Kushiel's Justice (2 page)

He bowed again. “Of course.”

I followed him down the marble halls. The Palace was a vast place. The City of Elua is the heart of Terre d’Ange, and the Court is the heart of the City. Betimes it seems half the peers of the realms maintain quarters there. Others maintain lodging elsewhere in the City, but spend their days loitering at Court—playing games of chance in the Hall of Games, partaking of entertainment in the Salon of Eisheth’s Harp, begging an audience with the Queen or a chance to present a case before the Parliament when it is in session.

The young nobles play the Game of Courtship, testing out dalliances and angling for marital alliances. I’d never played it; nor would I, now. I was betrothed to a woman I barely knew; Dorelei mab Breidaia, a princess of Alba.

House Trevalion’s quarters were on the third floor of the Palace. I’d visited them often when Bernadette’s son Bertran and I were friends. That had all changed the night he believed he’d caught me out at a treasonous intrigue, and I hadn’t been back since. The footman knocked for admission, exchanging low words with the attendant who answered. In short order, I was ushered into a private audience with the Lady Bernadette in her salon.

“My lady.” I accorded her the bow due an equal. She sat upright and rigid in a tall chair. Her mother had been my father’s sister; Lyonette de Trevalion. The Lioness of Azzalle, they used to call her. She was dead, convicted of treason, along with her son Baudoin. They had conspired to usurp the throne. He had fallen on his sword; she had taken poison. My mother had betrayed them both, and it was her testimony that had convicted them. “You asked to see me?”

Bernadette’s sea-grey eyes narrowed. “Do me the courtesy of playing no games with me, Imriel de la Courcel. My son Bertran said you had a message for me. What is it?”

“As you wish.” I handed her the copy of Ruggero’s letter. “I hold the original.”

She scanned it, then nodded once, crisply. “So. What will you?”

I sighed. “My lady, what would you have me say? I am sorry for the death of your mother and brother. I am sorry for your time spent in exile. But I am not willing to die for it.”

Her hands trembled, making the parchment quiver. “And with this, you could destroy me. Destroy House Trevalion, or what is left of it.” Her voice hardened. “So I ask again,
what will you
?”

I sat, uninvited, on a couch. “Forswear vengeance.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s
all
?”

“More or less,” I said, studying her. Looking for lies, looking for the fault-lines of bitterness and anger and pride that lay within her. “Tell me, did Bertran know? Or your husband, Ghislain?”

“No.” Bernadette de Trevalion closed her eyes. “Only me. It would kill them.”

“Then why did you do it?” I asked her.
“Why?”

Her eyes opened; her lips twisted. “You have to ask? Because I
hurt
, Imriel. I miss my brother. I miss my mother. I grieve for my father’s disgrace, my husband’s disgrace. You?” She shrugged. “I was willing to abide. When my son befriended you, it galled me. Still, I tolerated it. But when Bertan caught you in the midst of conspiring treason, it brought it all back.” Her cheeks flushed. “All the old hurt, all the hatred.”

“And so you thought to kill me for it,” I said softly. “Despite the fact that the Queen herself declared me innocent.”

“I wanted you to suffer like Baudoin did!” Her voice rose. “And I wanted your
mother
, your cursed mother, to know what it felt like. To feel her actions rebounding on her and know her role in them. To
hurt
like I do.”

My old scars itched. “You have no idea,” I said. “None.”

Bernadette de Trevalion looked steadily at me. “What will you?”

At least she had courage. She made no effort to lie, no plea for undeserved mercy. I returned her regard for a long moment. “First, understand this. What Bertran overheard that night was a lie.” She opened her mouth to speak and I cut her off. “Duc Barquiel L’Envers was behind it, Bernadette,” I said wearily. “There’s proof. That’s how he was pressured to relinquish the Royal Command your husband now enjoys.”

Her mouth worked. “Why would he—”

“Elua only knows.” I spread my hands. “L’Envers has wanted me dead since I was born. And you very nearly obliged him.”

She turned pale. “I didn’t know.”

“Now you do.” I stood. “My lady, I’m no traitor. I never have been. You, on the other hand, conspired to murder a Prince of the Blood.” I nodded at the letter she held. “You ask me what I will. Ruggero Caccini’s letter stays in my keeping as surety. But if you forswear all vengeance against me for my mother’s misdeeds, I promise you, it will never come to light. I will never speak of this incident.”

Bernadette hesitated. “Why would you make such a promise?”

“Because your son Bertran was a friend, once.” I smiled grimly. “Not a very good one, as it transpired, but a friend. Because your husband is the Queen’s loyal Commander and a hero of the realm. Because the Queen ardently desires peace among her kin. And mostly because I am sick unto death of being caught up in the bloody coils of things that happened long before I was born. Do you swear?”

She raised her chin. Oh yes, there was pride there. “In the name of Blessed Elua and Azza, I swear to forgo all vengeance against you, Imriel de la Courcel.”

Her voice was low, but it was steady. I nodded once more. “My thanks, my lady.”

“Imriel.” Bernadette rose and caught my elbow as I turned to go. Old anguish surfaced in her sea-grey eyes, complicated with guilt and dawning remorse. “I didn’t know, truly. I’m sorry.”

I gazed at her. “Good.”

After I took my leave of her, I visited one other place within the Palace. The Hall of Portraits was a long, narrow room on the second floor. A row of windows along the outer wall admitted a wash of wintry light. The interior wall was lined and stacked with portraits of the scions of House Courcel, rulers of Terre d’Ange for some three centuries.

I’d never set foot in it before. But after reading my mother’s letters, I reckoned it was time. I made my way toward the far end of the hall. Family members were clustered together, stacked in groups. There; there was Ganelon de la Courcel, Ysandre’s grandfather, and his wife above him. There was no portrait of Lyonette de Trevalion, his sister. I daresay that had been removed after her execution. But there, beside him . . .

I read the name on the frame’s brass plaque: Benedicte de la Courcel.

My father.

You will wonder about your father. There are few left, I think, in Terre d’Ange who knew him well, well enough to speak of him. He spent long years in La Serenissima, and there were things that happened to poison him against his own legacy. You may hear that it made him bitter, and it did. We D’Angelines are not a people who take well to exile, even though it be for political advantage. This I know all too well.

But this I will tell you: He was a brave man, and a noble one in his own way. He fought for his country as a young man. He believed what he did—what we did together—was in the best interests of Terre d’Ange. He believed in the purity of the bloodlines of Blessed Elua and his Companions. He believed the nation cried out for a pure-blooded D’Angeline heir.

You.

I stared at the portrait. I didn’t remember my father. He died when I was only a babe, killed in the fighting in the Temple of Asherat where my mother’s final treachery was revealed. He’d been an old man, then. She had played on his prejudices. He’d been willing to condone the assassination of the Queen, his own grand-niece, to pave the way for a pure-blooded heir. Me. If he’d lived to stand trial, I daresay he would have been convicted of treason.

As for my mother, she’d already been convicted, long ago. Her life was forfeit if she ever set foot on D’Angeline soil.

The portrait depicted a serious-looking young man. It was formal and a bit stiff, and I thought it must have been painted when he was scarce older than I was. I could see a little of my own face in his; only a little. The strong, straight line of the eyebrows, the angle of his jaw. He didn’t look like a man who laughed often, but he didn’t look unkind, either. Mostly, he looked like a stranger; someone I’d never met.

There was no portrait of his first wife, the Serenissiman. No portraits of the children they had borne together, disowned by House Courcel due to other intrigues. But there was a second painting hung above his, veiled with drapes of sheer black muslin. It was there because of me; because Queen Ysandre insisted on acknowledging me as a member of House Courcel. It was veiled because of the death-sentence on her. I pulled back the drapes and gazed at my mother.

Melisande.

She bore the unmistakable stamp of House Shahrizai. I bear it, too. The blue-black hair that grows in ripples, the deep, deep blue of the eyes. It was a good portrait. Her eyes seemed to sparkle with untold secrets and her generous lips were parted slightly, as though in the next instant she might laugh or smile, blow a kiss. I touched my lower lip with two fingers, thinking of the portrait I’d allowed the artist Erytheia to paint of me in Tiberium, lounging in the pose of Bacchus. Same mouth, same shape.

There was a click-clicking sound. “Imri?”

I tensed at the intrusion and turned my head to see Alais, with her pet wolfhound padding beside her, nails clicking on the marble. A pair of the Queen’s Guardsmen hovered discreetly in the doorway behind her. I relaxed. “What are you doing here, villain?”

Alais pulled a face at the nickname. “I come here sometimes. But I heard you were here. You know how it is in the Court, everyone keeping track of everyone else’s comings and goings. What did Lady Bernadette want of you?”

“Oh, she was hoping that Bertran and I would make up our quarrel now that I’m back,” I said casually. “We never really did, you know.”

“Well, it might help if he apologized for the way he behaved to you!” Alais came alongside me. “Your parents?”

I nodded. The wolfhound Celeste pushed her muzzle into my hand. I’d known her since she was a pup. She had been my gift to Alais. I scratched absently at the base of her ears, watching Alais contemplate the portraits. She’d grown up while I was gone. A little lady, now, almost fifteen years old. Her small face was dark and intent. Alais took after her father, Drustan mab Necthana, the Cruarch of Alba. Mixed blood. There were those in Court who still thought as my father had done.

“What do you think?” I asked her.

“Of them?” Alais tilted her head. “He looks . . . uncomfortable. Like his skin’s too tight. That’s what I always thought. And she . . .” Her expression turned wistful. “I never dared look at her before. But she doesn’t, does she? The world fits her just right.”

“I read her letters,” I said softly.

Alais shot me a startled glance. “What did she say?”

“A lot,” I said. “A lot that added up to nothing.”

She nodded somberly. “Adults talk that way, don’t they?”

I nearly laughed, then thought better of it. Though I was an adult now, we had been children together. Alais was wise beyond her years, and she had dreams that came true sometimes. She’d dreamed I met a man with two faces and it came true, in Lucca. “Yes,” I said. “They do.”

Why?

You asked me, and I will try to answer. It is a child’s question, the first and last and best of all questions that may be asked. Why? Why did I do what I did? Did I
know
it was treason? Yes, of course.

So . . . why?

Ah, Imriel! Son of mine, I will say to you what I have said to others: Blessed Elua cared naught for crowns or thrones. It is a human game, a mortal game. I imagine you will say it was not worth the cost of innocent blood spilled in the process, since it is what Phèdre nó Delaunay once said to me. Mayhap it is true. And yet, countless numbers of those she would deem innocent never hesitated to engage in a death-struggle for these things, these mortal tokens of power.

What does it mean to be innocent? It is impossible to move through this life without making choices that injure others. My choices were bolder than others’; and yet. If they had not chosen as they did, they would not have suffered for it. We are all driven by desires, some simple and some complex. In the end, we all make choices.

In the end, no one is truly innocent.

I shook my head to dispel my mother’s words. Her betrayal of House Trevalion was the least of her sins. Long before my birth, her machinations had brought Terre d’Ange to the brink of conquest. Thousands had died fighting against the invasion of the Skaldi that she had orchestrated, D’Angelines and Albans alike. And yes, it was their choice to struggle against it, but . . . ah, Elua! Surely the choices were not equal in weight.

Small wonder there were those who longed to see her suffer.

“Imri?” Alais’ brow was knit with concern.

“Yes, my lady.” With an effort, I gathered myself, smiling at Alais and closing the muslin drapes. My mother’s face vanished. My father’s continued to gaze somberly from the wall. I bowed to Alais. “I place myself at your service. What will you?”

She looked away, one hand buried in the wolfhound’s ruff. “Please don’t make mock of me, Imriel.”

“Alais!” Startled, I went to one knee. “I wasn’t.”

“All right.” She stole a sidelong glance at me. “Do you ever think . . . do you ever wish she had succeeded? Or think they might have been right?”

I gaped at her. “My
mother
?”

Alais nodded at the portraits. “The both of them.”

“No.” I took her free hand and squeezed it. “Never.”

T
WO

A
GAIN!
”

In the gloaming, Joscelin’s teeth flashed as he took a stance opposite me, his wooden sword angled before him. I grinned in reply and launched a fresh attack.

Our blades flicked and clattered as we circled each other in the courtyard, testing each other’s defenses. There was hoarfroast beginning to form on the slate tiles and I placed my feet with care as we revolved around each other. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Joscelin’s feet move. Hugues’ bad poetry not withstanding, he
did
seem to glide. His footwork was intricate and impeccable.

He was good; better than I was. I daresay he always will be. At ten years of age—the age at which I was learning to beg for mercy in the Mahrkagir’s zenana—Joscelin entered the Cassiline Brotherhood and began to train as a warrior-priest. Day after day, he had trained without cease.

It wasn’t just the training, though. There were other Cassiline Brothers. But none of them had ever made his choice. None had ever been tested as he was.

I pressed him on his bad side; his left side, where he was slower. His left arm had been shattered in Darsšanga. He relinquished ground in acknowledgment, step by gliding step, and I pressed him. And then, somehow, he leaned away from my thrust with a subtle twist of his torso and I found myself overextended. The sharp point of his elbow came down hard on the back of my reaching hand.

“Oh, hell!” My sword fell and my hand stung. I shook it out.

Joscelin chuckled.

“Show me?” I asked.

“Here.” Setting down his blade, he placed one hand on my belly and the other on my lower back, applying pressure. “Weight on the rear foot, knee flexed. See?”

I leaned as he’d done. “I feel off balance.”

“Widen your stance.” Joscelin nudged my forward foot. “Better.” He patted my belly. “It all flows from here, Imri. You can’t be stiff. Have you kept up your practice?”

“No,” I admitted. “Gallus Tadius didn’t approve. He had us training with—”

He wasn’t listening. He was smiling across the courtyard. Nothing had changed, but his face was alight. Since there was only one person in the world who made Joscelin Verreuil’s face brighten so, I knew without looking that Phèdre was there.

I looked anyway. She stood before the doors that opened onto the courtyard, hugging herself against the cold as she watched us spar. There was so much love and gladness in her eyes, I had to look away. What I wanted wasn’t meant for me.

“Show me?” she asked, teasing.

Joscelin laughed, low and soft. He crossed over to her and placed his hands on her, as he’d done to me, only not. Not at all the same. She twined her arms around his neck, the velvet sleeves of her gown falling back to lay them bare, white and slender. He bent his head to kiss her, his wheat-blond hair falling forward. For the span of a few heartbeats, nothing else in the world existed for them.

I stooped, picking up our fallen swords. It shouldn’t hurt. When I was younger, when I was a child, it wouldn’t have. I loved them, I loved them both so much. They rescued me out of hell and they paid a terrible price for it. Together, we found healing. We reknit our broken selves as a family, and their love lies at the core of it. I will never, so long as I live, begrudge either of them the least crumb of happiness. They have earned it a thousand times over.

It did hurt, though. I never thought it would, but it did.

Ah, Elua! Jealousy is a hard master. I’d known love and I’d known desire, but never the two at once; not this kind, the kind that shut out the world. And there was a darker strain, too. Like it or no, I was my mother’s son; Kushiel’s scion, albeit a reluctant one. It was there, it would always be there. Phèdre was Kushiel’s Chosen, born to yield; Naamah’s Servant and a courtesan without equal. It was there between us, it would always be there.

My mother had written of it.

When, I wonder, will you read this? Not soon, I think. You are too angry now. I think you will be older. I think you will be a man grown.

I should speak of Phèdre nó Delaunay.

You will wonder, did I love her? No . . . and yes. I will tell you this, my son: I
knew
her. Better than anyone; better than anyone else.

I let out my breath in a sigh, wondering what Phèdre had made of those words. When all was said and done, I do not think she disagreed. Still, whatever lay between them, it was Joscelin she loved. And he knew her, too. I watched her withdraw from him, smiling. In the lamplight spilling from the open doors, I could make out a faint flush on her cheeks.

“Are you coming, love?” she called to me. “It’s perishing cold out here.”

“I’m coming,” I said.

How is it that two people so unlikely, so unsuited, find one another? I thought about it that night, watching them at the dinner table. And I thought about the fact that I was unlikely to do the same. I had met my bride-to-be, Dorelei mab Breidaia, the Cruarch’s niece. She was a sweet young woman with a lilting laugh, and I couldn’t possibly imagine sharing the kind of all-consuming passion that I craved with her.

I heaved another sigh.

“Why so somber?” Hugues asked me. “Did Messire Cassiline give you a drubbing?”

“No,” I said, then amended it at Joscelin’s amused glance. “Well, yes.” I flexed my bruised hand. “It’s not that, though. I think . . . I think I would like to go to Kushiel’s temple on the morrow.”

“What?”
Joscelin stared at me in disbelief. “Are you mad?”

I hadn’t known what I was going to say until the words emerged from my mouth. I mulled over them. “No,” I said slowly. “I think I need to make expiation.”

“For
what
?” He continued to stare.

I thought about my recent excursion into extortion and blackmail. I thought about the soldiers I had killed in Lucca, about Canis with the javelin protruding from his chest and Gilot after the riot, battered and broken. I thought about cuckolded Deccus Fulvius and mad, dead Gallus Tadius standing above the maelstrom, meeting my distant gaze as he dropped his death-mask. I thought about the night Mavros took me to Valerian House and the morning after, when I grabbed Phèdre’s wrist and felt the pulse of desire leap.

“Things,” I said.

Joscelin shook his head. Phèdre rested her chin on one hand and fixed me with a deep look that gave away nothing. I returned it steadily. “You’re sure?” she asked. “It’s like to stir memories. Bad ones.”

“You go,” I said. “What do you find in it?”

She smiled slightly. “Oh, things.”

I nodded. “I’m sure.”

I wasn’t, not really; at least not on the morrow. I couldn’t even say of a surety what had prompted the urge. After Darsšanga, I would have said I would never voluntarily submit myself to any man’s lash, nor any woman’s. And yet, the idea had fixed itself in my thoughts.

By morning, Joscelin was resigned. “You know, betimes I think you
are
a little mad, Imriel nó Montrève,” he said to me in the courtyard outside the stable, holding the Bastard’s reins.

“You never said that to Phèdre,” I reminded him.

“Ah, well.” He grinned despite himself. “In her case, there’s no question.” His expression turned sober. “Imri, truly, I know the dead weigh on you. I know it better than anyone. And I may be Cassiel’s servant, but I don’t deny Kushiel’s mystery. It’s just that it may be different for you.”

I swung astride. “Because of what happened to me?”

“Yes.” His eyes were grave.

“I know,” I said. “But Joscelin, I’m tired of having a terrified ten-year-old boy lurking inside me. And I need to deal with my own blood-guilt and . . . other things. You told me I’d find a way, my own way. So I’m trying.”

“I know.” He let go the reins. “You’ll see him home safe?” he said to Hugues. Ti-Philippe had offered to go, too, but I’d rather it was Hugues. If the ordeal took a greater toll on me than I reckoned, I trusted him to be gentle.

“Of course.”

It was another cold, bright day in the City of Elua, the sky arching overhead like a blue vault. All the world seemed to be in high spirits. Hugues brought out his wooden flute as we rode and toyed with it, then thought better of it, tucking it away.

“It’s all right,” I said to him. “Play, if you like.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “It doesn’t seem right.”

“Have you ever been?” I asked.

“No.” His face was open and guileless. “I’ve never known the need.”

It had been a foolish question; I couldn’t imagine why he would. I had known Hugues since I was a boy, and I’d never known him to say an unkind word. I wondered what it would be like to be him, unfailingly patient and kind, always seeing the best in everyone. I tried to look for the good, but I saw the bad, too. The flaws, the fault-lines. I was of Kushiel’s lineage and it was our gift. My mother’s gift, that she had used to exploit others.

But I was Elua’s scion, too.

I wondered, did Elua choose his Companions? Nothing in the scriptures says so. They chose him as he wandered the earth; chose to abandon the One God in his heaven to wander at Blessed Elua’s side until they made a home here in Terre d’Ange, and then a truer home in the Terre-d’Ange-that-lies-beyond.

He loved them, though. He must have. And if Blessed Elua found somewhat to love in mighty Kushiel, who was once appointed to punish the damned, then mayhap I would, too.

Elua’s temples are open places; open to sky and grounded by earth. In the Sanctuary of Elua where I grew up—until I was stolen by slavers—the temple was in a poppy-field. I used to love it there.

I’d never been to one of Kushiel’s temples. It was a closed place. Though it was located in the heart of the City, it sat alone in a walled square. There were no businesses surrounding it; no shops, no taverns, no markets. The building was clad in travertine marble, a muted honey-colored hue.

“Funny,” Hugues mused. “I’d expected it to be darker.”

“So did I,” I murmured.

The gate was unlocked and there was no keeper. We passed beyond it into the courtyard, hoofbeats echoing against the walls. I thought about the wide walls of Lucca, so vast that oak trees grew atop them. A young man in black robes emerged from the stables.

“Be welcome,” he said, bowing.

We gave our mounts over into his keeping. I watched the Bastard accept his lead without protest, pacing docilely into the stable, and thought once more about the Sanctuary of Elua and an acolyte I had known there.

Hugues nudged me. “This way.”

The stairs leading to the entrance were steep and narrow. The tall doors were clad in bronze and worked with a relief of intertwining keys. It was said Kushiel once held the keys to the gates of hell. House Shahrizai takes its emblem from the same motif. The door-knocker was a simple bronze ring, unadorned. I grasped it and knocked for entrance.

The door was opened by another black-robed figure: a priest, his face covered by a bronze mask that rendered his features stern and anonymous. Or hers; it was almost impossible to tell. The sight made me shiver a little. He—or she—beckoned without speaking, and we stepped into the foyer. He waited, gazing at us through the eye-holes of his mask.

“I am here to offer penance,” I said. Save for a pair of marble benches, the foyer was empty of all adornment and my voice echoed in the space.

The priest inclined his head and indicated the benches to Hugues, who took a seat, then beckoned once more to me. I followed, glancing back once at Hugues. He looked worried and forlorn, his wide shoulders hunched.

I followed the black-clad figure, studying the movement of the body beneath the flowing robes, the sway of the hips. A woman, I thought. I wasn’t sure if it made me more or less uneasy. She led me through another set of doors, down a set of hallways to the baths of purification.

Although I’d never gone, I knew the rituals. I’d asked Phèdre about it once. It used to bother me that she went, betimes. I was fearful of the violent catharsis she found in it. The dark mirror, Mavros would say.

And now I sought it.

The baths were stark and plain. Light poured in from high, narrow windows. There was a pool of white marble, heated by a hypocaust. The water shimmered, curls of steam rising in the sunlight. The priestess pointed at the pool.

“Do you know who I am?” I asked her.

She tilted her head. Sunlight glanced from the mask’s bronze cheek. In the shadows of its eye-holes, I could make out human eyes. The bronze lips were parted to allow breath. I thought she would speak, but she didn’t answer, merely pointed once more.

I unbuckled my sword-belt, pulled off my boots, and stripped out of my clothing, piling it on a stool, then stepped into the pool. It was hot, almost hot enough to scald, and yet I found myself shivering.

“Kneel.”

A woman’s voice, soft and sibilant, emerging from between the bronze lips. I knelt, sinking shoulder-deep in the hot water. It smelled vaguely of sulfur. She took up a simple wooden bucket, dipping it into the pool. I closed my eyes as she poured it over my head in a near-scalding cascade; once, twice, thrice. When no more water came, I loosed the breath I’d been holding and opened my eyes.

The priestess beckoned.

I clambered out of the pool, naked and dripping. Water puddled on the marble floor. She handed me a linen bath-sheet. I dried myself and looked about for a robe, but she pointed at my piled clothing.

“Seems a bit foolish,” I muttered. She said nothing, so I put on my clothes and followed as she led me out of the baths, feeling damp and anxious.

We entered a broad hallway with a high ceiling and another pair of massive, bronze-clad doors at the end of it. The temple proper. The doors clanged like bells as they opened. My mouth was dry.

Kushiel’s inner sanctum.

All I could see at first was the effigy. It towered in the room, filling the space. I wondered how they’d gotten it through the doors, then realized the entire temple must have been built around it. His arms were crossed on his breast, his hands gripping his rod and flail. His distant face was stern and calm and beautiful, the same visage echoed in the mask of the priestess who led me, and those of the priests who awaited us.