Kushiel's Mercy - Jacqueline Carey [268]
Last I prayed to Kushiel, echoing the prayer I’d offered the night I’d entered the City.
“Grant them mercy,” I pleaded. “Grant us all mercy.”
The moon was paling in the sky by the time I rose stiffly. Another perfect circle. I gazed at it while Hugues and Ti-Philippe waited with ill-concealed impatience. They had indulged my madness. They were weary of it.
“Imri,” Ti-Philippe said at last. “We’re due at the Palace in a little over an hour.”
“Yes, all right.” I swung astride the saddle and took up the reins. “I’m finished. Let’s go.”
Eighty
At the townhouse, I scoured my face in the washbasin, pressing a cool cloth to my burning eyes. I changed into fresh clothing: more black mourning attire, this time commissioned by Phèdre. I was lightheaded with grief and lack of sleep—and like as not, hunger. I’d been eating as poorly as I slept. I summoned Clory and sent her to bring me bread and honey.
While I waited, I fetched Bodeshmun’s leather talisman from my purse. The lacquer had crackled and the ink was fading with wear. I studied the image, the faint inscription in Punic. A whirlwind sprouting horns and fangs, a word to bind or free it.
More circles, a mad gyre of circles.
“I killed you too quickly, Bodeshmun,” I murmured. “If you were alive, I’d wind your entrails on a stick until you told me where that goddamned gem was.”
Somewhere, in whatever passed for hell among Carthaginians, I imagined Bodeshmun was smiling his dour smile.
Clory returned and I hid the talisman back in my purse. I drizzled honey on Eugènie’s fine, crusty bread, watching the amber-gold coils melt into themselves. I thought about the bee-skeps I’d ordered built in Clunderry. Coils of golden straw. Dorelei’s laughter and the round, rising circle of her belly.
Honey and gall.
I thought about Sidonie and the first time I’d awoken in her bed. Tousled locks of golden hair spread across the pillow. Her face, smiling at me in the sunlight, still soft with sleep.
Love.
You will find it and lose it, again and again.
I’d been fourteen years old when a Priest of Elua had said those words to me, and if I’d had any idea how much it would hurt, I might have killed myself to spare the pain. But I wasn’t the damaged, brooding boy I’d been. I’d failed Dorelei, and I’d very nearly failed her a second time in Vralia. While my heart yet beat, I didn’t mean to accept failure again.
And when it didn’t . . . well.
As Kratos had said, it would be a noble death.
So I forced myself to eat, although Eugènie’s good bread tasted like ashes and the sweet honey was bitter in my mouth. When it was done, I felt a trifle less lightheaded. I heard Phèdre’s voice calling for me downstairs. I buckled my sword-belt around my waist, the old rhinoceros-hide belt that Ras Lijasu had given me many years ago in distant Meroë, a talisman in its own right.
A reminder of heroes.
“Are you ready?” Phèdre asked as I descended the stair. “We’re nearly late.”
I nodded. “I’m ready.”
We rode by carriage to the Palace. The mood in the City had shifted yet again. It had turned proud and somber. Folk saluted as we passed. Our outriders returned their salutes. War. We teetered on the precipice of war.
And the gods remained silent.
Once again, folk made way for us in the Hall of Audience. A heavy silence hung over the hall. The eternal susurrus of gossip and speculation had been stilled. I never thought I’d miss it. Instead, there were only the sounds of people breathing, the rustle of fabric, the creak of armor. An ocean of armor, bright with the crests of dozens of the Great Houses of Terre d’Ange. Almost the entire Parliament had been present the night Bodeshmun wrought his magic, many of them attended by their own men-at-arms. All of their forces would be serving.
We took our places at the head of the crowd. The thrones had been removed from the hall. Only the dais remained, the dais and that cursed gem-painting. Ysandre, Drustan, and Sidonie stood on the dais,