Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [257]
so.
' 'For wisdom is more mobile than any motion, and extends and moves through all by purity;' " Semira whispered, quoting from the Chokmah al-Shalomon, " 'for she is a breath of Adonai's power and an emanation of the unmixed glory of the all-ruling; and because of this nothing tainted steals into her.' '
" 'For she is the brilliance of eternal light,' " I echoed, finishing theverse, " 'and an unstained image of Adonai's mercy and an image of its goodness.' So I was taught," I said, thinking of Eleazar ben Enokh, who taught me the verse, and of my lord Delaunay, who told me All knowledge is worth having. "So I believe."
A second silence followed, longer than the first. Yevuneh and the other women looked to Semira, the eldest present. She chewed her lower lip, deep in thought, and looked at me with her keen eyes. "It is a weighty matter. It will need to be debated, and not only among us. Not only among the old, but the young as well, for wisdom takes many guises."
"Of course, my lady." I inclined my head to her.
"Three days." She nodded, then nodded again, satisfied. "We will answer your plea in three days, after the festival of the new moon."
SEVENTY-FOUR
FOR THREE days, we waited in Tisaar.
We ventured outside the walls of the city to confer with Tifari Amu and the others. Although they were uneasy at their dubious welcome, they had found the common-folk of Saba more accommodating than Hanoch ben Hadad and the guards. For a few scraps of steel—an outworn spearhead, a broken buckle—they had garnered supplies in abundance. And, I daresay, a fair accounting of Saba's readiness for overtures to report to Ras Lijasu.
"Kaneka might welcome me," Tifari said with quiet triumph, "if I became a diplomat."
"So she might," I said, hoping it might prove true, not daring to tell him that if the Women's Council denied us, we would risk the most heinous of blasphemies and the enmity of all of Saba to gain the Name of God.
For so I was resolved, and Joscelin too. Fruitless or no, we had come too far to leave without trying. And for all that had been healed between us ... it would be lost, if we abandoned Hyacinthe to his fate.
Better we should try our utmost, whatsoever the price.
I wished, in those days, that Imriel was not with us; and I gave thanks as well that he was, for his presence did much to charm the women of Saba, and for that I was grateful. He bore it well. I do not think anyone noticed his inward shudder when an unfamiliar hand caressed his cheek. I knew, and grieved at it. How my lord Delaunay bore it, I will never know.
"You need not endure it, Imri," I said to him. "It is beyond the call."
"No." His brows knit in a familiar frown. Ysandre wore the same look when she quarrelled with Amaury Trente. "I don't mind, not somuch. They mean well, and it helps. Even I can tell that much, Phèdre."
He was right. I brushed his brow with a kiss. "You've too much courage for your own good, Imriel de la Courcel. When it becomes too much to bear, tell me."
"Don't call me that!" Imriel drew away from me, his frown turning to a scowl.
"It is your name," I reminded him gently.
He looked away. "They think I am your son, yours and Joscelin's."
We had not disabused anyone of the idea, which was far simpler than the truth and brought with it a measure of goodwill. I understood better, now, why Brother Selbert held that an expedient lie did not violate Elua's wishes. "So they do. It does not change your name, Imri, nor who you are."
"Wish it did," he muttered. "I wish I was your son, and not hers."
"In the end, what you are is between you and Elua," I told him. "And he would be proud to claim you as his own for all you have done."
And he listened to me, his dark-blue eyes hungering, yearning to believe in some proof of his own goodness. It terrified me beyond belief to think he staked such import on my words. What did I know? Beneath it all, I was still a whore's unwanted get, struggling to make sense