not recall. There were gods and goddesses dancing, meditating, resting on great serpents. Hanuman, who was a monkey, which quite delighted me. Blue-skinned gods, black-skinned goddesses, many with a multitude of arms. It was all very strange, though beautiful in an unfamiliar way.
There was even one god, Ganesha, who had the head of an elephant on a man’s body. When I asked Amrita why in the world it was so, she laughed and said there were different stories, and that it had never occurred to her to wonder which was true.
“Why do you think it odd?” she asked, teasing me. “You liked Hanuman. And you worship a bear!”
“Aye, but not a woman with a bear’s head!” I protested.
We journeyed through the streets in Amrita’s palanquin, carried by strapping fellows and surrounded by a contingent of devoted guards bearing armloads of flowers and offering goods. Everywhere we went, the folk of Bhaktipur greeted their Rani with joyful bows, and it was clear to me that she was much beloved. One thing troubled me, though.
The untouchables, the no-castes.
I came to recognize them quickly by the way they took care to avoid all contact with others, by the way they moved swiftly out of our path to ensure their shadows should not pollute the Rani’s palanquin. As we made our rounds with our abundant offerings, receiving the blessing of temple priests, I found myself thinking about the no-caste girl who had wished to make an offering for her sick mother, clutching her precious armful of tattered marigolds.