Kushiel's Justice (56 page)

There was no sign of Berlik’s trail.

It was gone, gone so thoroughly it might never have existed. I shrugged off my snow-covered blankets. I built the fire back up from its embers and boiled the last of my grain, eating it methodically with my fingers. Melted snow and refilled my waterskin. After a few errors, I found the tree I’d marked and brushed off the snow covering my mark. It pointed deeper into the forest, all of which was covered in a dense blanket of snow.

Trees and snow, nothing else.

I sighed, shouldered my pack, and began trudging.

F
IFTY-EIGHT

T
HERE WERE NO TRACKS
, but there was bear sign.

As a boy in the mountains of Siovale, I’d been taught to look for it. Patches on trees where the bark had been rubbed smooth. Clumps of coarse hair. I’d never seen any near the sanctuary, but I’d been taught to look.

I looked.

It was hard. Snow covered everything. But here and there, I found it. From what I could determine, Berlik had been travelling in a straight line. I followed in the direction I’d marked, looking for broken branches. Looking for tufts of hair poking through their coating of snow.

Whenever I found one, I made a fresh mark. When I didn’t, I backtracked along my own trail to the last mark, adjusted my angle, and tried anew.

I didn’t find him on the sixth day. I did find a fox, which I tried to kill by throwing my dagger at it. It dodged effortlessly the moment my arm came forward. By the time I retrieved my dagger, it was gone. My empty stomach growled. When I saw one of the other animals digging beneath a tree, one of the ones I couldn’t put a name to, I dropped my mittens and nocked an arrow. The creature scurried, a dark, anxious blur moving over the snow. I swung the bow wildly in an effort to track it, shot, and missed.

I lost that arrow, too.

It wasn’t that I was careless or unobservant. There was just so
much
forest, so much snow. It could swallow up a castle without noticing. A man was nothing; an arrow, less. I tramped around searching for the better part of an hour before giving up. The quest I had abandoned compelled me.

On the evening of the sixth day, I made camp and melted snow for my dinner. I drank as much as I could hold, and more. Water was good, water was life. I’d learned that in the desert when I travelled to Meroë with Phèdre and Joscelin.

I could live for days on water.

I could die on it, too.

It was snowing when I awoke on the seventh day. Not hard; almost idly, as though the snow were an afterthought. I felt a little weak, but clearheaded. I drank deep of snowmelt, then broke camp and struck out once more. It was another day like the others, filled with searching and backtracking.

Except that I found him.

If Miroslas had seemed like a mirage, I have no words to describe my reaction upon finding Berlik’s cabin. It was small, very small. It stood in a tiny glade I could easily have missed. When I found it, I stood for a time and simply stared, my mouth agape. There were gaps between the rough-hewn logs of which it was composed. He must have built it himself.

I set down my pack and took up the hunting bow. Elua, it seemed like a long time since I’d borrowed it from the Shahrizai lodge. I nocked my last arrow and trudged across the glade. Around the cabin, the snow was packed hard, gouged by bear-claws and boot-heels alike.

I kicked the door open.

It wasn’t much of a door, not really. It hung on leather hinges, sagging a little. Inside, the cabin was empty. No Berlik. Only strips of salted meat, hanging from the rafter poles to cure. There was a crude stone hearth in the center of the room, but the hearth was cold. A pallet of pine-boughs in the corner, covered in blankets and furs. On one wall, there was a cross; a pair of branches tied together with dried sinew. I surveyed it all, breathing hard.

Empty.

My heart ached. I was so tired.

There had been a tree outside. An oak tree, a barren tree. Dry branches reaching toward a stark, snowy sky. It nudged at my memory. There had been a tree in Dorelei’s vision. I went outside. Trudged toward the tree, arrow nocked.

I would have seen him before if I’d looked more closely, but I’d been fixed on the cabin. He was sitting beneath the tree, still and motionless, watching me. A man, not a bear. There was an axe not far away from him, embedded in a stump, but his hands were empty, resting quietly atop his knees. As I approached, he stirred.

I aimed at his heart. “Don’t move.”

He did, though, rising to his feet. “I will not harm you.”

My fingers trembled on the bowstring. “I’ve heard
that
before.”

“This time it is true,” he said in his deep voice. “I ask only that you kill me like a man, not a beast. Put down the bow.”

“Damn you!” I shouted at him. “
Why
? Why here, why now? If you wanted to die, I’d have been glad to oblige you in Alba!
Why
?”

“So many questions.” Berlik tilted his head and gazed at the sky. “It’s beautiful here, don’t you think? Wilder than Alba.” He looked back at me. “When first I fled,” he mused, “there was no thought behind it, only horror at what I had done. It seemed to me that perhaps if I fled far enough, I could carry it away from my people.”

“And did you?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Not all of it. Only my death, freely offered, can make atonement. And only at your hands, for it was to you I swore the oath I broke.” He was silent for a moment. “I would not have believed redemption was possible were it not for the Yeshuites. I broke an oath I swore on my
diadh-anam
. When I met them, I was a broken man.”

“And Yeshua healed you?” I asked coldly.

“Yes.” Berlik smiled. “He made me believe that the gods themselves are capable of forgiveness. That mayhap the Brown Bear of the Maghuin Dhonn herself would forgive me for breaking my oath to save our people.”

My throat tightened. “Then why seek death?”

“Because it is the price,” he said simply. “I am not a child of Yeshua ben Yosef. His sacrifice cannot pay the price for me.”

My arms were beginning to shake with the effort of holding the bow drawn. Berlik watched me without comment. I sighed and lowered the bow, although I kept the arrow nocked. “And yet you hung Yeshua’s cross on your wall.”

“Yes.” Berlik nodded. “To remind me.” He was silent for a moment. “I do not know if it is presumptuous to call a god a friend, but if there is any god who would not mind, it is Yeshua ben Yosef. When Ethan first spoke of him, I thought it was a terrible thing to worship a god who let himself fall so low, who let himself be mocked and struck and hung to die like a criminal. But I came to see it. I came to see that he is the one god who understands what it is to fall low. That when every other face is turned away from you, he is the friend who is there, not only for the innocent, but for the guilty, too. For the thieves and murderers and oath-breakers alike, Yeshua is there.”

I wanted to weep. “It doesn’t change anything.”

“It changed my heart,” Berlik said. “And that is not a small thing.” There was another heavy pause. “I prayed,” he said. “I left a trail for you to follow, and I prayed that if you found me, the
diadh-anam
would accept my sacrifice as atonement, and not punish all of her people for my failure. When my magic returned to me, here in the woods, I knew it was so.”

“Did you have to make it so hard?” I asked wearily.

“Would you have come here with a humble heart if I had not?” he asked.

“Probably not,” I said. “Would it have mattered?”

“It does to me,” Berlik said gravely. “It is my death. And I would have you understand what it is you are here to do. You could not do that with a heart filled with nothing but anguish and hatred.”

I gave a short, bitter laugh. “So now I am here to do your bidding.”

“We were never enemies, Imriel de la Courcel,” he said. “If I had the chance to live my life a second time, I would do many things differently. I would not be so proud in seeking to force the future into a shape of my liking. I would place greater trust in the providence of our ancient
diadh-anam
, and less in my own gifts. I would have forced Morwen to give back the mannekin.” He smiled sadly. “You told her it was not wise to cross D’Angelines in matters of love, that your Elua disliked it. I did not think his will could prevail on Alban soil. There were so many threads, so many futures. We were frightened. She thought that if we could control you, if we could bind you with your own desire, we could alter our fate.”

I remembered the sorrow in his face. “You knew she was wrong.”

“I feared it,” he said softly. “I was not sure. Enough to offer my oath and pray you took it in friendship and trust. Not enough to gainsay her. There was one path, one future . . . the child of both worlds, your child and hers, that could have brought a time of glory to Alba. That path, you refused. And in the end, Morwen was not wholly wrong. She, too, paid a terrible price.”

It was growing late in the day. The light was dimming, the trees casting long shadows. I was tired and cold and hungry. “ ’Tis all well and good to admit to mistakes and say there might have been a better way,” I said. “Elua knows, I’ve made enough mistakes of my own. But you’d do it again if you had to, wouldn’t you? Kill Dorelei and our son?”

“For my people?” Berlik asked. “Yes. We are few. The Maghuin Dhonn will continue to diminish, to mingle and blend with the other folk of Alba. In time, we may become a memory. But we will not be stamped from the face of the earth, all our sacred places destroyed, our magic broken and our lore forgotten. And it may be that we have a role yet to play.” He gazed at me with his pale, somber eyes. “You would have done the same. I pray you never have to make such a choice.”

I was silent.

Berlik sighed. “It grows late. Shall we be done with it?”

I swallowed. “I suppose.”

He knelt heavily in the snow. Even kneeling, he was a big man. He bowed his head and murmured a prayer, too low for me to hear, then raised his head and gazed up at me, snow falling on his face, catching in his shaggy black hair. “Let me die like a man. Please.”

I put down the hunting bow and drew my sword.

“Thank you.” Berlik smiled, genuine and startling. Somehow he looked humble despite it. There were tears in his pale eyes. He searched my face. “I’m so sorry. I promise you, it was swift. She felt no pain, only a moment’s fear.”

I nodded. “I’ll try to do the same.”

“My avenging angel,” he said. “Thank you.”

I nodded again, unable to speak. Berlik bowed his head. His coarse locks parted, revealing the nape of his neck. My blood beat hard in my veins and hammered in my ears like the sound of bronze wings clashing. I raised my sword high overhead in a two-handed grip. I was Kushiel’s scion, here to administer his justice. For the sake of Dorelei, her life cut short too soon. For the sake of our unborn child. For the sake of the love I hoped to deserve.

For the sake of us all.

I was here to accept Berlik’s sacrifice and to atone for my own sins. We had both transgressed against the wills of our gods. This was our moment of redemption. The gods had brought us here for a purpose.

And I understood for the first time what it meant that the One God’s punisher had loved his charges too well.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

I brought the sword down hard, hard enough to shear through bone. Berlik’s neck gaped and his head lolled. His body slumped. Crimson blood spurted, vivid against the white snow. I raised the sword again and struck a second blow, severing his head from his body. It rolled free. I could see his face. His eyes, framed by the woad claw-marks, were closed.

He looked peaceful.

Blood seeped steadily into the snow from the trunk of his neck, the flow slowing as his heart ceased to drive it. More snow fell from above, flakes drifting aimlessly. A light wind sprang up, stirring the snow on the ground, making it swirl around us. Not a storm, just a breeze. It was pretty, really; or at least it should have been.

Berlik was right. It was beautiful here.

Beneath the shadow of a barren oak tree, I fell to my knees and wept as though my heart were breaking.

F
IFTY-NINE

I
BUILT A FUNERAL PYRE
for him.

I didn’t know what else to do. I kept his head, shoving it into Urist’s leather sack. I couldn’t bring myself to boil it down to the skull. I could barely bring myself to look at it. I hung it outside in the trees where scavengers couldn’t get it, and let it freeze.

His body, I burned.

It took the better part of a day to gather sufficient wood for the pyre, but at least I had shelter and an ample supply of food. Berlik must have brought down one of those big deer. There was meat enough to last for weeks, and none of it spoiled. Even without the salt, it was cold enough to freeze in the cabin.

I built the pyre with dry branches and deadfalls, and dragged his frozen, headless body atop it. I lit it with the flint striker given to me long ago, and watched Berlik burn. His limbs twisted. The branches snapped and crackled.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered again.

I slept on his pallet of pine-boughs, beneath the furs he’d gathered. I stuffed my bags with strips of salted meat. I wondered if Rebbe Avraham had given him the sack of salt I found in the cabin. I wondered what the Rebbe would make of my killing him. Of the fact that it was at Berlik’s request.

I didn’t care, much.

Not really.

After I burned Berlik’s body, I studied the peaks of the Narodin Mountains. There was the one, hook-shaped and memorable. So long as I kept it over my left shoulder, I thought, I could chart a course back to civilization. I might miss Miroslas, but I had enough supplies now to reach the village beyond.

I set out the next day. Elua knows, I could have used a day of rest, but the thought of lingering there was unbearable. My purpose was finished. All I wanted was to go home. And I was afraid that if I thought about the effort it would take to get there, I’d lie down in exhaustion and die.

So I went.

When I was training under Gallus Tadius’ command in Lucca, some of the men complained about how hard he made us work. He told us that in the old days Tiberian foot-soldiers were expected to carry loads of sixty or seventy pounds, and that we should be grateful we had it so easy. I hadn’t thought so at the time, but in hindsight, the long, grueling days of drilling seemed like a pleasure-jaunt. The only thing I dared abandon was the hunting bow, reckoning that with one arrow, it wasn’t likely to save my life. Between the salted meat, the kettle I needed to melt snow, my blankets and arms and the bag containing Berlik’s frozen head, which I lashed to my belt, I was carrying a load worthy of a Tiberian foot-soldier. And I was doing it in deep snow, without the benefit of a proper pack.

Once again, my days dwindled into an endless blur of trudging, frozen and footsore, through good weather and bad. Making camp, breaking camp. Boiling strips of frozen meat and gnawing on it, drinking the weak broth for its warmth. Shivering through the endless nights, struggling through the all-too-fleeting hours of daylight. I didn’t count the days. Once again, there was no point. On horseback, I might have been able to gauge the distance to within a day or so, having a rough idea of how far I’d travelled. On foot, I couldn’t begin to guess with any degree of accuracy; and the days were so much shorter than they had been when I’d left Miroslas. I’d been at this for a long time.

I kept going.

My progress varied from day to day. Some days, I made good time, at least while there was daylight. On others, I chose my course unwisely and found myself floundering in waist-deep snow, my thighs aching as I forced my legs to move, the saddlebags slipping from my shoulders as I tried to use my arms to break a path. There had been times before when I’d had to break a path for my mount, but I hadn’t been carrying sixty pounds of gear.

I did stop, once. Just stopped. I leaned back, resting my weight against the snowdrift in which I was mired, and closed my eyes. I thought about what a profound relief it had been to give up the first time. Although the sun never seemed to reach its apex anymore, it was a bright day. The slanting sun beat against my face, turning the private darkness behind my eyelids to red brightness. After my exertions in the snow, I almost felt warm. It wouldn’t last. It would go quickly if I never moved again. Freezing wasn’t supposed to be a terrible way to die.

Just come home
.

I’d sent that damned ring back to Sidonie. She hadn’t asked me to make any promises I couldn’t keep, and I’d done it anyway.
Tell her it’s a pledge
, I’d said to Deordivus. That I would be back to claim it.

Brightness, a dazzle like diamonds.

I keep my promises
.

I pried my eyes open, squinted at the sun, and kept moving, flailing and struggling through the deep snow.

Most of the time, I simply trudged without thinking, my exhausted body working like a pack-horse. I was too tired to think, too tired for prayer. Later, if I survived, I would think about my encounter with Berlik. I would ponder what it all meant, whether what I’d done had been right or wrong. Whether there
was
a right or wrong in this matter, or only a long series of tragic events that hadn’t needed to occur.

Later.

Like the priests of Miroslas, I did without speech. I hadn’t spoken aloud since I burned Berlik’s body. Before, I had. I’d talked to my horse until it bolted and left me stranded on foot; all the better with which to approach killing Berlik with a humble heart, I supposed. Even then, I’d been wont to speak aloud. Betimes to utter an involuntary curse; at others, for the solace of hearing a human voice, even if it was my own.

Now I wore silence like a shroud, and there was comfort in it. Why, I couldn’t have said. Berlik’s death had made a silent, still place in my heart, where the only words spoken were
I’m sorry
. My last words to the man whose sacrifice I’d accepted. Berlik, to whom I’d administered Kushiel’s justice. The words echoed in my heart. I couldn’t bear to hear any others.

And then everything changed.

I was so accustomed to silence and solitude that when I first heard men’s raised voices arguing in Rus, I didn’t understand what it meant. There was no one there. I felt bewildered, like a man who couldn’t read being asked to decipher a page of writing. I paused on the rocky incline up which I was trudging, which had the virtue of being windswept and almost clear of snow, and wondered if I’d gone mad.

It slowly dawned on me that the men were on the other side of the incline, which was why I couldn’t see them yet. I was downwind, and their voices carried in the quiet wilderness. By the sound of it, they were growing closer, and swiftly enough that I guessed they were mounted.

I was in the open, and there wasn’t anywhere to run; although I don’t know that I would have if there had been. I wasn’t scared. No one knew I was out here except the Rebbe of Miroslas, and he was the one who had told me where to search. It must be, I thought, that my horse made it back safely to the last warm stable he remembered. That Rebbe Avraham had been compelled by a Yeshuite sense of duty to send someone to search for me despite his dislike of my mission, reckoning I might be half frozen and dying in the wilderness.

A spark of gratitude warmed me; and in its wake, a sense of relief that abruptly weakened my knees. Elua, I’d been out here a long time! Surely the weeks had turned to months. I’d no false illusions of pride, not after what I’d endured. I’d gladly be rescued.

I managed to keep my feet and watched three men on horseback clear the crest of the incline some forty yards away. They paused, staring. I felt a grin split my wind-burned face and raised one hand in greeting.

All three of them drew their swords.

And one of them shouted in D’Angeline, his voice clear and carrying. “Imriel,
run
!”

I didn’t.

I stood, gaping like an idiot, while the lead rider kicked his mount to a gallop and bore down on me. Atop the crest, the other two were circling each other, blades flickering and flashing. The oncoming rider leaned down from the saddle, sword in hand, his face grim and furious. I knew it, although I couldn’t put a name to it. He was one of the guards from Tarkov.

At the last minute, I dropped my packs and ducked under his blow. “I’m not a spy!” I shouted at him. “I can explain!
Wait
!”

Or at least, that’s what I tried to say. What emerged from my mouth was a dry, croaking sound. And it might have been in D’Angeline or Cruithne. I wasn’t even sure. I swallowed frantically, backing away as he wheeled his horse, putting up my mittened hands in a gesture of surrender.

“Wait!”
I got the word out in Rus.

He didn’t wait.

I cursed with steady fluency in any number of tongues as he bore down on me for a second time, the dam of my long silence broken. I shook off my mittens and drew my sword. He gave me a fierce battle-grin as he brought his sword down in a stroke meant to split my skull from above.

I daresay he didn’t expect me to parry it, at least not as strongly as I did. But the Cassiline fighting style is based on spheres of defense, and there is more than one series of forms designed to defend against a mounted enemy or an enemy on higher ground.

I used them all.

“Stop!” I shouted at him.
“Talk to me!”

He didn’t. He panicked, heeling his mount and jerking its head, seeking to circle around and make another pass at me. His mount stumbled, going to its knees, and threw him. Atop the crest, the D’Angeline who’d shouted a warning and the other man were still battering at one another.

“Wait,” I said softly in Rus, approaching the fallen guard. “Listen.”

He scrambled to his feet, shook his head, and charged me, sword extended.

I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t
want
to kill him. But I had been trained, very well, to defend my own life. At such times, it is the only thing that matters. I sidestepped his charge and angled my blade low, cutting him deep across the thighs.

He grunted and fell.

“I’m
sorry
,” I said in anguish. “Damn you! Why wouldn’t you listen?”

“Imriel!”

Another clear, carrying shout. I raised my head. Now the second Vralian rider was coming, howling in fury, the D’Angeline hot in pursuit. Fair hair streamed under the D’Angeline’s fur hat, a hat much like the one I’d lost. I hoped it was Joscelin, except it didn’t sound like Joscelin. And if it was, I couldn’t imagine he’d have let his man get away. Not with my safety at stake.

The Vralian guard at my feet writhed, clutching his wounds. There was blood, a great deal of blood, gushing between his fingers. I’d cut one of the big veins. He wouldn’t live, this one. Not in this wilderness.

And the other meant to kill me.

“Blessed Elua forgive me,” I murmured, plucking my dagger from its sheath. I’d had time to think, this time. I wasn’t standing gape-mouthed and stupid. I tossed the dagger in the air, catching it by its tip. I watched him loom large in my vision. He wasn’t a fox or some quick-moving forest animal to dodge when my arm came forward, laughing at me with parted jaws before vanishing into the deep cover of the forest. Just a man, misguided. Nor more innocent or guilty than the rest of us.

Angry that I’d killed his comrade.

I didn’t blame him for that. I was, too. But I didn’t want to die.

His face was set in a rictus of fury. I recognized him, too. He was the one who had attempted to play my flute. The one I’d mocked. He rode a swift, surefooted mount. The D’Angeline pounding behind him was laboring to keep pace.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and threw.

The dagger took him in the throat, the hilt protruding. He rocked back in the saddle, gurgling. Slumped, fell heavily to the ground. His mount cantered to a halt and began snuffling the stony ground. I walked over to him. There was blood trickling from the corners of his mouth.

He gestured to his throat.

I nodded and set my hand to the hilt. “Yeshua’s mercy on you.”

Everyone dies alone and no one wants to. Mayhap it is the one way, in the end, in which all of us are alike, no matter what our faith. I knelt beside the Tarkovan guard and plucked the dagger from his throat. His back arched, his body rigid as a bow. Blood and air bubbled from the wound. His hand scrabbled for mine. I held it, hard. I bowed my head, my trailing hair growing sticky with his blood.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He didn’t answer.

He was dead.

I got to my feet. There was the D’Angeline on horseback, pulling up hard. I didn’t acknowledge him yet. I couldn’t. I walked over to the other Vralian, the man I’d struck with my sword. I was right, I’d hit one of the big veins. He lay in a pool of blood, already freezing into crystals at the outer edges, his open eyes staring at the blank sky. I knelt beside him, closing his eyelids tenderly.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish you’d listened.”

He didn’t answer either, of course.

“Imriel.” A D’Angeline voice said my name. It sounded tight and strange.

I looked up into the face of Maslin de Lombelon.