Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [167]
I shuddered to the bone, and hid it. "You have made an ally of Death."
"I have." Gashtaham looked at me with something like regret. " 'Tis a pity you are a woman. If my apprentices were half so clever, I would be pleased. Still, you may serve your purpose."
What that was, I did not ask.
I was afraid I already knew.
FORTY-NINE
I HAVE not spoken of the desire, nor how long I resisted it.
Mayhap it is that such a thing need not be said. At times, I kept it at bay; for long hours, sometimes. In the zenana, I relied upon my wits, constantly observing, gauging the ebb and flow of hatred, the secret alliances, the undercurrents of despair. Where the dim spark of defiance sputtered and refused to die, I took note, finding it in Drucilla's endless physician's rounds, in the bitter survival of the Akkadian warrior-eunuchs, in Kaneka's impromptu court of superstition. I found it in the dignity of the fasting Bhodistani, until they died; I found it too in individual women, here and there, especially the fierce Chowati. I found it in Erich the Skaldi's single gesture, and the fact that he had not yet abandoned life.
Most of all, I found it in Imriel de la Courcel, who was at odds with everyone and everything, and who continued to skulk at the edges of my existence.
I had a carpet set outside the door to my chamber, and there I would sit or kneel, watching the zenana. It drew comments, which I ignored. I could not afford to lurk within my walls and remain ignorant. I watched Imriel return time and again to the garden passageway, worrying at the boards. Like his mother, he despised his cage, and yearned for a glimpse of sky. When Nariman the Chief Eunuch was watching, the Akkadian attendants would pull him away. And he fought them, tooth and claw; it was one of the Akkadians he had stabbed with a fork. For all that, I saw, they accorded him a certain forbearance. It may have been due to the Mahrkagir's plans for him, though I suspected they harbored an appreciation for Imriel’s defiant spirit.
Once, one brought him to my carpet, slung over his broad shoulder, spitting and kicking. It was the attendant from the first night—Uru-Azag, his name was—who had guided the Menekhetan boy.
"Khannat, Uru-Azag," I said to him, bowing from my seated position. "Thank you."
Something glimmered in the Akkadian's dark eyes. "Yamodan," he replied briefly, shaking his forearm where Imriel had bitten him; you are welcome.
Imriel crouched, one hand touching the floor, regarding me warily. "Uru-Azag is not your enemy," I said to him in D'Angeline. "You do wrong to fight him."
"Death's Whore!" He bared his teeth in a snarl, black hair falling in a tangle over his brow. "Mother of Lies! I know who my enemies are!"
"Do you?" I asked. "So do I. Fadil Chouma was your enemy, was he not? He is dead, now; did you know it? You stabbed him, in Iskandria—stabbed him in the thigh with a carving knife. The wound took septic, and he died. I know your enemies better than you do, Imriel."
Alarm widened his twilight-blue eyes and his mouth worked soundlessly. Deprived of adequate words, he spat once more onto the tiles between us, and fled, overturning an Ephesian water-pipe in his flight. Muzzy curses followed him, which he ignored, taking refuge at the couch-island of some Hellenes, who were glad enough of a boy-child to stroke and pet, having none of their own. His eyes, his mother's eyes, continued to watch me, gauging my reaction.
Those were the good times in the zenana.
During the bad times . . . during the bad times, I was conscious of the desire. I remembered it, the blood-dark throbbing, Kushiel's brazen wings buffeting my ears and the light, the glittering light, the cold iron nubs rending my flesh. I wanted it again; Elua, but I did! When I was weak, when I let myself remember, horrified, the face of the poor Magus, seized in a rictus of death, I knew the chains of blood-guilt lay heavy on my soul. I had undergone the thetalos. I