Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [349]
An unexpected pain seared my heart. "You and Sibeal."
He nodded without looking up. "She sees you in my dreams, you know," he murmured. "She understands."
"When will you go?”
"A month." He did look up, then, and the Tsingano lad I'd loved looked out of his eyes. "Six weeks, mayhap. No longer."
"Will you go as you came here?" I asked, hating the thought of it. "A mist-wrought shadow crossing the land, your passage unmarked by man nor beast?"
"Mayhap." Hyacinthe shrugged. " 'Tis simpler, thus. Does it matter?"
"Yes," I said. I had an idea. "Yes, it does."
Hyacinthe left in the morning, when the early mists still rose from the fields, blending to surround him and shroud his figure as he departed. My household rose to see him off, watching his mounted form vanish into his surroundings, as the night's rain dripped from the olives and the silvery-green leaves sighed at his passing.
"What are you plotting now?" Joscelin inquired, reading my expression with the ease of one who'd had long practice at it.
"Nothing," I said, then amended it. "A fête. I'm planning a fête."
ONE HUNDRED TWO
THEY ARE still talking of it in the City of Elua.
If it had not been for the aid of a good many people, I daresay I could not have pulled it off; and foremost among them is my old mentor, Cecilie Laveau-Perrin, who gave me invaluable advice. There was my factor, Jacques Brenin, who negotiated the sale of various texts, without which I could not have afforded this endeavor. It was his idea, too, to solicit donations from the many lords and ladies who courted my favor, in the name of honoring the Master of the Straits.
Of a surety, I needed Emile's aid, and that I knew I had. Where he led, Night's Doorstep followed. Hyacinthe's return had only augmented that. And for once, the City would follow the lead of Night's Doorstep instead of the Palace.
That was my tribute to Hyacinthe.
While I have lived, only one thing has brought the City of Elua to a standstill. Fever did not do it, so I am told; I was in Skaldia when it struck. Even Waldemar Selig's invasion did not do it, for he never got this far south. The City halted, they say, when Percy de Somerville assailed its walls, and Ysandre's uncle, Barquiel L'Envers, sealed the gates against him. It halted for a day, they say, before wagering resumed and the Court of Night-Blooming Flowers reopened its doors.
Well and so; it halted for my fête.
I took my time making ready that night; an autumn night, unseasonably warm, winter's chill held in abeyance. Joscelin came into my bathing-room, which was the one chamber of my household I held sacrosanct. He grinned to see me sunk neck-deep in warm water and scented oils. My maid-servant Clory, Eugenie's niece, retreated blushing at his approach.
"It smells like a hot-house in here," Joscelin said, perching on the edge of the tub and dabbling his fingers in the scented waters.
"So?" I raised my brows. "Would you rather we were in Montrève, smelling of sheep?"
"Not exactly." Joscelin eyed me. "I may favor the countryside to the City, but seeing you thus . . ." He shrugged. "It makes me wish I'd a large fish to throw at your feet."
I laughed, and shifted in the tub, making room for him. "Come here," I said as he shed his clothes and climbed in, the light of myriad candles casting into shadow the scars that pitted his body; scars he'd earned on my behalf. I circled dripping arms about his neck as he fit himself beneath me. "Yes, there."
"Imriel," Joscelin murmured, shifting under my parted thighs and gripping my buttocks, "is of the opinion that I should wear the lion's mane given me by Ras Lijasu."
"Is he?" I bit my lower lip as the tip of Joscelin's phallus parted my nether lips.
"Yes."
"Well." Water slopped over the sides of the tub as I impaled myself upon him, inch by delicious inch. "Mayhap he's right."
"Didn't you say I looked foolish in it?"
"Did I?" I locked my legs behind his back, feeling wanton and replete, filled to the core. "I don't remember."
"Yes."