Kushiel's Mercy - Jacqueline Carey [79]
She didn’t answer, only laid a hand on the back of my head. I bent toward her and felt the touch of her lips on my brow. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” I echoed.
I rode away in the gathering dusk, my thoughts in turmoil. Unlike Carthage, unlike Alba or even Drujan, there were no arcane arts practiced in Terre d’Ange. And yet, in the space of a single day, I had nearly fallen under my mother’s spell, born of nothing but her own singular presence.
It had been a pleasant day.
I wrenched my thoughts away, turning them westward. Toward Carthage, toward Sidonie. I wondered what the nuptial ceremony had been like. I tortured myself with thoughts of Sidonie, willing and eager in Astegal’s bed. I felt the spell of my mother’s presence dissipate, hard resolve settling in its place.
Still, her kiss lingered.
As I drifted into sleep in the widow Nuray’s house, I found myself wondering if I would ever see my mother again once I left Cythera. And I wasn’t sure what I wanted the answer to be.
On the morrow, I rose to find a summons from Solon awaiting, bright and early. I wasted no time, breaking my fast with a couple of ripe apricots, then riding over to the palace.
Ptolemy Solon was awaiting me in his library, which was one of the largest I’d ever seen. The main chamber was vast, with a high ceiling, tall windows at one end, doors at the other, and twin facing walls lined with bookshelves, ladders propped against each wall. There were alcoves with cubbyholes for scrolls, and smaller, locked chambers.
In the center of the main chamber, there were long tables suitable for study. Solon was seated at the head of one such table, a book of blank parchment and a pen and inkwell before him. My mother was seated at its opposite end. The vast space dwarfed him, while it seemed to suit her. Nonetheless, it was Solon who glanced up and bade me enter, brown eyes bright in his wizened face.
“Good morning, my lord,” I said, hesitating. “Mother.”
“Come.” Solon patted the table. “Sit. Between Sunjata’s tales of a great mirror being forged and the coming occlusion of the moon, I knew enough to guess at what Carthage intended. Not enough to be certain how it was done. I will need to hear everything you can remember about Carthage’s visit. Everything.”
I approached and took a seat. “I am most grateful for your aid, my lord.”
“I’m sure you are.” He shot an inscrutable look at my mother, who smiled and raised one brow. Solon gestured at a tray on the table containing a pitcher of water and an array of pastries. “Eat. Drink. Tell me everything.”
I helped myself to a cup of water, flavored with lemon and honey.
And I began to talk.
I told them everything, commencing with my letter to Diokles Agallon. Once again, I didn’t have anything to lose. There wasn’t much about the Guild my mother didn’t know, and I reckoned what she knew, Solon knew. I told them about Agallon’s reply, Carthage’s request. The discussions that had followed, Parliament’s vote. Carthage’s arrival, the exaggerated gift of tribute.
“Wait.” Solon halted me. “Describe the tribute-gifts in detail.”
I did to the best of my ability. I hadn’t been paying overmuch attention, being more concerned with Carthage, but Phèdre had taught me to train my memory well. I recalled Quintilius Rousse’s deep voice reading the manifest: gold, ivory, and salt, spices, and seedlings, Tyrian purple cloth, furniture.
“And there was the chalice he sent in advance,” I said, remembering. “And the painting presented at the banquet.”
Solon’s round eyes blinked. “Describe them.”
I described the carnelian chalice with its joined hands in which Astegal and Ysandre had drunk to one another’s health; the painting made of ground jewels depicting the two of them with their hands clasped in friendship. Solon pursed his lips, his pen scratching on parchment.
“Continue,” he said when I had finished. “From the point of their arrival.”
I told him about the banquet where the painting had been unveiled, Sunjata’s overture, the gilded coffer, and Gillimas’ veiled words about Cythera. I related Sidonie’s