Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [59]
We hadn't ridden ten paces before the manor doors were flung open and its inhabitants spilled out into the courtyard; adults, children, a surge of barking hounds. Tears stung my eyes at the welcome. I hung back, letting Joscelin precede me.
"My lady Phèdre!" Luc Verreuil came over to grin up at me, two years the elder of Joscelin, and taller by as many inches. His broad hands spanned my waist as he lifted me from the saddle, sweeping me into a crushing embrace the instant my feet touched cobblestones. "Well met!"
"And you . . . you great lummox!" The air had fair left my lungs. I wheezed, greeting his wife Yvonne, tall and willowy, with fox-slanted grey eyes. "My lady."
"Oh, Luc, do let her breathe." Stooping, she smiled and gave me the kiss of greeting.
I caught my breath and turned to greet Joscelin's parents. "My lord Millard, my lady Ges, thank you for your hospitality. Forgive us for intruding, but we'd no time to send word."
"Nonsense." The Lady Ges smiled, warm and earthy, even as her husband bowed. "You're always welcome here, Comtesse."
"Thank you." I drew another deep breath. My lungs seemed to be functioning again. "I am sorry to say it isn't exactly a courtesy call, my lady."
Millard Verreuil gave me a speculative look. He was a tall man— all the members of Joscelin's family were tall—with the same old-fashioned beauty as his middle son. What he saw writ in my features, I cannot say, but he took it seriously. "We will speak of it inside."
I nodded, and then Joscelin brought his younger brother Mahieu to greet me, and Mahieu's wife Marie-Louise, and nothing would do but that I was reintroduced to their children and Luc and Yvonne's, and then his elder sister Jehane, visiting with a pair of teenaged sons who shuffled their feet and turned beet-red in my presence, and all around us was the milling presence of dogs, great hairy creatures that stood waist-high on me, as tall as everything else in Verreuií.
Somehow, the Lady Ges got us all indoors and managed to dispense with the children and dogs, assembling the adults in the parlour with light refreshments and wine. There was somewhat of her, I thought, in Joscelin's quiet competence, for all that he favored his father and had his father's reserve. I wondered, sometimes, what he would have been like had he grown to manhood in Verreuil, instead of being sent to endure the stern rigors of the Cassiline Brotherhood at the age of ten. I wondered too if he resented it. If he did, he never said so.
There was a scuffling and scraping of chairs as everyone present drew chairs around, the better to hear. The parlour of Verreuil had the gracious, lived-in comfort one finds in old homes. The furnishings were fine, but worn; the carpets threadbare in spots. Still, the wood was lovingly polished with beeswax and fresh flowers adorned the room.
The Chevalier Millard Verreuil took the place of precedence, seated in a stiff, throne-backed chair. I could not but help glancing at his left arm where it lay atop the chair's arm. It ended in a stump, hidden beneath the cuff of his cambric sleeve. He'd lost his left hand at the battle of Troyes-le-Mont, during the last, desperate surge of attack by a group of Skaldi invaders, cut off from their retreating army. He inclined his head to me, opening the discussion with formality. "How may House Verreuil serve her majesty the Queen?"
"My lord." I shook my head. "We're not here on the Queen's business, not exactly."
He blinked. "I thought—"
"Father." Joscelin leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. "Do you recall the missing Courcel heir?"
"Melisande's child." The Chevalier said the words as though they tasted foul.
"Imriel de la Courcel," said Jehane, Joscelin's sister. "Son of Melisande Shahrizai and Prince Benedicte de la Courcel, brother of Ganelon,