Kushiel’s Dart

Chapter Forty-Nine

It was an awkward moment, saying good-bye to the Skaldi of Gunter’s steading; not merely for what had immediately preceded it, but for the fact that they had just, unanimously, declared war on my people. Since there was nothing else for it, I put a good face on it. Harald the Beardless-whose beard was beginning to come in and would soon need a new cognomen-would be staying as Gunter’s best rider and of a surety it wouldn’t hurt to have one voice that spoke well of me.

So it was that we had hugs and tears all around, and my emotions were in such a jumble that I needn’t feign sorrow at their leaving; I had sorrow to spare.

"If Gunter asks you a fourth time," I whispered to Hedwig, "tell him yes. He’s tender feelings for you, for all his bluster, and the two of you are too well matched to settle for less. And if he’s learned a trick or two of pleasing women, light a candle to Freja in my name." I had learned some little of the Skaldic pantheon, and reckoned this goddess the closest in nature to Naamah. Hedwig nodded and sniffled, turning away.

And then Knud gave me safe-conduct back to Selig’s great hall, limping gamely from the beating he’d taken on my behalf, and bid me farewell, kissing my hand when none of Selig’s thanes were watching. Less cautious, I took his head in both hands and kissed him upon his brow, offering a silent prayer to Elua that he would emerge unharmed from the coming battles. Blessed Elua would understand. Love as thou wilt, I thought, watching Knud hobble hurriedly back to camp, a glowing smile on his unlovely features. Yeshua ben Yosef of whose blood Elua was born bid his followers to love even their enemies; I understood then, a little, what he meant.

But I could not love them all.

There was no sign of Joscelin. I dared ask Waldemar Selig when he returned in the evening, weary from a long day’s labors. He told me curtly that Joscelin was safe, and I had no choice but to take his word for it.

It was three full days before I learned more, and in those three days it was made manifestly apparent to me that I was unwelcome by the denizens of Selig’s steading. Always I felt the eyes of his thanes, watching me with hunger and scorn; from the women, I received resentment, scarce veiled even in Selig’s presence. Only the children treated me as an equal. Remembering a trick Alcuin had used to charm them at Perrinwolde, I braided the hair of a few, making do with bits of thong and scraps of fur instead of ribbons. The children delighted in it-all children delight in being made much of-but I saw the women glaring, undoing my work with quick, angry gestures while the children squirmed, and I tried it no more.

Selig himself was not unaware of it, but he didn’t understand the nature of his people’s dislike. When he tried to soften matters by complimenting me on my appearance or some nicety of service, they only saw that he set me above them, and hated me for it.

In response, he kept me closer by him, which made it the worse. Still, I was glad when he set me to the chore of recreating an approximation of Didimus Pontus' Skaldic alphabet. It allowed me to stay out of sight in his chamber. At other times, he had me pore over maps of Terre d’Ange with him, correcting and clarifying the topography as best I could. I am not ashamed to say that I lied with as much invention and conviction as I dared, reckoning any misinformation was to the good. When he bade me teach him D’Angeline, though, I didn’t dare lead him astray. Errors in geography, if he learned of them, he could ascribe to ignorance; in the teaching of my native tongue, I had no such defense.

During the nights, it was another matter as we worked our way steadily through the Trois Milles Joies. It is not necessary to speak of what services I performed for him; they are written down in that book, for any who wish to know. I am trained in all those suitable for a woman to perform, and some few that are not, to the exacting standards of Cereus House. Those are the things I did, excepting those feats which the Skaldi reckon unmanly.

It was on the fourth day that Waldemar Selig said to me, frowning, "It has been some days, and Josslin Verai will not eat. Maybe you should see him."

My heart plummeted; I’d gotten through the previous days believing him safe and well, albeit confined. I hurried to fetch my fur cloak, and went with Selig to where Joscelin was held.

It was a mean little hut, some distance from the great hall; it had been a woodcutter’s, I think. One of the White Brethren was on guard, lounging before the hide strung across the door and tossing a dagger for amusement. He sprang to his feet when we approached.

Inside, it was cold and dingy, warmed only by a tiny brazier in which a few coals smoldered. There was a straw pallet and a blanket, but Joscelin knelt huddled on the floor, shivering, his arms crossed. His hands and feet were shackled, with a chain run from his ankles to an iron ring pounded into the floor. It was long enough to allow him to walk and reach the pallet; he knelt by choice.

He looked horrible. His face was wan and haggard, lips cracked, hair lank. While Selig leaned against a wall, I ran to Joscelin, kneeling before him and peering at his ravaged face.

What came out of my mouth, in D’Angeline, was, "You idiot! What are you doing?"

Joscelin raised his head, staring at me with bloodshot eyes. "I dishonored my vow," he whispered in a cracked voice. "I drew to kill."

"Blessed Elua! That’s all?" I sat back on my heels and pressed my hands to my face. Remembering Selig, I dropped them and glanced at him. "He grieves for his wrongdoing," I said in Skaldic. "He is atoning."

Waldemar Selig nodded soberly; he understood this. "Tell him to live," he said. "I have made atonement in were-gild for the lives of the men he killed. And I wish him to teach me his manner of fighting." He paused, recalling, and repeated it slowly in Caerdicci to Joscelin.

Joscelin gave a laugh that scared me, wild and half-mad. "My lord has bested me," he said to Selig in Caerdicci. "Why would you want to learn what I know?"

"You did not expect to battle me. You have given me your pledge. And you did not expect me to step inside your guard," Selig said deliberately. "Another time, it might be different."

"I cannot teach him to fight like a Cassiline," Joscelin said to me in D’Angeline, shaking his head over and over. "I have failed you, too many times. I’ve dishonored my vow. Better I should die!"

I shot a quick glance at Selig, then looked fiercely at Joscelin. "How many times do you need to discover your humanity, Joscelin? You’re not Cassiel reborn, but you’re vowed to me, and I have never needed your service more!" I shook his shoulders, quoting Delaunay’s words at him. "Do you remember this? To fail and persevere is a harder test than any you will meet on the practice-field. Keep your sword, I cannot afford its loss."

Joscelin laughed again, despairingly, then caught it with a gasp. "I can’t, Phèdre, I swear I can’t! I’ve not even a sword to keep." He gazed up at Selig from his huddled pose. "I am sorry, my lord," he said in Caerdicci. "I am not worthy to live."

I swore at him then, in D’Angeline, Skaldic and Caerdicci alike, shoving him so he lurched sideways in his chains and fell sprawling, gaping at me. "Elua curse you, Cassiline, if that’s all the courage you’ve got!" I railed at him, in what tongue I know not. "If I live through this, I swear I’m writing to the Prefect of your order, and telling him how Blessed Elua was better served by a courtesan of the Night Court than a Cassiline priest!"

What Selig thought of my diatribe, I don’t know; if I’d thought to look at him, I wouldn’t have dared, but it never crossed my mind. With scarce the strength to get upright, still Joscelin’s eyes narrowed at my harangue. "You will not!" he retorted with febrile intensity, scrabbling to rise to his knees.

"Then stop me." I stood up, hurling the last words at him. "Protect and serve, Cassiline!"

It must sound, I know, as if I had no pity for him; it wasn’t true. I was angry because I was terrified. But there are times when a curse is more bracing than an endearment. Dragging at his chains, Joscelin struggled to a kneeling position, shivering, staring at me with tears standing in his bloodshot eyes. "It’s hard, Phèdre," he said pleadingly. "Elua help me, but it’s hard!"

"I know," I whispered.

Selig stepped outside then and said something to the guard. I didn’t know what until the White Brethren thane returned scowling some minutes later, carrying a wooden bowl of broth. Selig nodded, and he shoved it at Joscelin. "You eat," Waldemar Selig said to him in his rudimentary D’Angeline. "You live."

We left him then, holding the bowl in two trembling hands. I looked back as Selig held the hide back from the door for me, catching sight of Joscelin lowering his lips to the rim of the bowl.

He would live, I thought with relief. It gave me one less reason to die.

After that, Joscelin continued to take nourishment and grew stronger, although he had developed chilblains on his hands and on his wrists where the manacles chafed. They itched and pained him mercilessly, but he used it as a reason to postpone teaching Cassiline swordplay to Waldemar Selig. Having invested somewhat in keeping his tame D’Angeline warrior-priest alive, Selig acceded to my pleas to be able to visit Joscelin once a day, rightly reckoning that once Joscelin had chosen to live, my presence would give him incentive to continue living. He had his vow.

It was the one thing I looked forward to each day. Selig had other business to attend to, so he set one of the White Brethren to escort me. It was well that Joscelin had kept the extent of his fledgling Skaldic hidden, for it aroused no suspicion when we spoke in D’Angeline, and I quickly determined that, unlike Selig, his thanes had no knowledge of our tongue.

Unfortunately, there was little we could do in the way of plotting an escape. The steading was simply too well guarded. Still, we spoke of survival, and kept each other’s spirits from flagging.

Never long on tolerance when he suspected delay, Selig grew impatient for Joscelin’s hands to heal, and sent for a priest of Odhinn who was also a healer to see to him.

"In truth," he confessed to me the night before, "I am curious to see what Lodur will make of you. He is my oldest teacher, and I have great respect for his wisdom."

I should add that by that point, unrest over Selig’s patronage of me had continued to grow and it was commonly put about that I was a witch, sent from Terre d’Ange to ensorcel him, as evidenced by the red mote in my left eye-a sure sign of a witch.

Selig laughed at the rumor. "Lodur’s mother was a witch too, so they said. They said she could cure a man of any wound, mortal or no, if she found him favorable. Truth is, she was a skilled healer. As you are skilled at…other things."

I don’t know what I said to that; something flattering, you may be sure. If I added a touch of defiant spice sometimes, for the most part, I told him what he wished to hear. But so it came to pass that I rode with him and two of his White Brethren to the home of Lodur the One-Eyed, on a shaggy pony Selig had given me as my own to ride.

My first glimpse of the healer was of a wiry old man standing bare-chested in the snow, a fur vest over his scrawny torso. His hair was white and wild. He held a carved staff in one hand, and on the other fist, a raven perched. We saw him at a distance speaking to it, but it flew away at our approach. I thought it was Skaldi magic at the time. Later I learned he’d nursed it broken-winged, and it was still half tame. Lodur glanced up, unsurprised, and I saw that he bore a patch over his right eye; I hadn’t known, then, that he was called One-Eyed.

"Waldemar Berundson," he said calmly, using a patronymic I’d never even heard spoken. Selig, they called him, Blessed, as if the gods themselves had named him.

"This is Faydra nó Delaunay of Terre d’Ange, old master," Selig said respectfully. He dismounted and bent his head to the old man, so I did the same, and noticed that his thanes did too. "She has a companion who has the cold-wounds, that will not heal."

"Indeed." Lodur came to meet us across the snow, moving with a quickness that belied his age. His one eye was a pale, fierce blue, but it did not look unkindly on me. Unlike every other Skaldi male I’d seen, he was beardless, a grizzled white stubble on his leather-tanned face. "You like it, eh?" He saw me looking and stroked his chin, grinning. "I met a girl once who fancied a clean face. Got into the habit, I suppose."

Priests aplenty I have known, but never one like him; I stammered some reply. "No matter," he said casually, and felt me all over with firm hands, an impersonal patting. I stood still for it, bewildered. Selig looked approving. "D’Angeline, eh?" Lodur fixed me with his solitary ice-blue gaze, gazing thoughtfully at my face and my own mismatched eyes. The cold didn’t seem to touch him. "What do they call it, that?" He nodded at my left eye.

"Kushiel’s Dart," I said softly.

"You’re god-marked, then. Like me, you think?" He laughed, pointing to his patch. "One-Eyed, they call me, like the All-Father. Do you know the story?"

I knew it; I’d heard it sung at Gunter’s steading often enough. I could even sing it myself. "He gave his eye in exchange for a drink from Mimir’s fountain," I said. "The fountain of wisdom."

Lodur clapped, tucking his staff beneath one arm. Selig’s thanes muttered. "Me, now," the old priest said conversationally. "When I was a fool apprentice, I took my own eye, offered it with prayer, reckoning to become wise like Odhinn. You know what my master told me?" I shook my head. Lodur cocked his and gazed at me. "He told me I had gained a valuable piece of wisdom: No one can bribe the gods. What an idiot I was!" He chuckled at the memory. Only a Skaldi could laugh at such a thing. "But I got wiser," he added.

"Old master…" Selig began.

"I know, I know." Lodur cut him off. "The cold-wounds. And you want to know what I think of the girl. What can I tell you, Waldemar Berundson? You take a weapon thrown by a D’Angeline god to your bosom, and ask me for wisdom? As well ask the mute to advise the deaf. I’ll get my medicine bag."

Selig stared at me, frowning. I kept my countenance as open as I could, frankly as bewildered as he. All along, I had thought myself Kushiel’s victim, marked out for the awful divinity of his love. It was something else, to think of myself as his weapon.

The old priest fetched his medicines and mounted up behind Selig, spry as a boy. We rode that way back to the steading, through the spectacular forests. Lodur hummed to himself and sang a snatch of song, but no one else spoke. Selig’s brow was dark with thought.

At the hut, Lodur rapped three times on the threshold with his staff and gave a loud invocation before stepping inside. He seemed to bring a clean scent of snow and pine needles into the close, dim air of the hut. Joscelin, engaged in some Cassiline meditation, stared at the apparition.

"Like a young Baldur, eh?" Lodur said casually to Selig, naming their dying-god, who is called the Beautiful. "Well, let’s see 'em, boy." He squatted on his shanks next to Joscelin, examining the swollen red flesh of his hands and wrists. They were cracked and suppurating, weeping a clear fluid and refusing to heal. "Ah, I’ve one of mother’s recipes will do for that!" the priest-healer laughed, digging around in his bag. He drew out a small stoneware jar of balm and unstoppered it. What was in it, I don’t know, but it stank to heaven. Joscelin made a face at it, then looked questioningly at me over Lodur’s head as the old man began slathering his hands and wrists with it.

"He is a healer," I said in Caerdicci, for Selig’s benefit; we kept up the pretence that Joscelin’s Skaldic was inadequate for conversing. "Lord Selig wishes that you become well enough to teach him your manner of fighting."

Joscelin bowed his head to Selig. "I look forward to it, my lord." He paused. "To teach the Cassiline style, I require my arms, my lord; or at least my vambraces. Wooden training daggers and sword will suffice."

"The Skaldi do not train with wooden toys. I sent your arms to my smith, to duplicate their design. You shall have them when we spar." Selig cast a scowl at one of the White Brethren; he’d reclaimed Joscelin’s sword, then, and been annoyed at its loss. "Are you done, old master?"

"Oh, nearly." Lodur worked deftly, winding bandages of clean linen about Joscelin’s balm-smeared skin. "He’ll heal quickly. These D’Angelines, they’ve gods' blood in their veins. It’s old and faint all right, but even a mere trace of it’s a powerful thing, Waldemar Berundson."

If I did not miss the warning in his words, Selig could not fail to heed it. "Old and powerful, and corrupted with generations of softness, old master. Their gods will bow their heads to the All-Father, and we will claim the magic of their blood for our own descendants, to infuse it with red-blooded Skaldi vigor."

The old man glanced up at him, his one eye as wintry and distant as a wolfs. "May it be as you say, young Waldemar. I am too ancient to strong-arm the gods."

I felt a chill run through me at his words. Whatever else was true, the old man had power, that much I knew. I felt it in that hut, creeping over my skin, whispering of the dark earth and the towering firs, of iron and blood, fox, wolf and raven. Lodur rose then, patting Joscelin kindly on the head, and gathered his things.

At the center of the steading, he refused a ride back to his home in the woods, saying he would welcome the walk. I, shivering as always, could not credit his hardiness, but truly, his bare skin seemed unaffected by the cold. Selig was speaking to the White Brethren about some matter, so I took the chance to approach Lodur as he made ready to leave.

"Did you mean it?" I asked him. "About the weapon?"

No more than that did I say, but he knew what I meant and considered me, standing ankle-deep in snow. "Who knows the ways of the gods? Baldur the Beautiful was slain with a sprig of mistletoe, cast by an unknowing hand. Are you less likely a weapon?"

I had no answer to that, and the old man laughed. "Still, if I were young Waldemar, I’d take the risk of you too," he added with a wicked grin, "and if I were not much younger at all, I’d ask you for a kiss."

Of all the unlikely things, it made me blush. Lodur cackled again and struck out across the snow, staff in hand, walking briskly back the way we’d come. A strange man; I’d never met stranger. I was sorry not to see him again.

For his part, Waldemar Selig responded to the whole encounter by regarding me with a new suspicion. It came out that night in bed, when he did not bid me to please him, but regarded me instead, tracing with one finger the lineaments of my marque. "Mayhap there is rune-magic in these markings, Faydra," he said, deceptively. "Would you say so?"

"It is my marque, that says I am pledged to Naamah’s service. All her Servants bear such, and there is no magic in it save freedom, when it is made complete." I held myself quiet, kneeling before him.

"So you say." He laid his hand open across my back; it spanned a great expanse of my skin. "You say you were sold into slavery because you knew too much. I, I would merely kill you, were it so. Why do you live?"

Melisande’s voice came back to me, calm and distant. I’d no more kill you than I’d destroy a priceless fresco or a vase. "My lord," I whispered, "I am the only one of my kind. Would you kill a wolf with fur of purest silver, if it wandered into your steading?"

He pondered it, then drew away from me, shaking his head. "I cannot say. Perhaps it was led by Odhinn, to my spear. I do not understand this thing you say you are."

It was true, and a mercy to me. Even he, the least unsubtle of Skaldi, understood pleasure in its simpler terms. It was not much, but I was grateful for it. "I am your servant, my lord," I said, bowing my head and setting the rest aside. It was enough. He reached for me, then, running his fingers through my hair, and drew me down to him.