Kushiel's Chosen

"What is it you want, you?" he asked as I approached him, raising his brows. "I ordered Glaukos to tend you; it is enough, yes?"

"My lord." I made him a wobbly curtsy. "You wish to ransom me, I understand. Do you but set sail posthaste for Marsilikos, and the Duchese Roxanne de Mereliot, who is Lady of Marsilikos, will pay in gold; a prince's ransom, I swear it."

"No," he said lazily, looking away. "Go back to Glaukos."

"My lord Atrabiades," I implored, placing a hand on his arm. "Please, it is very important that I carry word to my Queen, and I have no time to lose. I promise you, in Blessed Elua's name, she will grant you clemency for claiming me hostage."

"You listen, D'Angeline!" His hand clamped onto my wrist with startling speed, and his black eyes gleamed with anger. "I do not know, I, why you were in the middle of the sea, but I have saved your life, yes. Your country, you stand by and watch, when Serenissima takes Illyria for her vassal. We ask for aid, yes, but you, you make marriages and treaties with Serenissima." Atrabiades spat again with eloquent contempt. "Now you mock me with fine language, you stand before me in rags and claim a noble title, you ask me to make haste to help your country, yes? To make a journey without provision, when there are Serenissiman warships chasing?" He released my wrist so abruptly I staggered. "I will ask for ransom, I, in my time, in my way." Raising his voice, he roared at me. "Now go back to Glau-kos!"

"Yes, my lord," I whispered, making my trembling retreat.

So much for that idea.

"I told you as much," Glaukos said comfortably upon my return. "Do you stick your head in a lion's mouth, don't be surprised if he bites it off. Well, then, my lady, will you take a deep breath, and permit me to listen to your chest? I have a concern about these ribs of yours."

"You may as well," I muttered, ignoring the ogling stares of Illyrian sailors as Glaukos pressed his grizzled head to my breast. He managed it deferentially; no mean feat, on a ship full of pirates. It lent credence to his tale of servitude.

"Your lungs sound clear," he said, pleased. "It is not a stabbing pain when you inhale?"

"No. Glaukos, is it true that we refused aid to Illyria?" I asked him, adding, "Terre d'Ange, I mean."

"True enough. Lift your arms, I'm going to bind your ribs. 'Twill manage the pain a bit, and keep you from doing further harm while they heal. I've a lass I've trained will do it proper when we make landfall." Concentrating, he wound a length of clean, rough-spun cotton about my rib cage, over my clammy dress. " 'Twas some forty years ago, if I remember aright. The Ban of Illyria begged King Ganelon of Terre d'Ange for an alliance, but the King gauged La Serenissima the greater power, and forged alliance with them, marrying off his brother to the family of the Doge. How's that?"

I took an experimental breath. "Better, thank you. I never heard anything of it. My lor... Kazan seems bitter."

"Ah, well now, I doubt most D'Angelines even knew, save the King and his councilors. Illyrians, though; 'tis another matter. One never forgets those who refuse aid in one's time of need. D'Angelines may not be enemies, but you're no friends, mind. And Kazan ... ah, well, 'tis a long story, that." He wound the extraneous bandage into a ball and placed it in a satchel at his feet. "Surely you know Terre d'Ange is the envy of a great many nations, my lady. To see so many gifts bestowed so profusely on a single people; it rouses covetousness and anger."

"What we have, we have fought to keep," I said, remembering all too well Waldemar Selig's desire to make my land his own. "Glaukos, how did you go from being a Tiberian slave to an Illyrian pirate?"

"I was sold," he said simply, placing a pinch of herbs in a leathern cup. "When my master's children were grown, he'd no need of a tutor, and sold me to another wealthy citizen, who'd need of a trained clerk. He was travelling with his household on a matter of trade, aboard a merchanter bound for La Serenissima, when we were attacked."

"And Kazan Atrabiades took you prisoner?" I surmised sourly.

Glaukos laughed, pouring water into the cup and swirling it. "Not hardly, my lady. He gave me the choice of fighting for my master and dying, or joining him a free man. Ah, now, I'd lived my whole life in slavery, hadn't I? I thought I'd spend the last years of it a free brigand. Kazan's always found a use for me, and I've never had cause to regret it. Here, drink this," he finished, handing the cup to me.

"What is it?" I took it and sniffed, looking questioningly at him.

" Tis but valerian, to aid the pain and let you sleep," he said gently. "Your body requires rest, to heal itself. Do you not see, there, how your hand shakes?" He spoke true; I noted with surprise how the leathern cup trembled in my grip, the tincture sloshing. "Indeed, you bear it better than a soldier, but you have suffered a trauma this night past, and the telling of it must wait. Drink, and I will ward you." He smiled at me, and his eyes were kind. "No harm will come to you, I promise it."

Foolhardy or no, I had little choice. I believed him, and drank. Soon weariness overcame me, and I slept, and knew no more.

FIFTY

Mydreams were fitful and vivid, filled with disturbing images; darkness streaked with flame, and the violent clash of metal on metal. Always, I was unable to move, bound and restrained, while Melisande's voice whispered like honey in my ear, bidding me to give my signale, and beyond, somewhere, other voices pleaded in torment for me to do it, to give it and release them. Fortun, I heard, and Remy; once it was Joscelin, and his face swam in my gaze, blue eyes wide with agony.

It is a dream, I thought, in my drugged, restless sleep. A dream, and no more, Blessed Elua forgive me!

'Tis no wonder, then, that I woke not knowing where I was, nor whether I was awake or dreaming. The rocking motion of the ship was as lulling as sleep, and the strangeness of Illyrian voices around me as incomprehensible as words spoken in a dream. The sun was lowering through clouds behind us, and the sky to the west was shot with fire.

And there, coiled atop the mizzenmast toward the stern of the ship, a moving shadow.

I lay curled against the outer wall of the forecastle, staring up at it from beneath the canvas awning. A trick of the light... no. It moved, sinuous and serpent-bodied, spreading veined wings against the darkling sky; a wedge-shaped head lifted, with glittering eyes the color of old blood. Its mouth opened in a silent hiss, and a three-lined tongue emerged, flickering.

I am not ashamed to admit that I let loose a shout of pure terror.

It sent the entire ship into an uproar, sailors running hither and thither, fearing that the Serenissiman navy was upon them. Glaukos hurried to my side, pale with fright. "My lady, my lady!" he cried in breathless Caerdicci. "What is it?”

Only Kazan Atrabiades had not moved, bestriding the deck with feet planted wide, his dark eyes watching me across the length of the ship.

I looked again at the mizzenmast, and saw only the bobbing tip of the mast, the fluttering sail washed in the red light of the setting sun, a loose rope dangling from the yard. "Forgive me," I murmured to Glaukos, passing my hands over my face. "I awoke from a dream and thought I saw ... something."

He turned to the nearest sailor and said something soothing in Illyrian; the sailor relaxed, laughed, and passed it on to a comrade. I heard Glaukos' words passed from mouth to mouth, and presently one of the other ships drew in shouting distance alongside us, and the tale of the D'Angeline hostage's hysteria was bantered back and forth across the waves.

I noted that Kazan Atrabiades smiled grimly, and did not laugh.

"I made the dose too strong," Glaukos said apologetically. "My apologies, my lady; I'm used to dosing full-grown men, you see. Ah, well, you're awake now, and no harm done. We'll be coming soon to harbor, after moonrise ... will you eat? 'Twill do you good, and we've food to spare; lamb and rice wrapped in grape leaves, if it's not gone off."

"Yes," I said, watching Atrabiades. "Thank you, that's very kind. And water, if I may."

Glaukos brought the food and I ate while he fussed over me like a nursemaid. The setting sun dowsed its flames in the west, leaving ruddy streaks to fade across the horizon. As darkness fell, our pace slackened not a whit; these Illyrians navigated by stars where visible, by touch and feel- mayhap even smell-where not. In the prow of each swift ship crouched an agile sailor with a lantern, cunningly wrought, that provided a bright spark of light by which they remained in communication.

Later, I would learn, there was no pirate more feared along the Serenissiman coast than Kazan Atrabiades the Illyrian, for his seamanship, and the speed and maneuverability of his vessels, were legendary. He fought with ferocity and ruthlessness, and his men were trained to a precision a Camaeline drill team would have envied. He struck swiftly and fled swifter, and no one had ever caught him; in part because he sailed like a demon and in part due to the island-riddled coastline of Illyria, that boasted a dozen or more secret harbors. In eight years of pirating, he had lost only three ships.

All of that and more I would discover to be true; then, I merely wondered distantly at the skill of the Illyrians and huddled drowsily against the forecastle, a worn blanket from Glaukos' stores over my shoulders to ward off any chill. My ordeal and the remnants of the drug had left me weary and drained, my mind as empty as a sounding drum, containing only the hollow echoes of the fearful visions I'd seen. Tomorrow, I told myself. Tomorrow, in the light of day, I will think anew, and find some way out of this predicament.

I was dozing when the footsteps woke me, a deliberate tread unlike Glaukos' soft-footed approach, and I opened my eyes as Kazan Atrabiades hunkered down on his booted heels beside me, back braced against the forecastle. The moon had risen, and I could make him out by its faint light. It gentìed his fierce features, picking out a tear-shaped pearl eardrop that dangled from his left lobe, casting a silver sheen on his topknotted black hair that was as coarse and thick as a mountain pony's.

All about us, the ship was quiet; four or five men manned the lines and rudder-bar, speaking in murmurs, while the rest caught naps where they might. The breeze was light, and our progress slow but steady, wavelets lapping along the hull. I sat silently, waiting for Atrabiades to speak.

Presently, he did.

"You cried out, you," he said without looking at me, low voice blending in with the sounds of the night-bound Ship. "When you awaked at sunset time. What did you see?"

I hesitated, then told the truth. "A creature, my lord; or so I thought. Like unto a serpent, but winged, coiled in the mizzen. It raised its head and hissed at me.”

"Yes." Atrabiades exhaled sharply. "With a tongue, like ..." He scowled, searching for the word in Caerdicci, failed to find it and thrust out three fingers, forked like a trident. "Like so?"

"Yes!" I sat upright, wide-eyed and wide-awake. "That's it, exactly!"

He nodded, mouth twisting wryly in the frame of his mustaches. "You do not need fear it, D'Angeline. This is what I come to tell you. The kríavbhog, it waits only for me. I am blood-cursed, I, Kazan Atrabiades. It will not harm you."

I rubbed my hands over my eyes, as if to erase the sight. "But my lord, I saw it."

"Yes." Atrabiades turned to look at me then, eyes glinting by moonlight. He wore a pearl eardrop in his right lobe, too; this one black, with a faint, iridescent glimmer. "You bear ... markings." He touched my blanket-shrouded shoulders, where my marque lay hidden. "I saw, today. I know what it means, I." I regarded him mutely; he responded with a fierce grin. "You think I am a, a barbarian, eh, who knows nothing of your fine ways? I was a warrior always, I, but my brother, he was a scholar, he studied in Tiberium. Daroslav, he knew D'Angelines there, they told him, ah!" He drew in his breath and clicked his tongue. "Men and women, sworn to your goddess of whores, eh, marked for pleasure. He swore to have one for his own, one day. I know what you are, I. The kríavbhog, it shows itself to make warning to your goddess, no more."

"Naamah," I said automatically. "I am a Servant of Naa-mah, my lord, and believe me, she takes no interest in your blood-curse."

"Maybe." He shrugged. "Maybe not. I find you floating in the sea like so, what am I to think, I? Do not tamper with the fate of Kazan Atrabiades, the kríavbhog warns. Your Naamah of the bedroom pleasures, she will be sorrowful"

I gave a hollow laugh, passing my hands through my salt-tangled hair. "My lord Atrabiades, I am Naamah's Servant and Kushiel's Chosen, which I think is betimes a curse to put your own to shame. I owe fealty to Asherat-of-the-Sea, who saved my life, and I am bound to cleanse her worship in La Serenissima by my own oath. I bear an ill-luck name, and of those who have aided me, more lie dead or ruined than live. I would caution you and your kríavbhog, whatsoever it may be, to steer as clear of my fate as you warn me of yours. And you might do that, my lord, by sailing to Marsilikos at all haste and claiming your ransom."

"Do not name me 'lord.' " He ignored the rest. "I am Kazan Atrabiades, I. And I do not sail at your bidding."

As I opened my mouth to retort, the sailor in the prow gave a soft cry, pointing over the horizon to where a light glimmered. In the clear night, I could make out a low land-mass. Atrabiades rose with leisurely haste, giving commands as the ship stirred to life.

I stayed where I was. He paused before he left, staring down at me. "I will claim your ransom, D'Angeline, do not fear. But know this. If he lived, I would give you to my brother Daroslav, eh, my little brother the scholar, who never got to keep his vow." 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">