Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [314]
I could have said no.
Ysandre could have clapped me in chains; she would not have done so. I knew that as surely as I knew that Melisande would abide by her oath. If I had gone to Hyacinthe then and there, Ysandre would have allowed it.
Afterward, I would have paid.
And I could not blame her for it. I had defied her, behind her back and to her face, forcing her hand in a state forum. She was the Queen of Terre d'Ange. Such actions could not go unpunished, not without breeding repercussions that would plague her reign for years to come.
In the eyes of the realm, the punishment was a light one. If I had refused to submit, if I had defied her once more, it would have been more grave.
I might have been stripped of my rank and holdings.
I would surely have lost the fosterage of Imri.
It was bitter, and fair. I made my choice knowing it. I wondered if she knew that nothing would grieve me more than knowing Hyacinthe's suffering endured unnecessarily, and I myself the cause of it. Mayhap she did; there is Kusheline blood in House L'Envers, and along with it comes the keen awareness of pain. Mayhap it was Kushiel's will in the end, that I myself might know what it was to have an innocent suffer for my own transgressions, for even Kushiel's Chosen is not immune from his justice.
I do not know.
It was a long and bitter winter to endure.
There were points of brightness in it, and chiefest among them was Imriel. He flourished in our home in the City of Elua. Eugenie doted upon him, as did all the servants in my employ. He studied the Cassiline disciplines with Joscelin in the frozen garden, mimicking his every move; not to be outdone, Ti-Philippe taught him conventional swordsmanship. To the amusement of us all, young Hugues appointed himself Imriel's personal guardian. He was not especially skilled with blades, but he wielded a shepherd's cudgel to wicked effect, and I once saw him give Joscelin a bout that pressed him surprisingly hard. Hugues taught Imri to play the flute, too, finding he already knew the rudiments of it.
My goat-herd prince.
Other things, I taught him—much as Anafiel Delaunay had once taught Alcuin and I. He read well in D'Angeline and Caerdicci, and I gave him histories and philosophies to read, borrowing what I did not possess from the archives of the Academy. I taught him Cruithne, which he had begun to learn in the Sanctuary of Elua. Once upon a time, it was a tongue no one studied, spoken only by blue-painted barbarians on the far side of the divide held by the Master of the Straits. I myself had rebelled at learning it. Now, it is the mother-tongue of the Cruarch of Alba, husband of Queen Ysandre de la Courcel, and D'Angeline schoolchildren study it as a matter of course.
Why? Because of Hyacinthe, who made it possible.
Only they do not say that.
I introduced Imriel to Emile in Night's Doorstep, and through himto the Tsingani population in Terre d'Ange. They did not care whose son he was, but only that he had played a role in procuring the key that would free Anasztaizia's son, the Tsingan Kralis, the Prince of Travellers.
Like me, the Tsingani were waiting for spring.
And I introduced him too to Eleazar ben Enokh, the Yeshuite mystic. It grieved me to be unable to share the Name of God with Eleazar, who had sought it for so long—and yet I could not. When I thought upon it, my throat swelled near to closing, and I knew the Sacred Name had been entrusted to me for one purpose, and one purpose only.
"Adonai does as He wills, and none of us may grasp the whole of His thought." Eleazar's words were gentle. "My heart is glad on your behalf, Phèdre nó Delaunay."