Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [203]
Sidonie and I glanced at one another. She sighed. "Go. I'll follow in a moment.”
"Yes, show him to the salon," I called to Urist, who answered in the affirmative. I dragged on my breeches and boots, shrugged into the linen shirt and left it unbuttoned. There was fresh blood seeping through my bandages. I helped Sidonie find her scattered clothing, then kissed her and left her to comb out her thoroughly tangled hair while I went to see what Lord Amaury wanted.
He was seated in the receiving salon and got to his feet when I entered, offering a perfunctory bow and straightening with a speech already on his lips. It faltered at the sight of me. "Elua's Balls! You look like—”
"I know," I said curtly. "It was a bear, Lord Amaury. What do you want?”
His lips moved soundlessly for a second. "Where's Sidonie?”
"She'll be here in a moment." I sat down in a chair near his. "Well?”
Amaury Trente looked unhappy. I knew him. He was the Queen's man, a good one and loyal. He'd served as her Captain of the Guard for a time, and he'd headed up the company that had travelled all the way to Khebbel-im-Akkad to rescue me, although he'd stopped short of crossing into Drujan. Only Phèdre and Joscelin had dared cross that border. When they'd led me out, alive if not unscathed, Lord Amaury had been the first person to greet me as Imriel de la Courcel. The moment was etched in my memory. Until then, I hadn't known.
"I…" Lord Amaury swallowed. "I'm sorry for your misfortune, Imriel.”
"Thank you." I didn't offer anything else. He took a seat and looked around at Urist and the silent Cruithne, then back at me. His gaze slid away from mine, fixed at a point on my uninjured left shoulder. He blinked. I glanced down involuntarily, twitched my unbuttoned shirt to cover what was unmistakably a large, vivid love-bite.
Amaury blushed, and blushed deeper as Sidonie entered, rising and bowing to hide it. "Your highness.”
"Lord Amaury." Her voice was cool. "What is it my mother wishes?”
Amaury blinked at her, too. I didn't blame him. Sidonie looked collected and composed, her hair neatly coiled, and not at all as though she'd recently been writhing in bloodstained sheets, gnawing at my flesh in the transports of passion.
"Your mother…" he began, then paused. "May I sit?”
Sidonie inclined her head. "Of course.”
We all sat. Amaury Trente cleared his throat. "Her majesty Queen Ysandre …Sidonie, your mother wishes you to put an end to this, quietly and with no further fanfare. Both of you. She …she sends me in good faith to ask what might so move you.”
"I see." Sidonie cocked her head, gazing steadily at him. "Well, my lord, common sense has failed to do so, as has time and distance. And now, it seems, so has foul magic and grievous tragedy." There were lamps lit against the day's gloom, and her black eyes held their flickering light. "So tell me, my lord, what bribe does my mother think will prove effective?”
"A measure of greater autonomy?" Amaury suggested uncomfortably. "More responsibility? Or mayhap less? I don't know, Sidonie. I'm here to ask." When she didn't answer, he cleared his throat again. "What of you, Imriel?”
"Can her majesty turn back the hands of time and alter the past?" I glanced at Urist's implacable face. "I would take that offer, Lord Amaury. To have the past year of my life to live over, to change the course of the future. To see Dorelei restored to life, to see our child born, whole and hale, and raised with loving joy." I rubbed my eyes with the heel of one hand. "That, I would accept.”
Lord Amaury's voice was low and miserable. " 'Tis easy to say.”
"No," I said. "No, it's not.”
He drew breath to make a reply, but whatever he might have said, it was lost in a sudden clamor rising outside the manor house. Hoofbeats, racing footsteps, the sound of a hunting horn raising an alarm.
All hell broke loose.
In the chaos that followed, it was difficult to discern the sequence of events. All I know for certain is that Barquiel L'Envers was the