Kushiel's Chosen

To his credit, he didn't.

Twilight was falling over La Serenissima when we reached our lodgings, tinting the city in violet and blue. My heart ached for the day's lost beauty and Severio's bitterness, for the pieces of my life that ever seemed to slip through my fingers. My soul shuddered at the dark day's work that lay ahead. I thanked my chevaliers and bid them good evening, retiring to my bedchamber, where I left the lamp burning and stood on the balcony, gazing into the night, until a light knock sounded at my door.

It was Joscelin, a questioning look on his face. "Phèdre? Are you all right? Remy was worried about you."

He must have been, I thought, to send Joscelin. "I'm fine. Come in." I closed the door behind him, shrugging and wrapping my arms about myself. "It's nothing. Nerves, mayhap. It was a long day."

"Severio?" Joscelin raised his eyebrows.

"It's done." I laughed wearily. "I know what you thought of him, but he wasn't so bad, truly. There's merit in him. And you know, Joscelin, sometimes it was rather pleasant to be courted for my own sake instead of for an assignation, to have someone want to spend his life with me because of what I am, and not in spite of it. No matter," I added, "what his father might have decreed in the end."

Joscelin stood silent, having only heard the first part of my words. "That's not fair," he said softly. "It's what I am as much as what you are. The problem has ever lain between the two. Phèdre..." He took a step toward me, one hand touching my hair; I turned to him, lifting up my face.

If, if, if. If Remy hadn't sent him ...

Joscelin was human; not even Cassilines are made of stone. His hand slid through my hair and I felt the shudder that went through him as his fingers brushed the nape of my neck. "Phèdre, no," he murmured against my lips as I kissed him, but it was he who had lowered his head to mine. Cassiel's Servant, I should have let him go; but I was Naamah's, and wound my arms about his neck instead, kissing him. I think he would have pushed me away, if his hands hadn't betrayed him, coming hard around my waist. "Don't," he whispered into my hair.

I did.

It was ungentle, for the first time-the only time-between us. Wracked between despair and desire, Joscelin was rougher than was his wont. And I could not hide the pleasure it brought me, stifling my cries against the sculpted curve of his shoulder. It was over too soon, and too late to undo. There is a madness in love. I watched him go, gathering his clothes, averting his gaze to hide the self-loathing in his eyes. Naked by moonlight, he was beautiful, muscles gliding in a subtle shadow play beneath his pale skin, fair hair shimmering. I had to close my eyes against it and hear the rustle of him dressing.

When I opened them, I didn't mince words. "You're leaving."

"Yes." Neither did he; we never had, the two of us.

"Will you come back?"

"I don't know," Joscelin said bluntly. "Phèdre, you don't need me. This isn't Skaldia. Any one of your chevaliers can serve you better here than I have, and has. They protect you well enough. I was wrong about them. If you've not found what you sought, still, you found enough. It will be in Benedicte's hands tomorrow, and better for it. You can go home and be the toast of the City once more."

"And your vow?" I made myself ask it.

Joscelin shrugged. "I broke all my vows but one for you, my lady," he said softly. "Let us say it is you yourself who have shattered this last."

There is such a thing as a grief too immense for tears; this was almost one such. Almost. I watched him go dry-eyed, and heard the click of my bedchamber door behind him, the louder thud of the front entrance door shutting, and the sleepy murmur of a servant-lad as he roused to bar the door on his exit. Only then did his absence strike me like a blow, a terrible emptiness. So many times, like the tide, he had withdrawn only to return. This time, I felt only absence, and a sucking despair. I wept enough tears to fill a void, and though I never thought I would, fell asleep at last in the whiteness of pure exhaustion on my soaked and bitter pillow.

FORTY

"Where's Joscelin?" It was Ti-Philippe, most blithe and careless of the three, who asked; Fortun had taken one look at my reddened eyes and remained wisely silent, and Remy, who had sent Joscelin to me, avoided my gaze.

"Gone," I said shortly. "And not likely to return." I set down the heel of jam-smeared bread I'd been toying with-I had no appetite-and turned to Fortun. "You have the map?"

"Yes, my lady." He indicated the cylindrical leather case at his side. "We are all ready," he added quietly, "and the boat is waiting. Whenever you're ready."

"Let's go." I rose abruptly from the breakfast table, leaving them scrambling in my wake. My maid Leonora stared after us, shaking her head, no doubt wondering at the strangeness of D'Angeline ways. Well, if my behavior was odd this day, she'd put it down to the falling-out with Severio. If she hadn't heard it already, she would soon enough.

The fisherman-cousin of the Pidari family, whose name was Fiorello, was awaiting us anxiously in a little skiff with a single set of oars and a jerry-rigged sail. He spread burlap sacking on the seat for me as I embarked, and set to at the oars nearly the instant we were all aboard. Any other day, I might have laughed at the way Phèdre's Boys fell over each other at the speed of his departure. Any other day, I might have rejoiced as we emerged from the canal and hoisted the modest sail to scud across the lagoon.

Well and so, I thought, staring at the green wavelets. Today I seek audience with a Prince of the Blood to lay forth my suspicions of one of the foremost peers of the realm. Mayhap it is fitting that my mood match this day's deeds.

Isla Vitrari is one of the largest to lie within the shelter of the vast lagoon, and 'tis a pleasant isle. Its harbor has a deep draw, for the merchanters dock here, carrying glassware for trade. Fiorello Pidari cast a line to a couple of lads ashore, jesting with them; clearly, he was known here. The harbormaster gave him a nod and a wave as we disembarked.

We followed our guide along a well-trodden footpath, past studios belching smoke from the glass furnaces and jealously guarded by young apprentices. It was Prince Be-nedicte who suggested the glassworks be moved to the island some fifteen years past, Severio once told me. Before, they had been quartered within La Serenissima proper, and many fires had resulted. Small wonder, I thought, glancing within a doorway open to catch the breeze, seeing the red glow of a furnace within and a brawny Serenissiman craftsman at his trade. He wore a leathern apron and his lips were wrapped round the end of a hollow rod, his cheeks puffed out like a bellows. What he wrought, I could not say.

It was not until we drew near to the Studio Pidari that our guide grew nervous.

"No smoke," he muttered as we approached the low building. "Why isn't the furnace going? The furnace should be going."

We found out soon enough.

Tall and bald as an egg was the man who emerged from the studio, and he wiped his hands absentmindedly on the front of his jerkin, as if accustomed to wearing an apron. "Fiorello," he said sorrowfully, extending his hands to our guide. "Ah, Fiorello!" And catching sight of the rest of us, his expression changed. "You! You people have done enough," he said grimly, pointing back down the trail. "Be gone from here! We want no more of your kind!”

It was enough to stop me in my tracks and drive the grief clean out of my head. Fiorello stared uncomprehendingly and my chevaliers exchanged glances; I stepped forward.

"Master Glassblower," I said gently. "I am Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève of Terre d'Ange. I had an appointment to discuss a commission for my Queen. I am sorry if we have come at an ill time."

"Oh, that, aye," he said roughly. "Beg pardon, my lady, only we've had a death in the family. Ruffians, most like, or those damned Vicenti, thinking to prey on the weakest link to get us to give up the formula for our greens! Like as not it's my daughter's folly, to think her lad's mates would take vengeance on him."

Weakest link, daughter's folly, lad's mates. My heart sank. "Your son-in-law?" I asked aloud, knowing already that it was true.

"Attacked on his way home from the harbor tavern." Master Pidari's gaze turned suspicious. "Told her she was mad, wedding one such. What do you know of him?"

"I knew him, signore." It was Ti-Philippe who stepped forward, blue eyes wide and earnest. "Though I was a member of her majesty's navy and he of her guard, we fought together on the same battlefield and drank a toast, afterward, to earth and sea. May we extend our condolences to his widow?"

"Reckon so," he said grudgingly, and turned, shouting into the studio. "Serena!"

Named for the city of her birth, there was no serenity to Phanuel Buonard's widow that day; she emerged white-faced and trembling, and I knew at once I was in the presence of a grief that dwarfed my own. A grief, I thought with horror, of which I was the likely author.

"What do you want?" Serena's voice shook. "Are you guardsmen? What do you want?"

"Guardsmen, no." Fortun spoke gently, bowing to her. "Sailors once, now in the service of my lady Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève. We came for trade, but stay to grieve, signora. Chevalier Philippe, he knew your husband, and spoke him well."

Her lips moved soundlessly and her eyes searched all our faces, lingering longest on mine, taking in the mark of Kushiel's Dart with a kind of awe. "You," she said wonderingly. "Phanuel spoke of you. You brought the Picti, the Painted Folk, when he fought the Skaldi. Men carried your banner. They ... they made up songs about it. You."

"Yes," I said softly. "These men. Signora, please accept our deepest sympathy."

"Why would they do it?" Her dark, stricken eyes pleaded for an answer. "His own brethren among the guard! Why? He was afraid, he would never tell me."

Behind her, Master Pidari shook his bald head dolefully and went inside. I watched him go, thinking. "Signora," I said to her. "If it was D'Angelines who did this, I will look into it myself, I promise you. But why do you think so? Your father does not."

She gave a despairing laugh that was part gulping sob. "My father! He thinks because Phanuel has a pretty face, he is girlish and weak. But he was a soldier, my lady. Ruffians could not have defeated him so easily, nor the bully-boys of the Vicenti. It was soldiers killed him, with steel." Serena Buonard pointed to her heart. "Right here, a blade." A fierceness lit her eyes. "I will ask along the harbor, and see if someone was not bribed to let D'Angeline guardsmen ashore!"

I turned to Remy, who nodded before I even spoke. "Remy. Take Fiorello, and go. If they demand payment to speak, do it. I'll reimburse the cost."

"Thank you, my lady, thank you!" Serena clutched my hands gratefully. I felt sick. "My father thinks I am mad, but I know I am not. Why? Why would they do this?"

"Signora." I fought down my rising gorge. "Why did your husband accept a post in La Serenissima?"

"He said his commander offered him money, much money," she whispered, dropping my hands. "Money to go far away. But there was something he wanted to forget, and the Little Court was not far enough for that. So he ran to me." She lifted her chin defiantly; she was pretty, beneath her grief, in a Serenissiman fashion. "He thought Isla Vitrari was far enough," she added sadly. "But it was not."

"No," I murmured. "Signora, your husband was the first to discover a terrible deed, at the fortress of Troyes-le-Mont where the last battle against the Skaldi was fought, and I think mayhap that memory is what he fled. Did he ever speak of it to you?"

She nodded, looking into the distance. "Yes." Her voice was a faint thread of sound. "He told me, once. He thought... he thought the man was sleeping and jested with him, as guards will do. And then he saw blood on his tunic, and his eyes open and unmoving." Serena Buonard shook her head. "No more than that. Only dawn breaking grey in the east, and the scent of apples ripening on the morning breeze."

"Apples." I breathed the word, my heart cold in my breast. Troyes-le-Mont stood on a plain near the foothills of Camlach, scourged by the Skaldi for ten leagues in every direction.

There were no apples ripening in Troyes-le-Mont, that summer or ever.

What happened after that blurs in my memory, between the horror and guilt. I promised, extravagantly, to see justice brought to the killers of Phanuel Buonard. Pale and shocked, Fortun and Ti-Philippe seconded me. I daresay none of us believed it, before. I fumbled for my purse, untying it from my girdle and giving it whole into Serena's hands. It was heavy with gold solidi, and even through her grief, her eyes widened at it. I made promises to return at a better time regarding my Queen's commission.

All of that done, we departed, discarding solemnity for haste the instant we were out of sight. In the harbor, Remy met us, grim-faced. Serena Buonard was right. D'Angeline guardsmen had landed last night, bribing the harbormaster's second assistant.

"They should have hidden their tracks better," I said quietly. "Fiorello, take us back."

He did, with all haste, looking rather ill himself. I had to beg coin of Fortun to pay him, having given all of mine to Serena. We paused at our rented house only long enough to don suitable court attire and because, although I did not say it, I was hoping against hope that Joscelin had returned.

He hadn't.

"My lady," Leonora said reverently, bringing me a missive on a salver. "This came while you were gone." ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">