Kushiel's Chosen (48 page)

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Authors: Jacqueline Carey

Tags: #High Fantasy

BOOK: Kushiel's Chosen
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I was young, and Kushiel's chosen; I regained strength quickly. As death receded from my grasp and the profound shock of horror and betrayal lessened, my wits began to function once more and I came slowly to acknowledge my situation.

If Tito was the best of the guards, despite his fearsome appearance, Malvio and Fabron were the worst. Malvio was the cock-eyed guard I had seen on my arrival, and he spoke seldom, but grinned all the while, his slippery gaze wan dering all over me when it was his turn to bring food, wait ing to ensure I ate. At first, he did nothing save look. On his third visit, he reached inside his breeches, fondling him self and grinning. And on the next, he loosened the draw string of his breeches, drawing out his erect phallus, dark and engorged with blood, and showing it to me. I looked away as he stroked himself to a climax, knowing he was grinning. When he was done, he tucked himself away, waiting calmly for me to eat and hand him my empty plate.

And I did, fearing if the warden came again, it would be Malvio he brought.

Fabron, by contrast, spoke volumes, moving close enough so I could smell his breath as he told me in lewd detail exactly what and where and how he would do to me the many things that he thought about doing to me. While he was not particularly inventive, he never tired of describing the acts in which he would engage me.

"What would it be worth to you?" I asked him once, tilting my head back to gaze at him. "My freedom? For that, I would do all you ask, and more."

At that, he blustered, then turned pale and fled, grabbing my half-eaten supper tray.

If I were a heroine in a romantic epic, no doubt, it would have been different; I'd have lured him with flirtation and subtle half-promises, duping him into aiding me in escaping. Alas, in reality, not even lowly prison guards are stupid enough to risk certain discovery for the promise of lascivious pleasure. In truth, there was nothing alluring about my plight. It was high summer and the heat was oppressive, rendering the stench of an unemptied chamber pot nigh unbearable. The coarse woolen dress itched like fury and grew rank with sweat, dragging hem and trailing sleeves growing frayed and filthy. I took it off when I dared, scrambling to don it when I heard a key turn in the lock.
It stank, 1 stank and my cell stank. Nights brought utter blackness and reduced the world to the crash and moan of Asherat's awful grief. Days brought tedium and misery that made madness seem almost welcome.
Such was my existence.

It was some weeks later when Tito entered my cell with arms laden. I watched curiously as he set down a brimming bucket of fresh water and a bundle of cloth. Reaching into his pockets, he drew forth two hard-boiled eggs and an ap ple, a rare feast. "Eat," he said, handing them to me, and then, procuring somewhat from another pocket, "Wash."

It was a worn ball of soap, smelling harshly of lye, and I daresay I have never accepted a patron-gift with as much grateful reverence as I did that lint-stippled ball. Tito averted his head and picked up my chamber bucket with one hand, holding it carefully away from him as he left my cell.
Ignoring the food, I stripped off my loathsome dress and knelt on the floor before the bucket of water. The soap was gritty and produced little lather. It stung as I scrubbed my self assiduously. It felt wonderful. I washed even my hair when I had scrubbed every inch of skin, bending over the bucket to dunk my entire head. The water was none too clean by then, but I didn't care; 'twas cleaner than I. When I had done, I investigated the cloth bundle and found it was a clean dress, of the same crude-spun grey wool.

Tito returned with the chamber bucket well scoured, and another smaller bucket of fresh drinking water. I sat curled on my pallet and finished my apple, reveling in the luxury of being clean for the first time in weeks.

"Thank you," I said as he gathered up the discarded dress, the scrap of soap, the eggshells. "For all of this." To my surprise, he gave me a look of grave misgiving, shaking his massive head and departing.
It wasn't long until I learned why.

Wearing my clean dress, I was standing on the stool at the window, working one hand through the iron bars to toss crumbs from a heel of bread I'd saved to the gulls that skirled around the isle. All it took was one to discover it for half a dozen to descend, squalling and fighting with raucous cries on the ground outside my window, fierce beaks stabbing. It was somewhat unnerving, viewed at eye level, but it relieved my tedium and their squabbling drowned out the sound of the sea.

It also hid the sound of my door unlocking.

"Phèdre, what on earth are you doing?"

It was Melisande's voice, rich and amused, sounding for all the world as though she'd encountered me in the City or at court, and not imprisoned half-underground in a forsaken dungeon by her own decree. My heart gave a jolt. Pulse racing, I turned slowly to face her.

In the dim grey light of my cell, Melisande shone like a jewel. No veil concealed her features, her flawless ivory skin, generous mouth and her eyes, her eyes that were the deep blue of sapphires. Her hair hung loose as I remembered it, rippling in blue-black waves. Her beauty was dizzying.

"Feeding the gulls," I replied foolishly.
Melisande smiled. "And will you make one your especial pet, and train him to carry messages, warning Ysandre and saving the nation?"

I stayed where I was, standing on my stool, back to the window. Whether it looked ridiculous or no, it gave me the advantage of height and kept me as far from her as possible. "You have won," I said in an even tone. "Do me the cour tesy of not mocking me further, my lady. What do you want?"

"To see you," Melisande said calmly. "To offer you a choice. You have seen, I think, what your future holds; squalor, boredom and madness. And that is the least of it. While I remain in La Serenissima, you are protected, Phèdre. The warden is ordered to see you come to no harm and his guards do not molest you. When I am gone..." she shrugged, "... it will be worse."
I thought of Malvio's darting eyes and felt sick. "When you are gone," I echoed, repressing my rising gorge. "And when will that be? Autumn, mayhap, when Ysandre leaves the royal army in the hands of Percy de Somerville and makes the
progressus,
riding into a Serenissiman trap?" Melisande didn't answer, and 1 laughed hollowly. "You were condemned as a traitor, my lady. Do you think the D'Angeline people will forget so easily?"
"People believe what they are told." Her expression re mained serene. " 'Twas your word condemned me. Already, Ysandre has disavowed you, through your own cleverness. If you are found traitor as well for conspiring against D' Angeline trade interests, few will doubt it when they are told you lied."

"1 didn't conspire against D'Angeline trade interests."

"No?" Melisande raised her brows. "But Marco Stregazza will swear you did."

"Ah." 1 glanced out the window at the churning grey sea beyond the cliff's verge. "And did he suborn the corruption of Asherat's Oracle as well? I have endured her grief for many days now. I would not like to face her wrath."

"No." Her tone was complacent. "He wouldn't have dared; that was Marie-Celeste's idea. I am not fool enough to mock Asherat-of-the-Sea. Her temple gave me sanctuary, and I am grateful for it. If her means suit my ends, so much the better, but I do not risk blasphemy. No D'Angeline would, nor true Serenissiman. Marie-Celeste straddles two worlds, and fears answering to the gods of neither," she added. "You do not sound surprised."

"I have had some time to think, my lady," I said dryly, looking back at her. "What choice is this you offer?"

"For now, your choice of prisons. This one..." Meli sande gestured at the stone walls, the straw pallet and empty bucket, "... or mine." The words hung in the air between us, and she smiled slightly. "You would make a good traitor, Phèdre. But you would make an exquisite penitent on my behalf."
I stood balanced on my stool, curiously light-headed. "And what do you propose to do, my lady?" I asked, hearing my own voice strange and unfamiliar, as blithe as hers had been when she teased me about the gulls. "Break me to your will like a fractious colt?"
Melisande smiled gently. "Yes."
I swallowed and looked away.
Too close and too small, this cell of mine, to contain the both of us. The vast wide world was too small. It is a weak ness, Kushiel's Dart. The scarlet mote that marked my eye was but a manifestation of the true flaw within, the wound that penetrated to the marrow of my soul. What Melisande offered; Elua, the promise was sweet to me! To struggle no more against my very nature but surrender to it wholeheart edly, offering it up with both hands to the one person, the only person, who had always, always known the true es sence of what I was.

As I knew hers.

Melisande wanted something of me.

Heart and mind raced alike, as I stood trembling before her. My hand rose unthinking to seek out the bare hollow at my throat where her diamond had hung for so long, the leash she had set upon me to see how far I would run. "Joscelin," I whispered. "You can't find him."

Her eyelids flickered, ever so slightly.

I laughed aloud, having nothing to lose. "And Ti- Philippe? Don't tell me! What makes you think I would know where to find them, my lady? Joscelin Verreuil left me, for committing the dire crime of seducing him. If Philippe evaded your guardsmen ... how can I guess? Marco's men would do better than I, if Benedicte can't find him."

"He jumped into the canal, actually." Melisande's voice was surprisingly even. "From the balcony. It seems Rousse's sailor-lads swim like fish. Marco is of the mind that he's dying of the ague, if he yet lives. The canals are known for pestilence. La Serenissima is well-cordoned, they'll not leave it by water or land, nor send word either. Even if they did, they know too little to undo our plans. Still, too little is too much. But we will speak more of this later." She came close, too close, smiling, and reached up to lay one hand against my cheek. "Think on my offer."
Her touch was cool, and yet it burned me like fire. I closed my eyes, shaking like a leaf in a storm. I could smell her scent, a faint musk overlaid with spices. 1 wanted to fall to my knees, wanted to turn my head, taking her fingers into my mouth.
I didn't.

"Think on it," Melisande repeated, withdrawing her touch. "I'll be back."

FORTY-THREE
An offer.
A dangerous offer.

After Melisande had left, I sat huddled on my pallet, arms wrapped around my knees, thinking. It had been different, before. There is a certain calmness in despair. Now even that luxury had been torn away from me.

I had to think.

Joscelin and Ti-Philippe, alive! They were in the Yeshuite quarter, I was sure of it. It was the one place neither Benedicte nor the Stregazza would think to look; it was the first place Joscelin would have gone. And if Ti-Philìppe had escaped, if he was clever and able enough, it was where he would look. I gave thanks to Elua, now, that my chevaliers had been suspicious enough to follow Joscelin during his disappearances.

They knew enough, the two of them, to lay charges against Percy de Sotnerville—although they had no proof". It was what they didn't know that could kill them. Prince Benedicte ... Benedicte and Melisande. Still, I thought, Ti Philippe was smart enough to run, when he saw Benedicte's guards.
Percy de Somerville's guards, whom we all thought Prince Benedicte took into his service all unwitting.
He knew Remy, Fortun and I left for the Little Court, never to be seen again.
But he would not know why, and a great many "accidents" could have befallen us between home and palace. I mulled the problem over and over in my mind, and came inevitably to the same conclusion. The scope of it was simply too vast, too hard to encompass. Neither Ti-Philippe nor Joscelin would guess Benedicte's treason.
What you seek you will find in the last place you look...

I hadn't thought it; nor would they. The best I could hope for was that my disappearance and the traitorous guardsmen would make them wary, wary enough to avoid the Little Court and go straight to Ysandre.

If they lived. If Ti-Philippe wasn't lying on a cot somewhere sweating out his last ounce of life with some dreadful canal-bred pestilence. If Joscelin wasn't halfway to the northern steppes, chasing some arcane Yeshuite prophecy.

And if they could reach the Queen, which Melisande, who brooked few illusions, believed impossible.

If, if, if.

It is a dire thing, to hope against hope.

I did not doubt the veracity of Melisande's claims. It is a truism; history is written by the victors. With the solid support of Duc Percy de Somerville and Prince Benedicte de la Courcel behind her, her reputation would be restored, nearly spotless. There would be protest from a few, silenced swiftly. A few might rebel; not many, I thought. I had not forgotten the murmurs among the nobility when Drustan mab Necthana rode into the City of Elua.

Many, too many, would be glad to be shed of a Pictish Prince-Consort, whose bloodline would taint the heirs of House Courcel. None of that for Benedicte, still Ysandre's heir. No, his Serenissiman-born children would inherit here.

For Terre d'Ange, a true-born son, gotten on his D'Angeline wife.

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