Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [104]
Phèdre nodded at the folio. "Where did you get that?"
"The artist is Dorian nó Eglantine. He's a friend." Favrielle watched her. "He spent a year travelling through the southern reaches of Skaldia, gathering their myths and making the sketches on which these are based. But he's been afraid of going public with the prints."
"I don't blame him," Ti-Philippe said sourly. "He wasn't on the battlefield at Troyes-le-Mont."
Favrielle shrugged. "It's art, chevalier." She turned back to Phèdre. "I would not suggest this for just anyone. But you… you have earned a certain right. It would be respected as a gesture of peace and accord. As you say, it was not Skaldia's gods who made war upon us."
Returning to the folio, Phèdre traced the lines of one print with her forefinger. "This is strong work," she murmured. She met my eyes. There was a shadow in the depths of hers that only I understood. "What do you think?"
I answered in one word. "Erich."
There had been a young man of the Skaldi in the zenana of Daršanga. How he came to be there, I never knew. We never learned his story. No one spoke his tongue, and after the Mahrkagir had him gelded, he spoke to no one, until Phèdre arrived. He recognized her, though he did not say it for a long time. In Skaldia, they tell stories about her. I still remembered the words he spoke when he finally broke his silence, uttered in crude zenyan.
The defeated always remember.
Erich fought bravely for our freedom, though he did not live to see it. He kept his head when others lost theirs, and he spent his life protecting theirs. He took a dozen wounds before he died, and I had wept at his death.
"I made him a promise," Phèdre said quietly, remembering. "I swore I wouldn't blame the Skaldi for Waldemar Selig's war." She touched Ti-Philippe's arm. "Philippe, can you live with this? I will not do it if it pains you."
He sighed, studying the ceiling. "My lady, I would walk through fire for you, and well you know it. If it is your wish that I be attired as an Ephesian dancing girl, I will do it. If it is a Skaldic deity, I will do that, too. Whatever it be, I trust you have your reasons."
Phèdre kissed his cheek. "My thanks, Philippe."
I was watching Favrielle during the exchange, and saw her expression soften for a moment. It hardened the instant she noticed, and I smiled to myself.
"You people!" she exclaimed. "Name of Elua, it's just a Masque. Must everything always be a matter of life or death with you?"
So it was decided.
The costumes were gorgeous. How not? Favrielle was a genius, after all. She had a knack for making fabric sing like poetry, and whatever she might claim, she took a good deal of pride in dressing Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève and her household. On the afternoon of the Longest Night, she even sent one of her apprentices to assist with the preparations.
It was a lengthy process.
When it was done, I gazed at myself in the mirror and beheld a stranger.
As Favrielle had promised, I was clad all in hues of white. Mine was one of the simplest costumes. A shirt of ivory silk, open at the throat and fastened below with silver buttons shaped like mistletoe berries; a pair of white velvet breeches with a silver sash about the waist. Even my leather boots were white. So simple; and yet. Favrielle's apprentice had spent ages twining silver ribbons throughout my hair. It framed my face in an unlikely starburst, the silver bright against my blue-black locks.
Baldur the Beautiful, the Skaldi god of light, slain by a sprig of mistletoe.
But it was the mask that made all the difference. It was a half-mask of ivory silk, modeled on my own features, but motionless and still. The upper half of my face looked smooth and serene, distant as a god. I leaned forward, peering into the mirror. Yes, those were my dark blue eyes; those were my lips, looking unwontedly ripe. It was a strange interplay, the tension between the living flesh and the remote whiteness of the mask.
"Well, aren't you pretty!"
I jumped at Eamonn's voice. He