Kushiel's Chosen - Jacqueline Carey [121]
Well and so, I thought, I will have to be wary of how I am perceived.
It came to a crux faster than I guessed, when we paused before a merchant from Jebe-Barkal, who was displaying birds of astonishingly bright plumage in wicker cages. I had seen a few women carrying them, and guessed they were a popular novelty as a lover's token; for that, I would not have lingered, but that the Jebean merchant intrigued me. His skin was a brown so dark it made the whites of his eyes vivid,and his teeth when he grinned. This he did readily, when I tried, laughing, to converse with him—his Caerdicci was so broadly accented that I had trouble comprehending it, and mine is the formal scholar's tongue and not the soft Serenissiman argot he was used to. Still, we made ourselves understood, and I gathered that the birds had come from his homeland.
How vast is the world, I was thinking, and how little of it I have truly seen, when Severio's voice cut through my reverie, his hand closing urgently on my wrist.
"Phèdre." His tone was low, and I glanced up to meet his hot gaze. "Phèdre, I will buy you a parrot, I'll buy you a horse, an Umaiyyat camel caravan if that's what you want. A gilded bissone, a house on the Great Canal, a country villa! Name your price, and I will meet it; set your terms, and we will draft the contract. Only promise me I may see you again."
For once, I could have used my overprotective Cassiline's attention; Joscelin's glower has a quelling effect on patrons' ardor. As luck would have it, he was engaged with dissuading Ti-Philippe from poking his finger through the wicker bars of one of the cages. I was on my own.
"My lord," I said gently, "you flatter me. But I do not think it wise that I pursue Naamah's Service here. You yourself said to me, when first we met, 'In La Serenissima, we keep our courtesans in their proper place, where they belong.' "
"I did, didn't I?" Dropping my wrist, Severio flushed a dull red. "Gracious Lady of the Sea, I was a prig," he muttered. "But you see, don't you, what it's like to live here, to be caught in the middle of this neverending intrigue? And how out of my depth I felt in the City of Elua. Phèdre." He looked earnestly at me now. "I have never known such pleasure with a woman, but I swear to you, it's not only that. My very nature is changed because of you, and I have made peace with a side of myself I did naught but revile. Pleasure I can find elsewhere, if I must; there are always women whowill do anything for coin. Only you do it because it is your glory."
"In Terre d'Ange, it is," I whispered; I hadn't expected him to make such a compelling argument. "My lord, in La Serenissima, it would be my shame."
"Was it Naamah's shame when she bedded the King of Persis?" he asked cunningly. I had forgotten, too, that he was one-quarter D'Angeline and knew the tales of that legacy. "Was it her shame when she lay down in the stews of Bhodistan that Elua might survive?"
"No," I murmured. "But Severio, I am not Naamah, only her Servant. I need to think."
"No? Think on this, then." Taking me in his arms, he drew me against him; I could feel the heat of his body and his rigid phallus straining against his velvet hose, pressed against my belly. My knees grew weak. "If you will not have me for a patron," he said softly, his breath brushing my hair, "accept me for a suitor. There are ways to accomplish anything. With your guile, your beauty and your title, and my father's money and position, we could rule La Serenissima together one day, you and I."
I have never aspired to power beyond a role as the foremost courtesan in the City of Elua; I do not think, if Joscelin and I had not been estranged, that I would have considered Severio Stregazza's offer for an instant. On D'Angeline soil, I could have handled it with grace. But 'tis a dangerous thing to be courted in a strange city, and I was isolated and lonely on this wild-goose chase even my closest companions thought a folly. Yes, for a few scant seconds, I