Kushiel's Dart (Phedre's Trilogy #1)

From there, Elua's course drifted to the north, and he wandered long through lands harsh and stony, and the angels and creatures of the earth attended upon him, or surely he would have perished. These stories I loved, such as the Eagle of Tiroc Pass, who flew over the crags and ice each morning to stoop low above the head of Blessed Elua and drop a berry into his mouth.

In the dark woods of the Skaldic hinterlands, the ravens and wolves were his friends, but the tribesmen gave him no heed, brandishing their terrible axes and calling upon their gods, who have a taste for blood and iron. So he wandered, and snowdrops poked their heads above the drifts where he went.

At last he came to Terre d'Ange, still unnamed, a rich and beautiful land where olives, grapes and melons grew, and lavender bloomed in fragrant clouds. And here the people welcomed him as he crossed the fields and answered him in song, opening their arms.

So Elua; so Terre d'Ange, land of my birth and my soul. For threescore years, Blessed Elua and those who followed him—Naamah, Anael, Azza, Shemhazai, Camael, Cassiel, Eisheth and Kushiel—made to dwell here. And each of them followed the Precept of Blessed Elua save Cassiel, that which my mother had quoted to the Dowayne: Love as thou wilt. So did Terre d'Ange come to be what it is, and the world to know of D'Angeline beauty, born in the bloodlines from the seed of Blessed Elua and those who followed him. Cassiel alone held steadfast to the commandment of the One God and abjured mortal love for the love of the divine; but his heart was moved by Elua, and he stayed always by his side like a brother.

During this time, Brother Louvel said, the mind of the One God was much preoccupied with the death of his son, Yeshua ben Yosef, and the course of his chosen people. The time of deities does not move like our own, and three generations may live and die in the space between one thought and another. When the songs of the D'Angelines reached his ears, he turned his eye to Terre d'Ange, to Elua and those who had fled Heaven to follow him. The One God sent his commander-in-chief to fetch them back and bring Elua to stand before the throne, but Elua met him smiling and gave him the kiss of peace, laying wreaths of flowers about his neck and filling his glass with sweet wines, and the leader of God's host returned ashamed and empty-handed.

It came then to the One God that his persuasion held no sway over Elua, in whose veins ran the red wine of his mother Earth, through the womb she gave him and the tears of the Magdelene. And yet through this he was mortal, and thus subject to mortality. The One God pondered long, and sent not the angel of death, but his arch-herald to Elua and those who followed him. "Do you stay here and love as you wilt, thy offspring shall overrun the earth," said the herald of the One God. "And this is a thing which may not be. Come now in peace to the right hand of your God and Lord, and all is forgiven."

Brother Louvel told the stories well; he had a melodic voice, and knew when to pause, leaving his listeners hanging on his next breath. How would Elua answer? We were in a fever to know.

And this he told us: Blessed Elua smiled at the arch-herald, and turned to his boon companion Cassiel, holding out his hand for his knife. Taking it, he drew the point across the palm of his hand, scoring it. Bright blood welled from his palm and fell in fat drops to the earth, and anemones bloomed. "My grandfather's Heaven is bloodless," Elua told the arch-herald, "And I am not. Let him offer me a better place, where we may love and sing and grow as we are wont, where our children and our children's children may join us, and I will go."

The arch-herald paused, awaiting the One God's response. "There is no such place," he answered.

At that, Brother Louvel told us, such a thing happened as had not happened in many years and never since: Our mother Earth spoke to her once-husband, the One God, and said, "We may create it, you and I."

So was created the true Terre d'Ange, the one that lies beyond mortal perception, whose gate we may enter only after passing through the dark gate that leads out of this world. And so Blessed Elua and those who followed him did leave this plane, passing not through the dark gate, but straightways through the bright one, into the greater land that lies beyond. But this land he loved first, and so we call it after that one, and revere him and his memory, in pride and love.

On the day he finished telling us the Eluine Cycle, Brother Louvel brought a gift; a spray of anemones, one for each, to be fastened on our plackets with a long pin. They were the deep, rich red which I thought betokened true love, but he explained that these were a sign of understanding, of the mortal blood of Elua shed for his love of earth and the D'Angeline people.

It was my wont to wander the grounds of Cereus House, soaking in the day's lesson. On that day, as I remember it, I was in my seventh year, and proud as any adept of the anemones fastened to the front of my gown.

In the antechamber to the Receiving Room, those adepts summoned would gather to prepare for the viewing and selection by patrons. I liked to visit for the refined air of urgency, the subtle tensions that marked the waiting adepts as they prepared to vie for patrons' favours. Not that overt competition was permitted; such a display of untoward emotion would have been reckoned unbecoming. But it was there nonetheless, and there were always tales—a bottle of scent switched for cat piss, frayed ribbons, slit stays, the heel of a slipper cut to unevenness. I never witnessed such a thing, but the potential always eddied in the air.

On this day, all was quiet, and only two adepts waited quietly, having been requested already in particular. I held my tongue and sat quiet by the little fountain in the corner, and I tried to imagine being one of these adepts, waiting with a tranquil spirit to lie down with a patron, but a dreadful excitement gripped me instead at the thought of giving myself to a stranger. According to Brother Louvel, Naamah was filled with a mystic purity of spirit when she went to the King of Persis, and when she lay down with strangers in the market.

But that is what they say at Gentian House, and not at Alyssum, where they say she trembled to lay aside her modesty, nor at Balm, where they say she came in compassion. I know, for I listened to the adepts talk. At Bryony, they say she made a good bargain of it, and at Camellia, that her perfection unveiled left him blind for a fortnight, which led him to betray her out of uncomprehending fear. Dahlia claims she bestowed herself like a queen, while Heliotrope says she basked in love as in the sun, which shines on middens and kings' chambers alike. Jasmine House, to which I would have been heir, holds that she did it for pleasure, and Orchis, for a lark. Eglantine maintains she charmed with the sweetness of her song. What Valerian claims I know not, for of the two Houses that cater to tastes with a sharper edge, we heard less; but I heard once that Mandrake holds Naamah chose her patrons like victims and whipped them to violent pleasures, leaving them sated and half-dead.

These things I heard, for the adepts used to guess among them, when they thought I was not listening, to which House I would be bound if I were not flawed. While I had many moods in turn, as any child might, I was not sufficiently modest nor merry nor dignified nor shrewd nor ardent nor any of the others to mark me as a House's own, and I had, it seemed, no great gift for poetry nor song. So they wondered, then, idly; that day, I think, left no question.

The spray of anemones with which Brother Louvel had gifted me had slipped into disarray, and I drew out the pin to fix them. It was a long, sharp pin, exceedingly shiny, with a round head of mother-of-pearl. I sat by the fountain and admired it, anemones forgotten. I thought of Brother Louvel and his beauty, and how I would give myself to him once I was a woman proper. I thought of Blessed Elua and his long wandering, his startling answer to the arch-herald of the One God. The blood he shed might—who knows?—run in my very own veins, I thought; and resolved to see. I turned my left hand palm-upward and took the pin in a firm grip in my right, pushing it into my flesh.

The point sank in with surprising ease. For a second it seemed almost of no note; and then the pain blossomed, like an anemone, from the point I had driven into my palm. My hand sang in agony, and my nerves thrilled with it. It was an unfamiliar feeling, at once bad and good, terribly good, like when I thought of Naamah lying with strangers, only better; more. I withdrew the pin and watched with fascination as my own red blood filled the tiny indentation, a scarlet pearl in my palm to match the mote in my eye.

I did not know, then, that one of the adepts had seen and gasped, sending a servant straightways for the Dowayne. Mesmerized by pain and the thin trickle of my blood, I noticed nothing until her shadow fell over me.

"So," she said, and fastened her old claw around my left wrist, wrenching my hand up to peer at my palm. The pin dropped from my fingers and my heart beat in excited terror. Her gimlet gaze pierced my own and saw the stricken pleasure there. "It would have been Valerian House for you, then, would it?" There was a grim satisfaction in her voice; a riddle solved. "Send a messenger to the Dowayne, tell him we have such a one who might benefit from instruction in accommodating pain." The grey steel gaze roamed my face once more, came to rest on my left eye, and stopped. "No, wait." Something again flickered in her mien; an uncertainty, something half-remernbered. She dropped my wrist and turned away. "Send for Anafiel Delaunay. Tell him we have something to see."

THREE

Why did I run, on the day before I was scheduled to meet with Anafiel Delaunay, sometime potentate of the court—the real one—and potential buyer of my bond?

In truth, I know not, except that there was always a drive in me that sought out danger; for its own sake, for the chill it gave me or for the possible repercussion—who can say? I was thick with one of the scullery maids, and she had shown me the pear tree in the garden behind the kitchens, how it grew along the wall so one might climb it and thus over the wall.

I knew that the thing was done, for the Dowayne had told me a day prior, that I might be forewarned of the preparations to come. Truly, the adepts murmured, I would be prepared as if for a prince; washed, combed and adorned.

No one would say, of course, who Anafiel Delaunay was, nor why I should be grateful that he would come to look at me. Indeed, if any of them knew the whole truth, I would be much surprised to learn it now. But his name was spoken with a certain hush by the Dowayne of Cereus House, and there was no adept but took his or her cue from her.

So, between awe and fear, I bolted.

With skirts tucked about my waist, the pear tree was easy enough to navigate, and I jumped down unharmed on the far side of the wall. Cereus House sits atop the crest of a hill above the City of Elua. The wall lends it discretion, and there is nothing save the perfume of its gardens to distinguish it from the other estates that sprawl below it, wending down to the centre. It is, as are the others, marked with a discreet insignia upon the gate that admits patrons into its domain. For three years, I had been within those walls; now, outside, I gaped to see the bowl of the City open before me, ringed by gentle hills. There, the river cleft it like a broadsword; there, surely, was the Palace, gleaming in the sun.

A carriage went past at a good clip. Its curtains were drawn, but the coachman cast me a quick, wondering glance. Surely, if I did not move, someone would stop; I was conspicuous enough, a small girl-child in a damask gown, with my dark curls caught up in ribbons. And if the next coach stopped, surely someone inside would hear, and in a moment, the Dowayne's guards would be out to usher me gently back inside.

Elua was born unwanted to the Magdelene, and what had he done? Wandered, wandered the earth; so then, I resolved, I would follow his footsteps. I set off down the hill.

The closer I got to the City, the farther away it seemed. The broad, gracious streets lined with trees and gated manses gave way slowly to narrower, winding streets. These were filled with all manner of people, of a poorer sort than I was accustomed to seeing. I did not know, then, that below Mont Nuit, where the Thirteen Houses were situated, was a lower sort of entertainment; cafes frequented by poets and gentlefolk of ill-repute, unpedigreed bawdy houses, artists' dens, dubious chemists and fortunetellers. It gave spice, I learned later, to nobles venturing into the Night Court.

It was morning, though late. I clung to the edge of the street, overwhelmed by the noise and bustle. Above me, a woman leaned over a balustrade and emptied a washbasin into the street. Water splashed at my feet and I jumped back, watching it edge its way downhill, forming rivulets between the cobblestones. A gentleman rushing out of an unmarked establishment near to tripped over me and cursed.

"Watch yourself, child!" His voice was brusque. He hurried down the street, his pumps striking a rhythm on the stones. I noted that his hosen were rucked and twisted, as though he had donned them in a hurry, and the hood of his cassock was inside out. No patron but left Cereus House cool and collected, having enjoyed a glass of wine or cordial; but then, no patron of Cereus House would come for leisure clothed in fustian.

Around the next corner, a small square opened, pleasantly shaded with trees, a fountain in its centre; it was market day, and a clamour of vendors abounded. I had made my escape without provisions, and at the sight and smell of food, my stomach reminded me. I paused at the sweet-seller's stall, mulling over her comfits and marchepain; unthinking, I picked up an almond-paste sweet.

"Ye've touched it now, ye must be buying it!" The old woman's voice rang sharp in my ear. Startled, I dropped the sweet and looked up at her.

For a second she glowered, florid-faced, the sturdy country beauty of her bones hidden under the suet with which over-sampling her wares had given her. I stared back, trembling; and saw beneath her weighty dour a not-uncompassionate heart, and feared less.

And then she saw my eyes, and her face changed.

"Devil-spawn!" Her arm rose like a loaf of bread and one plump finger pointed at me. "Mark this child!"

No one had told me that the neighborhood below Mont Nuit was superstitious in the extreme. Vendors began to turn, hands reaching to catch hold of me. In an excess of terror, I bolted. Unfortunately, the first obstacle in my path was a stand of peaches, which I promptly upset. Stumbling on the vendor's wares, I measured my length beneath the market's awnings. Something squished unpleasantly under my left elbow, and the odor of bruised peaches surrounded me like a miasma. I heard the vendor roar with anger as he charged around the toppled stall toward me.

"Hsst!" From beneath another stand peered a small, swarthy face; a boy, near to my age. Grinning, his teeth white against his skin, he beckoned with one grimy hand.

I scrambled madly across the fruit-strewn ground, feeling a seam part as I tore loose from someone's grip on the back of my gown. My youthful savior wasted no time, shoving me past him, guiding me at a rapid crawl under an elaborate series of stalls. Excitement raced in my veins, and when we burst out of the market and gained our feet, taking to our heels ahead of the shouts, I thought my heart would burst with it.

A few of the younger men pursued us half-heartedly, giving up once we dodged into the labyrinth of streets. We pelted along anyway, not stopping until my savior judged it safe, ducking into a doorway and peering carefully behind us.

"We're safe," he pronounced with satisfaction. "They're too lazy to run more than a block, any road, unless you swipe somewhat big, like a ham." He turned back to look at me and whistled through his teeth. "You've a spot in your eye, like blood. Is that what the old hen was squawking about?"

After three years in pale, swooning Cereus House, he was positively exotic to my eyes. His skin was as brown as a Bhodistani's, his eyes black and merry, and his hair hung to his shoulders in curls of jet. "Yes," I said, and because I thought him beautiful, "What House are you from?"

He squatted on his heels. "I live on the Rue Coupole, near the temple."

The stoop was dirty, but my gown was dirtier. I gathered it around my knees and sat. "My mother was of Jasmine House. You have their coloring, yes?"

With one hand, he touched the ribbons twined in my hair. "These are nice. They'd fetch a few coppers, in the market." His eyes widened, showing the whites. "You're of the Night Court."

"Yes," I said, then; "No. I've the spot, in my eye. They want to sell me."

"Oh." He pondered it for a moment. "I'm Tsingani," he said presently, pride puffing his voice. "Or my mother is, at least. She tells fortunes in the square, except on market days, and takes in washing. My name's Hy-acinthe."

"Phedre," I told him.

"Where do you live?"

I pointed up the hill, or in the direction I thought the hill might lie; in the maze of streets, I had lost sense of home and City.

"Ah." He sucked in his breath, clicking tongue on teeth. He smelled, not unpleasantly, of unwashed boy. "Do you want me to take you home? I know all the streets."

In that moment, both of us heard the clatter of hooves, quick and purposeful, parting from the general noise of the City. Hyacinthe made as if to bolt, but they were on us already, drawing up the horses with a fine racket. Two of the Dowayne's Guard, they were, in the livery of Cereus House, a deep twilight blue bearing a subtle gold cereus blossom.

I was caught.

"There," one of them said, pointing at me, exasperation in his deep voice. His features were handsome and regular; members of the Cereus Guard were chosen for their looks as well as their skill at arms. "You've annoyed the Dowayne and upset the marketplace, girl." With one gloved hand, he reached down and plucked me into the air, gathering a wad of fabric at the nape of my neck into his grip. I dangled, helpless. "Enough."

With that, he sat me down on the saddle before him and turned his horse, glancing at his companion and jerking his. head homeward. Hyacinthe scrambled into the street, dangerous beneath the horses' hooves, and the other guard cursed and flicked his crop at him.

"Out of my way, filthy Tsingano brat."

Hyacinthe avoided the lash with ease born of long-practiced dexterity and ran after the horses a few paces as we departed. "Phedre!" he shouted. "Come back and see me! Remember, Rue Coupole!"

I craned my neck to see past the guard's blue-swathed chest, trying to catch a last sight of him, for I was sad to see him go. For a few minutes, he had been a friend, and I had never had one of those.

Upon our return to Cereus House, I found myself much in disgrace. I was denied the privilege of serving at the evening's entertainment and confined to my room without supper, although Ellyn, who was tenderhearted, concealed a morsel of biscuit in her napkin for me.