Kushiel's Scion

Page 106

"Ah, love!" Phèdre's voice broke my reverie. "How you've grown!"
I smiled at her. "I'm just me."
She shook her head, but said nothing. There was time. Time to talk, time to tell her everything. Time to speak of Tiberium, of Master Piero, of Claudia Fulvia and the Unseen Guild. Of Bernadette de Trevalion and Ruggero Caccini. Of Lucca and Gallus Tadius, Canis and my mother, Eamonn and Brigitta. Time to speak to Joscelin, to tell him about the siege—the parts I didn't want Phèdre to know. To ask him how long it took before one stopped seeing one's dead in dreams.
"Are we ready to go home?" Ti-Philippe asked plaintively. In his haste, he'd ridden out without a cloak, and he was shivering in the cold air. "I'm perishing out here!"
Joscelin glanced at me. "Imri?"
"Elua, yes!" I said. "Home."
At the townhouse, it was mayhem all over again. There was a lieutenant of the Queen's Guard waiting on us. Eugenie hadn't known that we would go to the cemetery before returning to the townhouse—it had all happened so quickly—and she was beside herself with anxiety. I'd scarce gotten through the door when she seized me.
"Oh, you bad child!" she said, hugging and scolding me, while the lieutenant looked on with horrified amazement. Tears ran down her plump cheeks. "What took you so long?"
"Gilot," I said.
"Ah." Eugenie went quiet for a moment. "The poor lad. I'd forgotten."
The lieutenant cleared his throat. "Your highness? I'm Zacharel Clarence of her majesty's personal guard. I'm bidden to summon you to the Palace. Her majesty is most eager to see you."
"I'm sure she is." I gave Eugenie a kiss on the cheek and moved away. I gave Lieutenant Zacharel a friendly smile. "Tell her majesty that I will present myself on the morrow."
He blinked at me. "Pardon?"
"Tell her majesty that I will present myself at Court on the morrow," I repeated. I waited until he opened his mouth to protest. "Lieutenant, I've come a very long way, and I've just buried a man who died because he was loyal to me. I'm tired. I wish to spend the remainder of the day with my family." I gave the word a deliberate emphasis. "You've seen with your own eyes that I'm alive and well. Pray tell her majesty as much, and that I look forward to seeing her anon."
He stared at me for a moment, then glanced around. Phèdre met his gaze with a mild look. Ti-Philippe opened the door for him, bowing as if to usher him through it. Joscelin leaned against a wall, vambraced forearms folded over his chest.
"I'll… I'll tell her," the lieutenant said.
I inclined my head. "Thank you."
He left. For a moment, I nearly thought Phèdre would follow to offer some words to soften the message—she watched him go, her expression thoughtful—but she didn't.
Joscelin straightened and grinned at me. "And how did that feel?"
I smiled back at him, and knew he knew exactly how I felt. Good and proud, and a little bit foolish, too. Ysandre would pay dearly for Tiberium's aid in Lucca and I was grateful for it, but she was getting her money's worth. I'd agreed to her plans for Alba. It didn't meant I was placing myself at her beck and call. "It feels… ah, Elua!" I took a deep breath. "Good, mostly. And very, very good to be home."
It was a late night.
The story came out in bits and pieces. Everyone wanted to hear it, from Eugenie and Clory to Benoit the stable-lad, and certainly all of Gilot's comrades. With her usual grace, Phèdre acquiesced, inviting the entire household to dine with us. There was enough food prepared for a small army, a fact which I appreciated. One of the retainers—Marcel, who had known me for years—teased me at the dinner table.
"Are you sure you've got enough on your plate, your highness?" he asked. "I can still see the top of your head."
Eugenie glared at him. "Hush, you!"
I swallowed a succulent mouthful of roasted beef. "You'd have an appetite, too, if you'd spent weeks on Gallus Tadius' rations."
"Gallus Tadius?" Ti-Philippe frowned. "I was the Admiral's man, but wasn't there a Caerdicci warlord—?" He shook his head. "No, no mind. Old sailors swapping tales, that's all. He's long dead."
"Well, he was," I said.
Throughout the course of the dinner, and afterward in the salon, I told them about Lucca. About Helenas abduction, my haunted friend Lucius, the mundus manes and the broken mask in the lararium. Gallus Tadius. The battle for the gatehouse, Valpetra's hand.
Gilot's death.
I didn't try spinning a tale out of it, I just told them. Told them that what Gilot had done in the gatehouse had saved countless lives, mine included. How he was a hero after all.
Phèdre was quiet throughout my telling, sharing a couch with Joscelin. Truth be told, I would rather have been alone with them. I could have sat for hours without talking, just content to know I was here and they were here, all of us together.
But there was time.
And I owed a debt to Gilot, and to everyone in the household of Montrève who had known him, who had cared for me and protected me, and worried in anguish alongside Phèdre and Joscelin when they received my last letter, wondering if I lived or died.
So I told the rest of it. The D'Angeline embassy, the dams. Training with the Red Scourge, and Barbarus squadron. Eamonn's leadership, which sparked smiles and nods all around. There was no one in the household who didn't remember him fondly. I told them about Brigitta and his wedding, and how he had gone to Skaldia in search of her.
"What about the siege?" Benoit asked.
"And the dam?" Ti-Philippe added. "Was there a flood?"
"Yes." I glanced at Phèdre. I'd heard Eamonn tell it before; I'd told it myself to the princeps. This was different.
The flood—the flood was easy. I could still see it in my mind's eye; the vast, awesome force of it bursting the wall, churning through the streets. The bell-tower, Gallus Tadius and his death-mask. I faltered a little, there. I caught myself gazing at Phèdre, wondering if she would understand what I had felt atop the basilica. Kushiel's presence, beating in my skull.
Probably better than I did. His blood ran in my veins, but I was only his scion, and a reluctant one at that. My blood was purer than most—House Shahrizai saw to that—but there were thousands of us. He had parted the veils of the worlds to touch her in the womb, pricking her eye with his crimson sign. She was his Chosen.
And then the maelstrom and the pit, the waters receding, falling in an ebony cascade into the unknown depths of hell. I could hear the awe in my own voice. They listened and believed. House Montrève had known stranger things.
Lucius, and his courage.
The battle.
If I had been telling it to someone else—Charles Friote, mayhap-—I might have told it differently. I don't know. In the warm, loving confines of home, the terror and the stench and the screaming seemed farther away. And yet they weren't, not at all. Every time I glanced at Phèdre, I remembered. She had taught me to do so.
Remember this.
So I told it quickly, without belaboring my role. Without telling about holding the line with Barbarus squadron or my mad charge to rescue Eamonn, about Canis, about the Duke of Valpetra and his javelins. I would, later. It could wait. I told them only that Lucius rallied the Red Scourge, and the D'Angeline and Tiberian troops arrived on their heels. That Valpetra was killed, the condottiere Silvanus surrendered, and it was done.
"The rest," I said, my voice hoarse with talking, "you know."
It was Joscelin who dismissed everyone, dispatching them to their respective beds. Only the three of us were left. Phèdre sat curled in the corner of the couch, watching the fire. I couldn't read her face, not at all. It was inward-looking, lost in contemplation.
"There's somewhat else I have to tell you," I said to them. "Well, a number of things, including news of my mother, but this one's pressing." I took a deep breath. "I've thought about this, long and hard. And I'd like to handle it myself, quietly. You should know, though."
Phèdre stirred. "What is it?"
"Bernadette de Trevalion hired a man to kill me in Tiberium," I said simply.
For a moment, both of them merely stared at me. A flush of anger rose to Joscelin's cheeks; Phèdre closed her eyes. "Are you certain?" she whispered.
I nodded. "I've proof."
"No." Joscelin shook his head. "Oh, no! Not this time. Not after L'Envers. This time, it will be done in the open. Let the world know—"
"Joscelin." I spread my hands. "No. Ysandre brought me into the fold of House Courcel to break the chain of vengeance and retribution. This is a chance to do that very thing." I smiled wryly. "Through the gentler coercion of blackmail, at any rate."
"You can't—" he began.
"He can, Joscelin." Phèdre cut him off. "It's his choice." Her deep gaze rested on me, familiar and unnerving. I met it without flinching. The tension between us was there, it would always be there. But I could bear it. And there was so much more besides. "You're sure?"
"Yes," I said. "I am."
For the second time that day, there were tears in Phèdre's eyes. "Elua! It's such a short time for you to have grown so much, Imriel."
Joscelin touched her hair. "Love?"
She shuddered and slid into his arms, burying her face against his shoulder. He held her for a moment, then let her go. She gathered herself and rose.
I stood up. "I'll go. I should sleep."
"Not on my account." Phèdre lifted one hand to my face, her touch lingering. Not quite a mother's touch; not a lover's either. Hers, and hers alone. "We'll talk later. About this, and about the other things, too." She smiled at me, the crimson mote of Kushiel's Dart floating on her dark iris. "There's time. Right now, I'm just happy you're home and safe."
I bent and kissed her cheek. "So am I."
Once Phèdre had gone, Joscelin got up and stirred the fire until it crackled merrily. He sat back down, drawing up one knee, his fingers laced around it, and fixed me with a steady regard.
"All right," he said presently. "I'm willing to cede you Bernadette de Trevalion. Not the rest. How bad was it?"
I thought about the Valpetran soldier with his jaws agape, the bloody length of spear visible between them. "Bad enough."
Joscelin nodded. "It always is."
"What…" I hesitated. "What was it like for you the first time?"
"Hard." He leaned his head against the back of the couch. "It was in Skaldia. One of Gunter's thanes. Evrard, Evrard the Sharp-tongued, they called him. He challenged me to the holmgang. I didn't want to kill him. I barely knew him."
"You knew his name," I said softly.
"Yes," he said.
"Do you ever dream of him?" I asked.
"I dream about them all." Joscelin lifted his head and looked steadily at me. I remembered him in the festal hall in Daršanga, a ring of corpses rising around him. He might have known the name of the first man he'd killed, but I doubted he could even number those who followed. A leopard among wolves, they had called him there. "And so will you."
"Does it…" I swallowed. "Does it get easier to bear?"
"It shouldn't." His mouth twisted. "But it does. The Cassiline Brothers have a prayer for the slain. It helps. Do you know it?"
I shook my head. "Will you teach me?"
"Of course."
We knelt together, Joscelin and I, before the dying fire; heads bowed, hands clasped. He spoke the words of the prayer in a low, firm voice. To my surprise, he spoke in Habiru.
"Mercy, mercy, mercy, o lord of lords! Grant this soul swift passage, and forgive me my need that dispatched it to your keeping. "
"A Yeshuite prayer?" I asked.
"A Cassiline prayer," Joscelin corrected me.
"But…" I said helplessly.
"Imri." Joscelin touched my face, much as Phèdre had done. "Anathema or no, I am Cassiline. If you're asking whether I believe everything they taught me, the answer is no. But some things are ingrained too deeply to be removed."
"Like Daršanga," I murmured.
"Yes." He knelt quietly, sitting on his heels. The low firelight flickered over his austere, beautiful features. "You'll find your own way, Imri. Your own words, your own prayers. You've already begun."
I shrugged. "Even a stunted tree reaches toward the sunlight."
"You're not that stunted," Joscelin said in an unexpectedly acerbic tone. "Name of Elua! When it comes to melodrama, you're as bad as Phèdre."
"I am not!" I laughed. "I brood, that's all. That's what Eamonn says." I shifted to sit cross-legged, hugging my knees. "Did I tell you I saved his life?"
Joscelin raised his brows. "Oh did you?"
I told him about it in hushed tones; about the battle-fury, the ringing in my ears. About flinging myself into the fray, heedless and unthinking. About my enemies being reduced to mere obstacles. Joscelin knew; Joscelin understood. He listened to me with a complicated expression on his face, all at once rueful and horrified and proud.
"Ah, love!" he said when I was done. "I didn't teach you to fight to—"