Holding his gaze, I let the twilight fade. “By all means, my lord.”
We dined.
It was an awkward meal. I daresay a good many of the folk present didn’t appreciate the stakes at play, but I knew.
Duc Rogier made many toasts in honor of the expedition, speaking of it in fulsome terms, giving it his every blessing, praying for our success. I knew he was lying through his teeth. And by the cynical expressions on the faces of our allies like Balthasar Shahrizai and Septimus Rousse, they knew it, too.
But others didn’t—not the members of the Great Houses, and surely not the impoverished young noblemen of the Lesser Houses who had pledged themselves to our quest. With every toast, they cheered and stamped their feet.
“To Thierry!” they cried. “Prince Thierry!”
“King Thierry! Long may he live!”
It brought me a certain grim pleasure to see Duc Rogier’s face harden at the reminder that Thierry de la Courcel, if he was indeed alive, was in fact the rightful King of Terre d’Ange. Mostly, though, I wanted this charade of an evening to end. For the first time since my lady Jehanne had come to me in my dream, I was looking forward to getting this venture under way.
And although it seemed that it never would end, at last the evening did. The only thing left to endure was the Duc’s final farewell. There, before all the assembled peers, he clasped Bao’s hands in a respectful manner, and then embraced me warmly and wished us well on our quest.
“All of Terre d’Ange will pray for your success and safe return,” he said in a solemn voice.
I smiled sweetly at him. “Your excellence, I am perfectly well aware that you consider this quest a monumental folly without a chance in the world of succeeding, and that you are only backing it because to do otherwise would lay your grasping ambition bare for all the realm to see.” Pressing my palms together, I bowed to him in the Bhodistani manner. “I will do my best to prove you wrong.”
Rogier de Barthelme gaped at me.
Without giving him a chance to reply, I turned and made my exit from the great hall, Bao beside me.
Outdoors, I felt limp with relief that the ordeal was over. Bao was chuckling over my parting comments.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to hold your tongue all night long,” he said. “Did you see the look on his face?”
“It was foolish of me,” I muttered.
“No, I don’t think so.” Bao shook his head. “You’re right. If you’d faced him down earlier, all it would have done was cause strife and weaken our hand. But this, everyone will remember. You had the final word.”
“Finding Thierry and bringing him safely home will be the final word, my magpie,” I reminded him.
“True,” he agreed.
As endless as the evening had seemed, out of consideration for the morrow’s dawn departure the fête had begun early by D’Angeline standards, and the first stars were only just beginning to emerge when Bao and I returned to our borrowed house. I stood outside for a long moment, breathing in the scent of the cypress trees and the spring-damp soil, listening to the plants in the garden rustle and grow.
After tomorrow, it would be a long, long time before I saw dry land again.
Inside, we confirmed that all was in readiness for our departure, our trunks packed with attire suitable for travel. I strung my faithful yew-wood bow that my uncle Mabon had made for me and tested its draw, finding it as resilient as ever, and then unstrung it and wrapped it in oilcloth for the journey.
At my request, our steward Guillaume Norbert assembled the entire household staff. Bao and I thanked them for their gracious service, presenting each one with a small purse as a token of gratitude.
Each and every one of them tried to refuse it, but I insisted. “You’ve all been very kind,” I said. “And I know ours is hardly the sort of household in which any of you dreamed of serving.”
For the first time since we’d met, Guillaume laughed. “No,” he admitted. “It isn’t. In the long history of House Shahrizai, the door to the seraglio has never been closed for so long. Nonetheless, it’s been a privilege, my lady.” He bowed. “It is a valiant quest you undertake. We will pray, all of us, for your success and your safe return.”
I was grateful to hear the words spoken with sincerity. “My thanks.”
He bowed again. “Of course. I’ll see that you and Messire Bao are awoken in a timely manner, my lady.”
With that done, Bao and I retired to our bedchamber. He eyed me in a speculative manner. “I suppose we ought to sleep, huh? Big day tomorrow.”
“No.” I slid one hand around the back of his neck, tugging his head down for a kiss, feeling the familiar intimacy of our shared diadh-anam intertwining. “Unlike your Ch’in greatships, there will be precious little room for privacy aboard this one. I suppose we ought to thank Naamah for blessing our union, and celebrate it by offering up many hours of lovemaking as a prayer.”
Bao smiled, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me against him. “Oh, good. I like your idea better.”
Ah, gods! We’d come such a long way together; and we had such a long way yet to go. There was another ocean awaiting us, and beyond it, untold dangers. But for tonight, one night, it was enough to simply be together.
Piece by piece, we undressed each other, until there were no barriers left and we were naked before one another.
We kissed, long and luxuriantly.
We explored every part of each other as though it were new. I reveled in sheer sensation, in the rasping glide of Bao’s palms over my skin, in the tug of his mouth on my nipples, his clever fingers teasing the cleft between my thighs, eliciting the moisture of desire. Kissing his throat, I inhaled the hot-forge scent of his skin. Working my way lower, I bit his nipples and smiled to see the ridged muscles of his belly contract beneath the caress of my trailing hair, his straining phallus bent upward like a bow.
I took him into my mouth and performed the languisement with all my hard-won skill, making him spend.
Pushing my thighs apart, Bao settled himself between them, gazing at me with half-lidded eyes, and returned the favor until I was breathless with pleasure.
Hard once more, he slid up my body and propped himself on his forearms, thrusting into me.
It was good; so good.
The bright lady smiled with brilliant approval.
There was a magic to lovemaking that never faded, an alchemy of the flesh that never failed to evoke wonder. We were two, and we were one. Joined by the spark of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, an intimacy I’d never known with anyone else, nor ever would. Joined by flesh—his flesh in me, hot and throbbing, mine encompassing his, wet and eager. Bao’s hips rocked, and mine rose to meet them, enjoying the sensation of fullness advancing and retreating. Sweetly, tenderly, he kissed my lips, thrusting deep inside me all the while.
“Stone and sea!” I gasped, feeling the waves of climax burst within me, my inner walls squeezing his hard shaft.
Bao groaned, sinking hilt-deep inside me, a hot rush of seed spurting.
Afterward, we lay entwined together for a time, heading drowsily toward sleep. I rested my head on Bao’s chest, listening to his strong, steady heartbeat while he toyed lazily with my hair.
“Moirin, when this is over, do you suppose we might start a family?” he asked. “Assuming we live through it, of course.”
“You and your fat babies,” I said sleepily.
“It’s not a jest.”
With an effort, I lifted my head. “I know.”
“Well?” There was a rare vulnerability in his dark eyes. “I know that I am only a Ch’in peasant-boy, and I have done things in my life I’m not proud of. Do you think I would not make a suitable father?”
“Bao!” I sat upright, shocked. “No!”
“It’s just—”
Whatever he meant to say, I silenced it with a kiss. “Having watched you with Desirée, and Ravindra before her, I think you will make a most excellent father.” I gave the gold hoops in his ears a meaningful tug. “No matter what you’ve done. I’ve done foolish things, too. But you are my husband, and I love you, and if we live through this, yes, I will gladly light a candle to Eisheth and bear your fat babies.” With one finger, I poked at his hard, flat abdomen. “Although I am still not convinced of their relative plumpness.”
Bao’s face relaxed into a smile. “You’ll see. Round as dumplings.”
With a sigh, I settled back against him. “Let us pray we have the chance.”
He kissed my temple. “I do.”
THIRTY-TWO
At dawn on the morrow, we set sail for Terra Nova on the ship Naamah’s Dove.
There was no ceremony, no great fanfare, all of that having taken place at the previous night’s dinner, only a handful of folk saying one last farewell to loved ones. My father came to the wharf to see us off, looking out of place in his elegant priest’s crimson robes, his oak-brown hair loose and shining on his shoulders.
“You have the letter for my mother?” I asked him.
He nodded. “I do. And I will deliver it in person, I promise.”
For the first time, I saw that there were fine lines on his face, fanning from the corners of his green, green eyes.
It made my heart ache.
“Thank you,” I whispered, embracing him. “Thank you for all the kindness you have given me.”
My father held me. “How could I not?”
Aboard the ship, a sharp whistle sounded. Septimus Rousse leaned over the railing. “Lady Moirin!” he called in a good-natured tone. “Come aboard, won’t you? We’re losing daylight.”
Reluctantly, I released my father.
He turned to Bao. “Keep her safe?”
Bao clasped one hand over his fist, bowing in the Ch’in manner. “It is my life’s mission, Brother Phanuel.”
And then there was nothing left to say, nothing left to do but board the ship. Another ship, another journey. We cast off from the wharf and began to make our way down the broad surface of the Aviline River. I stood in the stern and watched as the figure of my father dwindled to a crimson speck, and then vanished altogether as the white walls of the City of Elua fell away behind us.
“So we’re off on another adventure,” Bao said softly.
“Yes, and I expect it’s going to be every bit as dreadful as I feared,” Balthasar Shahrizai announced, joining us with Denis de Toluard in tow. “Have you seen the size of the cabins?” He shuddered. “Ghastly.”
“At least you have a cabin, my lord!” one of the sailors called cheerfully to him. “If you want to see truly cramped quarters, come sling a hammock in the main berth!”
Balthasar gave the fellow a jaundiced look. “I think not.”
Bao laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll get used to it.”
He shuddered again. “Elua have mercy, I hope not! Months on end of living cheek by jowl with a motley group of increasingly malodorous, malnourished adventurers… no, no thank you.”
“Are you going to carry on like this for the entire trip?” Denis de Toluard asked with asperity.
“I might,” Balthasar admitted.
The other rolled his eyes. “You didn’t have to come, you know. It would have been enough to back it.”
“Actually, it wouldn’t.” Balthasar’s gaze fell on me. “You may not think much of my sense of honor, Denis, but I couldn’t have abided knowing a young woman’s courage put mine to shame.” He shrugged. “So here I am. Now, shouldn’t we be singing sea shanties or throwing the old knucklebones or some such thing? Something nautical to while away the tedium?”
I laughed. “Give it a few hours, my lord. We’ve only just set sail.”
He heaved a dramatic sigh. “It’s going to be a very, very long journey, isn’t it?”
For a surety, it was.
As the days passed, we settled into a routine. Bao and I shared a narrow berth in a small cabin off one of the two wardrooms, with the remaining five cabins occupied by Balthasar Shahrizai, Denis de Toluard, and three other ranking noblemen: a hot-tempered Azzallese baron’s son named Alain Guillard; a steady L’Agnacite fellow named Brice de Bretel, younger brother of another baron; and the third son of a Namarrese comte, copper-haired Clemente DuBois, who had a tendency to make bad jokes whenever he was nervous.
Once we passed the harbor of Pellasus and left the relative placidity of the Aviline River for the open sea, that was quite often.
There were times when I could understand why sailors loved the sea, both for its endless beauty and the primordial challenge it offered; but I will own, they were few and far between. For better or worse, I was a creature of earth and trees and green growing things, and I didn’t like being away from land. In my experience, sea voyages entailed long periods of tedium broken up by storm-tossed hours of terror.
Still, we endured.
As the only woman aboard the ship, not to mention a bear-witch of the Maghuin Dhonn whose vision had launched the expedition, I was an object of curiosity; but for the most part, both the crew and our force of fighting men were polite and respectful. Bit by bit, I came to know most of them by name.
On most evenings when the weather was good, Captain Rousse invited Bao and me, and usually Balthasar and Denis, to dine in his cabin, which was larger and more well appointed than our wardroom.
Septimus Rousse was a clever fellow beneath his bluff good cheer, and I soon came to value him. On our first evening together, he posed a blunt question to me.
“So tell me, Lady Moirin, what did your vision show you?” he inquired. “Do you know where to find his highness? What’s befallen him?”
