Kushiel's Scion (65 page)
"I don't, not for certain," she said patiently. "I was only a child at the time. But surely the Guild knew in advance, and there were steps that might have been taken. Your Anafiel de Montrève would have been alerted. He would have had the right to ask the Guild's assistance. They could have diverted Waldemar Selig's interest. Offers of trade too sweet to ignore, perhaps a marital alliance. As I recall, Selig sought that route, once. Even if it failed, they could have rallied the Caerdicci city-states to come to the defense of Terre d'Ange."
"I don't believe you," I said. "Any of it."
"What would you have me do?" Claudia asked.
"Prove it." I resumed pacing, thinking. There was no way to prove the course of history might have been different, and Anafiel Delaunay was dead, unable to refute her claims. At this point, the only thing Claudia had done that remotely confirmed the existence of a vast web of covertcy was identify me, and that was no great trick. Master Piero had known me, too. Anyone with a passing interest in the doings of Terre d'Ange might have done the same. "Tell me something," I said. "Something I know to be true, and most of the world does not. Something you could not possibly have known if not for the Guild's existence."
Claudia made a face. "It's not that easy, Imriel. There are gaping holes in your history that not even the Guild can fathom."
"Oh, suddenly they're not all-knowing and all-powerful?" I asked sardonically.
"I never said they were." She sighed. "And I had a short time to memorize what is known about you. I'm only a journeyman, you know. Give me a moment."
I waited, watching her face. Thoughts flitted behind her eyes, sifted and discarded; her lips moved as though reading an invisible scroll. If she was dissembling, she did a good job of it.
"Tizrav," she said at length. "Tizrav, son of Tizmaht. That was the name of the Persian guide who led the Comtesse de Montrève and her consort into Drujan."
My knees gave way. I caught the bedpost with one hand and sat down hard on the bed beside her. "How do you know that?" I whispered.
"It's in the Guild's archive," Claudia said.
I sat, dazed, and listened while she told me more. What the Unseen Guild had known; what they had not known. Little of my vanishing, nothing of my whereabouts. No, their interest had been in the Drujani bone-priests, a mysterious, spreading presence that had even the Guild powerless and anxious. They had picked up Phèdre and Joscelin's trail in Menekhet, when they began asking questions about Drujan, and followed it as far as Khebbel-im-Akkad.
"After that…" Claudia spread her hands. "What did happen there, anyway? All the Guild knows is that a D'Angeline courtesan and a lone swordsman crossed a border the entire Akkadian army feared and emerged with a handful of freed slaves and the kingdom in utter chaos. How did they manage to stage a coup?"
"You don't want to know," I said, thinking about the Mahrkagir's festal hall drenched in blood. "Claudia, why are you telling me this?"
"The Guild is interested in you," she said simply.
"As a spy," I said with contempt.
"As a member willing to exchange knowledge, yes. As a prince of the royal house of Terre d'Ange, you would be uniquely valuable and well-situated. More so even than Anafiel de Montrève would have been." She rinsed her kerchief in the basin and dabbed her lip, then examined it for blood. "I wish you hadn't done that, Imriel."
"Well, I wish you hadn't drawn a knife on me!" I said. "Why on earth did you, anyway?"
Claudia shot me an irritable glance. "I was trying to impress the seriousness of the matter on you. This is no jest, you know. You've got to stop running around, asking questions. Someone could end up hurt."
"Master Strozzi?" I felt a stab of guilt and alarm. "He was lying, wasn't he?"
"Oh, that old blowhard!" Claudia rolled her eyes. "Yes, but he's fine. He was asked to step down as a precaution. It's just as well. It seems he can't seem to lie well enough to fool one half-trained D'Angeline dilettante. It was past his time, anyway. He hasn't been active in over a decade. No, I meant someone like you. Or," she added, "your friend Eamonn, or even Lucius. I won't stand for that."
"Why Lucius?" I asked. "You said he doesn't know."
"No, but he's clever," she said. "If you keep asking questions, he'll start wondering. The Guild protects its own, but it protects itself first."
"Elua's Balls!" I flopped down on my back and stared at the ceiling. "Why? Why the secrecy? This doesn't make any sense. If it's so damned important, why would the Guild train Anafiel Delaunay, then let him walk away? Why did he refuse to swear allegiance in the first place?"
Claudia leaned on one elbow and ran her fingers through my hair. "You have such beautiful hair," she observed. "There's a sheen to it, almost like a crow's feather. Why did you cut it so short? I thought D'Angeline men grew it long."
I glared at her. "Claudia!"
"What?" She wound a lock around her fingers and tugged it. "I'd like to feel it against my skin, wrapped around me. Will you let it grow?"
"Will you answer my questions?" I retorted.
She sighed. "The Guild operates in secrecy because if the web were exposed, it could easily be dismantled in a dozen places. Knowledge is only power if applied as judicious leverage. Collectively, we can do this in a myriad of subtle ways, but only if the web remains intact. Anafiel de Montrève refused the vow of allegiance because his mentor couldn't promise him that he'd never, ever be asked to do aught against his beloved Rolande's interests. And he was allowed to do so because his mentor held a knife to his throat and impressed upon him that he would die, and Rolande, too, if he ever sought to betray the Guild's existence. On pain of death, and the death of his loved ones, he swore he wouldn't."
I shivered under her stroking fingers. "Is that a warning?"
"Yes," she said softly.
I gazed up at her. Her fox-brown eyes were at once tender and canny. I had thought I'd learned every inch of her, but Claudia Fulvia had taken me in more ways than one. I knew nothing. And despite it all, I still wanted her. Her unapologetic ardor had struck a profound chord in me. I wanted to kiss her bruised mouth, bite her swollen lip. I wasn't sure, yet, to what extent I believed her. But one thing was certain; I wasn't about to jeopardize anyone I loved. Better to play the game and learn.
All knowledge is worth having.
"I won't swear allegiance," I warned her. "Not if it means betraying Terre d'Ange."
"Oh, you D'Angelines!" Claudia tweaked my hair. "So stubborn and single-minded. No, Imriel, you'd never be asked to betray your country. But you might be asked to support, oh, say, a trade measure that the Queen opposed. Nothing that would harm Terre d'Ange," she added indulgently. "Just something that benefited another. And in exchange…" Her shoulders moved in a shrug. The silk robe she wore slipped a few inches, revealing the shadowed valley of her cleavage. "You would gain knowledge. Knowledge that might help your country."
Her hand slipped beneath the folds of my borrowed robe, fondling me. I closed my eyes, allowing myself to succumb to the inevitable arousal. "What sort of knowledge?" I asked hoarsely.
"Oh, well…" Claudia leaned over me, planting soft kisses on my closed lids. Her fingers worked at the knot on my robe's sash, undoing it. "You might find out who wants you dead, Imriel de la Courcel."
"I've a good idea," I said. "There's a long list."
Claudia kissed my lips. "Are you sure?"
By the time she parted my robe and straddled me, grasping my rigid phallus and guiding it into her moist cleft, I was no longer sure which of us was play-acting. Inch by slow inch, Claudia impaled herself on my shaft, sighing with pleasure. I grasped her haunches, aiding her as she ground herself to climax.
"Sure enough," I gasped. "Are you my mentor, then?"
She gazed down at me, heavy-lidded and smiling. "How do you like your first lesson?"
I tried to answer, but only groaned.
I took my leave of her in the small hours before dawn, my head reeling and my body spent. I had made no promises and nothing was resolved between us, but when she kissed me good-bye at the door, I knew I would see her again. She'd dangled a mystery before me, and there was somewhat in me that couldn't stand not knowing.
And whatever else was true, the desire was real.
As before, a servant escorted me, carrying a lit torch. I glanced at his profile, quiet and disinterested, and wondered what he must think. They might know naught of the Unseen Guild, but there could be no doubt of what we'd been up to in her bedroom. I wondered, too, by what means Claudia assured herself of the discretion of her household staff.
I didn't dare ask.
At the insula gate, I thanked him. I stood there for a long time, my hand on the gate, watching his bobbing torch vanish and dwindle, my eyes adjusting to the starry darkness. It was late enough that all the taverns and wineshops had closed their doors here in the students' quarter. A faint odor of myrrh still hung in the air. All was quiet and still, save for Canis snoring in his barrel.
"You did warn me, didn't you?" I said to him. "Some goddess."
He smacked his lips in his sleep, uttering a long, gobbling sigh. I smiled a little, envying him his freedom. The thought of returning to our insula apartment made me feel stifled. Despite the lateness of the hour and my physical exhaustion, my mind was crowded with thoughts, too restless for sleep.
So I walked the city instead.
Foolish though it was, I couldn't help myself. I needed to be alone with my thoughts. I needed to feel the night air on my skin, erasing the scent of Claudia that clung to every inch of me. I had never been with a woman whose ardor more than equaled my own. This was a different game than the ones played in Valerian House, but it was a game of power nonetheless. It was intoxicating, as heady and dangerous as opium.
My thoughts went in circles, spinning uselessly. I tried to imagine what Joscelin would say, but I couldn't. I could only imagine him staring, blank and uncomprehending. He knew what it was to be driven mad by love, but not desire. The Cassiline discipline instilled in him ran too deep.
Phèdre… Phèdre would understand, all too well. I wished, more than ever, that she was here. I wanted to tell her about the Unseen Guild, and ask her if she thought it was true. Whatever else lay unspoken between us, I would have given anything to hear her give her clear, unfettered laugh and dismiss it as a fanciful tale. Even the thought of it made me smile. It might well be nothing more; a wild falsehood invented by a bored senator's wife to toy with a besotted young lover. But as much as I wanted to believe it were so, I didn't.
There were those words.
Tizrav, son of Tizmaht. I remembered, the Persian guide who led Phèdre and Joscelin into Drujan had met us two days away from the Akkadian border as we journeyed from Daršanga with the surviving remnants of the zenana in tow. He only had one eye, which is the sort of thing that one remembers as a child.
And there was no reason, no reason at all, for a bored senator's wife to know his name. Either the Unseen Guild was real, or someone was playing an incomprehensible game with me. Who or why, I couldn't begin to guess. Would it be wiser to walk away? Mayhap, I thought. But if I did, I would never know; and there might be more danger in ignorance. Claudia had hinted that mayhap I had an enemy I hadn't put a name to. At the very least, I could try to learn what she meant.
The sound of scuffling broke into my thoughts. With a start, I realized I had walked all the way to the wharf. In the fading starlight, I saw two figures struggling beside a darkened warehouse; a man and a woman.
"You—" She got out a muted squeak before he clamped a hand over her mouth.
"Hush!" He pushed her against the wall and fumbled with her skirts.
I drew my sword without thinking. "Let her go!"
The man spun in alarm, then leered at me. "Thought you were the city cohort, man! Go on, let be. We're just having a bit of fun."
I took two steps forward, angling the blade. Its well-honed edges glinted. "I'm not in the mood for fun," I said softly. "And it didn't sound like the lady was, either." I jerked my chin, pointing. "Get out of here."
He held his ground, fists clenched. For a moment, I thought he might charge me, and I half wished he would. But the eastern skies were turning a somber grey, and the quarter was beginning to stir. I could hear voices carrying over the Tiber, and footsteps in the street behind me; the dull thud and scrape of cargo being shifted. The man's gaze drifted past me.
"Go," I repeated.
With a curse, he fled. I sheathed my sword and approached the woman with a smile, thinking I hadn't done too poorly as a hero this time.
"Are you all right?" I asked her. "Did he harm you?"
She spat at my feet. "What business is it of yours? He owed me coin for his bit of fun, and now I'll never see it!"
I opened my mouth, then shut it. She stared at me, defiant. In the sullen grey light, I could see she was no longer young, and haggard with it. "My apologies," I said gently. Digging into my purse, I found a silver denarius. "Let me make good on it."
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