Naamah's Blessing - By Jacqueline Carey Page 0,137

happens if he puts them down? Can the jungle folk see them?”

“Aye,” I said uncertainly.

“And they can hear me if I will it?” Eyahue asked. I nodded. He chortled, rubbing his palms together. “Let’s offer them a trade.”

On Eyahue’s orders, Bao set down the two plump birds I’d slain and backed away from them.

The hunters pointed and shouted at their sudden appearance.

Taking a deep breath, Eyahue addressed them in as sonorous tones as he could manage in his reedy voice. I caught enough words I recognized to ascertain that he was offering the birds in trade for guidance to the nearest cinchona tree.

The hunters looked around frantically, here and there and everywhere, raising and lowering their weapons in their confusion.

Eyahue laughed so hard I thought he might wet himself, doubling over and slapping his scrawny thighs. “They think we are spirits! You should have more fun with this gift!” he said to me.

I scowled at him. “Tell them we offer friendship in exchange for their aid.”

He looked dubious. “Friendship?”

I thought about all the unlikely friends I’d made over the course of my life’s journey, following my everlasting destiny; friends who had humbled me with their kindness. I thought about how I’d feared and avoided the Tatars due to their fearsome reputation, only to find generosity and hospitality among Batu’s tribe on the Tatar steppe when I couldn’t have survived without it. I nodded. “Tell them.”

Reluctantly, he did.

The jungle folk conferred amongst themselves. One strode forward, addressing the empty air in a firm tone.

“They want to see us,” Eyahue informed me. “They will not agree unless we show ourselves.”

I took a deep breath. “Then we will do so. Ask them to lay down their weapons as a gesture of trust.”

It was a tense moment. At last, the five men stooped and set down their weapons, glancing around uncertainly. I lowered my own bow to the ground. Bao unslung his staff, leaning unobtrusively on it.

I let the twilight go.

All of us stared at one another. The hunters’ appearance in the daylight was startling, their faces painted bright red. I remembered the boy in Tipalo’s village smearing his cheeks as he mimed a hunter with a blowpipe. The gesture was more ominous in retrospect; and yet there was fear in the hunters’ eyes, more than I thought our emergence from the twilight warranted.

Their leader addressed us.

“He wants to know if we are spirits from the black river,” Eyahue said in a puzzled tone.

“What does that mean?” I asked him.

The old man shrugged. “No idea.”

“Tell him no,” I said. “Tell him we are harmless, and we seek their help because our magic is weak here.”

“I’m not telling him that!” Eyahue gave me a withering look. “You don’t know the first thing about bartering, do you?”

“Moirin knows a great deal about befriending people,” Bao said quietly. “I suggest you do it.”

Grumbling, the pochteca acceded.

The hunters relaxed visibly. Moving slowly, I extended my hands palms upward, then placed them together in the soothing mudra of reassurance that the Rani Amrita had taught me so long ago. “Sulpayki,” I said carefully, bowing toward them. “Thank you.”

Unexpectedly, the leader grinned, his teeth white against his crimson-painted face. He mimicked my gesture and replied in a rapid spate of Quechua, while one of the others picked up the ground-fowl and examined them with approval.

I glanced at Eyahue, who was looking thunderstruck. “He says they are honored by our visit,” he said. “They saw our boats and our sick men and wondered if they should kill us before we joined the black river and grew stronger. But now that they know we are good spirits bringing gifts, they will help us.” He nodded at the leader. “His name is Paullu. He says we should bring our people to his village, where they already have cinchona bark. The shaman there will heal them.”

I bowed a second time. “Sulpayki, Paullu.”

The naked hunter with the crimson face-paint returned my salute with dignity. “Imamanta,” he replied.

You’re welcome.

FIFTY-TWO

Bitter!” Balthasar said in protest, making a face as he drank a concoction of dried, powdered cinchona bark. “Ah, gods! It’s so bitter.”

I folded my arms. “Just drink it.”

Wincing, he did.

It had not been an easy task to escort eight feverish men up the steepest part of the cliffs and trek for an hour through the jungle to Paullu’s village, but we had done it. Putting our trust in the hospitality of our new friends, we’d left behind the last of our food stores with the majority of