Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [298]
"You feel it?" she asked Imriel, inviting him to lay his hands on her. "It will begin to move, soon."
His face was a study in solemn awe. "I helped Liliane to deliver a kid, once," he told her. "It was backward, but it came out all right, because she was there. Brother Selbert always called on her to attend when a goat was birthing.”
"Well." Sabrina smiled. "Then I know who to call upon, if the midwife has troubles."
The goat-herd prince. I remembered the stories they had told of him at the Sanctuary of Elua, and the simple-minded acolyte Liliane whom animals trusted, and my heart ached. He should have had that life, should have grown to manhood there in the mountains of Siovale, fit and happy, scrambling over crags.
It should have been so.
But there still would have been Melisande.
We left for the Temple in the morning, travelling by a hired gondola. Ricciardo and Allegra would have gladly given their own vessels, their own guards to attend us, but I preferred it this way. If aught went awry, no taint of it would fall upon them. We travelled the waterways of the mainland and crossed to the islanded city, shivering a little in the cold air. I'd meant to procure new attire, but in the end, some whim made me wear my Jebean garb, Ras Lijasu's finest gift, with a borrowed cloak flung over it, gold and ivory bangles at both wrists. Let Melisande, I thought, remember how far we had travelled.
It was a bright day despite the chill, and La Serenissima shone brightly under the wintry sun, and brightest of all the Temple of Asherat-of-the-Sea with its gilded domes. We disembarked at the bustling Campo Grande, where no one looked strangely at three D'Angelines in Jebean attire. I listened to the merchants' cries as they hawked their wares in a babble of competing tongues, understanding more than I ever had before. In front of the Temple, the eunuchs stood impassive with their ceremonial spears. They had chosen to be unmanned, or so it was said. I thought of Rushad and Erich the Skaldi, and wondered how Uru-Azag was faring in the city of Nineveh.
"Well?" Joscelin laid a hand on my shoulder. Imriel stuck close by his side, unmoved by the marvels of the marketplace of the Campo Grande. The shadow of fear was back in his eyes. "Are you ready?"
"You're sure?" I asked Imri.
He nodded slowly despite his fear, his jaw setting with a familiar stubbornness.
"Yes," I said to Joscelin. "We're ready."
EIGHTY-SEVEN
"IMRIEL."
One word, nothing more; half-breathed, a plea, an involuntary prayer. If I could, I would have stopped my ears against the depths of emotion in it—pain, sorrow, remorse and a relief so keen it made my heart ache.
I couldn't bear to look at her.
Imriel stood still and tense within her chambers, his face bloodless beneath its tan. "Mother."
Melisande glanced swiftly at me, and I had to look at her. "He knows," I said. "Ysandre's men told him. One of them lost a brother at Troyes-le-Mont."
The knowledge was bitter to her. I watched her absorb it like a blow, the smooth eyelids flickering. Why was it that nothing on earth seemed to mar her beauty? Time had only burnished it; grief only deepened it. "I am sorry," she said to Imriel. "Believe me when I tell you I am so very sorry for what you have endured."
"Why?" He took a step forward, quivering with rage and tears. "Why?'
It was the question, the child's eternal question, directed at last to one who had much for which to answer. Melisande bore it unflinching. "Oh, Imriel," she said softly. "So many reasons, and so few. Would you know them all? It would be a long time in the