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

"Little rooster," she called maliciously to him in zenyan, "little cock, where is your crow? What is wrong, have the Tatars taken your balls?" She threw back her head in laughter at his blank stare. "Come, boy," she said, spreading her legs and rubbing herself, "you'd best use them while you have them, young or no, before you end like the Skaldi!"

"I say he's lost them already," one of the others offered, rising from her couch. Imriel blinked, pushing her hands away as she reached to undo his breeches. Another caught him from behind, pinning his arms. Panicked, he began to struggle, uttering a high, terrible sound. "Any wagers? Is the little rooster's staff still working?"

Light-headed with fury, I did not know I had gotten to my feet. The world had taken on a familiar scarlet tinge. My ears were ringing with the terrible sound Imriel was making, and something else, some thing that blew through me like a wind, a buffeting bronze-winged storm.

I drew a breath that seared my lungs like fire and shouted. "Let him go!"

The words resounded like a whip-crack in the zenana, an echoing silence following. And in the silence, a hundred pairs of eyes stared at me.

Jolanta of the Chowati was no coward. In the silence, she rose from her couch and picked her way across the zenana to confront me. "Why should we? Who are you to order it?"

I held my tongue and did not answer.

"Her name," said a man's voice, cracked and harsh, speaking crude zenyan, "is Phèdre nó Delaunay, and she once walked across a war into torture and sure death to save her country." Erich's lips curled as he pushed himself up against the wall. "From the Skaldi."

"You knew," I whispered, gazing at him.

"I was six," he said. "The defeated always remember."

Jolanta blinked, opening and closing her mouth. Like a dark shadow, Kaneka appeared at her side, sliding an ivory hairpin from her thick, woolen hair. It had a point on it like a dagger, and nearly as long. She gestured with it, smiling pleasantly. "Go back to your island, Chowati."

I started. "Imriel."

"I'll check on him." It was Drucilla, steady and efficient. "There's nothing you can do for him right now. Kaneka, Nariman is coming."

With an unobtrusive motion, the Jebean woman slid the ivory pin back into her hair, and Jolanta sidled away toward her couch. Nariman approached, waddling and officious. "Lady," he said to me in zenyan, breathing hard, dislike in his small eyes, "do not shout in my zenana."

The hand of Kushiel had not entirely left me.

"Listen to me, little man," I said in Old Persian. "Whether I like it or not, I am the Mahrkagir's favorite. If you don't stay out of my way, I will ask him for your head on a platter. And if he's in a good mood, he may well grant it to me. Do you think he loves you so well, for opening the door to the Akkadians thirty years ago? Your position here is a bitter jest that has outlived its time."

He blanched. "Favorites change," he hissed. "Or die. Accidents happen, in the zenana."

"Yes," I said, unimpressed. "And if one happens to me, I promise you, you will have a horde of angry ka-Magi here wondering why."

Nariman went.

Kaneka folded her arms and looked at me.

"Erich," I said, ignoring her, "Rushad said you spoke no zenyan."

"A little," he replied in Skaldic. "No more. I learned to listen, watching you. And I have been here a long time." His gaze was bright and grim behind his tangled yellow hair. "You escaped from Waldemar Selig 's steading in the dead of winter. I know. We tell stories about it. I knew you by your eyes, and the scarlet mark. Do you have a plan to escape from here?"

"I might," I said. "Only it will take the zenana's aid to do it."

"Is the sword-priest with you?" he asked. "The one who defeated Selig at the holmgang?"

I hesitated. "Yes."

"Good." Erich smiled, cold as death. "Whatever it takes, I will do it. And don't. . . don't worry about the boy. What happens to him now, he will survive, if his will is strong. Lord Death and his bone-priests, they have told him, if he does what is asked of him, he will keep his manhood. That he is being saved for something special." His mouth twisted. "They won't unman him until he believes it."

I swallowed, tears in my eyes. "I am sorry, Erich."

His shoulders moved in a shrug. "I am paying for someone's sins. Maybe Selig's, who knows? I was six. It does not matter to the gods. If I live, I will ask a priest of All-Father Odhinn why I was chosen for this, if I die . . ." He shrugged again. "Let me do it with a sword in my hand, and I will die with your name on my lips, whether you are my enemy or no. You should go, now, and talk to the tall black one before she throttles you. She could lead a steading, that one. Many women would follow her lead."

I glanced involuntarily at Kaneka, who raised her eyebrows. "I will. Erich, thank you. I swear to you, I am not your enemy. Not here, not in this place—and not after, either. I will not blame the Skaldi for Waldemar Selig's war."

"It does not matter." He closed his eyes. "You sang me songs of home. I would have died blessing you for that alone."

I would have said something else, but at that point, Kaneka's hand closed on my shoulder. "It is time, little one," she said dourly, turning me to face her. "Time we talked."

"Yes." I eyed her ivory hairpins. "It is, Fedabin."

I led her into my chamber and lit the oil lamp, fumbling with the flint to strike a spark. Kaneka drew up the single stool and sat watching, her eyes gleaming in the near-darkness. At last the lamp kindled, a warm glow illuminating the room. I sank onto my pallet with a sigh, raw and aching with pain, unwashed, aware of it in every part now that Kushiel's presence had left me entirely.

"Who are you?" Kaneka asked. "Why are you here?”

I looked squarely at her. "Erich spoke truly. I am Phèdre nó De-launay, Comtesse de Montrève, Naamah's Servant and Kushiel's Cho sen. And I have come for the boy, Imriel."

"The Skaldi knew you."

"His country invaded mine, once. I did somewhat to stop it."

Kaneka showed her teeth in a smile. "Something they tell stories about."

"Yes," I said. "It seems they do."

"You must have been a child at the time." She looked at me, con sidering. "Do they tell stories of you in your homeland, little one?"

"Some," I said, thinking of my place in Thelesis de Mornay's epic Ysandrine Cycle, of the poems of Gilles Lamiz, of the tales of the Night Court and the gossip of the palace and in the streets of the City of Elua. "Yes, Fedabin, they tell some."

"The boy does not know."

"No." I shook my head. "He doesn't. He was raised by priests, who took care he heard no such stories."

"He does not know you," she said. "And yet you came for him. Why?"

"Because," I said, "I promised his mother that I would. And because my gods required it of me." I permitted myself a smile, tinged with bitterness. "My weak and craven gods."

Kaneka regarded me. "You must love one of them very much," she said. "Either your gods, or the boy's mother."

I laughed, at that—I could not help it. "Fedabin Kaneka," I said, dragging my hands through my disheveled hair, seeking to regain my self-control. "Let us end this dance, because I do not have time for it. In nine days . . . nine days! . . . the ka-Magi of Drujan will hold their sacrifice, the vahmyâcam. And unless I am very much mistaken, which does not happen so often as you might suppose, I fear it is their intention that the Mahrkagir make me his offering. You see," I said, holding her gaze, "he has learned, against all odds, to love. And if he is allowed to offer that upon the altar of Angra Mainyu, he will take on such power as makes everything that came before seem as child's play."

Being dark of skin, Kaneka could not blanch; instead, she turned grey. Still, she did not look away. "You do not propose to let him."

"No," I said, looking at the top of her head. "I propose to borrow your hairpins."

Kaneka's hands, laced between her knees, trembled. "You would kill Lord Death.”

I could not say it. I only nodded. At that, Kaneka did look away. Tears stood in the corners of her eyes. "What becomes of us?" she asked. "What becomes of the zenana? What vengeance"—the word was a harsh one, in zenyan—"will his followers wreak?"

"None," I whispered, "if they are dead or incapable. Kaneka, listen to me. The power of the ka-Magi flows through the Mahrkagir. If he is slain, it leaves only the soldiers. And if the zenana helped ..." I swallowed, "... if they did, if they hoarded their opium, if the cook who is enamored of Nazneen the Ephesian rendered it into a tincture, and the women of the zenana served it to the garrison in kumis and beer and wine, on the night of the vahmyâcam, when there is bound to be feasting . . . Kaneka, we could take Daršanga."

"We." She looked back at me, mask-like, ignoring her own tears. "A handful of unarmed women. A boy."

"And Erich. And the Akkadians, who have knives. They will fight, I know it."

"You are so very sure," she murmured. "Little one."

"No." I swallowed again, trying to consume the lump of fear lodged in my throat. "I am so very desperate, Fedabin, because I cannot do this alone, and I think if I fail, we are all dead. You and me and Imriel, and everyone in the zenana, and I do not know where it will end, because if I fail, I will be dead at his hands, and if that happens, I cannot see anyplace on this earth where Angra Mainyu's power will be halted, and I think, although I am desperately afraid I may be wrong, that this is why my gods have sent me here. Fedabin Kaneka, I have told you only true stories. If I place that which I hold dearer than life in your hands, will you lend me your hairpins?"