Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [100]
He did.
Remembering his skill with a pruning hook, I wasn't surprised. After all, he was Isidore d'Aiglemort's son. Captain Duval kept his word. And all summer, Maslin had set himself to mastering the sword and the arts of diplomacy and command with dedicated ferocity. If he was not exactly well-liked, he was admired. And out of some whim, Barquiel L'Envers had taken a liking to him, and was rumored to be highly supportive of Maslin's career.
I met him in the Hall of Games.
It was an awkward moment. There was a quarrel over a game of piquet, with accusations of cheating hurled on both sides. I was no part of it, but I was near. Indeed, I was backing away when I literally bumped into Maslin. As the lieutenant on Palace duty, he was sending his men to escort the quarreling Azzallese lordlings from the Hall.
I turned around with an apology on my lips. Seeing him, it faltered.
"Maslin!" I said stupidly.
"Prince Imriel." He bowed, crisp and correct. Only a flicker of his lids betrayed any emotion. "I beg your pardon."
"No, it was my fault." Why was I always jostling people in the damned Hall of Games? Discomfited, I stared at him. With his pale blond hair and his fine-honed features, he looked splendid in the deep blue uniform of the Queen's Guard, his doublet adorned with the swan badge of House Courcel and the silver braid of his office. But there was a restless glitter in his dark eyes that belied his courtly appearance. I understood what Julien had meant about the leopard. "Why?" I asked Maslin, not bothering to frame the question.
He understood. "It wasn't enough," he said, then paused. His voice roughened. Only slightly, but I, who had been taught by Phèdre to notice such things, heard it. "You made it small."
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "Maslin—"
His shoulders squared, and he looked past me toward the yet unsettled quarrel. "Forgive me, your highness. I have a job to do."
"Who was that!" Eamonn asked cheerfully, forging a path toward me.
"Someone I knew, once, a little bit." I slapped his shoulder. "Come on, let's go."
I told him about it that night, though. Since we had returned to the City, Eamonn and I shared my room in the townhouse. The oil lamp on the stand burned low while I sought to explain myself. Lying in the adjacent bed, Eamonn listened without comment, his arms folded behind his head. In the guttering light, his face looked strange and shadowed. He did not speak until I had finished.
"You were trying to do a good thing," he said softly. "How can that be wrong?"
I sighed. "But for what reason, Eamonn? For whose benefit? His, or mine?"
"Does it matter?" he asked.
"I think it does." I plucked at my bedsheets. "Phèdre tried to warn me that he might hate me for it. And I thought I understood. But what did I do? I took a thing he cherished, and I disposed of it as carelessly as though it held no worth. I made it small in his eyes."
"No," Eamonn said simply. "He did."
"I don't understand," I said.
"Imriel." He propped himself on one arm. "You D'Angelines, you are so quick to speak of love. Do you even know what it means?" He shook his head. "If he had truly loved this place… what is it called? Lomblon? Nothing could have made it small in his eyes. No," he continued thoughtfully. "I know. I hear what your friends say about me, about the Dalriada. I'm a barbarian, aye? Rough and uncouth." He laughed deep in his chest, sounding like his father. "Do you think it makes me love my home the less? My mother, my family, my people?"
"No," I admitted.
Eamonn flopped onto his back, staring at the rafters. "Ah, it's a beautiful place!" he said. "I hope to show it to you one day. I mean to go back, you know, when I've grown a bit in the world. The thing is, when you come to it, it's not