Kushiel's Dart - Jacqueline Carey [261]
"So you are." He drew his attention away from it and looked wryly at me. "It would please me, Phedre no Delaunay, to have you bathed and attired. I've no taste for Tsingani wenches, if you don't mind."
"As my lord wishes." I curtsyed.
The women of Morhban were kind enough to me, hiding curiosity behind their habitual silence; they are not a talkative folk, those who dwell in outermost Kusheth. I was led away to a bath that was fairly sumptuous, then waited, drying in silken robes, while a seamstress brought in an array of garments to determine what would best fit and suit me. For all its bleakness, Morhban did not lack for finery. We found a suitable gown, a rich scarlet with a low back, that showed to good advantage my completed marque.
I confess, I admired myself in the mirror, tucking my hair into a gold mesh caul and turning this way and that to see how the striking black lines of my marque emerged from the base of the gown, rising to the finial, gazing at my face to see how the gown's color brought out the deep bistre of my eyes, the scarlet mote of Kushiel's Dart.
I suppose I should have dreaded this assignation, it is true; it was necessity that forced it upon me. But I had been pledged since the first bloom of womanhood to the service of Naamah, and in a way I cannot voice, a deep pleasure pervaded me at the thought of practicing my art. I thought of Joscelin and of Hyacinthe, and guilt wormed cold within me. I thought of Gunter and Waldemar Selig, and shame made me small. And yet. I remembered my vows in the Temple of Naamah, the offering-dove quivering in my hands.
This was what I was.
What strength I possessed, it stemmed from this.
Quincel de Morhban received me in his garden, something I never would have suspected, from either the man or the place. It was an inner sanctum, like Delaunay's, like I had known in the Night Court, only vaster. It was shielded from the elements, warmed by a dozen braziers and torches, with mirrors set to gather the sun's heat when it availed, and scrims of sheerest silk that could be drawn across the open roof to protect the delicate flora.
In all defiance of the early spring chill, a riot of flowers bloomed: spikenard and foxglove, azalea, Lady's slipper and Love-Not-Lost, orchids and phlox, lavender and roses.
"You are pleased," de Morhban said softly. He stood beside a small fountain, awaiting me; his eyes drank in the sight of me. "It costs me thousands of ducats to maintain this place. I have one master gardener from L'Agnace, and one from Namarre, and they are ever at odds with each other. But I reckon it worth the cost. I am D'Angeline. So we count the cost of pleasure." He reached out one hand for me. "So I count your cost."
I went to him unhesitatingly. He drew me against him, his lean body clad in black velvet doublet and breeches, with the de Morhban crest on his shoulder. I felt the dark tide of desire loose in my marrow, as one hand clasped hard on my buttocks, pressing me to him, and the other grasped the nape of my neck, entangled in the mesh caul, drawing my head back. He kissed me, then, hard and ruthlessly.
I had chosen this. For what had happened before, for Melisande, for Skaldi; I had repented, I had been scourged. With a relief so profound it was like pain, I surrendered to it, to this Kusheline lord, with his strong, cruel hands.
Lifting his head, Quincel de Morhban looked at me with something like awe. "It's true," he whispered. "What they say .. . Kushiel's Dart. It's all true."
"Yes, my lord," I murmured; if he'd told me the moon was locked in his stables, I'd have said the same, at that moment. De Morhban released me, turning away to pluck a great silvery rose, mindful of its thorns.
"You see this?" he asked, placing it in my hand and folding my fingers about the stem. "It exists nowhere else. My Namarrese gardener bred it. Naamah's Star, he calls it." His hand was still around mine; he closed it, tightening my clutch on the stem. Thorns pierced my skin and I gasped, my bones turning to water. The silvery