Kushiel's Scion (Imriel's Trilogy #1)

He took it, blinking at me. "But I didn't even ask."

"I know." I hesitated. "Canis, why are you here?"

"Why am I here?" He knuckled his eyes. "Why are you here? Why are any of us here? I will tell you why, I think. Because the gods were lonely. Or perhaps only bored."

"No," I said patiently, tapping the cobblestones. "Here."

Canis inhaled a long breath through his nose. "Do you smell that? Master Ambrosius is grinding sandalwood today." He smiled sweetly at me. "I stink, do I not? So it should be, for I am a man, and I stink like a man. That is what we are, Imriel; men, dog-rank and stinking. And yet, here in this street, I can fill my nostrils like a god and never pay a brass sestertius for it. Do you not think it wise?"

I gave up.

It was true, Canis did stink; or at least his barrel did. It smelled like he had pissed in it, at least once, and mayhap more. If he was a member of the Unseen Guild, stalking me for their obscure purposes, he was going far beyond the call of duty to deceive me.

Why, I could not fathom.

"You might try the baths, my friend," I said, straightening. "They're very congenial."

"I'll consider it," Canis said obligingly, then tilted his head. "Would you mind moving? You're blocking the sunlight."

Chapter Forty

The weeks that followed were disorienting. I took greater care with my safety and there were no further incidences of violence. The captain of the city cohort had shrugged off Gilot's concerns. The dead man near the docks had been a Tiberian barge-hand and sometime ruffian, the sort of fellow likely to turn up dead in a tavern brawl or a botched robbery. No one had claimed to recognize the corpse outside the insula, but there was no reason to suspect he was aught but the thief Canis had named him.

Gilot had been circumspect about my identity, saying only that he was in the employ of a D'Angeline gentleman. The captain opined that any D'Angeline lordling foolish enough to take up residence in the students' quarter and traipse around the docks at night got what he deserved.

Well, and so. At night, we barred the door to our apartment. In the city, I made a point of travelling with at least one companion. Tiberium began to seem reasonably safe once more.

But my life had been split into parts; parts that failed to add up to a whole. In the mornings, I attended Master Piero's classes, where I was a young scholar, earnestly pursuing the meaning of virtue. In the afternoons, I went to sit for Erytheia of Thrasos, where I was a paid model until Claudia arrived.

And then we were left alone, and I was… what? Her lover, at least at the beginning. Time after time, we coupled in Erytheia's atelier, sweating in the hot sunlight, the stink of linseed oil surrounding us.

And then, afterward, I became Claudia's reluctant acolyte, listening to her speak of the Unseen Guild.

It had rules and ranks like any other guild, she told me. Upon swearing allegiance, one became an apprentice. After seven years, an apprentice might be elevated to journeyman status; she herself had only recently been made a journeyman. In another seven years, she would be eligible to be named a master.

"Provided, of course"—she smiled sidelong at me—"that I make no reckless mistakes."

"Is that what I am?" I raised my brows. "A reckless mistake."

"No." She traced my jaw. "You are a dangerous assignment in which I am required to take dangerous risks. But you're tempting enough to make me reckless."

"What happens if Deccus finds out?" I asked. "Surely, all your servants must know."

"A good servant knows the value of discretion," Claudia said placidly. "And I'm a generous mistress with a husband much distracted by politics. My household is loyal, and my activities give them no cause to suspect the Guild's existence." Her expression turned serious for a moment. "I am fond of Deccus, you know. And I'm not usually this careless."

"No doubt," I said wryly. "So these masters control the guild?"

"No, not exactly." Claudia drew her finger down my belly, leaving a line in the sweat that glistened on my skin. "The masters answer to the epopts."

I caught her hand. "Epopts."

She nodded. "It's an old word, a Hellene word. From the mysteries. You speak a lot of languages, don't you? Because that will be very useful."

"Yes," I said, keeping her hand trapped. "So the epopts control the guild."

Claudia blew out her breath in annoyance. "No, Imriel. The Unseen Guild is ruled by the Heptarchy. And don't ask me about them, because I don't know. Only that there are seven of them at all times. When one dies, another is chosen. Not even the epopts know the identity of all seven, only the Heptarchs themselves."

"So what makes you so certain they exist?" I asked.

There were other things she couldn't tell me—couldn't or wouldn't. On the matter of my alleged enemies, she refused to speak further, saying only that it was the price the Guild had set on my loyalty. But I continued to ask questions, hoping to reason my way out of the web in which I was entangled. And then Erytheia and Silvio would return and I would be paid my silver coin, and in their eyes I became somewhat else altogether, Claudia Fulvia's kept boy.

It shouldn't have bothered me, but it did.

I knew what it meant to serve Naamah. I had seen the profound reverence with which her adepts approached their work at Balm House, at once grave and joyful. I had seen kindness and compassion in those who answered Naamah's calling in Night's Doorstep. Even in Valerian House—especially in Valerian House—there was a singular pride, deep and untouchable.

It was different here.

And when I saw the way Silvio looked at me, I thought about the young woman at the brothel, weeping and begging me not to leave. I thought about the whore on the streets, spitting at my feet.

I thought about Daršanga. And I wondered, betimes, about the damage done to me there. I told myself I only allowed myself to be caught in Claudia's thrall because of the intrigue, because I wanted to know the truth. But I knew, every time I went to her and she left me wrung out and gasping, that it was half a lie. I wanted her, too. I wanted to gain a sense of mastery over her, to drive her harder than she drove me.

And there was never enough time. I wanted more, more than Eyrtheia's hourglass permitted. Dangerous games with dangerous toys. Claudia made me promises, whispering in my ear, telling me things she longed to do. Ways she wanted me to take her; ways in which she wanted me to submit to her. She promised there would be another time, soon, when we could spend a night together.

I wanted it.

I dreaded it, too.

Worst of all were the evenings after I left the atelier and joined my friends in the wineshop. There I became yet another self, and it was the self I liked the least. I got into the habit of visiting the baths after I was with Claudia, but I could still feel her on my skin. I looked at Eamonn, who I claimed to love like a brother, and felt I was living a lie. I looked at Lucius Tadius, to whom I had promised friendship, and felt myself to be the worst kind of hypocrite. I looked at all of them, wondering who, if any, were part of the Unseen Guild, and I felt very alone and lonely in the midst of the camaraderie.

I'd come to Tiberium to find out who I was, and I had been divided against myself. I'd come to discover what it meant to be good, and I was floundering in lies, hypocrisy, and suspicion.

I was learning, though.

Claudia was right. I was being trained in the arts of covertcy. Not the skills of observation and stealth, but the deeper arts. The ability to navigate alone through a web of deceit and mistrust with a pleasant mask on my face. In time, I even got good enough to fool Eamonn, letting him believe a near-truth, that I was having an affair with a Tiberian noblewoman that I dare not risk exposing.

I'd told the same half-truth to Gilot, threatening him with dire consequences if he ever revealed the location of the domus he'd led me to on the night of that first liaison with Claudia. He believed it easily enough and kept his mouth shut. Gilot had no great fondness for Lucius, and as long as I didn't put myself at risk, wandering the streets alone, he didn't care what I did.

Lying to Eamonn was harder. It hurt. And I would never have done it if I wasn't afraid for him. If it wasn't for the nagging doubts. We were alone and far from home. If the Unseen Guild existed, I didn't dare risk telling him.

Is that a warning?

Yes.

Betimes I wasn't certain how much of it I believed. Of a surety, there was a conspiracy at work here, but there was no evidence of its scope, and Claudia was hard put to prove it to me. There was the Persian guide's name, yes; but that wasn't a secret, merely an arcane piece of information. I wanted a glimpse of the hidden mechanism at work.

"It's not that easy, Imriel!" she repeated in frustration. "There's a good deal I'm forbidden to tell you. And matters on that scale take months to play out, or years."

"Like what?" I challenged her.

"All right." Lying on her back, she gazed at the ceiling of Erytheia's atelier. "You know Deccus is a Restorationist." I nodded. "Well, it's not going to happen," she said. "The Senate won't get the popular support it needs to restore the republic."

"You're a senator's wife," I said wryly. "You're privy to information."

"Which is why I was approached in the first place." She rolled over. Damp tendrils of dark red hair clung to her temples. "But that's not why I know, Imriel. The Restorationists support diverting funds for the University to rebuild Tiberium's trade status. The Unseen Guild opposes this."

"Why on earth?" I asked, curious despite myself.

"Because the University of Tiberium attracts scholars from nations all over the world," she said. "It's an endless resource for the Guild's recruiting. We're careful and selective, but we do make use of it. And we don't want to see it reduced or eliminated."

"So you spy on Deccus and his comrades, and report to the Guild?" The thought gave me a chill. It seemed wrong, very wrong.

Claudia's eyes flashed. "I'm not a cold hearted monster, Imriel! I'd not do anything to endanger Deccus. Indeed, with the Guild's aid, I can protect him from the repercussions of his own politics. But yes, some things I report. And if I can sway his thinking on the matter of the University, it may be that the Restorationists will find the political balance tipping."

"I don't believe you," I said stubbornly. It wasn't true, but I thought that mayhap if I clung to my position, it would force Claudia to reveal more than she intended, one way or another. In that, I was mistaken.

"Believe what you like," Claudia said with a shrug.

Would that I could.

So I lived my divided life and reflected ruefully on the not very distant past, when it seemed that escaping to Tiberium and becoming a simple student, a scholar among many, would free me from the snares that entangled me.

As if to make matters worse, I returned to the insula one afternoon to find yet another unexpected missive awaiting me. It was sitting on the rude wooden table, creamy parchment stamped with the seal of an unfamiliar D'Angeline device, and my name written in a graceful, flowing hand: Imriel de la Courcel. The sight of it was like a dousing with cold water.

"Gilot!" I snapped. "Where did this come from?"

He glanced up from the sword he was whetting. "A messenger from Lady Fleurais, the D'Angeline ambassadress."

I tapped the letter against the table. "Did you see the name on it?"

"Aye." His gaze was steady. "So? What do you expect me to do, Imri? You are who you are. I'm not about to lie to the Queen's appointed envoy about it." Gilot frowned. "You're not exactly invisible, you know. If you wanted to vanish altogether, you should have run away and joined the Tsingani. Or at least registered at the University under a false name."

"The University doesn't require a residence of record," I pointed out. "And you were the one rented the apartment room, not me. We did that a-purpose, remember?"

Gilot shrugged. "You're not exactly inconspicuous."

I cracked the seal and read the letter. It was an invitation to dine with the ambassadress on the following day. Although it was couched in pleasant terms, it was clear that Lady Fleurais was doing the Queen's bidding and expected me to do the same. I tossed the letter on the table and flopped onto my pallet with a sigh.

"What is it?" Gilot asked.

"An invitation to dinner," I said. "It seems her majesty the Queen wishes a report on my well-being."

"Well, and why not?" he said pragmatically. "She has a right to be concerned. As I recall, she went to considerable lengths to secure it."

It was true, and I felt guilty. "I know. It's just… I don't like being so easily found."

"By the Queen's ambassadress?" Gilot raised his brows. "I worry about a lot of things when it comes to you, Imri. That's not one of them."

It was foolish and unreasonable, I know. If it hadn't been for the business with Claudia, it wouldn't have troubled me. I would have grumbled about Ysandre playing nursemaid, and not given it a second thought. I hadn't expected to disappear completely in Tiberium, only to live simply and quietly, as someone other than a D'Angeline Prince of the Blood. But as it was, it felt like yet another snare tightening around me.

I went, though.

There was no gracious way to decline, and I was half afraid that if I did, the ambassadress would only grow more persistent. And so the following morning, I sent Gilot with a reply of acceptance, and that evening I put on my shirt with the lace collar, the blue-and-silver brocade doublet, and went to call upon the Lady Fleurais.