Kushiel's Avatar (52 page)

And Joscelin was staring at me with no expression whatsoever.

I lifted my hands from the tabletop and spread my fingers. Ten days.

With a brief nod, he looked away.

The remainder of the night is blurred, run together with others, too many others. Nothing was different, save that Imriel was there-and more, more Âka-Magi, more Drujani, more Tatars. What I could not bear to watch unflinching, I avoided. It is a coward’s excuse, I know, but I had endured too much to give myself away now. In time, the Mahrkagir led me away to his quarters and I was granted an
anguissette
’s reprieve, forgetting everything in the exquisite depths of pain and humiliation, until it ended and awareness returned in a rush, misery trebled by renewed self-loathing.

I was returned to the
zenana
before Imriel.

Always before, I would go to my chamber and sleep for some hours when the Mahrkagir had finished with me. This time, I waited, kneeling on my carpet, enduring the dull throb of pain. Rushad and Drucilla hovered alike, both distraught. I kept my gaze fixed on the latticed door and ignored them.

It was over an hour before he returned, Uru-Azag escorting him, and the boy Imriel who returned was not the same I had known, the one who had spat in my face and led me a merry chase about the
zenana
. This boy walked stiffly, his face blank and dazed, no trace of defiance in his eyes, only uncomprehending hurt. Uru-Azag let him go, bowing imperceptibly as Imriel stumbled with leaden steps toward his couch.

An island of Chowati lay in his path. It is true that Imri had plagued them on more than one occasion, pinching sweets, trading insults. There was no real harm in it … but in this place, cruelty bred cruelty. I cannot think why else Jolanta, the most ill-tempered among them, chose to torment him in that moment. I only know that she did.

“Little rooster,” she called maliciously to him in zenyan, “little cock, where is your crow? What is wrong, have the Tatars taken your balls?” She threw back her head in laughter at his blank stare. “Come, boy,” she said, spreading her legs and rubbing herself, “you’d best use them while you have them, young or no, before you end like the Skaldi!”

“I say he’s lost them already,” one of the others offered, rising from her couch. Imriel blinked, pushing her hands away as she reached to undo his breeches. Another caught him from behind, pinning his arms. Panicked, he began to struggle, uttering a high, terrible sound. “Any wagers? Is the little rooster’s staff still working?”

Light-headed with fury, I did not know I had gotten to my feet. The world had taken on a familiar scarlet tinge. My ears were ringing with the terrible sound Imriel was making, and something else, something that blew through me like a wind, a buffeting bronze-winged storm.

I drew a breath that seared my lungs like fire and shouted. “
Let him go
!”

The words resounded like a whip-crack in the
zenana
, an echoing silence following. And in the silence, a hundred pairs of eyes stared at
me
.

Jolanta of the Chowati was no coward. In the silence, she rose from her couch and picked her way across the
zenana
to confront me. “Why should we? Who are you to order it?”

I held my tongue and did not answer.

“Her name,” said a man’s voice, cracked and harsh, speaking crude zenyan, “is Phèdre nó Delaunay, and she once walked across a war into torture and sure death to save her country.” Erich’s lips curled as he pushed himself up against the wall. “From the Skaldi.”

“You knew,” I whispered, gazing at him.

“I was six,” he said. “The defeated always remember.”

Jolanta blinked, opening and closing her mouth. Like a dark shadow, Kaneka appeared at her side, sliding an ivory hairpin from her thick, woolen hair. It had a point on it like a dagger, and nearly as long. She gestured with it, smiling pleasantly. “Go back to your island, Chowati.”

I started. “Imriel.”

“I’ll check on him.” It was Drucilla, steady and efficient. “There’s nothing you can do for him right now. Kaneka, Nariman is coming.”

With an unobtrusive motion, the Jebean woman slid the ivory pin back into her hair, and Jolanta sidled away toward her couch. Nariman approached, waddling and officious. “Lady,” he said to me in zenyan, breathing hard, dislike in his small eyes, “do not
shout
in my
zenana
.”

The hand of Kushiel had not entirely left me.

“Listen to me, little man,” I said in Old Persian. “Whether I like it or not, I am the Mahrkagir’s favorite. If you don’t stay out of my way, I will ask him for your head on a platter. And if he’s in a good mood, he may well grant it to me. Do you think he loves you so well, for opening the door to the Akkadians thirty years ago? Your position here is a bitter jest that has outlived its time.”

He blanched. “Favorites change,” he hissed. “Or die. Accidents happen, in the
zenana
.”

“Yes,” I said, unimpressed. “And if one happens to me, I promise you, you will have a horde of angry Âka-Magi here wondering why.”

Nariman went.

Kaneka folded her arms and looked at me.

“Erich,” I said, ignoring her, “Rushad said you spoke no zenyan.”

“A little,” he replied in Skaldic. “No more. I learned to listen, watching you. And I have been here a long time.” His gaze was bright and grim behind his tangled yellow hair. “You escaped from Waldemar Selig’s steading in the dead of winter. I know. We tell stories about it. I knew you by your eyes, and the scarlet mark. Do you have a plan to escape from here?”

“I might,” I said. “Only it will take the
zenana
’s aid to do it.”

“Is the sword-priest with you?” he asked. “The one who defeated Selig at the holmgang?”

I hesitated. “Yes.”

“Good.” Erich smiled, cold as death. “Whatever it takes, I will do it. And don’t… don’t worry about the boy. What happens to him now, he will survive, if his will is strong. Lord Death and his bone-priests, they have told him, if he does what is asked of him, he will keep his manhood. That he is being saved for something special.” His mouth twisted. “They won’t unman him until he believes it.”

I swallowed, tears in my eyes. “I am sorry, Erich.”

His shoulders moved in a shrug. “I am paying for someone’s sins. Maybe Selig’s, who knows? I was six. It does not matter to the gods. If I live, I will ask a priest of All-Father Odhinn why I was chosen for this, if I die …” He shrugged again. “Let me do it with a sword in my hand, and I will die with your name on my lips, whether you are my enemy or no. You should go, now, and talk to the tall black one before she throttles you. She could lead a steading, that one. Many women would follow her lead.”

I glanced involuntarily at Kaneka, who raised her eyebrows. “I will. Erich, thank you. I swear to you, I am not your enemy. Not here, not in this place-and not after, either. I will not blame the Skaldi for Waldemar Selig’s war.”

“It does not matter.” He closed his eyes. “You sang me songs of home. I would have died blessing you for that alone.”

I would have said something else, but at that point, Kaneka’s hand closed on my shoulder. “It is time, little one,” she said dourly, turning me to face her. “Time we talked.”

“Yes.” I eyed her ivory hairpins. “It is, Fedabin.”

I led her into my chamber and lit the oil lamp, fumbling with the flint to strike a spark. Kaneka drew up the single stool and sat watching, her eyes gleaming in the near-darkness. At last the lamp kindled, a warm glow illuminating the room. I sank onto my pallet with a sigh, raw and aching with pain, unwashed, aware of it in every part now that Kushiel’s presence had left me entirely.

“Who are you?” Kaneka asked. “Why are you here?”

I looked squarely at her. “Erich spoke truly. I am Phèdre nó Delaunay, Comtesse de Montrève, Naamah’s Servant and Kushiel’s Chosen. And I have come for the boy, Imriel.”

“The Skaldi knew you.”

“His country invaded mine, once. I did somewhat to stop it.”

Kaneka showed her teeth in a smile. “Something they tell stories about.”

“Yes,” I said. “It seems they do.”

“You must have been a child at the time.” She looked at me, considering. “Do they tell stories of you in your homeland, little one?”

“Some,” I said, thinking of my place in Thelesis de Mornay’s epic Ysandrine Cycle, of the poems of Gilles Lamiz, of the tales of the Night Court and the gossip of the palace and in the streets of the City of Elua. “Yes, Fedabin, they tell some.”

“The boy does not know.”

“No.” I shook my head. “He doesn’t. He was raised by priests, who took care he heard no such stories.”

“He does not know you,” she said. “And yet you came for him. Why?”

“Because,” I said, “I promised his mother that I would. And because my gods required it of me.” I permitted myself a smile, tinged with bitterness. “My weak and craven gods.”

Kaneka regarded me. “You must love one of them very much,” she said. “Either your gods, or the boy’s mother.”

I laughed, at that-I could not help it. “Fedabin Kaneka,” I said, dragging my hands through my disheveled hair, seeking to regain my self-control. “Let us end this dance, because I do not have time for it. In nine days … nine days! … the Âka-Magi of Drujan will hold their sacrifice, the vahmyâcam. And unless I am very much mistaken, which does not happen so often as you might suppose, I fear it is their intention that the Mahrkagir make me his offering. You see,” I said, holding her gaze, “he has learned, against all odds, to love. And if he is allowed to offer
that
upon the altar of Angra Mainyu, he will take on such power as makes everything that came before seem as child’s play.”

Being dark of skin, Kaneka could not blanch; instead, she turned grey. Still, she did not look away. “You do not propose to let him.”

“No,” I said, looking at the top of her head. “I propose to borrow your hairpins.”

Kaneka’s hands, laced between her knees, trembled. “You would kill Lord Death.”

I could not say it. I only nodded. At that, Kaneka did look away. Tears stood in the corners of her eyes. “What becomes of us?” she asked. “What becomes of the
zenana
? What
vengeance
”-the word was a harsh one, in zenyan-“will his followers wreak?”

“None,” I whispered, “if they are dead or incapable. Kaneka, listen to me. The power of the Âka-Magi flows through the Mahrkagir. If he is slain, it leaves only the soldiers. And if the
zenana
helped …” I swallowed, “… if they did, if they hoarded their opium, if the cook who is enamored of Nazneen the Ephesian rendered it into a tincture, and the women of the
zenana
served it to the garrison in kumis and beer and wine, on the night of the vahmyâcam, when there is bound to be feasting … Kaneka, we could take Daršanga.”

“We.” She looked back at me, mask-like, ignoring her own tears. “A handful of unarmed women. A boy.”

“And Erich. And the Akkadians, who have knives. They will fight, I know it.”

“You are so very sure,” she murmured. “Little one.”

“No.” I swallowed again, trying to consume the lump of fear lodged in my throat. “I am so very desperate, Fedabin, because I cannot do this alone, and I think if I fail, we are all dead. You and me and Imriel, and everyone in the
zenana
, and I do not know where it will end, because if I fail, I will be dead at his hands, and if that happens, I cannot see anyplace on this earth where Angra Mainyu’s power will be halted, and I think, although I am desperately afraid I may be wrong, that this is why my gods have sent me here. Fedabin Kaneka, I have told you only true stories. If I place that which I hold dearer than life in your hands, will you lend me your hairpins?”

Kaneka looked at me without speaking, and in a single, abrupt gesture, removed the twinned ivory pins from her hair, placing them in my open hands. I gazed at them, the long shafts tapering to dagger-points, and closed my hands upon them. They retained the warmth of her. It was the one thing I had not been able to conceive-how to get a weapon capable of killing past the guards.

“I was scared,” Kaneka said shortly. “Too scared to try it.”

I nodded, understanding. “He would have killed you if you had. Fedabin Kaneka, I will keep my bargain. There is one other weapon that we have. They tell stories about him in Skaldia, too.”

Fifty-Three

THE DAYS that followed were among the most terrifying of my life. As hard as it had been to bear my secret alone, it was worse to have it shared, rendering so many of us vulnerable. The whispering was constant as the conspiracy grew. I was sure, at any instant, someone would speak carelessly in front of Nariman, and all would be lost.

None of it would have been possible without Kaneka. Bullying, cajoling, threatening-it was she who converted the others to our cause, convincing them to surrender their precious allotments of opium. Not all, but many; enough. Drucilla assumed charge of it, carrying the growing ball of resin in her physician’s basket. When it was the size of a man’s doubled fists, she gauged, it would be sufficient to affect the entire garrison.

Rushad too proved an invaluable ally. Although the prospect of it rendered him pale and stuttering with fear, he nonetheless provided a steady flow of information regarding the dedication ceremony, and the feasting that would accompany it. It was Rushad himself who would bring the opium tincture to the festal hall, late in the proceedings, and see it dispersed among the myriad pitchers of beer and kumis.

I do not think he would have found the courage, if not for Erich. The Skaldi’s reemergence into the world of the living filled him with joy, and he held me personally responsible for it. They were an unlikely pair of friends, the young Skaldi warrior and the slender Persian eunuch. Still, Rushad doted on him, and for his part, Erich bore it with a certain fond tolerance.

As for the Akkadians, I told Uru-Azag myself, and not without a good deal of trepidation. He heard me out silently and, for a long moment, only stood and stared, fingering the hilt of his curved dagger.

“Opium alone is not enough,” he said shortly. “There will be fighting. And men in the grip of delusion are dangerous.”