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

I'd seen that look in the Mahrkagir's eyes.

I wondered if Joscelin and I would ever look at each other that way again.

And I wondered, deeply, if Valère L'Envers had acted of her own accord, or if she had orders from her father. Lord Amaury Trente had sent word from Menekhet. If Duc Barquiel had learned of it, there would have been time, during the months we spent in Drujan, for him to send orders to Valère. I'll not pretend I'd be sorry to hear of the child's demise, he had said to me. Would he contrive it? He had ambitions of

his own, and grandsons to fulfill them. He might. And if he did, Imriel was in danger, no less in the City of Elua than Nineveh.

I want to stay with you, Imriel had said. The memory tore at my heart. How much had it cost him to trust Joscelin and me? I wished we could stay with him. Ah, Elua! I trusted Amaury Trente to see him safe, but Imri scarce knew him. He would feel hurt and betrayed, and in truth, I would sooner see him under the protection of Joscelin's sword. Would that we could keep him forever from harm. I wished I were returning home to Terre d'Ange, and not bound for Jebe-Barkal. I could not even make him a promise that we would return. It seemed such a long way, such a very long way.

But I had other promises to keep, and there were fates worse than death.

Hyacinthe.

SIXTY-TWO

NOTHING HAPPENED that night, nor in the nights that fol lowed, though Joscelin and I traded shifts and remained awake through out, weary and ragged. My warning, it seemed, had been taken to heart and a one-armed Cassiline was still a sufficient deterrent.Sinaddan, I thought, must not know. If he did, Valère would not need to rely on stealth—it would have been easy enough, in Nineveh, to kill or poison the lot of us. No, this was a private matter, and not one sanctioned by the Lugal of Khebbel-im-Akkad, who would have been displeased to find Terre d'Ange's most famous courtesan and her consort dead within his walls, along with the rescued prince.

I was glad of that, at least, and glad that Joscelin and Imriel's search had turned up no scratch-marked suspects among Lord Amaury's men. It didn't guarantee there was no danger from that quarter, but it made it less likely.

All told, we remained another week in Nineveh, and it felt like an eternity. There were private fêtes and a public ceremony, all very glo rious. Prince Sinaddan heaped an embarrassment of gifts upon us—rare spices, gold jewelry worked in the elegant, flowing lines of the Akkadian style, intricate woven carpets. To Imriel, he presented a curved dagger with a gilded hilt in the shape of a ram's head. Imriel thanked him in zenyan-accented Akkadian, a ten-year-old courtier, his expression giving nothing away.

With no other skills at my disposal, I had begun teaching him the arts of covertcy such as my lord Delaunay had taught me when I was a child: how to observe, how to read expression, tone and posture, how to listen for the unspoken; how to make oneself unobtrusive, and when to watch for what people will reveal when they think themselves un noticed, and the nine tell-tales of a lie.

Even as a rank novice, he had a knack for it. And why not? He was, after all, Melisande's son—and Melisande was a skilled adept, wed ding the art with her gift for manipulation and concealment. My lord Delaunay had taught her, too, in exchange for learning how to bend people to his will as living tools.

Now I taught her son, not for the sake of gaining power, but to safeguard his life.

Keeping watch at night, seeing Imriel warded every waking hour, being careful not to eat or drink anything not already tasted by another ... in these ways, we maintained vigilance in Nineveh, and all the while, my skin crawled with fearful anticipation. At the farewell fête, I put as good a face on it as I might, thanking Sinaddan-Shamabarsin for his hospitality and generosity. In truth, he had been a gracious host, and I could not fault his sincerity. Valère L'Envers maintained her bland smile and expressed her deep gratitude for our deeds, for the opportunity to meet such august personages.

I couldn't get out of Nineveh fast enough.

And leave we did, with a vast caravan bound for the west, for a good many women of the zenana would be travelling with us. And our escort. . . Prince Sinaddan had kept his promise. It was nearly the size of a small army. The tents, the supply-train, the wagon-loads of gifts and generous dowries; it needed a small army to transport us.

I didn't like it, not one bit. There were hundreds of unfamiliar faces, and hundreds of ways accidents could happen on the journey. And there was not a single blessed thing I could do about it. I'd asked for this escort myself.

For all that, it was a pleasant journey crossing the flood plains between the Great Rivers. The spring floods had deposited a load of rich alluvial soil on the arid plains, and it was farmland as far as the eye could see, fields of wheat and barley waving in the sun, villages flanked by rows of date palms. The days were warm without being unbearable, and the nights pleasantly cool. If not for my fear of Imriel's assassination, it might have been idyllic.

We had told Amaury Trente, of course, who'd heard us out in silence, his shoulders slumping. I pitied him. Unsubtle or no, Amaury was a good man and a loyal one, and he'd undertaken this mission out of regard for the Queen. Already, it had proved harder and led him further astray than he'd ever dreamed possible. This only made his task more difficult. Still, when I had finished, he sighed, squared his shoul ders and went about informing his men, whom he vowed were trust worthy. I prayed he was right.

Between us, we kept a guard on Imriel at all times, unless he rode with Kaneka and the Jebeans, betimes joined by the Chowati. He ate no dish that was not from the common pot, and drank no water not drawn by friendly hands.

All went well until the day we crossed the Euphrate.

The floods had subsided, but the river was still swollen to a dan gerous torrent. I had not liked the raft-crossing the first time, and I dreaded it no less the second. There were ten passengers on our reed raft—Joscelin, Imriel and I, Kaneka and four others, along with two Akkadian soldiers, who looked no less wet and miserable than the rest, ostensibly placed there for our protection by their captain, Nurad-Sin.

Our unsteady vessel bucked and surged on the raging waters, drawn across by the raft-keepers, chanting and laughing with steady cheer, drawing it hand over hand along one of the massive, water-logged ropes that spanned the river, while a team on the far end hauled on a second rope. Once again, our poor horses had to swim for it, and I feared sorely for there lives. Imriel knelt anxiously at the edge of the raft, watching his Akkadian pony struggle valiantly against the current.

I was watching him. I should have heeded my own teaching, and watched the soldiers.

It happened so suddenly.

At mid-river, the raft was lurching so violently I didn't notice when one of the soldiers rose to his feet, thinking him pitched there by the raft's movement. In a single motion, half-falling, he lurched across the raft, arms extended, pushing Imriel over the edge.

A cry of dismay caught in my throat. Flecked with foam, the roiling brown water swept Imriel downstream into the struggling bodies of our horses, fouled amid their churning legs. With a wan smile, the soldier followed him overboard, letting himself tumble into the raging river. Amid the shouting and panic, one of the raft-keepers somehow lost his grip on the rope, and the force of the river tore it from the others' hands, the raft's surge sending the handlers on the far side staggering and reeling.

What would have happened if Joscelin had not lunged for the rope, catching it in his good right hand, I cannot say. His face was wracked in a grimace of pain, and his arm stretched taut in its socket. I cannot imagine how he held on without being pulled from the raft—but he did. In seconds, the other soldier had grabbed his legs, anchoring him, and the raft-keeper regained the rope with anxious cries. Our craft was stable.

And Imriel had been carried twenty yards, his body now motionless, his head a dark spot on the surging waters.

It may have been hopeless, against that torrent, but he knew how to swim; I knew he did, he'd taught the younger children at the Sanc tuary. Why was he not even struggling? I thought of how he'd been tangled amid the horses, their churning hooves, and felt sick at heart. In the raft, Joscelin got unsteadily to his knees, fumbling at the knot on his sling, making ready to go after him.

"Joscelin ..." I whispered.

He looked as sick as I felt. "I have to try."

That was when we heard the splash, and Jebean voices raised in fierce shouts of encouragement.

Kaneka's form cleaved the waters like a dark spear, long arms flash ing in steady strokes, her legs kicking strongly, clearing the line of horses. Where the current was with her, she hurtled downstream; where it eddied and surged, she rode it with skill, drawing ever nearer to her objective.

"Pull," I said to the raft-handlers. "Pull!"

They did, at a frantic pace, no longer laughing. I daresay we crossed the Euphrate at record speed. By the time we reached the far shore, Kaneka and Imriel were out of sight. I stumbled onto dry land, ignoring my sodden skirts, and grabbed the reins of the nearest horse, snatching them from the hands of a startled Akkadian soldier.

"Watch him," I said to Joscelin, pointing to the second soldier on our raft. "And get Amaury."

Without waiting for his acknowledgment, I flung myself on the horse's back and wheeled, heading downstream. It was soaked and skittish and unsaddled, but if nothing else, I have become a passing fair rider in my travels, and I clung to its slick hide and urged it onward.

Around the second bend, I came upon Kaneka hauling Imriel out of the shallows.

Water ran off her dark skin in rivulets and she was panting like a distance-runner, her arms trembling with the effort. Imriel was dead weight, hanging limp in her grasp. I drew up the horse so sharply its forehooves sprayed dirt and dismounted at a run.

Together we got him ashore.

"Turn ... on ... belly," Kaneka gasped in Jeb'ez, dropping in ex haustion. "Get. . . out. . . water."

Imriel wasn't breathing. Following her instruction, I turned him onto his stomach, pressing rhythmically between his shoulders. A trickle of water emerged from his slack mouth, dribbling onto the soil. I kept pressing. Then, all at once, he drew in a choked breath, coughed, and spewed out half the Euphrate.