Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [164]
I'd caught him out as I returned from a trip to the privy closet, finding him engaged in an effort to pry a board from the door that led onto the barren garden. "Imriel," I said, blocking the foot of the low stair leading to the garden entrance. "I want only to speak to you."
Startling, he rose from a crouch to show me a feral snarl and leapt sideways from the low stair, sidling along the wall, eyes darting, seeking an opportunity for flight.
Nearing the place where the Skaldi lad Erich slouched despondent along the wall, Imriel made his bid for freedom, lunging to hurdle the Skaldi's legs as if he were no more than a piece of furniture.
Without a word, Erich reached out a single, brawny hand, catching the back of Imriel's shirt and holding him fast. His eyes, grey-blue under a thatch of unwashed blond hair, met mine.
Elua knows, he was fast; I'd seen it before, and I'd no doubt it took considerable speed to plant the knife in Fadil Chouma's thigh, not to mention the serving fork in the attendant. The Scions of Elua are gifted. But I am D'Angeline too, and if the blood that flows in my veins is not nobly gotten, it holds no less of the lineage of Elua and his Companions for it. My mother was an adept of the Night Court, and in Terre d'Ange, it means as much to be a whore's daughter as a prince's son. Even as his arm flashed out, I reacted, half-expecting it. After all, he was Melisande's son.
I caught his wrist, his clawed fingers reaching for my eyes, and held it, inches from my face. "Your mother sent me to find you."
For a moment he only stared, like an animal in a snare, trapped and vulnerable. And then rage suffused his features, vivid blood surging to stain his alabaster skin. "You lie” he hissed, convulsing, tearing himself free from my grip, from the Skaldi's restraining hand. At loose, he spat violently onto the floor between us. "My mother is dead!"
"No." I watched him retreat, opening my empty hands to show I meant him no threat. "Imriel, I speak the truth. It is Brother Selbert who lied to you."
It stopped him in his tracks, and there was an instant of recognition. For a moment, we merely looked at one another. Then, with a low sound, Imriel turned and bolted, a rabbit fleeing the trap. I let him go, kneeling beside the Skaldi. "Thank you," I said gravely to him. "If there is aught I might do, aught that might increase your comfort. . ."
Without a sound, Erich turned away, facing the wall. I sighed, stooping, and kissed his brow, then returned to my chamber.
After that, Imriel shadowed me at a distance, warily curious. I let him. No matter what he had survived—and I shuddered to think on it—he was a boy, carrying a hurt and rage few adults could bear. If he were pushed, he would lash out; and if I pushed before he was ready, it would be I who suffered for it. One word of betrayal was all it would take. I would not risk it coming from the lips of a hurt, angry child.
One good thing came of the encounter, and that was that it restored the Persian eunuch Rushad's allegiance to me. His beloved Erich had reacted, had undertaken some action affirming life. It was enough, for him. He came to speak with me thereafter, and did me small kindnesses unasked.
"Drucilla said you were here, when it happened," I said to him one day, "serving the Akkadian commander. How did it happen, Rushad? How did the Mahrkagir rise to power? Who are the Skotophagoti, the Âka-Magi? Do they truly hold power over life and death?"
"You ask many questions, lady," he murmured, picking up the figurine of the jade dog and studying it. "I was a slave, only, tending to my lord's wife in the zenana. I know only what I have heard."
"What have you heard?" I asked, coaxing the story from him.
From what I gathered, much of the rebellion had taken place underground, as it were, among the lower echelons of Drujani society. Hoshdar Ahzad's family was slain, and most of the Old Persian nobles among them. The Mahrkagir,