I heard one word murmured, over and over: dakini.
I did not need Manil Datar to translate it for me.
Witch.
Well, and so. Better that they should fear me than not. The memory of Datar’s knife tracing a line along my cheek was vivid in my mind. And at least it did not seem that the caravan meant to abandon me altogether. A trader’s bond was only as good as his word, and Manil Datar was not yet willing to break his.
So I dined on the tsampa that Nyima had packed for me, kneading roasted barley and butter together in the Tufani manner and popping balls of it into my mouth. I trudged across the meadow with the iron cooking-pot Aleksei had bought in Vralia to fill it from the waterskins the porters’ yaks carried that I might water my horses, since I did not have a bucket of my own.
My saddle-horse, Lady, guzzled down a potful at one go, gazing mournfully at me with a dripping muzzle when it was empty.
Her mate Flick, my pack-horse, looked on eagerly.
I sighed. “More, eh?”
“Here,” a voice said behind me. I turned to see the scarred porter, Sanjiv, a brimming leather bucket full of water in either hand. He ducked his head, embarrassed. “For your horses, Lady Dakini.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Sanjiv nodded without looking at me. “They should not suffer.”
“No,” I agreed. “They should not.”
In silent accord, we watched my horses drink their fill. “Horses are good,” Sanjiv offered after a time. “Yaks, too.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“They like you,” he said shyly.
“I like them, too.” Curious, I looked at his face full on in the daylight, studying the raking scars that lacerated it, dragging his nose sideways and skewing his upper lip. Despite the disfigurement, his eyes were dark and soft, with long lashes. “Who hurt you, Sanjiv? Who did this to you?”
“No one,” he said simply. “It was a snow leopard. He was hungry. I was trying to protect my yaks. It is not his fault he made me ugly.”
I smiled. “I do not think you are ugly.”
“No?” He met my eyes for the first time, tentative and fearful.
I shook my head. “No.”
FIFTY-FIVE
Without Sanjiv’s kindness, I would not have survived the journey.
For the first couple of days after Manil Datar’s assault, I thought mayhap I could manage. Grueling though it was, I was accustomed to hard work and surviving on my own. Datar didn’t appear inclined to deny me the share of provisions to which I was entitled; he simply ceased to ensure that any aid was given to me.
No one offered me food, but after I ran out of tsampa, no one attempted to stop me when I filled a plate of rice and lentils from the cooking-pot-only glanced at me sidelong and muttered under their breath. And Sanjiv took it upon himself to help care for my horses, which was a tremendous help.
And then I got sick.
I’d always been blessed with a healthy constitution, but it failed me in the mountains. I was already worn down by prolonged travel, worn down by my never-ending destiny. After Datar’s assault, I had trouble sleeping, constantly waking in a start of terror. And, too, the atmosphere of suspicion and hostility in the caravan took its toll on me.
It began with a headache and a scratchiness in the back of my throat. By the second day, it hurt to swallow. My joints ached, and I suspected I was feverish.
By the third day, I was sure of it.
Manil Datar knew it, too. He came upon me struggling to hoist Lady’s saddle in place on the morning of the fourth day. Giving me a tight smile, he addressed me for the first time since he’d fled my tent. “You are sick, Moirin.”
I didn’t answer. My limbs felt weak, and it took all my concentration to lift the saddle.
“The caravan cannot wait,” he said. “If you cannot continue, I will give back part of your money.”
“No,” I said shortly. If I could not continue, winter would come and I would die in the mountains. Both of us knew it.
Narrowing his eyes, Datar assessed the extent of my weakness. “Maybe I can help… for a price.”
I met his gaze. I could not conceal myself in the twilight with him looking at me, but I could still call it. With an effort, I did. Seeing the air around me begin to sparkle with unexpected brightness, he paled and took a step backward. “No,” I said again. “No trouble, or I make a curse.”
It was a hollow threat, but Manil Datar didn’t know it-and what I had done before scared him enough that he left me alone.
Even so, I was in trouble. Every little thing was a tremendous effort, even sitting upright in the saddle. My vision was blurred, and I had to struggle to focus. By the time we made camp that evening alongside a river, I felt as weak as a newborn kitten. My throat was raw and swollen, and it was excruciating to swallow. I couldn’t even think about water, let alone food. I managed to get Lady unsaddled and unload Flick’s packs, and then I sat helpless before the jumbled mess of my tent, unable to summon the energy to erect it.
Sanjiv came trudging over with his buckets of water. “Why do you not put up your tent, Lady Dakini?”
I closed my eyes briefly. “Tired.”
He set down the buckets and squatted before me. “Tired or sick?” As gently as he tended his yaks, he touched my brow and frowned. “Sick, I think.”
My pack-horse Flick wandered over to confer, thrusting his head between us. I reached up wearily to scratch the hinge of his jaw, and he snorted into my hair.
It decided the matter for Sanjiv. “I will put up your tent,” he said in a firm voice. “I will take care of you, Lady Dakini. You are good to animals and they like you, so I do not think you should suffer.”
I gazed at his disfigured face with profound gratitude. “Thank you, Sanjiv.”
A good deal of what transpired in the days that followed is vague in my memory, a series of impressions merging into one another, all drenched in a feverish haze. Having appointed himself my guardian, Sanjiv took his role with the utmost seriousness. He struck my tent in the mornings, saddled and packed my horses, helped hoist my aching body into the saddle. In the evenings, he unsaddled and unpacked them, tended and watered them. He set up my tent and spread my blankets. All of this he managed, and his other duties, too.
He brought me food-and for a period of days when I could not bear to swallow at all, snow. I held lumps of it in my mouth, letting it melt and trickle down my throat, soothing the incessant pain.
No one spoke against his actions, not even Manil Datar. Between his skill with animals and his uncanny ability to hear an avalanche before it broke, my scarred friend Sanjiv was a lucky talisman, and the other porters regarded him with superstitious awe.
My fever waxed and waned.
On the bad days, my vision was doubled and I could barely cling to the saddle, sweating in the cold air, shivering violently as my sweat turned to ice on my skin. There were a few days when I thought I might die, and the thought didn’t trouble me if it meant I could rest at last.
On the good days, when I felt more lucid and was able to string two thoughts together, I wondered if mayhap I was wrong after all, and Bao was suffering from a lingering illness. To be sure, mine was doggedly persistent. But when I consulted my diadh-anam, it was bright and unwavering within me, undeterred by my body’s profound misery.
Bao’s…
Bao’s was unchanged, but I was growing closer to it. Closer and closer, his always calling to mine.
It kept me going, day after day.
On the cusp of this tantalizing nearness, the first deadly storm of early winter struck us. Manil Datar was minded to push on throughout the day in an effort to outpace it, but for a mercy, he listened to Sanjiv, and we broke early to make camp in a gorge where an outcropping of rock provided a natural windbreak.