Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [35]
"No." He shook his head. "Kushiel's."
ELEVEN
FOR ALL that I am Kushiel's Chosen, I go seldom to his temple. I, who feel the prick of his dart throughout all my days, do not require the aid of his servants to seek atonement. My lord Kushiel has always provided ample opportunity to his anguissette. I do not often need to lay my penance at his feet. For me, his altar is everywhere.
Only once before has Joscelin advised me thusly, after our escape from slavery in the wilds of Skaldia, and then, as now, I remembered what I so often forgot: that Joscelin was priest as well as warrior.
Now, as then, I listened. I went.
They asked no questions, Kushiel's priests, but only nodded to see me. Even if my face had not been known throughout the City of Elua, they would have known me by the scarlet mote. Kushiel's priests keep his lore sacred. Clad in stygian robes and wearing the full bronze masks of ceremony that hide even gender, they escorted me into the baths of purification and thence to the temple proper, the massive doors clanging shut behind us.
It is a simple space, high-vaulted, enclosed with thick stone walls blackened by generations of smoke rising from the candles that illuminate it. I made an offering of gold and poured incense on the altar-fire. A billow of smoke arose, stinging my eyes with musky fragrance. The face of Kushiel's great effigy swam above me, wreathed in smoke, stern and brazen, hands crossed on his breast bearing his rod and flail. When I had done, his priests helped me undress until I stood naked before him.
A sharp breath, indrawn behind a mask; I don't know whose. Even Kushiel's priests are not immune. I know what they saw, my bare skin glowing white by candlelight, the vivid black lines of my marque etching my spine, thorny and intricate, accented with crimson droplets. Itwas limned by Master Robert Tielhard himself, before he died; it is a crime now, to duplicate it for any but an anguissette. The Marquists' Guild voted it so.
And I am the only one.
I twined my hair behind my neck in a lover's-haste knot and knelt on scrubbed flagstones before the whipping post. Without further breech of protocol, a masked priest lashed my wrists to the post, tying them tight with rawhide thongs. My arms were stretched, pulling at their sockets, and my breath came quick and hard.
Then came the scourging.
They are masters of the art, Kushiel's priests—for an art it is, although ignorant people may believe otherwise. At the first stroke of iron-tipped lashes against my back, I cried out, jerking against my bonds. Pain, blessedly welcome, burst across my skin.
"My lord Kushiel!" I gasped. "Forgive me, for I do not know your will!"
The lashes of the flogger fell upon me again, too quickly for readiness; I discerned a man's touch in it. Streaks of fire laced my vision and my breath burned in my lungs, forced out in an involuntary cry. The rough wood of the whipping post pressed against my cheek. Again he struck, and again. Agony blossomed in me with an unbearable pleasure. I heard my own voice whimpering, and a priest's sibilant whisper above it, reminding me.
"Make now your confession."
"My lord Kushiel." Sunk on my knees, I craned back my head, seeing my own arms foreshortened and Kushiel's serene, pitiless face far beyond, floating in a haze of red. "Ah!" The iron-tipped lashes curled about my ribcage, biting deep. "The path is too dark, my lord, and I am afraid!"
No mercy. The flogger struck without pity, a whistling crack in the air, spattering wetness as it kissed my flesh. My head fell forward to hang upon my breast and I wept for shame.
"My lord Kushiel," I whispered, hearing my voice broken and small, clotted with tears. A shudder of release wracked my pain-stricken body as I uttered the fearful words. "I wish in my heart that I were no longer your Chosen."
There was a pause, the chastiser's rhythm broken . . . and then the air sung and the flogger came down hard, bursting against my lacerated skin in an explosion of pain. Once . . . twice . . . thrice, and it was ended, leaving me limp and