Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [6]
Bernadette hesitated. "Why would you make such a promise?”
"Because your son Bertran was a friend, once." I smiled grimly. "Not a very good one, as it transpired, but a friend. Because your husband is the Queen's loyal Commander and a hero of the realm. Because the Queen ardently desires peace among her kin. And mostly because I am sick unto death of being caught up in the bloody coils of things that happened long before I was born. Do you swear?”
She raised her chin. Oh yes, there was pride there. "In the name of Blessed Elua and Azza, I swear to forgo all vengeance against you, Imriel de la Courcel.”
Her voice was low, but it was steady. I nodded once more. "My thanks, my lady.”
"Imriel." Bernadette rose and caught my elbow as I turned to go. Old anguish surfaced in her sea-grey eyes, complicated with guilt and dawning remorse. "I didn't know, truly. I'm sorry.”
I gazed at her. "Good.”
After I took my leave of her, I visited one other place within the Palace. The Hall of Portraits was a long, narrow room on the second floor. A row of windows along the outer wall admitted a wash of wintry light. The interior wall was lined and stacked with portraits of the scions of House Courcel, rulers of Terre d'Ange for some three centuries.
I'd never set foot in it before. But after reading my mother's letters, I reckoned it was time. I made my way toward the far end of the hall. Family members were clustered together, stacked in groups. There; there was Ganelon de la Courcel, Ysandre's grandfather, and his wife above him. There was no portrait of Lyonette de Trevalion, his sister. I daresay that had been removed after her execution. But there, beside him…
I read the name on the frame's brass plaque: Benedicte de la Courcel.
My father.
You will wonder about your father. There are few left, I think, in Terre d'Ange who knew him well, well enough to speak of him. He spent long years in La Serenissima, and there were things that happened to poison him against his own legacy. You may hear that it made him bitter, and it did. We D'Angelines are not a people who take well to exile, even though it be for political advantage. This I know all too well.
But this I will tell you: He was a brave man, and a noble one in his own way. He fought for his country as a young man. He believed what he did—what we did together—was in the best interests of Terre d'Ange. He believed in the purity of the bloodlines of Blessed Elua and his Companions. He believed the nation cried out for a pure-blooded D'Angeline heir.
You.
I stared at the portrait. I didn't remember my father. He died when I was only a babe, killed in the fighting in the Temple of Asherat where my mother's final treachery was revealed. He'd been an old man, then. She had played on his prejudices. He'd been willing to condone the assassination of the Queen, his own grand-niece, to pave the way for a pure-blooded heir. Me. If he'd lived to stand trial, I daresay he would have been convicted of treason.
As for my mother, she'd already been convicted, long ago. Her life was forfeit if she ever set foot on D'Angeline soil.
The portrait depicted a serious-looking young man. It was formal and a bit stiff, and I thought it must have been painted when he was scarce older than I was. I could see a little of my own face in his; only a little. The strong, straight line of the eyebrows, the angle of his jaw. He didn't look like a man who laughed often, but he didn't look unkind, either. Mostly, he looked like a stranger; someone I'd never met.
There was no portrait of his first wife, the Serenissiman. No portraits of the children they had borne together, disowned by House Courcel due to other intrigues. But there was a second painting hung above his, veiled