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

Kushiel's Avatar (Phedre's Trilogy #3) Page 24

"I know." I could not explain to him that the words had come from a hollow place within me, that I had not known I would speak them until I opened my mouth and the words had emerged. "Joscelin, I had to."

He did look at me, then, but offered no reply. Soon, our trail led back into the steep crags and gorges, rendering conversation impossible. Joscelin led and I followed behind the pack-mule's bobbing haunches, guiding my mare with care and considering the strange emotion that churned within my breast.

It was anger.

All my life, I have been marked as Kushiel's Chosen—and I have suffered for it, as have others, who have born the harsh brunt of my fate. And yet even as I have acknowledged the folly of my choices, the blood-guilt I bear, I have known, too, that each of us makes our own choices, and no one is free of responsibility for his or her actions. To believe otherwise is vanity. If I have questioned Kushiel's wisdom in choosing me—indeed, if I have prayed to be freed from the burden of my nature—I have never questioned his justice.

I questioned it now.

What had a dairy-crofter's child done, to be caught up in the terrible net of retribution? Nothing. What sins had her parents committed, that their only begotten should be used as an instrument of vengeance? Sold unripe cheese at market? I could not fathom it. Braced for intrigue, for plots within plots, I had found the last thing I expected: chance, cruel chance. If there were purpose behind it, it could only be Kushiel's doing—or Elua himself. I could not imagine a purpose so deep it justified this cruelty. And I was angered to the core of my soul.

The rain had ceased by the time we reached the top of a massif, a broad and windswept plateau, the mountains stretching below us in brown wrinkles. Joscelin paused to rest our blown horses. "Phèdre," he murmured as I came alongside him. "You said it yourself. Even Blessed Elua cannot prevent the world's ills. He can but give us the courage to face them with love."

I choked on a bitter laugh. "And what did the girl say? She was right. It's not enough."

"It has to be." He looked steadily at me. "It's all we have."

"This is Kushiel's doing." I brushed the tangled hair back from my face, gazing at the vista below, the distant blue mirror of a lake that marked the estate of Verreuil. "I feel it, Joscelin. I feel it in my marrow. I was a fool not to see it before."

"Mayhap it is so." His hands rested quietly on the pommel of his saddle, and his eyes were as blue as the lake. "Even Kushiel serves Blessed Elua in the end, and even he must use mortal means to do his bidding. And you are his chosen."

"Yes." I swallowed, remembering my pledge to Agnes Écot. "Come on. Let's go."

It was after midday when we arrived at Verreuil. I had been there before, but I forgot, between visits, the atmosphere of tranquil chaos that reigned at Joscelin's childhood home. It is a beautiful estate, sprawling along the shore of the lake—Lake Verre—crumbling in its oldest parts, the lines etched clean-graven and new where the family has expanded. We emerged from the dark shadows of fir trees to find one of his nieces at play on the forest's verge.

"Uncle Joscelin!" I caught a glimpse of an urchin face, smudged and wide-eyed, as the girl ran at him and heard Joscelin's laugh as he leaned down from the saddle, catching her in a hug. And then with a wriggle, she was gone, high tones setting the hills to ringing. "Uncle Joscelin, Uncle Joscelin's here!"

We hadn't ridden ten paces before the manor doors were flung open and its inhabitants spilled out into the courtyard; adults, children, a surge of barking hounds. Tears stung my eyes at the welcome. I hung back, letting Joscelin precede me.

"My lady Phèdre!" Luc Verreuil came over to grin up at me, two years the elder of Joscelin, and taller by as many inches. His broad hands spanned my waist as he lifted me from the saddle, sweeping me into a crushing embrace the instant my feet touched cobblestones. "Well met!"

"And you . . . you great lummox!" The air had fair left my lungs. I wheezed, greeting his wife Yvonne, tall and willowy, with fox-slanted grey eyes. "My lady."

"Oh, Luc, do let her breathe." Stooping, she smiled and gave me the kiss of greeting.

I caught my breath and turned to greet Joscelin's parents. "My lord Millard, my lady Ges, thank you for your hospitality. Forgive us for intruding, but we'd no time to send word."

"Nonsense." The Lady Ges smiled, warm and earthy, even as her husband bowed. "You're always welcome here, Comtesse."

"Thank you." I drew another deep breath. My lungs seemed to be functioning again. "I am sorry to say it isn't exactly a courtesy call, my lady."

Millard Verreuil gave me a speculative look. He was a tall man— all the members of Joscelin's family were tall—with the same old- fashioned beauty as his middle son. What he saw writ in my features, I cannot say, but he took it seriously. "We will speak of it inside."

I nodded, and then Joscelin brought his younger brother Mahieu to greet me, and Mahieu's wife Marie-Louise, and nothing would do but that I was reintroduced to their children and Luc and Yvonne's, and then his elder sister Jehane, visiting with a pair of teenaged sons who shuffled their feet and turned beet-red in my presence, and all around us was the milling presence of dogs, great hairy creatures that stood waist-high on me, as tall as everything else in Verreuií.

Somehow, the Lady Ges got us all indoors and managed to dispense with the children and dogs, assembling the adults in the parlour with light refreshments and wine. There was somewhat of her, I thought, in Joscelin's quiet competence, for all that he favored his father and had his father's reserve. I wondered, sometimes, what he would have been like had he grown to manhood in Verreuil, instead of being sent to endure the stern rigors of the Cassiline Brotherhood at the age of ten. I wondered too if he resented it. If he did, he never said so.

There was a scuffling and scraping of chairs as everyone present drew chairs around, the better to hear. The parlour of Verreuil had the gracious, lived-in comfort one finds in old homes. The furnishings were fine, but worn; the carpets threadbare in spots. Still, the wood was lovingly polished with beeswax and fresh flowers adorned the room.

The Chevalier Millard Verreuil took the place of precedence, seated in a stiff, throne-backed chair. I could not but help glancing at his left arm where it lay atop the chair's arm. It ended in a stump, hidden beneath the cuff of his cambric sleeve. He'd lost his left hand at the battle of Troyes-le-Mont, during the last, desperate surge of attack by a group of Skaldi invaders, cut off from their retreating army. He in clined his head to me, opening the discussion with formality. "How may House Verreuil serve her majesty the Queen?"

"My lord." I shook my head. "We're not here on the Queen's business, not exactly."

He blinked. "I thought—"

"Father." Joscelin leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. "Do you recall the missing Courcel heir?"

"Melisande's child." The Chevalier said the words as though they tasted foul.

"Imriel de la Courcel," said Jehane, Joscelin's sister. "Son of Melisande Shahrizai and Prince Benedicte de la Courcel, brother of Ganelon, uncle to Rolande, great-uncle to the Queen. Missing since the attack in La Serenissima." She was the genealogist of the family, I remem bered. I had not met her before. Joscelin had made a point of visiting at her husband's estates, but Ysandre had required my skills as a trans lator for an Illyrian delegation and I'd been unable to accompany him.

"Yes." Joscelin nodded. "He was at the Sanctuary of Elua at Landras." He ignored the indrawn breaths and murmurs of surprise. "Some three months ago, he vanished; disappeared, tending goats in the moun tains. We thought it was part of a conspiracy, but last night. . . last night we learned of another missing child. A dairy-crofter's daughter, eleven years of age, stolen from a cow-pasture some miles outside of Harnis village."

"Bears," Luc said promptly. "Or wolves, like as not. They're bold in the spring, come calving season, and themselves still hungered from winter."

"I don't think so." Joscelin shook his head. "There would have been traces, remains, signs of bloodshed. The crofter searched, and so did the priests. They know mountains. This has an odor of human intervention."

"But who would do such a thing?" It was Marie-Louise, Mahieu's wife, who exclaimed aloud, paling. Plump and pretty, she contrasted with her husband, who was as tall as the rest of his clan and lanky with it. "And why?"

"We don't know," I said softly. I turned to Millard Verreuil. "That's why we've come, my lord. To ask your aid in scouring Siovale, at least the area between here and Landras."

"You shall have it." He sat upright in his chair, face fierce and bloodless with anger, eyes blazing like an old hawk's. "Name of Elua! I'll lead the search myself, and turn out the countryside. Every crofter, every shepherd, every small-holder—no, wait, I'll do more. I'll send to his lordship Marquis de Toluard, and see how many men he'll lend us for the task."

"I'll bear the message," Yvonne offered. "He's my mother's cousin, he'll listen to me."

"He'll listen anyway!" Millard Verreuil pounded the arm of the chair with his good right hand. "Elua's blood! No one of Shemhazai's lineage will rest while an abomination of this nature occurs in Siovale!"

The Lady Ges looked at me with worried eyes, her pleasant face furrowed. "You've no idea who might have done it?"

I turned out my hands. "None, my lady."

"Euskerri might have," Jehane said in her cool voice, thinking aloud, "if there was some gain in it, some way to force the Queen's hand in their quarrel with the House of Aragon." It was a quarrel of which I knew little, save that Euskerria was a native province of northwestern Aragonia, annexed by the descendents of Tiberium who com prised the House of Aragon. She shook her head, dismissing the idea. "If they knew the lad's identity, that part might make sense, but not the crofter's daughter."