Kushiel's Justice (18 page)

And mayhap if I played at being the kind and gentle husband long enough, it would become true. Master Piero once told us that we might embody those qualities we desire to possess by embracing them, over and over, until the line between seeming and being is no more. I’d attempted that much on this venture.

Surely no one could ask for more.

E
IGHTEEN

W
E SPENT TWO DAYS IN
Bryn Gorrydum before departing for Innisclan.

Phèdre had hoped that Hyacinthe might visit while we were in Bryn Gorrydum, but Talorcan shook his head when she voiced it. “No, my lady. I believe he will attend the nuptials, but Master Hyacinthe seldom leaves his Stormkeep. He bears a great responsibility.”

Somewhat in his tone made her cock her head. “But all is well?”

“Oh, yes.” He nodded. “He wards the Straits as ever.”

“Who choose?” Brigitta made an impatient gesture. “What ship?”

Talorcan blinked at her. “My lady?”

“Who chooses which ships are granted passage?” Eamonn clarified helpfully. “The Cruarch or the Master of the Straits?”

“Ah.” Talorcan frowned. “Well, ’tis a complicated matter. Master Hyacinthe has agreed to bar passage to no ship of Alba, nor”—he nodded in my direction—“Terre d’Ange, save at his extreme discretion. As for trade-ships from other nations, only those which the Cruarch has approved are permitted, pending Master Hyacinthe’s agreement. ’Tis but a formality, as they are generally in accord. My lord Drustan often hears petitions when visiting the Queen. Thus far, Master Hyacinthe has been in agreement with my lord Drustan.”

Eamonn translated for Brigitta. “Skaldia?” she asked.

“Including Skaldia, yes.” The Cruarch’s heir smiled at her. “I believe their suit was brought at the behest of others. ’Tis a recent development and a cautious one. But perhaps your charm will hasten the process.”

This time Brigitta understood him well enough to color at the unlikely—to my mind—compliment. Phèdre still wore a thoughtful look. “What of the matter of a successor, your highness? Has . . .” She hesitated. “. . .
Master
Hyacinthe made any decision?”

“I don’t believe so.” Talorcan turned his gaze toward her. His dark eyes were unreadable. Sidonie wore a similar look in public, sometimes. Strange to think they were cousins, more closely related than she and I were. I pushed the thought away and wondered instead what manner of husband Talorcan would make for Alais. I had the sense she admired and respected him, but of a surety, there was no passion there. “You would know if he had, would you not? It is well known in Alba that Master Hyacinthe holds you in the highest regard.”

“Well, he damnably well
ought
to,” Joscelin muttered.

“We’re friends, yes,” Phèdre said. “But I don’t believe he would inform me in such a matter without speaking to the Cruarch first. I wondered, that’s all.”

Talorcan shook his head. “Nothing is resolved.”

The conversation turned to other matters. I thought about Hyacinthe, the Master of the Straits. In Night’s Doorstep, Emile and others remembered him as he’d been when Phèdre first knew him: a merry Tsingano lad, quick with a laugh, with a knack for making a profit. It was hard to reconcile that image with the man I’d met aboard the Cruarch’s flagship, who had eyes that looked like shadows crawling at the bottom of the sea and held the power to tame the waves in his hands. He was still young, but something ancient had looked out of him. I suppose facing the prospect of aging eternally would do that to a man.

Small wonder Hyacinthe held Phèdre in the highest regard. She’d freed him from the curse that had bound him to such a fate.

I wondered how old he must be now. Not so old, really. A little over forty, mayhap; he and Phèdre were near the same age. He was wed to Sibeal, Drustan’s other sister. They had two young children, a girl and a boy. In accordance with the Cruithne’s matrilineal line of succession, either one would have been eligible to be named as the Cruarch’s heir. Alais had told me in utmost secrecy that her father had asked Hyacinthe if he were willing to allow either of his children to serve. Hyacinthe had told him flatly, no.

And one did not argue with the Master of the Straits.

Not even the Cruarch.

We departed Bryn Gorrydum in good order. If the city had proved larger and more sophisticated than one might expect, any notion that Alba was tame vanished within a half day’s ride. At first we followed the course of the Fayn River westward. It was a broad, slow-moving river, suitable for barge traffic, and an old Tiberian road ran alongside it. Still, the city gave way rapidly to rolling countryside, dotted here and there with small croft-holdings. It was very green, a green so intense it smote the eye.

Around noon, Urist pointed to a stone marker along the roadside. It was old and worn, half covered in lichen, and I had to squint to make out the symbol on it, a spiral ending outward in a pointed arrow.
“Taisgaidh,”
Urist said briefly. “Here we turn north.”

“That means the path we follow is held freely in trust for all the folk of Alba,” Eamonn whispered to me in his helpful way. “No man may bar another from travelling on
taisgaidh
land, and no man may do violence to another.”

“I know what it means,” I said. “I spent several hundred hours with the Daughter of the Grove learning such things. Would you care to know the fines levied against a man who bars another’s passage? It varies depending on whether or not he was bringing cattle to market.”

“Sorry.” He grinned. “I forgot.”

“It’s not so much the fines as it is the heresy,” Dorelei offered quietly. “The
taisgaidh
places are old, as old as the Cullach Gorrym. One does not violate the old ways unless one wishes to invoke a curse.”

“Oh, aye,” Eamonn agreed. “That, too.”

I shaded my eyes with one hand as we turned northward. We’d left our fine carriages behind in Terre d’Ange, but the wagons bearing our stores and tribute for the Lady of the Dalriada creaked behind the plodding mules, wheels leaving damp ruts in the grass. The sky was a soft, luminous grey. Beneath it, unending greenness stretched in every direction, broken only by the occasional outthrust promontory of rock and the distant glimmer of an inland lake. I could discern no path, no further marker. “Well, there’s somewhat the
ollamh
never mentioned. How does one avoid getting lost?”

Eamonn shrugged. “Practice.”

If it was true, Urist must have had a good deal of practice. We found a second
taisgaidh
marker before nightfall. An odd business, a squat stone column set in the middle of nowhere atop a shallow rise. This one was covered with moss. Urist had to scrape at it with his fingernails to bare the symbol. He sighted along the direction the spiral arrow pointed and nodded in satisfaction. “We’ll make camp here tonight.”

It was the first time since we’d left the City of Elua that we’d made camp under the open skies; or at least that
I
had. In a way, it reminded me of happier times. We dismounted, staking the horses and mules, allowing them to graze on the abundant pasturage. As the sun dipped toward the horizon, several of the D’Angeline soldiers set themselves to erecting tents for their royal charges, while others spread out to gather firewood in a nearby copse. Armed with short bows, Urist’s Cruithne set forth to shoot for the pot, bagging several hares, soon efficiently butchered.

A handful of campfires blossomed along the hillside.

From one, the familiar strains of a D’Angeline marching-song emanated. It had originated here in Alba, long ago, with a contingent of Admiral Rousse’s men who dubbed themselves Phèdre’s Boys.

“Man or woman, we don’t care! Give us twins, we’ll take the pair!”

“Name of Elua!” In the firelight, Phèdre looked dismayed and amused, and a good deal younger and more beautiful than she had any right to. Beneath a canopy of stars, we might have been anywhere. We might have been in Jebe-Barkal, making our way toward forgotten Saba. “Am I never to be free of it?”

“No.” Joscelin smiled at her. “Not likely.”

My heart surfaced, aching. I watched them, watched her raise her face to his. Watched him kiss her tenderly, his lips lingering on hers. Once upon a time, after Darsšanga, it had seemed to me that if what was broken between them could be healed, all would be right with the world. It still seemed true to me; only it hurt too much to feel it, because I hadn’t trusted myself to love that strongly. So I pushed the feelings away, looked away, letting my gaze fall on the tribute-wagons, silhouetted in the distance.

“What did you choose as a tribute-gift in the end?” I asked Eamonn. “I never heard.”

“Books.” He looked smug. “We mean to start an academy, Brigitta and I.”

Brigitta nodded.

Eamonn’s arm was slung around her neck, and she was curled against him, her long legs interwined with his, stretching toward the campfire. They looked as indolent and comfortable as a pair of basking leopards, the two of them. I smothered a pang of envy and glanced at my wife. “An academy filled with dangerous
books
,” I said. “What do you think?”

“ ’Tis a good thing, I think.” Dorelei considered. “I know the
ollamhs’
concerns, but is knowledge not a gift in any form?”

“Spoken like one of Shemhazai’s descendants!” Joscelin said in approval.

She flushed prettily. “Alba fears change, but not all change is bad. Brigitta has told me somewhat about the University of Tiberium. It would not be a bad thing, I think, if the young men of Alba sought honor in exchanging words and thoughts, and not raiding cattle and avenging blood-feuds.”

“It hasn’t stopped the Caerdicci,” I observed.

“No, but it slowed them down,” Eamonn said. “Without scholarship, there would be no agreement among the city-states, no Caerdicca Unitas.”

We talked for a while longer before turning in for the night. I lay awake for some time, listening to the breeze rustle the walls of the oiled silk tent I shared with Dorelei. I thought about war, knowledge, and change, and all those things we used to discuss under Master Piero’s guidance. Tiberium seemed long ago and far away, which wasn’t entirely bad. At least here in Alba, I was freed from the suffocating coils and snares of intrigue that bound me, both in Tiberium and in Terre d’Ange.

The Unseen Guild had no foothold here.

No one cared that Melisande Shahrizai was my mother.

Life would be a good deal simpler. If I tried hard enough, I might even learn to like it. And mayhap with time and distance, the heartache would grow bearable; the boulder dwindle to a pebble.

In the way that happens when one lets one’s thoughts drift, I fell asleep without knowing it until the sound awoke me. A huffing sound, deep and guttural, followed by a low, drawn-out groan. Something was moving around the outside the tent, something large.

I sat upright in my bedroll. Beside me, Dorelei was sound asleep. I eased my sword from its scabbard and got carefully to my feet. Another huff and snort, somewhere to the right of us. When I stooped and touched the ground with my fingertips, I could feel it tremble beneath the creature’s heavy tread.

A bear. It had to be a bear.

My palms broke out in a cold sweat, rendering my grip on the sword-hilt slippery. I glanced at Dorelei in an agony of indecision. No time to wake her, no time to explain. I doubted a lone man could kill a full-grown bear with a sword, but at least I could draw it away. I could die an inept hero, and let the sentries explain to my loved ones over my mauled body how a
bear
had wandered undetected into the heart of our campsite.

If I thought about it for another instant, I’d lose my nerve. So I didn’t. With my blood roaring in my ears and my heart thundering in my chest, I dashed through the tent-flap; darting left, then whirling right to face the bear, the sword braced in both hands, angled across my body.

There was nothing there.

Not a bear, not even a dog. Nothing. Only our tent standing beneath the stars, its walls rippling softly in the breeze. I sidled around it, crossing one foot carefully over the other, sword at the ready. The grass was cool, not yet dewy. There were no tracks, no prints left by anything larger than the soldiers who’d erected our tent. Nothing heavy enough to make the ground tremble had been here.

There was an odor, though. A rank, musky odor.

I circled the tent, my nostrils flaring. Was it real or was it the spectre of Darsšanga that haunted me; the stench of fear and ordure, the coppery tang of blood, the decaying vegetable reek of the stagnant pool? I couldn’t tell.

The stars were high and bright overhead. I could make out the whole of our campsite. There was nothing to see. No vast, shambling shadow moving among us. The horses and mules were dozing in their picket-lines. Our tents and wagons stood undisturbed. Men slept wrapped in bedrolls around the glowing embers of our campfires. Here and there around the outskirts, sentries were posted, gazing out into the quiet night.

Feeling like a fool, I lowered my sword. Even the odor had vanished. I must have dreamed of Daršanga without realizing it, somehow conflating my memories with tales of the Maghuin Dhonn. I’d done such a good job of burying my feelings, I wasn’t even aware of my own nightmares anymore.

Well, at least I hadn’t awakened the entire camp screaming at the top of my lungs, which was my usual response to haunted dreams. Although I daresay it wouldn’t be much less embarrassing if one of the sentries took notice and came to ask why I was prowling around in my underdrawers and waving a sword.

I slipped quietly back into the tent. Dorelei was still sleeping. I sheathed my sword and lay down beside her, keeping my sword close. For a long time, I was too tense to sleep, my body buzzing with alarm. I made myself listen to my wife’s slow, steady breathing, to the rustling of the tent walls, to the ordinary sounds of camp beyond. Bit by bit, my racing pulse ceased to thud and my tense muscles relaxed. With my right hand resting on the hilt of my sword, I slid slowly into sleep.

The last thing I heard was the sound of pipes and a woman’s laughter.

Surely, another dream.

In the clear light of morning, it seemed all the more absurd. I contemplated mentioning it to Eamonn or Joscelin or even Urist, but when I took a surreptitious turn around the tent, peering at the grass to confirm that there were no inhuman tracks, I found nothing. Whatever I’d imagined, it was clearly the product of my sleep-addled mind. There had been no bear here. By daylight, it was obvious that I’d dreamed the entire thing.