Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [120]
"So they go where they will?" I asked slowly.
Ptolemy Dikaios nodded. "We do as the Akkadians have bidden. Avoid them, and give thanks to all the gods that their numbers are few, and they offer no violence if unmolested." He gave his tight smile again. "Menekhet is ancient, Lady Phèdre, and she has weathered many storms. Whatever quarrel lies between Drujan and Khebbel-im-Akkad, we can outwait it."
"Yes, but now ..." I was thinking half aloud. "My lord Pharaoh, what do the Drujani come for?" I paused. "Do they buy slaves?"
His face turned stony. "It may be, though it is forbidden."
"Of course," I said absently. "But if they did . . . if they did, would anyone stop them? Your guards? Would they be challenged at the gates of the city?"
Another pause, then he shook his head. "No. Not if a Skotophagotis was with them."
"And the punishment for a Menekhetan merchant caught doing business with a Drujani?"
Pharaoh met my eyes and answered softly. "Death."
I shuddered, and heard Amaury Trente utter a sound of dismay. Itseemed strange and distant, for my ears were ringing with a bronze clash of wings and a haze of red veiled my vision. The unseen pattern was closing upon me. I saw through a skein of crimson Kushiel's face, cruel and smiling, his mighty hands. One, held close to his breast, held a key—the other, outstretched, offered a diamond, dangling at the end of a velvet cord.
"Phèdre!" There were hands again, Joscelin's, hard on my shoulders, shaking me. I blinked at him, my vision clearing, realized I was swaying on my feet. "Are you all right?"
"Yes." I gripped his forearms, steadying myself, and looked past him at Ptolemy Dikaios. "My lord Pharaoh, I crave a boon."
He made a slight gesture. "Speak."
From the corner of my eye, I could see Lord Amaury grimacing and Raife Laniol discouraging me with a discreet shake of his head. I ignored them both. "My lord Pharaoh, you know that her majesty has bade us seek a young D'Angeline boy, stolen by Carthaginian raiders and sold unwitting into slavery in Menekhet. You have aided us most graciously in this search. I ask that you aid us once more, and inquire of your Iskandrian Guard if such a boy was seen leaving the city in the custody of Drujani priests."
Ptolemy Dikaios relaxed slightly. "It shall be done," he said, and beckoned to a senior guardsman, resplendent in a white kilt and gilded breastplate, addressing him in Menekhetan.
"Shh." I waved him to silence, straining to hear the words Pharaoh spoke to the guardsman. He spoke with quiet discretion, but I have an ear for languages, and a memory trained by Anafiel Delaunay. "Amaury, did you give Pharaoh a description of Imriel de la Courcel?" I asked him in a low tone, speaking D'Angeline.
"A description?" He unhanded me and looked puzzled. "No, of course not. Pharaoh would not concern himself with such details. Even his Secretary of the Treasury didn't deign to hear them. I told the clerk, Rekhmire. No one else."
Raife Laniol, Ambassador de Penfars, glared at us both, put off only slightly by Joscelin's warning glance. I paid him no heed, considering the key Amaury had given me and what leverage it granted.
"It is done," announced the Pharaoh of Menekhet, putting an end to our covert squabbling. He looked at me with a cunning light in hiseyes, a smile stretching his broad mouth. "It seems Terre d'Ange has a mighty interest in this young slave-lad, does it not? So, my lady, what boon will you grant me in return?"
Amaury Trente sighed and threw up his hands in despair, turning away. One of his delegates grinned. Juliette de Penfars gazed sympathetically at me, while her husband the Ambassador strove to put a good face on it. Joscelin . . . Joscelin merely frowned, like a man listening to the strains of distant battle.
"My lord Pharaoh," I said. "May I speak privately to you?"
THIRTY-SIX
OF COURSE, he granted my request.
To this