Kushiel's Dart - Jacqueline Carey [253]
"Good evening, old mother," I said politely.
She looked at me and cackled. "Not for you, is it, cftavi? For all you've the evil eye to give, with that red mote you bear. Know you who I am?" I shook my head, bemused. She pointed to her chest with a gnarled forefinger.
"Abhirati am I, and I was Anasztaizia's granddam. Her gift comes through my blood." She turned her pointing finger on me, taking me back to Hyacinthe's mother in her kitchen. "You've no drop of Tsingani in your veins, chavi, for all the lad may claim it. Don't you know the dromonde can look backward as well as forward?"
"What do you see, then?"
"Enough." The old woman laughed wickedly. "Pleasure-houses, indeed. The lad spoke that true, didn't he? Your mother was a whore, sure enough. But you're no by-blow, no, not you."
I watched Hyacinthe surrounded by his newfound family. "Better if I had been, mayhap. My father had a name, but he didn't give it to me. My mother sold me into servitude and never looked back."
"Backward, forward, your mother had no gift to look either way." Abhirati said dismissively. "His mother did." She nodded at Hyacinthe. "What do you suppose she saw, eh? The Lungo Drom and the kumpania, eh, or somewhat else, a reflection in a blood-pricked eye?" She gave another cackle. "Oh, what did my granddaughter see, for this son of hers? Think about that, chavi."
With that, she tottered off, bony shoulders hunching with laughter. I frowned after her.
"Trouble?" Joscelin asked, materializing at my side.
"Who knows?" I said, shrugging. "I think I'm fated to be targeted by Tsingani fortunetellers. I'll be glad when we're on our way. Do you think Manoj will give Hyacinthe the horses and escort he asked for?"
"I think Manoj would give him just about anything," Joscelin said wryly. "Including Csavin's head on a platter, if Hyacinthe hadn't granted him forgiveness." That scene, with many drunken tears, had taken place earlier. "I just hope he remembers why we're here."
"I'm not sure we're all here for the same reasons," I said softly, watching the Tsingani revel, Hyacinthe among them. "Not anymore."
The second day is for talking.
Manoj had a half-dozen likely young horses, three- and four-year-olds, hunters for the most part, glossy coats polished to a high gleam, that would do nicely for patrolling rough borders. And he had too a half-dozen young men in his kumpania eager for adventure, willing to ride across the wilds of outer Kusheth on the promise of great trade, returning by slow wagon.
It was important that Hyacinthe appear astute; the haggling went round in circles, until I thought I would die of tedium. Then the horses were examined one by one. We rode each one of them around the Hippochamp, like hundreds of others, tearing about in spring madness, shouting and laughing, hooves pounding, a race without victors or losers, while the smiths glancing up from the dozen small forges that had sprung up on the outskirts of the field and grinned through soot-stained faces.
"Pulls up a little lame, this one does," Hyacinthe said breathlessly, slowing to a trot under a stand of willows along the river, greenish-yellow buds emerging on their long trailing branches. We had lost Joscelin somewhere in the aimless race. "I think Grandpa-ji's testing me."
"Maybe so," I murmured. The exertion of the ride had brought out a touch of color on his face. "Hyacinthe . . . you know you're not bound to go to Alba. If you can help us get to Quintilius Rousse . . . that's all you pledged to Ysandre, after all."
"I know." My words had sobered him. Hyacinthe gazed across the Hippochamp, the field bright and gay with his people. "I didn't. . . Phedre, I didn't know they'd accept me like this. I just wasn't sure. I didn't know it would be like this."
"No." I looked at him with pain in my heart. "But it is. And you are free to choose, Prince of Travellers."
There was no need to spell out the fact that choosing the Tsingani meant losing me; our friendship, what it was, what it might grow into.