Kushiel's Mercy - Jacqueline Carey [5]
I shrugged. “I lived.”
His fingers flexed, digging into my shoulders. “Idiot. He’s dead now, right? You brought his head home in a bag?”
“And buried it in Clunderry,” I said. “Oh, yes.”
Mavros let go of me, fetching a stool and dragging it nearer the tub. “Finish your bath and tell me about it.”
For as long a journey as it had been, there wasn’t much to tell. It had been a slow, plodding hunt. I’d been shipwrecked on the Eastern Sea and lost weeks stranded on an isolated island while we salvaged and repaired our damaged ship. I’d been mistaken for an ally of raiding Tartars in a Vralian village and thrown in gaol. I’d managed to escape, and followed Berlik to the place where he’d sought refuge, spending countless days attempting to find him in the trackless wilderness.
In the end, he found me.
“So he wanted to die?” Mavros asked when I finished.
“Yes,” I said. “To make atonement.”
“Huh.” He thought about it while I dried myself and slipped into a dressing-robe. “Do you reckon it worked?”
“I don’t know.” I knotted the robe’s sash. “What he did . . . as awful as it was, I came to understand it. He thought it was the only way to spare his people.”
“From the future your son would bring,” Mavros said slowly.
“Yes.” I shivered, remembering the vision. A young man, his features a mixture of mine and Dorelei’s, but bitter and cruel. Armies raging over Alba, blood-sodden fields. Women and children dragged from their homes, houses put to the torch. Men hunted like animals. The standing stones and the sacred groves, destroyed. “I’ll tell you one thing, Mavros. I’ll not defy Blessed Elua’s precept again and I want nothing more to do with strange magics. All I want is to be left in peace for a time.”
“Good luck.” His tone was wry.
“I know,” I said. “Sidonie.”
“Is it worth it?” he asked with genuine curiosity.
I turned the gold ring on my finger. Despite everything, the love I felt for her was undiminished. The soaring exaltation, the inexplicable rightness of the fit. The shared laughter and talk, the common, ordinary happiness. And somewhere beneath it, a sense that this was important and needful. I couldn’t explain it. I only knew it was true.
“Yes,” I said simply.
“Well, you know House Shahrizai stands behind you,” Mavros said. “Although things being what they are, our support might not be terribly helpful.”
“So I noticed.” I gestured, pointing my thumb downward.
“Mmm.” His face was introspective. “You and Sidonie . . . it raised old fears, opened old wounds.”
“You do know I’ve no aspiration toward the throne?” I asked.
“Oh, I do.” Mavros glanced up at me. “But I’m not the one you need to convince. There are a few thousand of those, starting with her majesty the Queen.” As though summoned by his words, there was a knock at the outer door—one of Ysandre’s guards, come to fetch me to audience. Mavros laughed humorlessly. “Well, and here’s your first chance.”
After bidding Mavros farewell and donning clean attire, I accompanied the guard to my audience with Ysandre. It was early evening and the Palace was beginning to come alive with what revelries the coming night would hold: private fêtes, wagers in the Hall of Games, mayhap a performance in the theatre.
I endured the gauntlet of stares and whispers. I was used to it; it had been my lot since I had first returned to Terre d’Ange as a child. I met the stares, returned them with a level gaze, trying to read the faces behind them.
Some were sympathetic.
A few were hostile and guarded.
Most were simply curious.
I wasn’t sure if it would be a state reception or a private one. It turned out to be somewhere between the two. The Queen received me in her private quarters, but Lady Denise Grosmaine, the Secretary of the Presence, was in attendance, which meant whatever transpired would be documented for the Royal Archives.
I entered the Queen’s salon and bowed low.
“We welcome you home, Prince Imriel.” Ysandre’s tone was even. Careful.
I straightened. “My thanks, your majesty.”
Ysandre de la Courcel had ruled