Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [304]
I embraced him in turn. Severio had grown solid with status and contentment, wealthy beyond his dreams with the inheritance he'd earned. He'd had a young man's face when I'd first known him; he was older now, a man grown, lines carved at the corners of his mouth, etched beneath the brown curls that spilled over his brow. "Severio," I said. "It is good to see you."
"And you." He clasped my hands, smiling. "Ah, Phèdre! Time has treated you too kindly. Has it been ten years? Twelve? I would not believe it to look at you. And you, my lord Cassiline." Severio took Joscelin's arm in a strong grip. "My master-of-arms makes me recite your fight in the Temple from memory at least once a year. He's never forgiven me for missing the end."
"Prince Severio," Joscelin murmured, bowing.
"And you." Severio turned to Imriel and gave him the formal Serenissiman bow used among equals. "You are my kinsman, I think; my half-uncle, if I am not mistaken."
Imriel returned his bow, reddening. "My lord, I am Imriel. Only Imriel."
Severio gave me a quizzical look. "It is true," I said to Imri. "Your father, Prince Benedicte, was my lord Severio's grandfather. His mother is your half-sister, though many years removed."
"I'm sorry," Imriel muttered. "I'm sorry, my lord."
"It doesn't matter, little cousin," Severio said, his tone unwontedly gentle. He had matured in more ways than one since I'd met him. "Shall we say that, then? Cousins, and neither of us proud of our heritage. You did not choose the manner of your birth, and I ... I profited by it in the end. Do you grudge me the Little Court, the Palazzo Immortali? Your father intended it to be yours, you know, once upon a time."
"No!" Imriel raised his gaze, startled. "It is . . ." He looked around him and gestured, helpless. "It is a Serenissiman place. It is meant to be yours, my lord. Not mine."
"Good." Severio smiled. "Then we are agreed, little cousin. Shall we become friends? Your foster-mother Phèdre seems to think it a good idea."
Although I was not, properly speaking, Imriel's foster-mother, there was nothing Severio could have said to gratify him more. We passed some hours in pleasant conversation, giving once again a very abbreviated history of our adventures. Even Joscelin relaxed, forgetting his old resentment. It had been a bad time between us, when Severio became my patron—the worst of times. But we had grown through it and past it, and no one could not deny that Severio too had grown. The rude Serenissiman lordling with royal D'Angeline blood in his veins had become a man whose merit was worth reckoning.
I would have liked to meet his wife. But this was La Serenissima, still, and for all it is goddess-ruled, the role of women does not equal that of men. And too, I suppose, she may not have been as eager to meet me. In the City of Elua, they still speak with awe of the fee Severio Stregazza wagered for the first assignation upon my return to the Service of Naamah.
For all that, Severio was not insensible of how matters differed in Terre d'Ange. "What of his mother?" he asked, nodding at Imriel when we had finished our tale. "She sought once before to set him on the D'Angeline throne. Will she try it again?"
"Not as before," I said. "Not by such means."
"Asherat-of-the Sea grant it may be so," he said.
Thus passed our meeting with Severio Stregazza, and I was glad we had done it. By the time we departed La Serenissima, Imriel was more at ease with the notion that he was indeed a Prince of the Blood and a member of an extended family, not all of whom were traitors and conspirators. Thanks to my folly, the knowledge of his lineage had been broken harshly to him, and the attempts upon his life in Khebbel-im-Akkad had done little to endear his kin to him.
Severio had helped offset that impression, he and his high-spirited Immortali, who ferried us back to Villa Gaudio, all the while serenading us—or me, at least—with absurdly high-flown lyrics, until Joscelin rolled his eyes in mock dismay and Imriel