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

"The Book of Kings, yes. Not in the Paraleipomenon." Melisande used the Hellene word and a rare impatient gesture. "How do you say it in D'Angeline?"

"Chronicles," I said. "The Dibhere Hayyamin, the Acts of Days." I tried to remember, and couldn't. It might be so, that the Book of Chron icles ascribed a different lineage to Shalomon's architect. "My lady, what are you saying?"

"What I was told. No more and no less." Melisande regarded me. "That it is legend, in distant Jebe-Barkal, that Melek al'Hakim the son of Shalomon and Khiram the architect fled the fall of the Habiru empire over a thousand years ago. First to Menekhet under Pharaoh's aegis, then southeast to Saba. And the Tribe of Dân went with them."

"You read Jeb'ez," I said, incredulous.

"No." Melisande smiled. "I had the scroll translated. What I was told, I committed to memory." She straightened, standing. "Take it. You are welcome to do the same. And when you have come back to report to me what you have learned of my son's disappearance, I will give you the name of a man in the city of Iskandria, in Menekhet, who says he can lead you south into Jebe-Barkal, to the very place where Shalomon's son founded his dynasty."

I rolled the scroll carefully, mindful of crackling the glaze on the painted characters. "What makes you think I cannot find such a guide on my own, my lady?"

"You might," Melisande admitted. "Although onesuch is not so easy to find, for the empire of Shalomon's son is long fallen and its history forgotten. But you have given your word. And you are Anafiel Delaunay's pupil. I do not think you will go back on it."

"No." I placed the scroll back in its container. "Did you teach me to use people better than you taught my lord Delaunay, my lady, I would take this and be gone. But when all is said and done, I am not like you." I placed the lid on the wooden cylinder, sealing it with a twist. "You spoke the truth, when you said your son is innocent. For that, if naught else, I will seek to learn what has become of him."

"Thank you." Melisande said it graciously, standing tall and straight. It gave me a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach, hearing those words from her. With nothing to resist, I didn't know what to do with my emotions. Joscelin swung himself off the couch in one seamless motion, assisting me to my feet.

"We'll come back when we've something to report," he said. "My lady."

TEN

SINCE WE had no reason to stay, we left La Serenissima in the same day.For a long time, neither of us discussed it, speaking only of those pragmatic matters necessary for travel. I daresay I couldn't have borne anything more. My mind reeled, trying to make sense of what had transpired. I couldn't do it. It was too much.

"You did well." It was Joscelin who broke the silence somewhere outside of Pavento.

I turned to look at his profile, his gaze fixed on the road before him, hands competent on the reins. "Joscelin. I agreed to help her."

"I know." He glanced sideways at me. "And Elua help me, I don't know what else you could have done. You think she's telling the truth about this Jebean legend?"

"I don't know." I touched the scroll-case, lashed securely across my pommel. "She might be. It would be like her to have had this coin and withheld it for years."

"For what?" Joscelin's voice was curious. "I understand she was shadowing Delaunay, in the beginning, but what interest could the Mas ter of the Straits hold for Melisande now?"

"What do you think Drustan mab Necthana would do if Melisande tried to put her son on Ysandre's throne?" I asked.

"Bring an army across the Straits and stop her."

"Yes." I stroked the oiled wood. "Unless the Master of the Straits barred the crossing. And for the price of freedom, he might consider it."

"Hyacinthe?" It was odd to hear him spoken of thusly. "Never."

"Never." I tasted the word. "Ten days ago, I would have said I would never have given my aid to Melisande Shahrizai of my own will.

And my never is a good deal shorter than Hyacinthe's, Joscelin." I remembered the despairing eyes of the Tsingano boy I'd loved looking out from the face of the Master of the Straits, immortal power trapped in a mortal body. In the back of my mind, a grasshopper chirruped a dry warning. "Now, no. In ten years . . . mayhap."

Our horses' hooves beat a rhythmic tattoo on the road while Joscelin considered my words. Travelling has its own pace, its own meter. "You're probably right," he said at length, and glanced at me again. "Still. It matters not, not any more. And I think you handled her well."

"I tried."

It was true, I think; I had done well. Once, only once, in my career as an anguissette in Naamah's Service have I given my signale, that password commanding a patron to cease, overriding all false protests and demurrals. It was to Melisande Shahrizai. I have had patrons more brutal, gleeful in their abuse, who left marks on my body that took many weeks to heal. I have never had any patron who played me with such consummate skill. But I had conducted myself well in her presence, yes. Apart from my initial shock at her request—and who would not react thusly?—I had remained in control, showing no sign of the weak ness inflicted upon me by fate.

And now I ached with desire in every part.

Kushiel’s Dart was pricking hard.

Joscelin realized it, in time. We had been together too long for it to be otherwise. Once, long before we were lovers, he had despised it in me. It was Joscelin who had been there the morning after that Long est Night, when I gave Melisande my signale and she strung her dia mond about my throat. And it was Joscelin who had been there when I had awakened, sick and betrayed, after Melisande sold us into captivity in Skaldia. Even then, even in the depths of betrayal and self-loathing, I'd had no defenses against the craving she roused in me. She was a scion of Kushiel such as the world has never seen, and I was Kushiel's Chosen, the only anguissette born in living memory. We were connected in a manner nothing born of rational thought and the mind's volition could touch.

I could no more cease wanting her than I could stem the tide.

After that terrible second morning, I think Joscelin understood, at least a bit. And Skaldia . . . Skaldia changed everything between us. When did I discover that I loved him? I cannot even say. When I realized it, it came as something I had known for a long, long, time.

Somewhere, somehow, life without him had become unthinkable.

It didn't alter my desires.

To his infinite credit, Joscelin spoke no word of reproach but gave to me what solace he could that night where we took our lodgings. On the roughspun blankets of our rented bed, he laid aside his self-discipline and made love to me with all the savagery of his heart.

It helped, some. I clutched at his back, feeling his muscles work violently beneath his skin as he drove himself into me, burying my face in the crook of his neck as his hair fell in shining ribbons about us both and salt tears dampened my cheeks. It wasn't enough. Peerless warrior though he was, there was no cruelty in Joscelin. I ought to know; I loved him for it. Yet even as he stiffened above me on rigid arms, spending himself, and my ardent body responded, it wasn't enough. My skin craved the kiss of the lash, the bite of a keen blade. I longed to kneel in abject surrender, whispering obscene pleas.

I could not have been more miserable if I had.

Somewhere beyond us, Kushiel smiled pitilessly.

It would have been different, if anyone but Melisande had been the cause. This was a yearning that came upon me from time to time; when it did, we both of us knew it was time for me to take a patron. I can pick and choose, now, as I do thrice a year. Delaunay's anguissette no longer, I take assignations with only such patrons as I deem worthy. It galled my heart and filled me with self-hatred to know that now, even now, the mere sight of Melisande was enough to stir my darkest desires.

If I had not been what I am, if I had not known her as I do, I could never have thwarted Melisande's designs on the throne of Terre d'Ange. I know this. But why now? It served no need, no purpose I could discern.

Well, and who can discern the purposes of the gods? With an effort, I bent my mind from contemplating my inner woes and thought about our present dilemma instead. Imriel de la Courcel, a Prince's son raised a goat-herd, like something out of an old legend. The audacity of it dazzled me still. I was reluctant to confront the Duc L'Envers, though I could not help but hold him my chiefest suspect. He had saved my life, once, on the battlefield of Troyes-le-Mont—and he had saved Ysandre's throne. Still, Melisande was right. If Barquiel L'Envers learned of the boy's whereabouts, I do not think he would use the knowledge to enable Ysandre to fulfill her dream of ending the blood- feud that haunted House Courcel's lineage, bringing the boy into the fold. Barquiel L'Envers thought it was a weak and foolish dream. If he found the child, he might not kill him out of hand—Elua grant it were so—but he might well make him disappear.

And in my heart of hearts, I was not entirely certain he was wrong in his beliefs. Ysandre's sentiments were noble, but I was there when Melisande threatened the Queen with enmity should she take her son. I do not think Ysandre, who had long regarded Melisande Shahrizai her enemy, appreciated the difference.

I did. If Melisande threw away the stakes of her long game for vengeance, everyone would lose. Mayhap Ysandre believed her safely contained. I had thought so too, once, when Melisande was brought to justice at Troyes-le-Monte. She had escaped from there, and a good many people were dead because of it, some of them dear to me. I knew better.

So did Barquiel L'Envers.

Thus passed our return journey, pensive and unhappy. And I spent long hours too in contemplation of the Jebean scroll and the revelations contained therein, wondering if what Melisande speculated might be true. After so long, it almost frightened me to hope . . . and I am not ashamed to admit that the enormity of the tasks confronting me fright ened me, too. I was not a child any more, rash and careless with youth's immortality. I was thirty-two years old, and I had attained a stature to which I had never dreamed of aspiring in my younger days. Foremost courtesan of the City of Elua, yes; but not a respected peer of the realm, bearer of the Companion's Star, the Queen's confidante, Kushiel's Cho sen, to whom the soldiers of the Unforgiven had knelt. All those things, I was.