Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [169]
"Did he ..." I had closed my eyes, ". . . have him?"
Drucilla was silent for a moment. "I don't know," she said at length. "I don't think so. But he wouldn't let me examine him, after. He might, now. But one day Gashtaham, the priest, came to the zenana. He spoke to Nariman. Since then, Imri has not been summoned."
"Do you know why?" I asked.
She shook her head. "The Mahrkagir was saving him for something . . . special. He was waiting for spring. Since you have come . . . Phèdre, I am uncertain. He has never favored anyone as he does you."
"I know," I murmured. "Elua help me, I know."
A boy of surpassing beauty, worth, mayhap, the allegiance of an entire Tatar tribe.
"Now he may be saving him for Jagun?" I had asked.
Drucilla had hesitated, then nodded. "I think so, yes. If you had not come . . . well, it may have been different. For a while, when he was summoned often, I thought Imri wished to die. Now ..." Her mouth twisted. "Now he lives, filled with defiance. It will make the destruction of his hopes all the sweeter. The Mahrkagir," she had added, glancing at the Skaldi lad, "enjoys that. You would do well to remember it."
As if I were in danger of forgetting.
I knelt on my carpet, remembering what she had said, letting the distant Jebean words flow over me as I echoed them to myself, feeling sick at heart. Ah, Elua! It brought me hope to hear that Imriel might not have suffered what I had at the Mahrkagir's hands — but what a bitter jest that would be, if I had usurped his place only to condemn him to life as a Tatar's catamite. Spring. What season was it? Winter, still, I thought; I could not be sure. Days, nights . . . time was meaningless, in the zenana. Drucilla claimed to remember autumn, but she could not name the date. Time; a long time. She measured it by the healing tissue of her finger-stumps. It was as good a calendar as any, a fit one for Daršanga. I watched Imriel prowl the zenana, restless, drawn to the boarded garden-entrance, glancing over his shoulder for Nariman. One would know the season, I thought, in the garden, barren or no.
"Why?" It was Kaneka who stood before me, limbs akimbo, exasperated. Distracted, I'd not heard her rise from her couch. I swallowed, realizing that my voice had risen, still echoing their conversation.
"Yequit'a, Fedabin," I said politely. "I did not mean to disturb you."
"Amon-Re!" She said the god's name like a curse; a Menekhetan god, I thought. Strange, how the Jebeans had adopted the very customs and faith that the Menekhetans had abandoned. Kaneka looked at me, showing the whites of her eyes. "You see? Why, here, do you persist? Jeb'ez! Why do you seek to learn Jeb'ez?"
The Jebeans and Nubians were watching, whispering and laughing; I ignored them. Kaneka did not jest. It unnerved her. "Fedabin," I said in zenyan, looking up at her. I answered truthfully, clinging to the hope that lay within my words. "I want to learn Jeb'ez so I can seek the descendants of Makeda and Melek al'Hakim."
"You what?" There was disbelief in her tone.
Lifting my chin, I thought of Hyacinthe, framing my reply. "There is a man, Fedabin, under a terrible curse. He is my friend, my oldest friend." I told her, then, in Jeb'ez and zenyan, searching for words,laying out the story of Hyacinthe and the Master of the Straits, Rahab's Curse. And degree by slow degree, Kaneka's irate stance relaxed until she lowered herself to sit opposite me and listen with a bemused expression.
There was a good deal I left out — most of the Skaldic invasion, and the whole of my part in it. It didn't matter. It was Hyacinthe's story I told. It was enough. I was a bit player in it; an old friend, onetime lover, pursuing hope beyond reason, a key found in a Jebean scroll.
And yes, I left out Melisande, too. She was Imriel's story, now. If we lived, he would learn it. Not here, not the whole of it. There was only so much the boy could endure.
When I was done, Kaneka laughed.
It was not like before, harshly; this was deep and unfettered, and somehow