There was a final clash behind me, then a heavy thud and two sharp thumps, followed by Bao’s soft “Heh.”
“It’s over,” I said quietly. “Give the diamond to the Rani Amrita.”
Jagrati’s narrow nostrils flared. “Come and take it, little Rani,” she said to Amrita. “Come, unfasten it with your own hands, daughter of privilege! Or do you fear to be polluted by the touch of my skin?”
“No, Jagrati.” My lady Amrita lowered her hands, her voice grave. She took a step forward. “I do not.”
For the third time in two encounters, Jagrati recoiled violently from the Rani. Her hands went to the nape of her neck, working frantically at a clasp. Loosing the collar of gold filigree that held Kamadeva’s black diamond, she hurled it at Amrita’s feet. “Take it, then, damn you! Take it!”
Bowing her head, Amrita stooped to retrieve the necklace…..
….. and everything changed.
SEVENTY-TWO
The stone floor of the throne room of Kurugiri was hard beneath my knees, evoking a distant memory of scrubbing tiles in the temple of Riva.
Thinking it was odd that she seemed so tall, I gazed upward at my lady Amrita.
Upward? Yes, upward.
Taking a deep breath, I realized that I’d released the twilight and gone to my knees without thinking when Amrita picked up the necklace with Kamadeva’s diamond in it. My yew-wood bow and arrow lay on the floor before me like an offering.
I was not alone.
Everyone, everyone in the throne room capable of kneeling was doing so—save for the Spider Queen Jagrati. And even as I thought it, Jagrati swayed on her feet, then crumpled helplessly to her knees, huddling there.
“Moirin?” My lady Amrita sounded forlorn and confused, the collar of gold filigree dangling from one hand, Kamadeva’s diamond flickering in its setting. “What is it? What’s happening, eh?”
Unable to help myself, I touched my brow to the cool flagstones. The uncertainty in her voice made my heart ache. I wanted to comfort her, to pleasure her, to assuage her every fear. For now, all I could do was reply honestly. “You hold Kamadeva’s diamond and all its power, my lady.”
“I do?” Amrita asked in wonder. “I do, don’t I?”
My Rani was beautiful and terrible with it—but not like Kali dancing, no. Like a goddess, but a kinder, gentler one. The goddess Durga on her tiger, perhaps, her face filled with radiant light and fierce compassion.
“Yes,” I whispered.
She gazed around the throne room, taking in the cost of our endeavor. The Falconer Tarik Khaga sprawled on his back, his mouth agape. Dead. He was dead; his five remaining assassins were dead. Over a dozen of her best guards were dead or dying, and it would have been worse had it not been for Bao, kneeling with his staff across his lap, gazing at her in a worshipful manner.
Amrita touched her slender fingers to her lips. “Oh, gods!”
I bent and touched my brow to the floor again. “You did what was needful, highness.”
“Did I?”
I bowed low again. “Of course.”
“No!” There was a fierce note in my Rani’s musical voice, and her hands tugged at my shoulders. “No, no, no. Moirin, look at me. Talk to me, dear one. The gods sent you to me. Counsel me.” Hope lit her eyes. “Is there some higher purpose in this? Am I meant to use Kamadeva’s diamond to change the world to a kinder place?”
Fighting the urge to kneel, I sat on my heels and gazed at her.
Stone and sea! She was lovely, so lovely. Even as Kamadeva’s diamond had taken all that was dark and twisted and rage-filled within Jagrati and turned it into the stuff of bitter yearning, it took all of my lady Amrita’s warm, laughing, golden kindness and turned it into something far, far more powerful.
A future unspooled before my eyes…..
She would be a queen such as this part of the world had never seen before: great and powerful in her compassion, terrible in her disappointment, moving men and women alike in a desire to please her, compelling love along with desire. Her influence would spread far and wide, her wisdom praised to the heavens.
But it would not last.
Ravindra’s clever, narrow face swam before my eyes, the collar fixed around his throat. He would do his best to keep his mother’s legacy alive; but he had been granted power, too much power.
His sons would fight and squabble. In the end, Kamadeva’s diamond would bring nothing but bloodshed and war.
“No, my lady Amrita,” I said with profound sorrow. “I do not believe so. It is too dangerous a tool to be wielded by mortal hands; and I do not believe you can change the world through magic. Not a change that is true, not a change that lasts.”
Amrita gazed at the black diamond in her hand for a long, long time. “I believe you are right,” she said at last. “It belongs in the temple from which it was taken.” She glanced at me, regret in her eyes. “You are wise for one so young, Moirin. Will you take it and conceal it for now? Kamadeva’s ashes should be at home with your gifts.”
I swallowed. “I will try, my lady.”
It was an effort to rise in her shining presence, but I made myself do it. I found a leather pouch on the belt of one of the slain assassins and untied it, dumping out a couple of unfamiliar throwing weapons. Silently, I held the open pouch out to Amrita, averting my eyes from the glorious light in her face. I heard the sound of gold filigree clinking softly, felt the pouch grow heavier, and pulled the thongs tight…..
….. and everything changed again.
Amrita sighed, a faint sound of loss. I braced myself for the influence of Kamadeva’s diamond, wondering if I would become as terrible and beautiful as Naamah in all her splendor, wondering what in the world I would do if that happened; but it didn’t. I felt the diamond singing softly to me, a song like a caress, but so long as I chose not to wield it, it seemed it was enough to conceal it.
I stole a glance at Amrita. She looked herself again—lovely, but ordinary and mortal. She met my eyes and gave me a rueful little smile. “I can still try to change the world, can’t I, Moirin? Or at least my little corner of it?”
I smiled back at her. “Yes, my lady. You can and will.”
The spell of Kamadeva’s diamond broken, the reality of our situation reasserted itself. Grown men stumbled to their feet, dazed, checking themselves for injuries. Others lay moaning and bleeding on the floor.
For a mercy, Bao took charge effortlessly, ordering the living to tend to the wounded, applying compresses and tourniquets, stanching the bleeding of myriad injuries. Although he was no physician, having been Master Lo’s apprentice for many years, he knew a fair bit; and I knew enough to help him.
Over a dozen dead….. ah, gods!
I had seen worse, far worse, in Ch’in; but Ch’in was a vast empire, and the scale of that conflict almost unimaginable. Bhaktipur was a tiny kingdom, and the impact of the deaths that had occurred within this small throne room hit hard. I knew at least half the fallen by name, and all of them by sight.
In the midst of it all, Jagrati knelt huddled on the floor, her hands wrapped around her head, her body shivering.
We ignored her, worked around her, until there was nothing left to be done and it was impossible to ignore her any longer.
Bao nodded at her, his face tense. “What will you, highness?”
“I don’t know,” Amrita said uncertainly. “She is harmless now. But she has done great harm. I suppose….. I suppose…..” She shrugged helplessly. “We must take her with us, eh? Let the laws of justice decide her punishment.”
I stooped and touched Jagrati’s shoulder.
She uncoiled like a serpent, catching my hand in a hard grip and rising, her glittering gaze fixed on mine as she hauled me to my feet.
Memories, bitter memories, unfolded behind her eyes. Even without Kamadeva’s diamond, Jagrati’s gaunt, angular beauty was compelling. From a very early age, men had found it so, a great many men. They had used her hard, used her cruelly, taking her against the walls of alleys, over and over again, stealing away shame-faced and satisfied. There had been no recourse, no one to protect her. Until the day she had stolen Kamadeva’s diamond, she had been a helpless victim.
I caught my breath, seeing too much.
Jagrati gave me a tight smile. “You see things, don’t you, oh so pretty dakini?”
“Yes.”
“Untouchable.” She released my hand, regarding her own, dark creases in her pale palm. “That is what they call us.” Her gaze flicked toward Amrita. “That is what you call us.”
“I am coming to believe otherwise,” Amrita murmured.
“Untouchable,” Jagrati repeated, a catch in her throat. She laid her palm against my cheek and I let her, my pity giving way to genuine sympathy. “And yet it never seemed to matter when no one was watching. Men were happy enough to touch me when it suited them, so long as no one saw it. It is a man’s world. Men make the rules, and men decide when it is acceptable to break them. Even your precious Rani is only waiting for her son to grow old enough to take her place.” She took her hand away, her expression hardening. “But I made a difference. Here, I carved out my own place. Here in Kurugiri, I ruled. I made the choices.” She glanced at Bao. “Didn’t I?”
He gave her an inscrutable bow, his staff tucked under one arm. “Yes, my dark lady. You most certainly did.”
Another bitter smile twisted her lips. “You have an uncommon streak of willfulness. I should have cut my losses when your Moirin returned from the dead. But you….. you were one of my favorites, Bao. I didn’t want to lose you.”
“I was not yours to keep,” he said in a flat tone. “None of us were. And yet look around, my lady.” He gestured. “You have lost everything.”
Jagrati raised her voice to a hoarse, rasping shout. “Do you think I don’t know it?” The words echoed off the walls, falling into a thick silence. No one answered. She glanced around the chamber, taking in the sight of the dead and wounded with no visible emotion on her face. “Is this how you mean to make the world a better place, little Rani?”
“No, Jagrati,” Amrita said quietly. “This is what you forced me to do, you and Lord Khaga. I take responsibility for the choice, and for the deaths of my brave men. I will not take responsibility for your sins.”
“So noble.” Jagrati’s lip curled again. “Do you know, little Rani, that the untouchables of Bhaktipur live in squalor on the outskirts of the city, tending to their dung-heaps? They are pathetically grateful to you for seeing to it that they have a well that draws clean water, since they are not allowed to use the public wells or fountains. And yet twice I had promising young lads taken to serve me, and there was no outcry, for there was nowhere for their families to turn, no one to protect them.”
Amrita’s brows rose. “And you are proud of this?”
She shrugged. “I treated them as human beings, not living filth. I gave them better lives than they would have had otherwise.”
“You treated them as living playthings, Jagrati,” Bao said. “Was it a better life for those who died fighting for the honor of sharing your bed?”
Jagrati laughed her dark tearing-silk laugh. “At least they died fighting for something they believed worth dying for, didn’t they?”
“Believing a thing does not make it true.” Bao shrugged. “You are not the only one in the world to have suffered, lady. The world can be cruel, even to men. I was sold into bondage when I was scarce more than a babe. I know what it is like to be used badly. I have not let it poison my heart.”
She met his eyes. “But you have been fortunate in the companions life has given you, have you not?”
Bao glanced at me, and didn’t answer.
“How lucky for you.” Jagrati gave him her bitter smile. “The peasant-boy found a noble mentor, grew up to be a hero, and won the hand of the fair maiden.” She clasped one hand over the other fist as though she meant to bow to him in the Ch’in manner. “The only luck I found, I made myself. All my old life gave me was the stink of human shit and cruelty.” She looked sidelong at Amrita. “Forgive me if I am not willing to return to a world where I must grovel when you pass lest my shadow soil your pure flesh, where I can only dream of the honor of touching your perfect feet.”
“Jagrati—” my lady Amrita began.
The Spider Queen’s long-fingered hands tightened, driving her fist into her palm. “Good-bye.”
There were jeweled rings on almost all her fingers, gleaming in the lamplight, and belatedly I remembered the poisoner and his ring with the hidden needle. But even if anyone had been minded to stop Jagrati, it was already too late. Her tall, angular body jerked and stiffened, and she fell gracelessly, a little foam rising to her lips.
The Spider Queen of Kurugiri was dead.
SEVENTY-THREE
It was a long, difficult night.
There was a great deal of work to be done, little of it pleasant. But at least it began on an auspicious note as Pradeep came to report that the harem had been secured without any difficulty. The churlish messenger had been the only one to resist, and he was dead.
The Rani insisted on visiting it straightaway. It was crowded with women and children, and dozens of additional servants who had taken shelter there. None of them seemed to have been harmed in an obvious way, but they greeted us with profound gratitude, many of them weeping with joy and relief, overwhelmed at being rescued from captivity in Kurugiri.
I watched my lady Amrita go among them, talking to the women and some nine or ten children of varying ages, assuring them that they were safe and would be well cared for. It made me smile for what felt like the first time in years.