Kushiel's Avatar (Phedre's Trilogy #3)

I might have been stripped of my rank and holdings.

I would surely have lost the fosterage of Imri.

It was bitter, and fair. I made my choice knowing it. I wondered if she knew that nothing would grieve me more than knowing Hyacinthe's suffering endured unnecessarily, and I myself the cause of it. Mayhap she did; there is Kusheline blood in House L'Envers, and along with it comes the keen awareness of pain. Mayhap it was Kushiel's will in the end, that I myself might know what it was to have an innocent suffer for my own transgressions, for even Kushiel's Chosen is not immune from his justice.

I do not know.

It was a long and bitter winter to endure.

There were points of brightness in it, and chiefest among them was Imriel. He flourished in our home in the City of Elua. Eugenie doted upon him, as did all the servants in my employ. He studied the Cassiline disciplines with Joscelin in the frozen garden, mimicking his every move; not to be outdone, Ti-Philippe taught him conventional swordsmanship. To the amusement of us all, young Hugues appointed himself Imriel's personal guardian. He was not especially skilled with blades, but he wielded a shepherd's cudgel to wicked effect, and I once saw him give Joscelin a bout that pressed him surprisingly hard. Hugues taught Imri to play the flute, too, finding he already knew the rudiments of it.

My goat-herd prince.

Other things, I taught him—much as Anafiel Delaunay had once taught Alcuin and I. He read well in D'Angeline and Caerdicci, and I gave him histories and philosophies to read, borrowing what I did not possess from the archives of the Academy. I taught him Cruithne, which he had begun to learn in the Sanctuary of Elua. Once upon a time, it was a tongue no one studied, spoken only by blue-painted barbarians on the far side of the divide held by the Master of the Straits. I myself had rebelled at learning it. Now, it is the mother-tongue of the Cruarch of Alba, husband of Queen Ysandre de la Courcel, and D'Angeline schoolchildren study it as a matter of course.

Why? Because of Hyacinthe, who made it possible.

Only they do not say that.

I introduced Imriel to Emile in Night's Doorstep, and through him to the Tsingani population in Terre d'Ange. They did not care whose son he was, but only that he had played a role in procuring the key that would free Anasztaizia's son, the Tsingan Kralis, the Prince of Travellers.

Like me, the Tsingani were waiting for spring.

And I introduced him too to Eleazar ben Enokh, the Yeshuite mystic. It grieved me to be unable to share the Name of God with Eleazar, who had sought it for so long—and yet I could not. When I thought upon it, my throat swelled near to closing, and I knew the Sacred Name had been entrusted to me for one purpose, and one purpose only.

"Adonai does as He wills, and none of us may grasp the whole of His thought." Eleazar's words were gentle. "My heart is glad on your behalf, Phèdre nó Delaunay."

If I could not share the Name of God with him, I could tell him of the Tribe of Dân, and that I did, at length—of the union of Shalomon and Makeda and the Covenant of Wisdom, of Khemosh's folly and the flight to Tisaar and the Lake of Tears, of the Ark of Broken Tablets on the island of Kapporeth. These things he recorded eagerly, and his wife Adara looked on with indulgence and interest.

In such ways did my Bitterest Winter pass.

I spent long hours composing letters, replying to a year's worth of correspondence. Although my letters would not go overseas until spring, I wrote to Nicola L'Envers y Aragon in Amílcar, to Kazan Atrabiades in Epidauro, who had written to tell me of his new appointment, to Pasiphae Asterius, who is the Kore of the Tenemos. I studied, obsessively, everything in my library on the angel Rahab, which I had spent ten years compiling, and learned nothing new. I thought about the confrontation to come. Few guests called upon my home and few invited me to theirs during this time. I received several offers of assignations from such people as would never have dared inquire in the past— disreputable merchants, a petty lordling suspected of molesting his household servants. These I burned without deigning to reply.

The City of Elua was waiting to see if Ysandre would forgive me.

Every week, a representative of the Queen came to the house to ensure that Imriel was in good health and good spirits—Guillen Baphinol, a young Eisandine nobleman who had studied medicine at one of Eisheth's sanctuaries. I treated him with unfailing politeness. At first, he made a show of inspecting the house and assessing its fortitude, testing the bars on the doors with a grave demeanor. Joscelin watched with amusement; Imriel with simmering resentment. Although it is small, my house is as secure as any manse within the City. I have always taken care with such things, ever since my lord Delaunay and my foster-brother Alcuin were slain within their own home. In time, Guillen warmed to us and I consulted him on such small bits of herb-lore as I have garnered in my travels.

But he never gave any indication of Ysandre's mind.

Not everyone I had known turned their back upon me. Once the gossip reached her ears, I had regular letters from Cecilie Laveau-Perrin, my old mentor in Naamah's arts. Some years ago she had closed her salon for good and retired to her country estate of Perrinwolde, which, alas, lay a day's ride outside the City walls. Nonetheless, it cheered me to receive her letters, and we resumed a lively correspondence.

I received an invitation, too, for all of us to call upon Thelesis de Mornay, the Queen's Poet, and that I accepted, for she was in seclusion at the Palace and I might visit her without breaking my pledge.

It had been mayhap three years since I had seen her last, and I was shocked at her condition. Touched by the fever of that first Bitterest Winter, Thelesis had never recovered completely. Her quarters has al ways been maintained at a nigh-uncomfortable warmth; now there was a fireplace in every room and multiple braziers and pots of boiling water suspended over the flames added moisture to the air, rendering it as hot and steamy as the plains of Jebe-Barkal in the rainy season. A servant in Courcel livery tended them with quiet diligence.

Thelesis looked older than her years, her hair streaked with grey, her skin grown sallow and loose on her small frame. But if her dark eyes were sunken, they still glowed, and her voice held a ghost of its rich musicality. "Phèdre nó Delaunay," she whispered, giving me the kiss of greeting. "It is good to see you once more."

I leaned my cheek against hers, feeling the frailty of her. "You are kind to do so, Thelesis. Pray, don't let us overtax you."

"Nonsense." She held me off, smiling. "And you, Joscelin Verreuil! Come here and let me feel your strength, Queen's Champion."

"No longer," he said, returning her kiss. "But it is good to see you, Queen's Poet. I hope you are keeping yourself as well as may be."

"As you see." Thelesis waved a hand, indicating the boiling pot, the braziers, the eternal disarray of her quarters, which were strewn haphazardly with books and scrolls and fragments of half-finished writing. At the farthest worktable, a young girl in a drab smock sat perched on a stool, grinding oak-galls in a mortar, shards of husks strewn about the floor. In all the time I have known Thelesis de Mornay—which is a good many years, now—she has never been able to work surrounded by order. With her dark poet's eyes, she watched Imriel take it in. "A proper mess, isn't it?" she asked him.

"Phèdre makes a mess of her study when she's trying to find something." He offered the words warily, watching her reaction. "She doesn't think so, but she does."

"Does she?" Thelesis smiled. "I wouldn't have imagined it. I am Thelesis de Mornay. You must be Imriel."

He made a half-bow. "Imriel nó Montrève."

"I know." She touched his cheek lightly. "A fine name you bear, and a noble one. Anafiel Delaunay de Montrève was a friend of mine, and I mourn him still. He would be proud of what Phèdre has made of his name, and as proud again to know you bear it. He never did, you know, not in his adult lifetime. Have you heard that story?"

"Yes." Imriel relaxed, smiling back at her. "We have a bust of him, you know."

"I know." It had been her gift to me. "I'd like to hear your story, Imriel, if you wouldn't mind telling it to me. Yours, and Phèdre's and Joscelin's, too."

So we told our story to the Queen's Poet from beginning to end, and it was a long time in the telling. The quiet servant brought tea sweetened with honey and a plate of small cakes, a warm blanket of fine-combed wool which he settled carefully about his mistress' shoul ders as Thelesis sat and listened without interrupting, sipping tea to suppress her cough. From time to time, her dark eyes filled with tears. We told the story in turns, and the only sound save for one voice speaking was the soft noise of oak-galls being ground to powder for ink. In time, even that fell silent as Thelesis' young apprentice ceased her labors to listen, perched on her stool, chin in her hands.

"Oh, my," Thelesis murmured when we had finished. "Oh, chil dren."

There wasn't much more she could say. At the distant worktable, her apprentice picked up her bowl and resumed grinding.

"It's not a tale fit for poetry," I said. "Not Daršanga."

"No." Her gaze rested on Imri, filled with compassion. "But it is a story that must be told, that we might remember and never let such a thing come to pass again. I will think on how best it might be done. I may not live to see it finished, but I daresay I will see it begun."

"You shouldn't say such things," I said, not wanting to hear them.

Her smile was tinged with sorrow. "Ah, Phèdre! You've never shied away from truth. I've lived through such times as poets dream of, and I have no regrets. But don't fear, my dear, I'll not leave yet. To miss the end of the story—ah, now that would grieve me." Her tone changed. "It must be hard for you to wait."

I took a deep breath, and made no reply.

"Ysandre will forgive you, you know." Thelesis read my expression. "You gave her no choice, Phèdre. And I daresay she took it harder, coming from you. But I remember your young Tsingano friend very well indeed, and I suspect he has reserves of fortitude he's yet to tap. Nearly two years ago, you gave him the gift of hope. He'll wait thirty years, if he must; three months is naught to one facing immortality."