Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [173]
"Elua!" The word was an agonized curse in his mouth. "Elua is a lie!"
For that, I had no words; none that I could speak to this boy. Mayhap a priest or a priestess could have done, I do not know. I know none who have endured Daršanga. "She is your mother, Imriel," I said instead. "The Lady Melisande."
"Why?
One word; a single demand. It is the question children ask most, I am told. It was a question of immense proportion, coming from Imriel de la Courcel's lips, and most of what it encompassed, I could not answer. I do not know the will of the gods. If Blessed Elua had willed Imriel’s presence here, I could not say why. But Melisande Shahrizai, I knew, and it was to that I spoke. I had thought long and hard how I would answer this question without revealing the tale in all its horror. "Your mother did somewhat foolish, once, Imri," I said gently. "It is why she cannot leave La Serenissima, and it is why she has enemies. Because she loves you, she did not wish her enemies to become yours. And that is why she and Brother Selbert sought to protect you with a lie."
He looked away and I could see the shimmer in his twilight eyes, but his jaw clenched and no tears fell. I remembered the girl Beryl at the Sanctuary of Elua, composed beyond her years, speaking of Imri. He was afraid of anyone seeing him cry. My heart ached for the boy. "I don't believe you," he said through gritted teeth. "I don't believe you! Even if it were true, why would my mother send you?" His voice made his loathing plain. "Death's Whore!"
"Mayhap," I said, unflinching. "All the same, I found you."
And then Nariman came to summon me, and we spoke no more that evening.
It was a beginning.
FIFTY-ONE
THE SKOTOPHAGOTIS knew.
I was not sure, not until the night he urged the Mahrkagir to share me among his men. If I have not made it clear, I may say so now; Gashtaham was clever. Sometimes the Mahrkagir listened to him, and sometimes he did not. The priest had a knack of knowing when he was able to exert his will over the ruler of Drujan, and plying it expertly.
It was at one such time that he convinced the Mahrkagir to share me.
I could not hear what he said, not all of it. The priest murmured low into his lord's ear. I caught a word here and there, enough to gather the gist of it. I had grown haughty, over-proud, confident in the Mahrkagir's favoritism; I ruled the zenana like a queen, threatening to invoke my lord's displeasure on any who opposed me.
It was a lie, of course. Nothing had changed in the zenana except that I was viewed by some with wary skepticism instead of outright despite. The spirit of conspiracy that had opened the garden had not died, but it had returned to dormancy, waiting. And I had no plan to reawaken it, nor yet to make use of it.
"No favorite, my lord, but has known herself fit prey at the Mahrkagir's whim for the wolves of Angra Mainyu," the priest said smoothly. "It would be duzhvarshta indeed to shatter this hollow arrogance."
Restless with drink and boredom, the Mahrkagir agreed, a mad gleam in his eyes. "Tonight!" he shouted, banging his cup on the table. "Let it be tonight, then!" Grabbing my wrist, he rose to his feet, bringing me with him, holding my arm above my head as if to display a trophy. My lips formed a protest, but he was already addressing him. "This will be tonight's entertainment! Let the wolves of Angra Mainyufight amongst themselves, and whosoever among you prevail shall have my lady Phèdre!"
They were on their feet, roaring, fierce, filthy warriors in piecemeal armor. It was all Drujani that night, no Tatars among them. I saw, for an instant, the dreadful shock register on Joscelin's face. "My lord, no," I whispered, even as the Mahrkagir dragged me by the wrist into the aisle between the tables, pushing me into a forming mêlée. "No."
After that, it was chaos. A Drujani warrior caught me in his arms, pulling me close and