Kushiel’s Dart

Chapter Sixty-Five

I have known worse. The castle of Morhban is set atop a rocky escarpment over the sea, impregnable on three sides, and well-guarded from the front. It was a cheerless place on a grey day, spring having gained but the most tentative of footholds in this outlying land.

All of us shivered on the ride, Neci’s family-even the children-silent and fearful. But de Morhban’s word was good, and he saw to it that they were well-housed, the horses stabled.

In this, he included Hyacinthe, who ground his teeth, but did not protest. He would have included Joscelin as well.

"Your grace." Joscelin controlled himself with an effort. "I am oath-sworn to protect my lady Phèdre nó Delaunay. Do not ask me to foreswear myself."

"So you say." Quincel de Morhban looked at Joscelin’s Mendicant cloak. "Then again, it is the sort of mindless loyalty a Cassiline would voice. Do you actually perform as a Mendicant, priest?"

After a moment, Joscelin gave a curt nod.

"Fine. Then you may entertain my household."

A couple of de Morbhan’s men-at-arms nudged each other, grinning like boys at the prospect; it was the only thing on that journey that made me smile. It had been a long, dull winter in Morhban, I suspected.

"Yes, your grace." Joscelin bowed, a Cassiline bow, unthinking. "Harm her," he said under his voice, "and you will die. That I promise."

"Do you?" De Morhban raised his brows. "But she was born to be harmed." At that, he turned, summoning his chamberlain. Joscelin grabbed my arm again, painfully hard.

"Phèdre, don’t do this. I swear, I’ll find another way-"

"Stop." I laid one hand on his cheek. "Joscelin, you made Cassiel’s Choice. You can’t keep me from making Naamah’s." Reaching into my bodice, I fished out Ysandre’s ring, pulling the chain over my head. "Just keep this safe, will you?"

I thought he might protest further, but he took it, his face changing, taking on the impassive expression I’d seen so often in Gunter’s steading and then in Selig’s, while he had to watch me serve as bed-slave to our Skaldic masters.

But that had been slavery; this was not.

De Morhban had not lied. He sent for a priest, who came in the black robes of Kushiel, unmasked, carrying the rod and weal. She was an older woman, whose look held all the terrible compassion of her kind. De Morhban treated her with respect, and I saw that he would honor our contract.

For the most part.

"And the signale?" he asked, courteously, pen at the ready.

It took me by surprise; I’d nearly forgotten, after Skaldia, that such things existed. I started to reply, then caught myself. "Perrinwolde," I said. It did not seem right, anymore, to use Hyacinthe’s name.

Nor did it summon the safety it once had.

De Morhban nodded, writing it down. The priest put on her bronze mask, taking on Kushiel’s face, and set her signet in the hot wax to seal it.

"You know I will ask questions upon your departure," de Morhban said, passing me the contract for my signature. "Our contract does not bind me from that. Nor from questioning Rousse and his men, who are on Morhban territory."

"Yes, my lord." I wrote my name in a flowing hand. "But questions are dangerous, for they have answers."

He looked curiously at me. "So Anafiel Delaunay taught you to think. I’d heard as much, though it was hard to credit. There was no thought in your pretty head the night / met you."

No thought, at least, that wasn’t connected to the lead in Melisande’s hand. I flushed, remembering. De Morhban nodded to the Kusheline priest, who bowed and departed silently.

"Are you Melisande’s creature?" he asked me, musing. Reaching out, he took up the diamond that lay on my breast, drawing me to him. I stumbled a little, feeling my heartbeat speed. "I thought so, then. Now, I am not sure. What game is she playing? Tell me this much, at least; did she send you? Is this some strange ploy of hers, to see where my loyalties lie?"

"No questions, my lord," I whispered, my head spinning. "You have pledged it."

"Yes." He dropped the diamond. "I have."

There are things that one can see in patrons, when one serves Naamah. I saw it in him, the fear that could cut desire. He had come to doubt, since his decision. He had the ill luck to rule a province that contained House Shahrizai, and all its wiles. I took a step back and made another choice, as rash as the first.

"No," I said, and met his startled look. "One answer, my lord, and then you will honor our contract, or I will leave. No. If I am anyone’s creature, it is Delaunay’s. And if I am here, it is at his bidding."

"From beyond the grave." He made a statement, not a question of it. "He honored his vow to Prince Rolande, I heard. To the grave and beyond." De Morhban laid both hands on the table, considering our contract. "If that is true, then you are here at Ysandre’s bidding."

I did not answer. "I am here to serve your pleasure, my lord," I said instead, nodding at the contract.

"So you are." He drew his attention away from it and looked wryly at me. "It would please me, Phèdre nó Delaunay, to have you bathed and attired. I’ve no taste for Tsingani wenches, if you don’t mind."

"As my lord wishes." I curtsied.

The women of Morhban were kind enough to me, hiding curiosity behind their habitual silence; they are not a talkative folk, those who dwell in outermost Kusheth. I was led away to a bath that was fairly sumptuous, then waited, drying in silken robes, while a seamstress brought in an array of garments to determine what would best fit and suit me. For all its bleakness, Morhban did not lack for finery. We found a suitable gown, a rich scarlet with a low back, that showed to good advantage my completed marque.

I confess, I admired myself in the mirror, tucking my hair into a gold mesh caul and turning this way and that to see how the striking black lines of my marque emerged from the base of the gown, rising to the finial, gazing at my face to see how the gown’s color brought out the deep bistre of my eyes, the scarlet mote of Kushiel’s Dart.

I suppose I should have dreaded this assignation, it is true; it was necessity that forced it upon me. But I had been pledged since the first bloom of womanhood to the service of Naamah, and in a way I cannot voice, a deep pleasure pervaded me at the thought of practicing my art. I thought of Joscelin and of Hyacinthe, and guilt wormed cold within me. I thought of Gunter and Waldemar Selig, and shame made me small. And yet. I remembered my vows in the Temple of Naamah, the offering-dove quivering in my hands.

This was what I was.

What strength I possessed, it stemmed from this.

Quincel de Morhban received me in his garden, something I never would have suspected, from either the man or the place. It was an inner sanctum, like Delaunay’s, like I had known in the Night Court, only vaster. It was shielded from the elements, warmed by a dozen braziers and torches, with mirrors set to gather the sun’s heat when it availed, and scrims of sheerest silk that could be drawn across the open roof to protect the delicate flora.

In all defiance of the early spring chill, a riot of flowers bloomed: spikenard and foxglove, azalea, Lady’s slipper and Love-Not-Lost, orchids and phlox, lavender and roses.

"You are pleased," de Morhban said softly. He stood beside a small fountain, awaiting me; his eyes drank in the sight of me. "It costs me thousands of ducats to maintain this place. I have one master gardener from L’Agnace, and one from Namarre, and they are ever at odds with each other. But I reckon it worth the cost. I am D’Angeline. So we count the cost of pleasure." He reached out one hand for me. "So I count your cost."

I went to him unhesitatingly. He drew me against him, his lean body clad in black velvet doublet and breeches, with the de Morhban crest on his shoulder. I felt the dark tide of desire loose in my marrow, as one hand clasped hard on my buttocks, pressing me to him, and the other grasped the nape of my neck, entangled in the mesh caul, drawing my head back. He kissed me, then, hard and ruthlessly.

I had chosen this. For what had happened before, for Melisande, for Skaldi; I had repented, I had been scourged. With a relief so profound it was like pain, I surrendered to it, to this Kusheline lord, with his strong, cruel hands.

Lifting his head, Quincel de Morhban looked at me with something like awe. "It’s true," he whispered. "What they say…Kushiel’s Dart. It’s all true."

"Yes, my lord," I murmured; if he’d told me the moon was locked in his stables, I’d have said the same, at that moment. De Morhban released me, turning away to pluck a great silvery rose, mindful of its thorns.

"You see this?" he asked, placing it in my hand and folding my fingers about the stem. "It exists nowhere else. My Namarrese gardener bred it. Naamah’s Star, he calls it." His hand was still around mine; he closed it, tightening my clutch on the stem. Thorns pierced my skin and I gasped, my bones turning to water. The silvery rose blossomed between us, fragrant in the torch-lit night air, while blood ran, drop by slow drop, from my fist. De Morhban’s gaze held me pinioned, his body close, rigid phallus pressed against my belly. He released my hand and I sank to my knees, divining his desire, unfastening his breeches, the rose falling forgotten as I took him in my hand, his hard-veined and throbbing phallus, slick with my own warm blood, and then into my mouth.

All around us his unlikely garden opened onto the night as I performed the languisement until he drew away at the end, spending himself on me, in the garden, drops of milky fluid lying on my skin, on the dark leaves and silken petals, pearlescent and salty. He groaned with pleasure, then gazed down at me, freeing my hair from the caul with a harsh twist, so that it cascaded about my shoulders and down my back.

"Dinner," he said, catching his breath. "And then I will show you my pleasure-chamber, little anguissette."

On my knees, I touched the tip of my tongue to my lips, catching a drop of his seed. Pleasure-chamber. My very skin shivered, anticipating the lash. "As you wish, my lord," I whispered.

It is not needful, I think, to detail what befell thereafter; it was a good meal, a very good one indeed, for de Morhban’s cooks were the equal of his gardeners. We had fresh seafood, baby squids so new-caught they fairly squirmed, cooked in their own inky juices. And after that, a stuffed turbot that I weep to remember, with rice and rare spices. Three wines, from the Lusande Valley, and a dish with apples…I cannot recall it now. De Morhban’s eyes were on me through the whole of it, keen and grey and knowing. He had the measure of it now, what I was. How desire ran like a fever in my blood.

"Why did Ysandre send you?" he asked softly, testing.

I pushed my chair back from the table, struggling to my feet, fighting the dark blood-tide. Somewhere, I thought, listening, somewhere Joscelin is telling tales to de Morhban’s House Guard. I clung to the memory of him like a talisman, his deadly dance with Selig’s thanes in a driving snowstorm, remembrance cooling my blood, shaking my head.

"No questions," de Morhban said quickly. "No questions. Phèdre, forgive me, sit."

"You have sworn it in Kushiel’s name," I murmured, but I sat. He reached across the table, tracing the line of my brow above my left eye, the dart-stricken one. Calluses; a warrior Duc’s fingertips.

"In Kushiel’s name," he agreed.

So it began.

It ended as it always does, with such things; he had a full pleasure chamber and flagellary, the Duc de Morhban, and he took me there, in the cool depths of the earth beneath his castle at the outermost edge of Terre d’Ange, setting the torches ablaze until it might as well have been Kushiel’s domain, wringing me limp with blood and sweat, his face distorted behind the lash, and the sound of my own voice, begging, pleading, as he rode me at the end, bestriding me like a colossus.

He used flechettes, too. I hadn’t counted on that.

A thousand deaths, of agony and pleasure, I died there in Quincel de Morhban’s chamber. He was good, better almost than any patron I had known, when at last he laid civility aside for violent pleasure, the mask of lust obscuring his features. He was a Kusheline, it was in his blood. He wanted-oh, Elua, he wanted!-to hear me give the signale. If he gave up his questions, it was for that, waiting. And if I had given it, I would have answered.

But I had given the signale to one patron only, who had sundered me from myself. Quincel de Morhban could command me, shuddering, to give up my very flesh, quivering in abject climax. He could, and he did, snarling with victory.

Not my signale.

And in the end, his exhaustion defeated us both.

"Take care of her," he bid his servants, weariness and profound satisfaction draining his voice, shrugging into silk robes, bowing in my direction. "Treat her gently."

They did, I trust; I don’t remember it, in truth. I saw faces approach, awe-stricken. They understand, in Kusheth, what it is to serve Kushiel. I hurt, in every part of me. And I was content. I closed my eyes, then, and let the deeper tide of unconsciousness claim me.

In the morning, I woke aching and sore, in clean linen sheets with stiff red bloodstains. De Morhban’s personal physician entered the room before I’d risen, eyes averted. He’d tended to me the night before, I understood; he checked such dressings as he’d applied, and rubbed salve into those weals that had opened in the night and bled. I felt better before he was done, and dismissed him.

Quincel had provided new clothing for me: fine stuff, fit for travel, but of a good quality, such as Kusheline noblewomen wear. I thanked him when we breakfasted together.

"I thought mayhap you’d no further need of your Tsingani rags," he said, grey eyes gleaming. I raised my eyebrows, knowing it was best not to reply. "Here," he said then, brusquely, and pushed something across the table.

It was a ring, a flawless circle of black pearls set in silver, small and immaculate.

"It is customary, is it not, to give a patron-gift?" De Morhban’s mouth quirked wryly. "It was my mother’s; I’d planned on giving it to my wife. But there are many women among whom to choose for a bride, and I do not think I shall meet another anguissette. Wear it then, and think of me sometime. I hope you will not give up Naamah’s service altogether, Phèdre nó Delaunay."

There are times to demur, and times not. This was not such a time. I slid the ring onto my finger, and bowed my head to the Duc de Morhban.

"When I think of you, my lord," I said, "I will think well."

He toyed with items on the table, restless and curious. "I shall await with great interest the resolution of the mystery you pose me," he said. "Pray that I do not regret my choice in this matter."

In truth, I did not know. All I had fathomed in our congress was that he had not determined where his loyalties lay. He was the sovereign Duc of Kusheth; whether the province stood with the Crown or against it was his to decide. In the end, I answered him simply.

"Your grace," I said, "I pray it too."

So we left it, crossed blades, unsure and unwary. He rang a bell and had Joscelin summoned, who burst into the room in a fury of agitation, eyes red-rimmed and sleepless, glaring accusations and fear at me. I looked mildly at him, over the rim of a teacup.

"Are you disappointed, Cassiline?" Quincel de Morhban asked, amused. "I am sorry. I would be curious, I confess, to try the mettle of one of your kind."

Joscelin shot him a look, then, that said he would be glad to try it, any time, any place, kneeling at my side. "Is it true, then? You’re all right, Phèdre?"

"His grace de Morhban honored his contract," I said, looking at Quincel, absently twisting the ring on my finger. It was easier than meeting Joscelin’s eyes, for he would see the deep languor in my bones, and disapprove, in his uniquely Cassiline manner. "And we are free to go, then, your grace?"

Quincel de Morhban made a face, at once frustrated and fulfilled. He gestured with one hand, setting us free, calling his servants to witness. "Our contract is complete," he said, brusque and formal. "You have free passage throughout Morhban, where you will. To the Royal Fleet and beyond." He paused, then added, "One day, Phèdre. I give you one day before I decide if it behooves me to question the Queen’s Admiral."

"Thank you, your grace."