Kushiel's Avatar (Phedre's Trilogy #3)

Kushiel's Avatar (Phedre's Trilogy #3) Page 23

After two days, we ceased to find Othon's scratchings and I had begun to suspect that our search was fruitless. Still, we continued, until I was heartily sick of making camp in mountain meadows and bathing in icy streams.

"There's a village . . . here." Joscelin glanced up from the map, watching as I struggled to draw a comb through my hopelessly tangled tresses. "We could make it by nightfall, and be in Verreuil by midday tomorrow."

"Let's do it." The comb stuck. I drew it out with a muttered curse. "I'm not going to see your family looking like I've been sleeping in a bird's nest."

He grinned at me. "You look like a maiden out of legend, fresh- tumbled by Elua."

"I feel like I've tumbled fresh out of a hedgerow," I retorted.

Joscelin laughed. "You still look beautiful. Come on, then. The village by nightfall, and we'll beg lodgings if they don't have an inn. I wouldn't mind a hot bath, either."

We made good time in the morning, reaching the deep divide that led southward to Aragonia—and then lost time in conversation with the merchants of a trade caravan, who had no news of any errant children matching Imriel's description, but a bitter tale of being cheated by Tsingani horse-traders. I held my tongue at their ire, though it galled me. It is true that the Tsingani take great joy in getting the better of the gadje, but it is equally true that most of the gadje bring it on themselves, seeking to do the same and making a virtue of it.

Afterward, we pushed too hard to make up for the delay, and one of the mules slipped on loose scree, straining a foreleg. Our pace slowed to a limping gait, and it grew obvious that we weren't going to make the village before dark. Joscelin rode ahead to scout out a campsite as dusk grew night, returning in good spirits.

"We're closer than we thought," he said. "There's a dairy-crofter's in the next valley. They make cheese to sell at market. I spoke to the husband; he said they'd give us lodging and fare for coin. And a hot bath." He grinned. "I asked."

"Elua be thanked!" I said fervently.

Darkness was falling by the time we made our halting way to the valley, and the crofter met us with a lantern, leading us to an unused paddock by the cow-byre where we could turn our mounts and the mules loose for the night, piling our saddles and packs under the shelter of a lean-to. He introduced himself as Jacques Ecot and said little more, taciturn and withdrawn. I was surprised at his wife, Agnes, a petite woman with features that should have been vivacious, but for the sorrow that haunted her eyes.

It was only the two of them, alone in their croft. Agnes bustled about, heating water for the bath and laying out her best linens at the table, showing us to a neat bedchamber with whitewashed walls, a child's chest-of-drawers and a bed with a lovingly hand-sewn quilt atop it. I brushed my hand over the counterpane, wondering, but asked no questions.

We had our baths, Joscelin and I alike, and he lent a hand hauling water and emptying the tub. I watched the muscles bunch and gather in his forearms, remembering the first time I'd seen him perform simple menial chores. We had been slaves together, he and I, sold into bondage in a Skaldi steading. It seemed a long time ago.

Afterward we dined with Jacques and Agnes Ecot, seated at the table in their cozy, rustic kitchen. Lamplight glowed warm on dishes of broad beans and ham, a puree of turnips, a pitcher of water drawn cold from the well. It should have been homely and charming, and yet a pall of sadness hung over that home, and I was oddly uneasy.

"It's no business of mine," Agnes murmured, pushing the food on her plate without eating. "But it is passing strange to find a fine lord and lady in the back hills of Siovale."

"Not so strange." Joscelin smiled at her. "My father is the Chevalier Millard Verreuil. Do you know of him? Our estates are near."

"Oh, yes!" Her face lit up. "He came to market once in town . . . more than once! He praised our cheeses. You have a look of him, now that I see it. He and those tall sons of his. What are their names?"

"Luc," Joscelin said. "Luc and Mahieu. My brothers."

"Luc and Mahieu," Agnes echoed wistfully. "They must be men grown now, with wives and children of their own."

"They are."

Jacques Écot's harsh voice broke the moment of reverie. "You're coming from the wrong way, if you're coming from the City of Elua." He looked me up and down. "And from your finery, I'd say you are."

"Messire Écot." I inclined my head to him, determined to take no offense. "You have the right of it. But more recently, we come from Elua's sanctuary at Landras, searching for a boy, some ten or eleven years of age, fair-skinned, with black hair and blue eyes. Have you seen anyone matching his description, alone or in the company of others? He has been missing for some three months now."

Agnes' fork fell with a clatter and the blood drained from her face. "Jacques," she whispered.

"Is this some jest?" The dairy-crofter was on his feet, hands balled into fists, sinews knotting, his mouth working with rage. "Do you seek to mock our loss?"

I sat very straight against the back of my chair.

"My lord crofter," Joscelin said smoothly, easing himself between us, putting his hands on Écot's shoulders and guiding him gently back into his seat. "I pray you, we meant no offense. My lady Phèdre speaks the truth, we do but seek a missing boy. Will you not sit, and tell us of your troubles?"

The dairy-crofter sat, obedient and dazed, passing one hand before his eyes. "Agnette," he murmured. "Agnette!"

I looked at his wife. "Your daughter."

She nodded her head like a puppet, face still white. "Our daughter.

Eleven years, going on twelve." She swallowed. "She went missing, my lady, some three months ago."

"Ah, no." I felt a wave of sorrow, gathering and breaking, too immense to be comprehended. "No." A sense of dread hung over me like thunder, and red haze clouded my vision. My ears were buzzing with a sound like a hornet's nest. I saw, at last, in the forming pattern, the thing I had been missing, the hand I had forgotten, awesome and implacable.

Kushiel.

It was Joscelin who drew the story of their daughter's vanishing from the dairy-crofter and his wife, though I daresay it was a familiar enough tale. The spring rains had been meager and she had gone with a portion of the herd seeking pasturage in the next valley. Sweet, pretty Agnette, with her mother's vivacious face, had never returned. Her father Jacques had sought her that evening, with the help of a lad they hired during the days, pushing his way among the lowing cattle with a lamp held high.

She had vanished without a trace.

Elua is not so cruel as to use a child to lesson his priests . . .

So Brother Selbert had said, and he had believed it; but it was not Elua who was once named the Punisher of God. It was Kushiel. And I knew too well his cruel justice to dismiss this as mere coincidence. A pattern too vast for me to compass. So Hyacinthe had said, reading the dromonde for me. Truly, it was. I had expected anything—anything— but this. I sat dumb as a post and listened as Jacques Écot warmed to his topic, his stoic demeanor forgotten in the passion of his grief. A bear, they had thought, or wolves—but surely creatures of the wild would have left traces, signs of passage, prints and struggle, bloodstains. No, he concluded grimly; it must have been human, whatever took Agnette. Tsingani, most like. Everyone knew the Tsingani were not to be trusted, that they would steal D'Angeline babies from their cradles and raise them as their own, given half a chance.

"They wouldn't," I murmured, but my voice went unheard, buried beneath the flood of anguish our inquiry had unleashed.

Somehow, Joscelin managed everything that night, hearing out their terrible story, making amends and apologies, pleading the travails of our journey and spiriting me away to our simple bedchamber. Agnette's chamber, I knew now, the counterpane stitched by a loving mother for the only child of her blood. I sat upon it, turning my dumbstruck gaze to his.

"Oh, Joscelin! What if it's . . . it's nothing to do with politics, with the Queen's kin, with Melisande. What if it's just. ..." I searched futilely for words. "A bad thing that happened?"

"We will find out." He knelt beside the bed, eyes fierce, gripping my hands in his. "Phèdre, if someone is abducting D'Angeline children from their homes, we'll find out about it. We'll go in the morning to Verreuil. My father won't stand for this lightly, I promise you that! He'll give us every aid, put his men-at-arms at our disposal, rouse the countryside. We will find them."

I was shivering, to the marrow of my bones. I dared not think to what purpose the children had been taken, not yet. The rawness of the Écots' grief was unbearable. I do not know, if it had been my child, if I could have endured it. What did I know of a parent's suffering? It was that very fear had kept me from motherhood, and this bereavement was worse, far worse, than aught I had imagined. "These poor people ."

"I know." Joscelin wrapped both arms around me, warm breath against my hair. "I know," he repeated. "I know."

EIGHTEEN

A LIGHT rain was falling when we took our leave of the Écots' household. I sat my mare, raindrops glistening on my hair while Joscelin discussed treatment of our spavined mule with the dairy-crofter. We would move swifter without it, and they would gain a pack-mule in the bargain when it healed. I could afford the cost.Agnes Écot lingered in the doorway and looked at me with eyes starved for hope.

"We will find her," I said to her as Joscelin checked the lead-rope on our remaining mule, preparing to depart. "As Kushiel's Chosen, I swear it to you. We will find your daughter."

Joscelin mounted his gelding without comment, swinging its head toward the west and Verreuil, and thus did we make our exit.

It was nearly an hour before he spoke of it.

"You shouldn't have said that to her," he said without looking at me. "What I said last night. . . you and I know the odds. I said it to give you heart. You made her believe, Phèdre. False hope is crueler than kindness."