Kushiel's Scion (81 page)
"Still." Gilot drew a breath, then coughed and winced. "It worked, this salve?"
I nodded. "It helped, I think. But it was a Tiberian chirurgeon who set the arm in the first place." It wasn't, not really. Phèdre had done it, following the mortally wounded Drucilla's instructions; both of them weeping, Joscelin pale and sweating, cursing in terms no Cassiline Brother should know. Remember this, Phèdre had said to me. Remember her courage. Remember them all.
I did.
But I didn't think Gilot needed to know.
I told him another story, about how Phèdre had suffered broken ribs after falling from the cliffs of La Dolorosa into the ocean. A Tiberian physician had tended her, too; a Hellene, actually, a former slave. But he was trained in Tiberium, and it made Gilot feel better.
"So I have somewhat in common with them both," he mused.
"You do," I said, touching his good hand. I didn't tell him that Phèdre had never mentioned a persistent, stabbing pain when she sought to draw breath, or that it had been Joscelin's left arm that was broken and not his sword-hand. Anna's gaze dwelled upon my face, shadowed and somber. She knew, the way women do. "Have a care, Gilot. I'll be back."
I sat in the sunlight-drenched grotto, thinking. The effigy of Asclepius gazed across the isle, his shadow pooled at his feet in the burbling spring, pierced with golden glints from the coins that had been thrown there. I propped my own foot on the ledge of the fountain. The swelling in my ankle had gone down, and it was turning the hues of Gilot's face. Asdepius' serpent coiled the length of his staff, whispering counsel in his ear. Votive-offerings hung all around. For a while, I'd been able to pick out ours, but already it was hard. New offerings eclipsed the old. The paint on the fired clay was fading, turning muted.
I unstrung Canis' medallion from around my neck, pondering it.
Wisdom. What was wisdom?
"What is it you have there?"
I looked up to meet the priest's gaze. "A luck-token, my lord," I said, handing it to him. "A gift of a philosopher-beggar, who may be more than he seems."
"A Cynic," the priest acknowledged, seeing the crude lamp stamped on the clay disk. He sat beside me, turning the medallion in his long, clever fingers. He paused, frowning. "Who gave this to you?"
"Canis." I felt silly, saying it. "He lives in a barrel."
"Canis, the dog." The priest bowed his head, his bearded lips moving in a smile. "Here," he said. "Feel."
I nearly pulled away; I still didn't like to be touched without my leave. But I relented, and suffered the priest to grasp my hand and guide it. With my fingertips, I felt a series of notches etched into the rim of Canis' medallion.
"Once," said the priest, "there was one such as me, a healer, a priest sworn to the vows of Asclepius. But his eyesight failed as he grew older." He gave me a sidelong glance. "Still, he believed in his calling. And he continued to treat his patrons, experimenting with different treatments. He devised a system of notation that he might read with his fingers. His notes have all been transcribed, of course, but I saw one of his tablets once. My teacher showed it to me. On every tablet, he began with this inscription."
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. "What does it say?"
The priest pressed the medallion into my palm, folding my fingers over it. " 'Do no harm,'" he said simply. "It is the first thing we learn. It is our precept. And that is what it says here. 'Do no harm.'"
"Canis!" The word emerged in a hiss. The snare of intrigue tightened around me once more. Anger rising, I clenched my hand on the medallion. "So he is part of it. 'Do no harm?' What's that supposed to mean? I swear, in Elua's name, I am going to beat the truth out of him!" The clay disk cracked beneath the force of my grip, jagged edges biting into my palm. I glanced at it in disgust. "I'll crack him if I have to!"
"Perhaps his advice was not so poorly chosen," the priest said mildly.
His words brought me back to myself. "Forgive me," I muttered, shoving the broken medallion into the purse at my belt. "You're right, my lord priest. I did not mean to disturb your peace."
He gazed at me for a long moment, then sighed. "D'Angeline, I seldom offer counsel to those who do not ask it, for their ears are unwilling to hear. But this is a place of healing. Will you not seek it?"
"What do you mean?"
He reached out with one long finger, touching the center of my chest. "Not all wounds are of the flesh. You bear a wound deep inside you, and it festers. Will you hear my counsel? Stay. Pass this night in the temple, and let Asclepius guide you in your dreams. This is the favor I ask of you."
"Do you know who I am?" I asked him.
"Does it matter?" His eyes were as deep as wells, dark and fathomless.
"No." I thought about it. "I suppose not."
He nodded. "Then you will stay."
So it came to pass that I spent the night on the isle of Asclepius and slept in the temple, after arranging with one of the attendants to escort Anna home. In the wake of the rioting, they were understanding.
It was a strange experience. As darkness began to fall over the isle, the priest led me to a chamber within the temple. Although it was roofed, it was open on three sides. A warm summer breeze soughed through the painted columns. In the center, there was a stone bier that served as a bed. Unbuckling my sword-belt, I lay down upon it. On the ceiling, a faded fresco of Asclepius looked down upon me. The stone was hard and unyielding, and I felt certain I would be unable to sleep.
The priest closed my eyelids with a touch, light and sure. "Sleep."
There, he left me.
I opened my eyes, gazing at Asclepius on the ceiling until darkness swallowed his image. I felt odd, like a corpse laid out to await the funeral pyre. Asclepius, I remembered, was born of death; Apollo's son, torn from his dead mother's mortal womb. A strange way to beget a healer.
The bier was uncomfortable. I shifted, trying to find a position that didn't make my bones ache. Why on earth would the priest think one could sleep in such a manner? Beyond the columns, the night was full of noises. Small sounds; the sounds of the isle. Birds and animals, whirring insects. A chorus of cicadas. Night's predators and scavengers, stalking and scurrying. In Montrève, I wouldn't have noticed, but I'd been living in the city for a long time.
After a while, I gave up, sitting and swinging my legs over the edge of the bier. I walked to the edge of the chamber and leaned against one of the columns, peering out at the benighted isle. The moon was dark, but there were stars. If I craned my head, I could see them, high and distant behind scudding clouds.
"You are restless."
I startled at the sound of the priest's voice, reaching for the hilt of my sword. My fingers found only fabric, and I remembered I had disarmed. "Forgive me, my lord priest." I bowed. "I didn't hear you return. I tried to sleep. Is it forbidden to rise? I have not left the chamber."
He smiled into his beard. "Nothing is forbidden here."
"Good." I perched on the bier, squinting at him through the darkness. It was hard to make him out. "I don't wish to offend."
"Why are you restless?" he asked.
"You said I had a wound." I smiled wryly. "Lord priest, I have seen things, terrible things. I do not know how to unsee them. I am trying, very hard, to be good. And the harder I try, the more cruel I become." I shrugged. "Such is my birthright. Should I deny it? It seems it finds me no matter what I do."
The priest pointed at the fresco on the ceiling, lost in darkness. "From death comes life, and there is healing in it. Such is our mortal lot, those of us who strive. To wrest the good from the bad. Betimes, we succeed. Is it not enough?"
"No," I said. "Not always."
He nodded, leaning on his staff. In the faint starlight, the serpent's coils entwined around the staff stirred, gleaming. It was not the priest who addressed me. My hands rose unbidden, fingers sliding over my open mouth. All over my body, my skin prickled with a sudden mix of terror and awe.
"My lord Asclepius!" I whispered.
"I am here, Imriel nó Montrève." His voice was gentle, blending with the sounds of the benighted isle. "Kushiel's scion, you have seen terrible things, and you have witnessed glorious mysteries given unto few. This I know. It is hard to be a pawn of the gods. Even in loving us in all their numinous might, they are careless of our mortality. And I think you have been wounded by a darker god than any you or I serve. Is it not so?"
"It is." Tears came to my eyes unbidden.
Asclepius stood, pondering. His serpent lifted its wedge-shaped head, its forked tongue flickering as it tasted the air. At length, Asclepius spoke. "It is not a wound I can heal," he said, and bitter despair flooded me. "So this is useless?" I spat.
"I did not say that." He bowed his head, and the serpent's tongue flickered at his ear. He straightened. "Child, listen. That power lies within you alone. Nothing can be changed without undoing what was done. Yet even a stunted tree reaches toward the sunlight. Let the wound heal. Bear the scar with pride."
"How?" I asked.
The serpent's eyes glittered. Asclepius smiled. "You will find a way."
I opened my mouth to protest that his words were cold comfort, meaningless and worthless. Or at least, so I thought I meant to do. Instead, I found myself waking with a jolt, opening my eyes.
Opening them onto dawn's rosy light.
Morning was dawning, and I was lying on my back on the stone bier, stiff and aching, staring at the fresco on the ceiling. Sleep. I'd been asleep. When had I fallen asleep? I sat up in a panic, rolling over the side of the bier and dropping to a crouch, scrambling for my sword-belt. It was there where I'd dropped it. I snatched it and backed away from the bier, buckling the belt around my waist, checking my weapons.
Everything was there. I was alone in the temple's open-walled chamber of dreams. Beyond the columns, poppies bloomed in red-orange profusion. The summer breeze carried the sound of birdsong and the scent of the Tiber.
Behind me, on the one solid wall, the door opened. I spun about, hand on my sword-hilt.
It was the bearded priest. "Did you dream?"
"I did." I looked hard at him. There was no staff, no serpent. Although his eyes were dark and deep, he was a mortal man, no more, with dusty sandals and robe with a fraying hem.
"Tell me," he said gravely.
I let go the hilt of my sword and sat on the edge of the bier, feeling the strange sense that we had already done this. "Asclepius came to me in a dream. He said he could not heal my wound, but that the power lay within me." My lips curved in a mocking smile. "I am a stunted tree, my lord priest, reaching toward sunlight."
He frowned. "Indeed."
"Indeed." I meant to say the word with irony, but somehow it came out otherwise. I gazed at the priest, and it came to me in a thunderclap that all that Asclepius had said was true. I had seen terrible things and I had seen glorious mysteries. Against all odds, Elua and his Companions had triumphed over Angra Mainyu in Daršanga and turned back a tide of darkness that threatened to encompass the world. Ill thoughts, ill words, ill deeds. Against the might of a furious and dispossessed nation resorting to the darkest magics of hatred and despite, Blessed Elua had hurled a D'Angeline courtesan, a lone swordsman, and a ten-year-old boy.
And we had won.
Eamonn was right; war was a hurtful subject, even for the victors. I had been the lure that brought Phèdre and Joscelin to Daršanga. A victim; the perfect victim, until Phèdre arrived. That had been many months; I would never be free of those wounds. The past could not be changed without altering the present. Cold comfort, yes; but it had awoken me from my torpor of self-pity. I could learn to bear the scars with pride; my own twisted pride. I slid from the bier, landing without a twinge from my injured ankle. I felt different; free from the bonds of fear and anger, lighter than I had felt for many weeks.
You will find a way.
I bowed to the priest. "May I see Gilot?"
He bowed in return. "Come with me, Prince Imriel."
Another time—a day ago—I would have startled at his address. Today I merely accepted it. He knew; so be it. I had been a fool to imagine I could flee my own self. I followed him through the door and into the temple proper, to the injured ward where Gilot was housed, the long line of cots in an airy space. He struggled to sit when he saw me, pushing himself upright with his one good hand, a grin breaking over his face.
"Imri!" he called, then coughed and winced. "How was it?"
I drew up a stool and sat at his bedside, taking his left hand in mine. "Fine," I said honestly. "It was fine. I learned somewhat of value." I paused. "Gilot, listen. I'm going to stay in Tiberium for a little while. Long enough to attend Lucius' wedding in Lucca. And after that, I think we should go home."
His hand tightened on mine. "You mean it?"
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