Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [14]
Travelling light, we made good time and came within sight of the white walls of the City of Elua within several days, arriving in the late morning. Despite the circumstances, I could see Phèdre's mood lighten. Unlike the rest of us, she was City-bred to the bone, and it was where she was most at home.
To be sure, the City of Elua returned the sentiment.
The City Guard at the Southern Gate hailed her with a clamorous salute, shouting and whistling. One of them importuned a flower-seller within the walls, and lavender sprigs came showering down from the guard towers as we passed through the gate. The news of my mother's disappearance, I thought, must not yet have been released. They wouldn't greet us so if it had been. I watched Phèdre's eyes sparkle as she caught a sprig of lavender and tossed it back with a blown kiss; watched the guardsmen scramble for it, and Joscelin's amused, long-suffering patience.
I thought of the shadow descending over that happiness, and I hated it.
We made our way to the townhouse, where Eugenie, Phèdre's Mistress of the Household in the City of Elua, was expecting us. After greeting Phèdre and Joscelin, she turned her prodigious affections on me.
"Sweet boy!" she cried, enfolding me in her considerable embrace. "Name of Elua, I swear you've grown a handspan since you left!"
I smiled, hugging her unreservedly in return. I still remembered my first encounter with her. To this day, she is the only person I have ever seen who dared take Joscelin by the shoulders and shake him. But she dealt gently with me for a long time, until I grew fond enough to suffer her affection gladly. "It's only been a couple of months, Eugenie."
"Ah, well." She patted my cheek. "'Tis ever too long."
Although we had ridden hard and fast to arrive within mere days of receiving the courier's message, the Queens summons awaited us. Phèdre dispatched a messenger to the Palace with word of our arrival, and by the time we had changed from our road-dusty attire and partaken of a light refreshment, a reply was waiting. Phèdre read it and sighed.
"Now?" Joscelin asked.
She nodded. "Now."
For this last, shortest leg of the journey, we took the carriage, with the arms of Montrève etched and painted on the doors. There were protocols to be observed. Ti-Philippe, Hugues, Gilot, and another of our men-at-arms served as outriders, guarding our passage.
Upon our arrival at the Palace, we were ushered directly into the Queen's presence.
It was a formal reception, which I had not reckoned on. Although I was seldom able to forget my parentage, I forgot, betimes, that it meant I was a Prince of the Blood, and entitled to due courtesies. Drustan was present, which was not always the case. But during the summer months, the Cruarch of Alba crossed the Straits to abide with his wife, the D'Angeline Queen.
When it came my turn to greet them, I bowed; the courtier's bow that protocol dictates when acknowledging those whose rank is higher than one's own, yet within the same echelon. "Your majesties."
"Prince Imriel." The Queen inclined her head. "Thank you for coming."
Drustan mab Necthana smiled. "Well met once more, Prince Imriel."
They were an unlikely couple, as unlikely as Phèdre and Joscelin—more so, in appearance. Ysandre was tall and fair, a quintessentially D'Angeline beauty, with pale gold hair and violet eyes. She resembled her mother's side of her family, House L'Envers.
Drustan was one of the Cruithne, the Pictish folk of Alba—dark-haired and dark-eyed, his skin tattooed in whorls of blue woad. Even his face was decorated thus. Although it was strange and barbaric to the D'Angeline eye, I thought there was an odd beauty