Kushiel's Justice (60 page)

“I understand,” I said humbly. “I would help if I could.”

“Perhaps you have.” He drew a deep breath and gazed around the room. “You remind me that my choices affect lives. It is not enough to trust to Adonai’s will. Our minds, our tongues, our hands are his tools. I will think on it, and pray.” He nodded. “I thank you for coming to bring me this news yourself. Not all men would have done so.”

“You cared for him,” I said. “I wanted you to know that in the end, his death was peaceful. It wasn’t what you wanted for him, but he was glad.”

“And the Tarkovans?” the Rebbe asked. I didn’t answer. His wise old gaze sharpened. “For the sake of the guilt we both bear, I’ll make you a bargain, lad. Go to Tarkov to made amends. Tell them what befell their sons, brothers, and husbands. Tell them you have confessed it to me, and I have absolved you of all guilt and laid my blessing upon you, bidding you to spread the word among men that it is better to be filled with compassion than suspicion, and remind them that in the end, in Yeshua’s kingdom, all men are brothers. That your coming is a sign all must be mindful of this, always and forever.”

“Thus do we shape the world, Father?” I asked.

“Thus do we try,” he said. “It should not strain your faith.”

“No,” I said. “Blessed Elua would not object.”

“Blessed Elua,” the Rebbe murmured, and shook his head. “You may go.”

I rose, and Maslin rose with me, stifling a yawn. No doubt he’d been bored out of his wits, and him already half dead for lack of sleep. Together, we departed Avraham ben David’s presence; the two of us, the bright and the dark.

S
IXTY-THREE

O
UR CHAMBER WAS COLD
and the cots were hard. After the wilderness, it felt heavenly. Maslin and I didn’t speak that night, only lay down and slept the sleep of the dead. By long force of habit, we woke before daybreak, and departed shortly thereafter.

As before, no one bade us farewell. This time, though, quite a few turned out to watch us go, including Tadeuz Vral’s messenger, his scarlet livery a bright splash of color against all the somber black robes. It was a strange feeling.

“So what’s that all about?” Maslin asked me.

I told him what the messenger had said upon seeing us, that our presence was a sign. And I told him about my conversation with the Rebbe. Maslin smiled a little at the notion of the pair of us as bright and dark angels, but what he said surprised me.

“Mayhap our coming
is
a sign, Imriel. Who knows? The gods use mortals to their own purposes.”

“A sign of what?” I asked. “The messenger didn’t say.”

“Well, the Rebbe certainly had his ideas on how to interpret it.” He glanced sidelong at me. “Surely you’re not going to do it, are you?”

“Go to Tarkov?” I thought about it. “Yes.”

“Why?” Maslin stared at me in disbelief. “They might well throw you back in gaol, you know.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Not with Rebbe Avraham’s blessing on me.” I thought about it more as we rode. “I withheld the truth to pursue my own quest. I could have waited for word from Micah ben Ximon. Elua, if I’d waited long enough, you’d have come, and you might have told a different tale.” I grinned at him. “My bright angel come to save me. Mayhap the pair of us could have convinced them.”

Maslin snorted. “Not likely.”

I shrugged. “Well, it’s on the way.”

“For the spawn of a pair of traitors, you have a perversely stubborn sense of honor,” he observed.

“My thanks,” I said wryly. We rode for a while without talking. “My father had a sense of honor,” I said after a while. “Or so I’m told. It was just that it was misguided. That’s how my mother was able to exploit him. He truly believed Terre d’Ange needed a pure-blooded D’Angeline heir.”

Maslin shot me a look. “Do you?”

“Elua, no!” I dropped the reins to spread my arms. “Maslin, look at me. Do you think I’d be
here
, avenging my Cruithne wife, if that’s what I held paramount?”

His lips twitched. “Not likely, no.” His voice changed. “Do you ever wish you could have known him? Your father? Just to know what he was truly like?”

I picked up the reins. “I saw him once.”

“Your
father
?” He frowned. “I thought he died when you were a babe.”

“He did.” I told him about the Feast of the Dead and how I had seen the spirit of my father riding beside me, old and sad. Sadder than anyone I’d ever seen, even Berlik. How I’d hoped, then, that he had gained wisdom and come to bless his half-Cruithne grandson in the womb. How I’d wondered later if he had known what was to come, and grieved at it. Maslin listened as I talked, his lips parted in wonder.

“I’d like to see my father,” he mused. “I wonder how he’d look at me.”

“With pride, regret, and sorrow,” I said. “Pride at what you’ve done. Regret at the fact he wasn’t there to share it, never had a chance to acknowledge you as his child. Sorrow at the burden his legacy laid upon you.”

Maslin shot me another look, wary. “You’re serious?”

“I am,” I said.

He fell silent for a time, his mouth a hard line. “Gods above, Imriel,” he said at last in disgust. “You know, the last thing on earth I wanted was to
like
you.”

I laughed.

“It’s not funny!”

“It is,” I said softly. “Ah, Maslin! There was a time when I wanted, so badly, for you to like me. You were older. You seemed so sure of yourself. And there was no one else I’d ever met who might understand, at least a little, what it was like to be a traitor’s son. To struggle with that burden, to need to prove it to oneself, over and over. All I ever wanted was your friendship.”

“Is that why you gave me Lombelon?” he asked.

“No.” I shook my head. “No, that was different. I thought it was right, that’s all. That it should belong to you. Phèdre warned me that you might not be grateful. That you might come to hate me for it in the end.”

“I did,” Maslin said candidly.

“I noticed,” I said.

We both laughed. Maslin grinned at me. “I’ll always hate you a little bit.”

“Only a little?” I asked.

“A bitter little husk of hatred,” he said cheerfully. “Shoved into the deepest, narrowest corner of self-loathing in my heart, where I will continue to envy and despise you. For the fact that Ysandre de la Courcel searched the ends of the earth to acknowledge you as her kinsman, while my own paternity went unacknowledged and forgotten. For the fact that Phèdre nó Delaunay loved you enough to make you her foster-son, while I remained the gardener’s daughter’s bastard. For the fact that Joscelin Verreuil, the Queen’s Champion, taught you to wield a sword while I was wielding pruning shears. For the fact that you rubbed these things in my face, whether or not you meant to. And, in the end, for the fact that Sidonie loves
you
and not me.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “What about the rest?”

“The rest of my heart?” Maslin asked.

I nodded.

He leaned over in the saddle and took my shoulder in a hard grip; one that lay somewhere between affection and violence. “I’ve a feeling I missed an opportunity somewhere. I’d count you a friend if you’d still have me.”

“I would,” I said. “Gladly.”

Maslin released me. “Well, then.”

Unlikely as it was, from that moment onward, I began to think of Maslin as a friend, albeit a prickly one. We worked together easily and rode together in tolerable companionship. The going was a good deal easier. We were travelling a road instead of breaking a path through endless wilderness. To be sure, it wasn’t much of a road, but the snowfall was light enough that we could still make out the trail forged by Tadeuz Vral’s messenger.

I was concerned about the reception we’d find when we reached the first village. Gordhoz was a midsized town; smaller than Tarkov, but larger than many of the little farming communities where I’d found hospitality. Maslin didn’t know what sort of stories the Tarkovan guards had spread, here or elsewhere. But I reckoned we’d have to confront the issue sooner or later, so we sought out the village’s single inn, which did a fair business offering food and lodging to pilgrims bound for Miroslas. I’d stayed there myself, as had Maslin and the Tarkovans.

“Ah.” The innkeeper stood in the doorway and regarded us impassively. He was a barrel-shaped fellow with a mustache that reminded me of Captain Iosef, and he spoke in Rus. “The spy and his hunter.”

“No spy, sir,” I said. “It was a mistake.”

He shrugged. “If you were a spy, you were a bad one. The war is won. You have money?”

I jingled my purse. “We do.”

He opened the door wider. “Come in.”

Betimes it is a blessing to be reminded that the world does not revolve around one’s problems, and this moment was one such. Maslin and I stayed there a full day, reveling in luxury. The innkeeper had a pretty young wife who served us beer and stew, and blushed every time she met either of our eyes. I smiled at her more than I ought, just because it was so good to see a woman’s face again.

“One crook of a finger and she’s yours,” Maslin observed.

I smiled. “Let’s not buy trouble.”

Instead, for a fee, the innkeeper’s wife laundered our filthy clothing and blankets, lending us old shirts and breeches, patched but clean, that must have belonged to her husband. While our own things dried on racks before the fire, we dashed through the cold, snowy streets to the public bath-house.

It was much like the one in Tarkov where my troubles had begun; except this time I was careful not to allow anyone to see Jagun’s brand. The other scars, I couldn’t hide.

“Name of Elua!” In the room where we stripped down, Maslin actually paled at the sight of me. “That bastard nearly tore you in half.”

“I know.” My teeth were chattering. “Come on.”

He kept stealing glances at me in the bathing-room, where we luxuriated in the heat and steam, scrubbing away weeks of stale sweat and unspeakable grime. We’d scoured ourselves with icy water from the basin in Miroslas, shivering in the cold chamber, but it had been a hasty, patchwork job completed in near-darkness. I hadn’t seen my own naked body for a long, long time. It seemed almost a stranger’s, ivory-pale from lack of sunlight, worn down to bone and sinew and lean, ropy muscle. No artist would ask me to sit for her now. The scars hadn’t faded as much as I’d thought they might. They were still angry red furrows, slashing across my torso.

I caught Maslin’s eye. “Still envious?”

“It’s dwindling rapidly,” he admitted. “I saw you in bandages that day at the Shahrizai lodge, I knew it was bad. Not that bad. Does it still hurt?”

I prodded scarred flesh. “It’s tender deep down.”

Maslin shook his head. “And you wept when you killed the creature who did that to you. That, my friend, I cannot begin to understand.”

“I’m not sure I do, either,” I murmured.

We left the village of Gordhoz the following day, clean and well-fed, our stores replenished. The innkeeper’s wife looked sad to see us go. The innkeeper didn’t.

Our journey to Tarkov was blessedly, blissfully uneventful. The Tarkovan guards had asked after me in Gordhoz to confirm I’d passed through on my way to Miroslas, but either they hadn’t bothered elsewhere, or they’d taken a more direct route and missed the villages and farmsteads where I’d found shelter. Recalling the number of times I’d gotten lost, I suspected the latter.

The temperature remained bitterly cold, but the snow had tapered off. Many days it was bright, so bright that the sunlight on the snow was nearly blinding. Maslin and I rode with our eyes half-shut, the skies overhead a deep, vivid blue. In its own harsh, rugged way, Vralia truly was a beautiful country.

Both of us noticed that the days were growing longer. We tried to guess when the Longest Night, which was long indeed in Vralia, had passed, and where we had been. I thought it might have been the night before I’d killed Berlik. Maslin thought it was later, mayhap the night he’d tended to Berlik’s head. Berlik’s skull, jouncing in its leather bag, tied to our spare horse’s packs, offered no opinion.

We talked about our favorite memories of the Longest Night; or at least some of them. He told me how it was celebrated at Lombelon, and how much he had loved it as a child. The year before I’d met him, he’d played the role of the Sun Prince in their modest pageant; that was his favorite year. I told him about maintaining Elua’s vigil with Joscelin when I was fourteen, and how infernally sick I’d gotten afterward, how it was one of the only times I’d ever seen Phèdre angry at Joscelin. Maslin laughed when I admitted that I far preferred attending the fête with Eamonn in tow. He told me that the worst time he’d had on the Longest Night was two years ago, when he’d been sent to serve with the Unforgiven in Camlach after beating Raul L’Envers y Aragon badly in their duel.

Two years ago.

I didn’t tell him that was my favorite Longest Night of all. I kept the memory to myself, savoring it. Sidonie, all in gold. She’d taken my hand, tugging, and we’d darted behind the musicians’ mountain. There in the darkness, I’d pinned her against the false mountainside, my heart beating so hard I could feel it thudding in my chest. Her gilded sun-mask scraping my face as I kissed her for the first time. As she kissed me back, so hungrily it made my knees weak. Even now, the memory fired my blood. After the temple, I’d ridden home barefoot through the snow, clad in rags, and never even felt the cold.

Two years ago. Elua.

“What are you smiling at?” Maslin asked, curious.

“Nothing,” I said softly.

He looked dubious, but he didn’t press. Mayhap he sensed it was somewhat he didn’t truly wish to know.

As we neared Tarkov, we began to see groups of soldiers on the road, returning home in jubilation. They looked splendid, clad in scarlet coats and fur hats. Many of them sang as they rode, hymns of praise to Yeshua. Songs of war. Always, someone carried a banner. Yeshua’s cross waved above them, crimson on white. They had no knowledge of any tale of D’Angeline spies; or D’Angelines at all. One group hailed us with shouts, inviting us to share
starka
with them. Since there was no polite way to decline, we accepted.

“You see!” one of them shouted, clapping Maslin on the back. “Who are these beautiful strangers, eh? Perhaps it is true. Yeshua so favors us, he sends his angels to walk among us as mortal men!” He winked. “You tell Mighty Yeshua we gave you hospitality!”

Maslin looked startled.

“Just look grave and knowing,” I advised him.

He did his best.

I could see why the Vralians thought as they did. Maslin
was
beautiful. That, I’d never denied. The Skaldi had called his father Kilberhaar; Silver Hair. In the sunlight, his pale blond hair almost glittered. Like me, Maslin had lost weight during our long travail. The bones of his face were stark and prominent, striking in an unearthly way. There was beauty there, but it was fearsome, too. I suppose I must have looked much the same.

We spent a day with the soldiers, then parted ways.

A day later, we reached Tarkov.

There were soldiers there, too; quite a few, coming and going through the southern gate, talking with the guards. It was hard to tell, but beyond the wooden stockade it seemed as though somewhat of significance was passing there. We drew rein at a distance and watched.

“Your mind’s set on this?” Maslin asked with a frown.

“It is,” I said. “But . . .”

We’d been travelling together for some time, long enough to know one another’s thoughts. Maslin shaded his eyes, surveying the countryside surrounding Tarkov. In summer, it would be fertile farmland, but it was desolate now. To the north of the town, the pine forest that lay between Tarkov and Kargad rolled over the land like a dark carpet.