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

Kushiel's Avatar (Phedre's Trilogy #3) Page 73

Kaneka looked at me without speaking, and in a single, abrupt gesture, removed the twinned ivory pins from her hair, placing them in my open hands. I gazed at them, the long shafts tapering to dagger-points, and closed my hands upon them. They retained the warmth of her. It was the one thing I had not been able to conceive—how to get a weapon capable of killing past the guards.

"I was scared," Kaneka said shortly. "Too scared to try it."

I nodded, understanding. "He would have killed you if you had. Fedabin Kaneka, I will keep my bargain. There is one other weapon that we have. They tell stories about him in Skaldia, too."

FIFTY-THREE

THE DAYS that followed were among the most terrifying of my life. As hard as it had been to bear my secret alone, it was worse to have it shared, rendering so many of us vulnerable. The whispering was constant as the conspiracy grew. I was sure, at any instant, someone would speak carelessly in front of Nariman, and all would be lost.None of it would have been possible without Kaneka. Bullying, cajoling, threatening—it was she who converted the others to our cause, convincing them to surrender their precious allotments of opium. Not all, but many; enough. Drucilla assumed charge of it, carrying the growing ball of resin in her physician's basket. When it was the size of a man's doubled fists, she gauged, it would be sufficient to affect the entire garrison.

Rushad too proved an invaluable ally. Although the prospect of it rendered him pale and stuttering with fear, he nonetheless provided a steady flow of information regarding the dedication ceremony, and the feasting that would accompany it. It was Rushad himself who would bring the opium tincture to the festal hall, late in the proceedings, and see it dispersed among the myriad pitchers of beer and kumis.

I do not think he would have found the courage, if not for Erich. The Skaldi's reemergence into the world of the living filled him with joy, and he held me personally responsible for it. They were an unlikely pair of friends, the young Skaldi warrior and the slender Persian eunuch. Still, Rushad doted on him, and for his part, Erich bore it with a certain fond tolerance.

As for the Akkadians, I told Uru-Azag myself, and not without a good deal of trepidation. He heard me out silently and, for a long moment, only stood and stared, fingering the hilt of his curved dagger.

"Opium alone is not enough," he said shortly. "There will be fighting. And men in the grip of delusion are dangerous."

"But unskilled," I said.

He nodded, thinking. "If we could get to the fishing boats, it might be enough. Drujan has no fleet to give chase. Still. Daggers are of little use against swords. And there will be two guards posted at the upper entrance to the zenana. Even that night."

"The guards will be dead," I said. "You can take their swords, their armor."

Uru-Azag frowned, brows meeting over his hawklike nose. "Who will kill the guards?" he asked. "You?"

"No." I shook my head. "The Mahrkagír calls him the Bringer of Omens."

The Akkadian laughed with harsh delight. "Him! Ah, then, I see."

"You will do it?"

He stared into the distance over my head, weighing the matter. "You are mad, you know. It is likely that we will all die."

"It is possible," I said. I thought of Erich's words. Like the Skaldi, the Akkadians had been warriors, once. "It would be a warrior's death, Uru-Azag. Not a slave's."

"It would." He looked at me. "Nariman will be a problem. I will kill him myself. It will be a pleasure to slit his fat throat."

I repressed my surge of relief and only nodded. "And the others?"

"They will fight." He smiled grimly. "It would shame them not to. Your god, lady, must be a mighty warrior, to inspire such courage."

A hysterical laugh caught in my throat. "No," I said, half-choking on it. "But he is a prodigious lover. Believe me, Uru-Azag, in this place, it is the more dangerous of the two."

The Akkadian only looked at me askance, and went about his busi ness. It didn't matter. They thought me mad, god-touched. It had made me a pariah, before. Now it made me an icon, a catalyst. The signs had spoken . . . Kaneka's dice, the ringing tone's of Kushiel's presence, the Skaldi's return to life. It was enough. He would fight; they would all fight.

It left Imriel to be told. I had not done it yet.

On the first day, I had gone to see him after Kaneka and I had finished. Drucilla had examined him — this time, he had allowed it. He had been beaten with a lash, and there were marks of branding on the skin of his buttocks; Kereyit runes, indicating possession as one might mark a herd-animal. Prohibited from possessing him, Jagun had nonetheless marked Imriel as his own. He was not injured badly, as such things went in the zenana, meaning he would not die of it. She had slathered his welts and burns with Tatar horse liniment and gave him a dose of valerian against the pain, from a store she normally held in reserve for the dying.

Imriel was half-drowsing by the time I saw him, and I hadn't the heart to rouse him. I sat on the end of his couch and watched him.

"Phèdre," he murmured. "Did my mother really send you?"

"Yes, Imri." I stroked his fine blue-black hair. "She really did."

"How did she know I was here?"

"She didn't," I said softly. "But Blessed Elua did."

I thought he might protest it, but his unfocused gaze merely wan dered. "When you shouted," he whispered. "When you shouted ... it made me think of home, and the statue of Elua in the poppy-field . . . one of the goats used to follow me there, Niniver was her name, and she crawled under the fence . . . she was so little and I fed her with a bottle when her mother died, and Liliane helped me, and she would crawl under the fence and follow me ..."

His voice had drifted into silence and he had fallen asleep. I stayed with him until I was sure he would not awaken, aching with helpless tenderness. I had borne such marks upon my own skin—but I was Kushiel's Chosen, and it was of my own volition. I had entered Naamah's Service as an adult, aware of my own choices. Such a fate was never meant for a child. I waited until his breathing deepened in sleep, and then went at last to bathe.

Afterward, he was fevered—out of trauma, Drucilla said, and not infection, but he talked aloud in his dreams, rambling, and I feared what he might say. "Be glad it's only talking," Drucilla said darkly, and I didn't know what she meant, not then.

It mattered naught to the Mahrkagir, who sent Imriel to attend to the Kereyit warlord in the hall the next night, and the next. The feasting continued, and games of combat, too. Again, Joscelin had to fight. He made it quicker, this time, conscious, I think, of Imriel’s fearful gaze. The boy actually shrank back against Jagun when Joscelin passed him. I could have wept to see it, though I understood. Melisande's treachery had taken me thus. For a D'Angeline to betray his country is an unspeakable deed.

After the combat, someone called out for Joscelin to fight Tahmuras, and the shouts of accord rose, wagers being placed. I do not think the massive Persian would have been anything loathe to do it. He glowered under his brows, toying with the haft of his morningstar, a bitter smile on his lips. I had seen him in battle, and I knew enough to be scared. Peerless swordsman or no, it was not a weapon Joscelin had faced before—and the giant was preternaturally gifted with it. Joscelin bowed calmly to the Mahrkagir, awaiting his pleasure, only a faint tightening of his jaw giving any hint of reserve.

"What do you say?" the Mahrkagir asked, laughing. "The Midwife of my Birth-from-Death, my protector Tahmuras, against my Bringer of Omens? It would be a battle to shake the rafters!" He waited for the shouting to die before dashing their hopes of a spectacle, an impish gleam in his eyes. "No. These two, I need. Find someone I do not need to die!"

They did. They found a pair of women of the zenana and made them fight, arming them with daggers and pricking them with spears until they had no choice. One was Jolanta, the Chowati; the other, a Kereyit Tatar, a gift of Jagun, who had very much hoped to be given Imriel in return. I never even knew her name.

Neither of them wanted to do it. They circled one another, skirts knotted for freedom of movement, while the Drujani jabbed at their bare legs. Eventually, fighting to win became preferable to being pierced by a Drujani spear, and they did. Both of them knew how to use a knife. Jolanta knew better.

I saw tears in her eyes as she straightened, the Tatar girl's blood on her gown. If I had hated Jolanta for tormenting Imriel, I pitied her now. She met my gaze briefly across the crowded festal hall, while the Mahrkagir's guests whooped and shouted, pleased at the display. When she looked away, I saw her hand rise. Making a blood-stained fist, she pressed it to her brow, and I knew it for a declaration of loyalty.

"Come," the Mahrkagir said, smiling at me. "It will be an early night. The young men are hunting boar in the morning, for the vahmyâcam."

I went with him.

He didn't know, not yet. Of that, I was certain. I wondered when the ka-Magi would tell him, and if they feared he would refuse if he had time to consider it. I wished it were true. I was sure it was not. I was his gift, his rare gift, filling him with wonderment and delight, willing to wallow in the vilest of depravity. It would pain him, to lay that gift upon Angra Mainyu's altar. But he would do it, and believe it his finest deed.

The ka-Magi watched us leave, and they all smiled.

Everyone was returned early to the zenana that night, on account of the morning's hunt. I wished I had known. It might have been better, to plan something when a good portion of the inhabitants were gone. It was how Joscelin and I had escaped from Selig's steading. Still, if we had used the opium that night, they would not have gone a-hunting . . . it does not matter, now. The date was chosen. The vahmyâcam, when they would least expect it, when they would drink deep in celebration, when the ka-Magi were distracted, and when, I prayed, Angra Mainyu himself would be sufficiently sated with sacrifice that he was slow to take alarm.