Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [319]
Telling stories of Dorelei.
Fond stories, funny stories. It hurt, but there was healing in it, too. Lady Breidaia nearly broke my heart telling how Dorelei had privately confessed her astonishment that I'd been thoughtful enough to send for a beekeeper after she'd dreamed I fed her honeycomb.
"You were a good husband to her," Breidaia said, eyes bright with tears. "You would have been a good father to the babe.”
And then I laughed until my sides ached at a tale that Kinadius and Kerys told about a piglet, a runt destined for an early demise, which Dorelei had saved from the axe. How they'd rescued it from the pigsty in the dead of night. How the three of them had managed to hide it for weeks, shuttling it from one room to another, two steps ahead of the suspicious maidservants.
"It used to follow her like a dog," Kerys remembered.
"Ah, gods!" Kinadius laughed. "I had to sneak out before dawn every morning to steal milk. She'd let it suckle on an old scrap of blanket dipped in milk. That pig ate better than we did. When we finally got caught, the pig-keeper said, 'Well, she's a runt no more, is she?'“
"Where was I when this happened?" Talorcan mused.
"Doing somewhat more important, I hope," his mother said tartly.
When my turn came, I told the story of scouring the castle on the Day of Misrule to find a pair of men's breeches vast enough to accommodate Dorelei's pregnant belly. How the breeches had been so long I'd had to roll the cuffs for her. How Dorelei had laughed so hard at the sight of me kneeling in her green kirtle, I'd no sooner finish rolling one leg when the other would fall, until at last she caught her breath long enough to tell me to pin them in place.
Alais smiled. "You did look that comical, Imri.”
"Not as comical as Urist," I said.
"True," she agreed.
Sidonie eyed me, bemused. "You wore her gown?”
I flushed. "For the Day of Misrule, yes." I lowered my voice. "I'm sorry. If this is—”
"No, don't." Sidonie cut me off, shaking her head. "It isn't. I wanted to be here, Imriel. Dorelei deserved that much, as blood-kin and…" Her shoulders moved in a faint, rueful shrug. "And the other debt. She seemed kind. You did your best to build a life together with her. Truly, I want to understand what you lost.”
"Thank you," I said softly.
"Mmm." Her black eyes gleamed. "I'll own, I didn't expect the kirtle.”
My heart leapt, then settled. Not now, not yet.
When the well of remembrance began to run dry, the mood in the hall shifted. There was a call for me to tell the tale of my quest; the story of Berlik's death. I didn't want to tell it—I'd told it enough and there was no joy in it for me—but there were too many folk there yearning to hear it. It would have been cruel to refuse.
So I let Kinadius tell the first part, about their tireless efforts and how they'd found Berlik's trail at last, leading northward across the Flatlands and into Skaldia. And I let Urist tell about our sea voyage and the shipwreck.
Then came my part.
It felt strange, telling it here in Clunderry. It almost seemed as though it had happened to someone else. Vralia was so far away. I tried to bring it to life for them; the deep cold, the endless snow. All of them listened raptly, even those who had heard it before. Conor held his harp on his lap, silently fingering the strings as though setting it to music in his mind.
I daresay there were a few—Talorcan, to be sure—who were hoping for a climactic finish to the tale, a dramatic battle in which I defeated Berlik, shouting my vengeance to the skies. Instead, they got the truth. My despair and acknowledgment of defeat; and then the roar of a bear in the night. The quiet ending to my long, long hunt, Berlik kneeling in the snow with his head bowed for the sword.
"Why did he do it?" Kerys wondered aloud when I finished.
"To atone." It was young