Kushiel's Mercy

Page 18

“Everything I’ve said and done in the past month,” I said wearily, exhausted past the point of shame. “It’s all right. It’s passed. The fever’s gone.”
Phèdre kindled a lamp. In the warm glow, I could see her beautiful face was tired and worn, shadows like bruises beneath her eyes. She swallowed visibly, not quite daring to hope yet. “Do you know who you are?”
“Yes,” I said. “Your foster-son, Imriel nó Montrève.”
She covered her face with both hands, drew a shuddering breath. “And where you are?”
“In the bedchamber of my quarters at the Palace.” I flexed my stiff hands. “Tied to my bed because I’ve been a stark raving lunatic since the last full moon.”
“Oh, Imri!” The anguished tone of hope in Phèdre’s voice nearly broke my heart. She laid a hand on my brow. “Is it true?”
Tears trickled from the corners of my eyes. “I promise.”
“Joscelin!” Her voice rang out, filled with urgency. “Joscelin!”
He came at a run, startled out of sleep. For the past month, they’d been taking turns keeping watch over me. “What is it?”
“The fever’s broken.” Tears gleamed on Phèdre cheeks. “He knows himself.”
Joscelin turned his bloodshot gaze on me. “Truly?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “Joscelin, you look like hell. You look worse than I did when you found me in Vralia.”
“Oh, Elua!” Joscelin dropped to his knees beside the bed. There were tears in his eyes, too. “I thought we’d lost you. Wherever it was you went, I didn’t think you were coming back.”
“I’m back,” I said hoarsely. “I just wish I didn’t remember.”
He shook his head. “Don’t . . . just don’t. It was the fever talking.”
Phèdre sent a guard to fetch the Court chirurgeon while Joscelin worked at the ropes binding me to the bed. My struggles had rendered the knots impossible to untie, and he had to saw at them with a dagger, working with tender care not to further injure my abraded flesh. Between the two of them, they helped me sit upright, propped against pillows, and drink a cup of water. I was so weak, Phèdre had to hold the cup for me. I could feel the water blazing a cool trail into my shrunken belly.
“Thank you.” I leaned back against the pillows and closed my eyes, exhausted by the effort. “Where’s Sidonie?”
There was a brief silence.
“Sidonie?” Joscelin asked in a puzzled tone.
I opened my eyes.
“Like as not in Carthage by now.” Phèdre refilled the cup from a ewer. “Why, love?”
“Carthage?” I stared at her. “No.”
“To wed Prince Astegal,” she reminded me, holding the cup to my lips.
“No.” I pushed it away feebly. “No, no, no! Have you all lost your wits?”
Their faces fell. “It’s all right,” Joscelin said to Phèdre. “He knows himself, and us. The rest will come.”
“I just thought . . .” she murmured.
“I know,” he said.
“No!” I shouted at them. “Gods above, I’m fine!” I saw the fear in their eyes and caught myself, falling silent. I made myself look at the memories of my month-long madness.
Sidonie wasn’t in them.
This was the only way to shield you from it.
“Astegal,” I muttered. “What did you do? What did they do, those damned Carthaginians? What did they do?” I repeated, addressing Phèdre and Joscelin. “The full moon, the mirror? What did they do?”
“Hush.” Phèdre stroked my cheek. “It’s all right, love.”
“What did you see in the mirror?” I demanded.
They exchanged a glance, faces softening. “It was a marvel,” Joscelin said, wonder in his tone. “The invisible ties that bind all things in the cosmos . . .” His voice trailed off.
“No,” I said dully. “It was a trick. It was some vast and terrible enchantment, and I was protected from it only because the eunuch stabbed me with something that sent me mad.” I laughed in despair. “Madness as a shield against madness. Now I’m sane, and you’re raving.”
“You’re sick,” Phèdre said gently.
“I’m sane,” I said. “Sidonie loves me. She defied her mother and half the realm for my sake. She would never wed Astegal. And Terre d’Ange would never betray its alliance with Aragonia to unite with Carthage.”
Phèdre shook her head in sorrow and went to meet the chirurgeon.
Somewhat was wrong, terribly wrong. Filled with terror, I held my tongue and suffered myself to be examined by the royal chirurgeon, Lelahiah Valais. She confirmed that the worst of the fever had broken, bandaged my injuries, and recommended strong broth and a great deal of sleep. I heard them speak in hushed tones about my continued delusions.
“Do you think it’s because he was taken by Carthaginian slavers as a child that he harbors such a peculiar grudge?” Joscelin asked the chirurgeon.
“Oh, yes,” Lelahiah said. “I’m sure of it. And to be fair, I’ve heard there are folk outside the City unhappy with the Queen’s decision.”
“People are always fearful of change,” Phèdre murmured. “But what do you make of his claim about Sidonie, of all people?” She sounded perplexed. “I wouldn’t say they disliked one another, but they’ve never been close.”
“Mayhap that’s why.” The chirurgeon lowered her voice. “The mind is a strange place, my lady, and we cannot examine its workings the way we examine the body’s. I understand he was very ill after his wife was slain and his wounds turned septic. Mayhap one spell of madness evoked another, and somehow in his thoughts, he has replaced the loss of his wife with a loss that is less painful to him.”
Less painful.
Sidonie.
I stared at the moon outside my balcony. A month ago, I’d made love to her by moonlight. Now she was gone. Gone to Carthage, gone to wed Astegal. Gone of her own volition, it seemed. Was I mad? I had been. I’d said things that made me cringe inside. I didn’t trust myself. But I loved Sidonie. I knew I did. And she loved me. I could feel her absence like a wound. I remembered her. Everything about her. Everything we had done together. Her scent, the taste of her skin. The faraway look she got in the throes of pleasure. Her voice. Always and always.
My head was full of voices and memory.
Gods, I was tired.
Alais’ voice, her grave face the day we’d spoken atop the ramparts of Bryn Gorrydum. I think she’s going to need you very badly one day.
That damned eunuch, Sunjata.
Go to Cythera.
Ask Ptolemy Solon how to undo what’s done here tonight.
I closed my eyes. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it,” I whispered into the darkness. “I’ll come for you, love. I promise.”
Fourteen
My strength returned slowly.
It wasn’t as bad as it had been after Dorelei’s death. I wasn’t wounded, save for the suppurating abrasions around my wrists and ankles, a bitterly ironic reminder of the bindings I’d once worn as a protection against enchantment. But the fever and lack of nourishment had left me weak.
And I was surrounded by madness.
Everyone in the Palace believed it. Terre d’Ange—and oh, gods, Alba too—had made a pact with Carthage. Sidonie had gone away to wed Astegal, escorted onto the Carthaginian flagship with great fanfare.
No one remembered our affair.
It had been erased from memory as though it had never existed. Mavros came to visit me when he learned I was recovering. I begged him to rack his wits. He had been the first person to know, the one who had helped from the very beginning. All he could do was gaze at me with sympathy and shake his head.
I wanted desperately to get outside the City, but in the first days of my recuperation, I barely had the strength to get out of bed. On Lelahiah Valais’ orders, I was kept in relative solitude. Only family members were permitted to visit me. I wasn’t allowed to hear aught that might disturb me and feed my delusions. Servants and guards were given strict orders not to discuss sensitive matters in my presence.
Still, I heard wisps of conversation here and there, enough to gather that there was widespread dismay beyond the City’s walls. It gave me a thread of hope.
And then, some five days after my fever broke, I overheard a careless guard remark to a chambermaid as she entered my quarters that Ysandre and Barquiel L’Envers were engaged in a shouting match in the throne hall.
L’Envers hadn’t been in the City the night of the full moon.
I struggled into my clothing, trembling with exertion, and made my way into the salon. “I need to talk to him,” I said. “Now.”
“Oh no!” the guard said in alarm. “That’s not possible, your highness.”
“The hell it’s not,” I said. “Get out of my way.”
He blocked me. “Send for Messire Joscelin and Lady Phèdre,” he said urgently to the maid. “They’re in the throne hall with her majesty.”
She nodded and fled.
I found my sword-belt and drew my blade. My arm shook. “Get out of my way.”
The guard put his hands up. “Don’t do this, your highness. You’re ill.”
I gritted my teeth. “I just want to talk to L’Envers. Stand aside, man!”
He did.
I pushed past him, sword in hand. Elua knows, I couldn’t blame them for trying to protect me from myself. The madness had made a monster of me. I would never be able to forget. But it was gone now, or at least banished into wherever it is that such things lurk in the dark, unplumbed depths of the soul.
At least I prayed it was.
Trailed by the anxious guard, I staggered out of my quarters. Down the hallway, down the wide marble stair that led to the ground floor of the Palace. I took a two-handed grip on my sword, keeping it angled before me. People shrieked and ran. They’d heard tell of my ravings. More guardsmen came, forming a wary circle around me. I ignored them and staggered onward.
The doors to the throne hall were closed. I could hear raised voices behind them. With both hands, I pointed my sword at the guards posted there. “Admit me.”
They paled. “We can’t, your highness,” one said.
My knees wobbled. “Just do it!”
Someone grabbed me from behind, pinning my arms as Joscelin had done. Someone else wrestled the sword from my hands. I cursed and struggled, borne down under the weight of several guards.
The doors to the throne hall opened with a crash and Barquiel L’Envers strode out, his face white with fury. He stopped short at the sight of me struggling with the guards, fixing me with a look of disgust.
“Some great undying love affair that turned out to be,” L’Envers said in contempt, then turned on his heel and strode away, followed by a retinue of his own men-at-arms.
“Wait!” His words rang in my ears. A rill of terrified strength ran through me. I thrashed and flailed my way free, got my feet under me, and ran after him.
L’Envers turned and drew his blade. “Keep your distance, lunatic,” he said coldly. “I swear to Elua, I will run you through.”
I managed to halt before I impaled myself. “You remember,” I gasped. “Sidonie and I. You remember it.”
“Unfortunately.” His violet eyes narrowed. “Do you?”
I nodded, panting. “Can we speak, my lord? Please?”
He was silent a moment. “Fetch his blade,” he said at length to one of his men, and to me, “Come with me.”
On any other occasion, the last place in the world I could imagine wanting to be was alone with Barquiel L’Envers in his private quarters, surrounded by men loyal to him. Today, I was desperately grateful to be there. He sent his men out of earshot, ensconced me on his couch, poured me a generous draught of brandy, then poured one for himself, and sat opposite me.
“Speak.”
I had nothing left to lose. I told him everything.
Claudia Fulvia, the Unseen Guild and their threats. Canis and my mother. My letter to Diokles Agallon, the bargain. Carthage. The eunuch Sunjata, Gillimas. What had happened the night of the full moon. Ptolemy Solon and Cythera. My month-long madness, and the madness I’d awoken to.
“Sodding Carthage,” L’Envers said when I’d finished. “I knew it.”
“Then I’m not mad?” I asked.
“You were.” He studied me. “Barking-mad, from the sound of it. But in this, it’s hard to say.” He quaffed his brandy and refilled it, regarding the glass. “Truth be told, I heard rumors of this Guild of yours years ago in Khebbel-im-Akkad, though I couldn’t vouch for them. Of a surety, the whole damn City is convinced, man, woman, and child, that Carthage is our new best friend, and the Dauphine of Terre d’Ange made a love-match with a Carthaginian prince and sailed away merrily with him. You’re right about that. Somewhat was done to them.”
“But it’s only the City?” I said hopefully.
Barquiel L’Envers snorted. “The City, and all who were in it that night. Damn nigh all of Parliament. The Royal Army and its commander. The Royal Admiral and a good number of his men. The Cruarch of Alba.”
I felt sick. “All the powers of the realm.”
He nodded, looking aged and weary. “And Ysandre’s minded to dispatch the army to the Aragonian border in support of Carthage’s threat.” He scrubbed his face with one hand. “I tell you, lad, if this is some elaborate scheme of your mother’s to place you on the throne, I’ve half a mind to go along with it. I’d sooner see Melisande’s treasonous spawn warming his arse on the throne than my own niece acting as Carthage’s pawn. And outside the City walls, there are hundreds of thousands of folk who’d agree.”