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.
One held a flogger.
I couldn't help it, my throat tightened. At the base of the effigy was the altar-fire. A few tendrils of smoke arose. The stone walls of the temple were blackened with old soot. The flagstones were scrubbed clean, though. Especially those before Kushiel's effigy, where the wooden whipping-post stood.
"Damn it!" I whispered, feeling the sting of tears. I thought about Gilot. No more tears, I'd promised him when we set out for Tiberium. Impatient at myself, I strode forward. I made an offering of gold and took up a handful of incense, casting it on the brazier.
Fragrant smoke billowed. I'd offered incense to Kushiel in the ambassadress' garden in Tiberium; spikenard and mastic. This was different. This was his place.
A bronze mask swam before me. A priest, a tall man. He bent his head toward me. "Is it your will to offer penance?”
"Yes, lord priest." I blinked my stinging eyes, rubbing at them with the heel of one hand. "Do you know who I am?”
"Yes.”
A single word; a single syllable. And yet there was knowledge and compassion in it. Behind the eye-holes of his mask, his gaze was unwavering. The decision was mine.
I spread my arms. "So.”
Hands undressed me; unfastening my cloak, unbuckling my sword-belt. Anonymous hands belonging to faceless figures. Piece by piece, they stripped away my clothing, until I was naked and shivering in their black-robed midst. A heavy hand on my shoulder, forcing me to my knees. I knelt on the scrubbed flagstones.
Hands grasped my wrists, stretching my arms above my head. I willed myself not to struggle as they lashed rawhide around my wrists, binding them tight to the ring atop the whipping-post. The incense was so thick I could taste it on my tongue, mingled with the memory of stagnant water, rot, and decay.
The chastiser stepped forward, his bronze-masked face calm and implacable. He held forth the flogger in both hands, offering it like a sacrament. It was no toy intended for violent pleasure, no teasing implement of soft deerskin. The braided leather glinted and metal gleamed at its tips. It was meant to hurt.
My teeth were chattering. All I could do was nod.
He nodded in acknowledgment and stepped behind me.
I braced myself.
Ah, Elua! The first blow was hard and fast, dealt by an expert hand. White-hot pain burst across the expanse of my naked back. I jerked hard against my restraints, feeling my sinews strain near unto cracking. Again and again and again it fell, and I found myself wild with panic, struggling to escape. I flung myself against the coarse wood of the whipping-post, worrying at it with my fingernails. And still the flogger fell, over and over.
I saw Daršanga.
Dead women, dead boys. The Mahrkagir's mad eyes, wide with glee.
Phèdre, filled with the Name of God.
Brightness.
Darkness.
All of the dead, my dead. Daršanga, Lucca. Everyone's dead.
Kushiel's face, wreathed in smoke.
"Enough." The tall priest raised his hand. I had ceased to struggle, going limp in my bonds. On my knees, aching in every part, I squinted up at him. "Make now your confession.”
I craned my neck. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "And I will try to be good.”
There was a pause; a small silence. I let my head loll. From the corner of my eye, I saw the tall priest gesture. There was the soft sound of a dipper sinking into water, and then another voice spoke. "Be free of it.”
A draught of saltwater was poured over my wounds. I rested my bowed head in the crook of my elbows, sighing at the pain of it.
It was done, then. My penance was made. The anonymous hands untied my wrists and helped me to stand. Patted dry my lacerated back, helped me to dress. Though I stood on wavering feet, strangely, I felt calm and purged.
"So." The tall priest regarded me. "Is it well done, Kushiel's scion?”
If I had wished it, I thought, he would have spoken to me as a man, mortal to mortal, both of us grasping with imperfect hands at the will of the gods. I didn't, though. I bowed to him instead, feeling the fabric of my shirt rasp over my wounded flesh. It was a familiar feeling. I'd known it well, once. This was different. I had chosen it.
"It is well done, my lord priest," I said.
He nodded a final time. "Go, then.”
Hugues leapt to his feet when I entered the foyer. "Are you …how are you?”
I ran my tongue over my teeth, thinking. I could taste blood where I'd bitten the inside of my cheek, and the lingering taste of incense. Nothing else. I hurt, but no worse than I'd hurt after a rough training session with Barbarus’x squadron. The weals would fade. And I wasn't scared inside. "I'm fine," I said, surprised to discover it was true. I smiled at Hugues. "Come on, let's go.”
Chapter Three
Some days after my visit to Kushiel's temple, the Queen threw a fête to celebrate my return to the City of Elua.It was a small affair as such matters went. Given free rein, she would have thrown a larger one—and I daresay Phèdre would gladly have aided her—but I had left the City under a lingering cloud of suspicion and recrimination, and as glad as I was to be among my loved ones, my return was tainted by what had gone before. I preferred a smaller engagement.
Duc Barquiel L'Envers would not be in attendance, which was good. My unwelcome nemesis was the Queen's uncle on her mother's side. The plot he had conceived against me had been simple and effective. A mysterious messenger, a whispered password, a note indicating a clandestine meeting. That was all it had taken to convince far, far too many peers that Melisande Shahrizai's son plotted treason, including some I counted as friends. Some of them had apologized after the Queen publicly proclaimed my innocence.
Others had not.
Bertran de Trevalion was one of those, and despite my wishes, he would be attending. I'd greeted him civilly upon my return. I was glad to know he'd been ignorant of his mother's intrigues, and I'd made my uneasy truce with her. Still, I'd rather not have to be polite to them at the dinner table just yet. Being targeted for murder had that effect.
"I'd truly prefer it if House Trevalion wasn't in attendance," I said to Phèdre.
"I know, love." There was a slight furrow between her brows.
"Believe me, so would I, and Joscelin, too. But there are blood-ties between House Trevalion and Courcel, and other ties, as well. You know how Ysandre can be about such things. This is the price of the choice you made, and unless you wish to change your mind, you'll have to bear it.”
I shook my head. "I made a promise.”
I'd made my choice, in part, because of the Queen. Ysandre de la Courcel, the product of a contentious marriage and inheritor of a throne plagued by treachery, had a fierce determination to heal old wounds and unite the members of her family in harmony. It had not, however, extended to holding her uncle accountable for his actions in the public milieu. It still galled me, and all the more after learning that Bernadette de Trevalion had tried to have me killed because of it. Somehow, I blamed him more than I did her.
"At least Maslin de Lombelon won't be there," Phèdre commented.
"He's still in disgrace?" I asked. She nodded. "Why did he do it, anyway?”
Maslin de Lombelon was a minor lordling because I'd made him one. I'd given him an estate, Lombelon; the smallest of my holdings. I'd done it because I knew he loved it, and I thought we understood each other, at least a little bit. His father had been a traitor, too. I'd been wrong. He'd left Lombelon to enlist in the Queen's Guard, where he glared daggers at me at every opportunity and later disgraced himself by administering a beating to one Raul L'Envers y Aragon, who was also distant kin to the Queen.
Betimes, returning to the City made my head ache.
"Raul challenged him," Phèdre said dryly. "Maslin carried it too far.”
The first time I'd seen Maslin, he'd been attacking pear trees with a pruning hook. I wouldn't have cared to cross him then, and that was before he learned to wield a sword. By all accounts, he was very, very good. And for some obscure reason, my cousin Sidonie was fond of him. Even before I left, there were rumors they were lovers and that she'd promised him the captainship of her Guard one day.
"I wonder why," I mused.
Phèdre shrugged. "Some slight Maslin offered to Colette Trente. An ungentle rebuff, mayhap. Lord Amaury was angry, too.”
"Hmm." I tried to peer at the wax tablet on which she was scratching a list. "So no Maslin, which is all to the good. Who else is attending?”
"You'll see." She covered it with one hand and smiled at me, one of those heart-stopping smiles that no poet could hope to describe. "There's a surprise, somewhat I didn't tell you in letters. You'll like it," she added when I looked dubious.
"Will I?”
Phèdre nodded, her eyes sparkling. She was still in the prime of her beauty, and when she smiled like that, she scarce looked older than Claudia Fulvia, whose husband I had so thoroughly cuckolded in Tiberium. "Don't you trust me?”
I smiled back at her. "Always.”
It was true. There were only two people in the world I would trust with my life and beyond. If I were standing on the edge of a cliff and Phèdre or Joscelin bade me close my eyes and step off it, I would do it. It was why I struggled so with my feelings.
"What about…the other matter?" I asked.
"The Unseen Guild?" Phèdre lowered her voice, glancing at the door of her study. I rose and closed it. "I've not had time yet. But I found the reference to the blind healer's notation you mentioned. I was thinking of asking Ti-Philippe to make a discreet inquiry at the Academy of Medicine in Marsilikos. They should have a copy in their archives.”
That was the other thing I'd learned in Tiberium; that games of power and influence were played out across the face of the earth by a hidden consortium of players. I'd been recruited to be a part of it, a choice I had refused. I wasn't entirely sure of the extent of their influence, nor was Phèdre.
But whatever it was, my mother was a part of it.
"Do you think it's safe?" I asked.
The frown-lines were back between her brows. "Nothing's certain. But all the world knows I keep a vast and extensive library. There's naught anyone should find amiss in one of my retainers seeking to add to it. And Ti-Philippe's not a green lad, he knows what he's about, even if he needn't know why.”
"True." The healing welts on my back were itching. I worked my shoulders, feeling the scabs tug and crack. Phèdre's expression changed, touched with rue. "What?" I asked.
"Ah, love!" She shook her head. "'Tis nothing, only that you've grown so. I remember worrying, after Daršanga …you were so small, so thin. Bird-boned.”
"Not anymore," I said lightly.
"No," she agreed. "Not anymore.”
We were silent a moment. We had been victims together in that place, that dark place. We understood each other. But Phèdre had entered it willingly, knowing what she would face. It was worse, I think, than she could have guessed; but she endured it and survived. And after my visit to Kushiel's temple, I understood us both more than I had before. His mercy was harsh, but it was not without purpose.
"Well." I leaned down to kiss her cheek. "I look forward to my surprise.”
The days passed swiftly. I spent long hours sparring with Joscelin, feeling my skills return. Betimes I set aside the trappings of the Cassiline style and sparred with him using a sword and buckler, the way old Gallus Tadius had insisted we train. I surprised him a few times, too. Gallus had made a passable soldier out of me.
I began brushing up on my Cruithne.
I spoke the Alban tongue well enough, but I wanted to be fluent beyond reproach. Come spring, Drustan mab Necthana would set sail to Terre d'Ange, bringing my Alban bride. We would be wed in the summer, Dorelei and I. And when the Cruarch of Alba set sail in the fall, I would go with them. I would leave behind Terre d'Ange to become a Prince of Alba and beget heirs to a foreign kingdom.
All my days, I thought, would pass swiftly until then.
I spent time in the salon of Favrielle nó Eglantine, Phèdre's terminally ungrateful couturiere. I'd travelled light to Tiberium, and most of what I'd brought back with me was unsalvageable. The clothing I'd returned to was ill-fitting now. I'd put on muscle through the shoulders and I'd lost weight elsewhere due to short rations. Despite Eugènie's best efforts to fatten me, I remained leaner than I'd been.
So it was that I attended my own fête in smart new attire: a sleeved velvet doublet and breeches of Courcel blue, a deep midnight hue. The doublet was adorned with silver stitching and the buttons were silver with an impress of lilies on them, which I thought was a bit much. It was open at the throat, revealing the pointed collars of the white cambric shirt beneath, lace protruding at the sleeves.
At the fête, Alais gasped to see me, clasping her hands together. "Oh, Imri! You look so—”