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Kushiel's Pupil	By : Seraphis Category: G through L > Kushiel's Trilogy Views: 5698 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Kushiel s Trilogy, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Kushiel's Pupil
- 2-TWO
- 3-THREE
- 4-FOUR
- 5-FIVE
- 6-SIX
- 7-SEVEN
- 8-EIGHT
- 9-NINE
- 10-TEN
- 11-ELEVEN
- 12-TWELVE
- 13-THIRTEEN
- 14-FOURTEEN
- 15-FIFTEEN
- 16-SIXTEEN
- 9
- 10
- 11
TEN

The morning of the Longest Night, we broke our fasts sparingly. There was sweet, milky tea and freshly-baked bread, fragrant with rosemary and soft centred cheese, butter, honey, and winter apples, roasted and filled with cream and cinnamon. I ate with a will, knowing that I should not eat again till the masque at the palace.

It had snowed during the night, and the courtyard had furthermore iced over, so my father and I were reduced to minimal stretches and slow reviews in mother’s hypocaust-warmed garden, where Eugénie’s prize flower bulbs slept for the winter. I chafed at the slow going, and complained that Xephane nó Eglantine taught me in mother’s study, clearing the centre of the room and piling a load of books on my head to teach me to curtsey, but papa pointed out that Xephane’s instruction did not involve blades, and even wooden ones could do irreparable damage to my mother’s books and scrolls.

I was spared my lessons for the day, and Xephane did not even come to the house. I learnt later that she had been commissioned by Cereus House to teach their ten-year-olds a brief presentation for the Midwinter Masque being held on Mont Nuit.

There were some hours of idleness yet before Favrielle’s outfitters would arrive to dress us. It had been decided, rather at the last minute, that both Hugues and Ti-Philippe would attend me, as there were two hounds in the legend of Sadbh, Sceolan and Bran. Favrielle made a fuss about it, but it had been her idea to begin with, and she preferred the symmetry which the addition of Hughes added to her motif.

I spent as much of the morning as I was allowed outside in the snow, which was still falling in heavy flurries. I built fortresses and assailed them with ice-ships and models of siege engines which my uncle Mahieu and his son, my favourite cousin, Sanguieur, had helped me build. They were small trebuchets, operated by levers and springs, and since their initial assembling, I had often taken them apart and made small adjustments.

Soon, I tired of sitting in the cold, and, gathering up my playthings, I trundled back into the house. I admit, I rather left the models scattered across my floor, and rushed into the kitchen to accept the bowl of warm milk Eugénie had prepared for me. I sat in front of the stove with my frozen toes, with her cat curled in my lap until Clory came to collect me for my bath.

I sat and soaked in scented, frothy bubbles as Clory scrubbed my hair, and I luxuriated in it, trying to ignore the crowded tension in my belly at knowing that I would soon be among all the peers of the realm, and not merely a minor Siovalese heir, but as a future fosterling of the reigning house of our sovereign nation. Even so young, I was very conscious of the increase in status this brought, and doubly conscious of the attention it would confer on me. At least, I thought, there was a chance of seeing Taurus. To be sure, for all the new companions I had met, he was the one with whom I had most easily identified. For aught that he was some three years my senior, and elegantly knowledgeable in all minutiae of court, he had not once made me feel awkward or provincial. I like Yseulte, too, but she was so very much a thing out of a women’s world, and would not understand such things as I yearned for. She could not comprehend my exhilaration at Cassiline drills, at seeing small mechanical parts moving with clockwork precision, or reading from folios of old military campaigns in unfrequented studies.

That was another thing I looked forward to on my visits to the palace. I was often unobserved, if I could first slip away from attendants, and as I kept to myself in quiet places, I was not gainsaid. I had found a study, I knew not whose, but it stood empty whenever I was in it. It was a simple enough room, lacking ostentation, and free from identifying marks of any kind. There were no signets or letters on the desk, nor tokens of the individual to whom it was reserved. Many peers may be in residence at the palace at any given time, and in the winter, there are more than ever, and I had little interest as to the one who had compiled the contents of this study. However, the contents themselves, well, they were another matter entirely.

There were books, folios, wrapped parchments, in all languages, depicting military history and strategy in the most fascinating terms. There were stories of battles fought, as related by their generals, and by troops involved, calculations and theories of war, even measurements of battlefields and postulations of strategies should they be fought upon again. Mostly, these were in d’Angeline, but there were also a good deal of treatises in Caerdicci and Hellene, and a fair few in Akkadian, which I could speak tolerably, but which I was no great talent at reading.

The study itself was in an unfrequented corner of the palace, but it was an expansive room with some very singular furniture. The centrepiece of it all was a table about six feet square, depicting Terre d’Ange, a fair deal of Skaldia in the east, Euskerria, and much of Aragonia to the west, and all of the islands of Alba and Eire. Upon it were ranged a number of small figures, representing strongholds and assets of power, whether they were fortresses or bodies of men, ships, or sovereigns. The terrain of the map had been carefully printed upon with representation of the terrain, such as mountain ranges, forests, and bodies of water, so that the greatest verisimilitude was achieved. This board was the source of hours of fascinating study for me, and though I never touched the figurines thereupon, I always studied them with interest every time I entered. Usually, they were unchanged, but once or twice there was a small piece, denoting a company of infantry or cavalry, and once a ship, moved in some slight way.

There was another desk, this one for writing, occasionally scattered with papers, but there was never any trace of correspondence, and nothing to indicate the inhabitant of the study. A smaller desk, as for a scribe, lay a little to the left, nearly hidden in a corner, and that was always swept clean, save an inkwell, pen, and a small knife to trim the pen with.

And then there were the bookshelves. Filled with fascinating histories and instruction manuals for strategising, ranging from explanation defining guides for beginning students to complex formation lines for armies, based upon field position, troops, number, terrain, and even weather. I did not understand most of these, but I found endless interest in the histories, which were as good as the play to me. I had spent a good deal of time there, alone, reading from folios and replacing them as quickly. Betimes, I had recourse to asking my mother what certain terms meant, and not always in d’Angeline, but if she guessed that I was invading the study of an unknown peer, she said nothing. All knowledge is worth having, and after all, she ruled a Siovalese county.

I wondered what Taurus would make of it, this wondrous cavern of knowledge, he who was so eager to plight his troth to the Universities of Iskandria, to give his scholar’s mind to the Hellenic influences and austere ancient wisdom of Menekhet, but then Favrielle’s apprentices arrived, and I was caught up by two of them to be cosseted, painted, dressed, and dolled over the next two hours.

It was a dreadful process, but I had endured worse during my father’s training, and withstood quietly enough to make one of the apprentices favour me with a handful of sweets and a kiss before he left.

I stared at myself in the glass as the last hairpin was pushed into my elaborate coif, which was coiled into a braid studded with seed pearls and pinned like an ebony crown to my scalp. My costume was minimal, the mask beautifully cured leather, white and soft as butter, with fittings to accommodate my skull precisely. The costume was deceptively simple and clean, a single piece, fitting closely up under my chin with an effervescence of lace. The material was white silk, with the merest hint of embroidery, the threads of which were only a single shade bluer than the white, a pattern of leaves and wines and small flowers in looping spirals. The toes of the boots aped a pair of delicate hooves, divided as deer hooves are, into delicate points, cunningly wrought and gilt with the same pattern of wines and flowers as my costume. I felt rather more small and exposed in this costume than I had expected, but there was a short, warm cloak to go round my shoulders, of white ermine, to warm off the evening chill, and to give me the comfort of drapery.

En masque, I admit, I cut a mystical and sylvan figure, particularly when flanked by Ti-Philippe and Hugues. Their costumes were identical, though Hugues’ was larger by far. They wore hounds’ masks, noble, austere and wolf like, with upright ears. Their doublets were black and studded with metal rivulets at the shoulders, and they wore heavy leather collars with the names of the hounds they portrayed engraved in the silver dics appended thereupon. They were stark black and ominous behind me, tethered agents of the forest, a vanguard fit for a deity.

Mother and father surpassed us all.

Poised and elegant, glittering in white linen and gold, wearing the masks of Isis and Osiris, bearing the regalia of divine office, they painted a stark and beautiful picture of ancient glory. There really was a sort of magic in Favrielle’s genius, somewhat other than worldly.

We travelled to the palace in a coach. It was too cold to do aught else, and even with heated stones and fur blankets, I huddled enough to cause my mother to chide me for creasing my cloak. I had a care, after that, and by the time we reached the palace, I was loathe to leave the warmth and safety of the carriage

Of course, I knew in the end that needs must, and I followed my parents into the warm hall. Our names were announced. This time, my father and mother preceded me into the ballroom, regal and masked, and I, feeling dwarfed by Ti-Philippe and Hugues, followed the announcement of my name.

I saw Imriel first, my eyes flying to him, picking him out of the crowd like a lodestone swinging toward the north. He was dancing with the queen, a marginal step slower than the music to accommodate her, and still in rhythm. Sidonie came toward us, greeting my parents and lifting her mask to kiss my hand. She was some manner of exotic bird, in a clean-lined white gown and vivid jewel-toned feathers.

‘Ana, you look lovely. Sadbh and the king’s magic hounds, is it not?’ she laughed and clapped. ‘Come, the children are merrymaking in this corner, with the refreshments. I will take you to see your friends.’ She led me by the hand to a corner of the room where the children of the peerage were assembled, at least forty, all under thirteen. Among them it was easy enough to pick out Laurient, standing at right-angles to Eldora and Gaël de Morbhan, who was turned away, making conversation with Taurus.

I would have gravitated toward Yseulte, but she was speaking quietly with Béringuieur Roualt. She was smiling, and so was he, their heads bent together. I may have been a rank provincial, but even I could see how they stood apart from the others.

‘Montrève!’ an exuberant voice called. I looked up to see Taurus heading toward me, his young cousin Maphiste in tow. ‘Montrève! Joie to you on this Longest Night!’ he pushed his eagle’s mask back, grinning, and I did the same with the doe mask. He dropped a kiss on my brow.

‘Joie to you, Taurus,’ I turned toward Maphiste, whose arms were outstretched in a demand for an embrace. I kissed him dutifully, and he smiled. ‘Joie, Maphiste.’

‘Joie, Ana.’ He said, clinging to Taurus’ arm. ‘You look like a deer,’ he himself wore a simple black suit, embroidered with gold, wearing a black and gold domino, the colours of House Shahrizai.

‘I am a magic deer,’ I said, ‘and those,’ I gestured toward Hugues and Ti-Philippe, who stood patiently at the edge of the crowd of children, watching vigilantly, ‘are my magic hounds, Bran and Sceolan.’

Taurus took my arm, steering me toward the refreshment table. ‘What will you, Montrève? Have some food, and dance with me before someone carries you off.’

‘As you like, my Lord Shahrizai.’ I dipped a tolerable curtsey, and he laughed, clapping his hands in pleased astonishment.

‘Oh! I heard you were getting dancing lessons from a former Eglantine adept, but I did not know they were making a girl of you!’

‘They’re giving a spirited attempt.’ I replied coolly, taking such pastries from the finger-board as suited me. He laughed again, drawing some attention. From the corner of my eye, I saw Eldora heading toward me, Laurient skulking along in her wake. Maphiste abandoned Taurus for a waiter serving ices.

‘Joie to you on this Longest Night, Anafielle.’ Eldora said, embracing me. ‘How is it that you neglect me in favour of his boy?’ I nearly laughed aloud at her silliness.

‘You seemed busy.’ I nodded to Laurient. ‘Joie, Laurient.’

He leant forward, and drew me into his arms. He was dressed as an Admiral’s man, in a blue jacket with enormous jewelled buttons, decorated with the Navigator’s Star. ‘Joie.’ He smiled. ‘Ana,’ his lips twisted into a wry smile. ‘My mother will die of jealousy when she sees your whole family has been outfitted by Favriell nó Eglantine down to your retainers. Ah, well,’ he held out a hand. ‘Will you dance?’

I blushed and looked at Taurus. ‘I have promised the first dance to my Lord Shahrizai.’

Laurient chuckled good-naturedly. ‘Oh, well, I see I must defer. Hurry, then, there is talk of a game of rhythmomachy to entertain us children. I will not boast, but I am a deft hand at it.’

‘Oh?’ I smiled, for Ti-Philippe had taught me rhythmomachy, and he was no mean opponent, even against peers in the Hall of Games. ‘We shall have to see, then.’

‘I’ll not hurry for you, Trevalion,’ Taurus joked, ‘and I have heard that you are easily enough distracted. Mayhap I will entertain the vicomtesse well enough this Longest Night.’

Laurient’s mouth pursed, but he waved Taurus away. ‘I’ll not forget. One dance, Anafielle, and then you must come back.’

It was only one dance, but it was with Taurus. He had learnt very well the trick of soothing my self-awareness, complimenting my dancing without attributing it to Xephane, talking of his eagerness to see Kusheth, and how much fun we should have come summer in the City. For my part, I related to him the story of the marvellous study I had found, and the mysterious inhabitant, whom I never saw, and he promised that we should discover who it was. ‘We’ll rule the City, Montrève,’ he enthused. ‘Or at please the palace. I shall show you all the best places. And my grandpère’s townhouse has a tepidarium, as good as any bath in Tiberium! And my father says that I shall have my own library there.’ He smiled devilishly. ‘And some day, Montrève, you will meet my mother. Only, you must promise that you will never tell anyone that I know who she is. It is a great secret of my House, and dangerous to know.’ He spun me to a halt as the music stopped, and I faced him breathlessly. ‘Promise?’

‘I promise.’

He smiled, a mad-cap smile, his father’s smile. ‘I trust you, Montrève.’ He bent, and kissed me solemnly, his hands warm against my throat. ‘There, Montrève. We have a secret. Someday, we shall have hundreds together.’ He towed me back to the children’s corner, where Maphiste was waiting for him, and Yseulte, Laurient, Béringuieur, and Gaël de Morbhan were watching us idly.

‘Come, we have enough for teams of three.’ Laurient said, motioning toward the rhythmomachy board, which had been set up in a quiet alcove.

Taurus looked sidelong at me. ‘You, myself, and Gaël against Trevalion, Béringuieur, and the princess?’ he suggested. ‘Or is that unfair?’

I shrugged. ‘Maphiste?’

‘Too small to play. Cycles of one and a half, then.’ Taurus decided. ‘To board.’

We played and laughed and ate and talked, as children do, and once Eldora dragged Béringuieur up for a dance, claiming the song was her favourite. The boys cheerfully calumniated Béringuieur as allowing himself to be led about by every girl who bothered to try, and carried on jesting when he returned. I wondered idly whether they joked about me in my absence, and found that I didn’t care.

I would have liked to stay on through the play of the Winter Queen and the Sun Prince, but an odd thing happened, and truly, I found it so peculiar that I can do nothing but relate it to you. I was engaged very happily in childish banter, glancing round occasionally to catch sight of my mother, when a tall figure stepped up, quite close to me. At first I thought that it must be Hugues or Ti-Philippe, come to ensure my place at the viewing of the pantomime, but a questioning glance from Taurus told me it was not so. His smile had gone a little strange, and he was taking a rather guarded bow. I turned.

The man behind me was no stranger, with his mask pushed up over his forehead and his canny dark eyes set in a beautiful, fox-clever face. I curtseyed. ‘My Lord de Fhirze.’ It was the son of the Marquise Diànne de Fhirze, Tycélin, a handsome youth of nearly eighteen, who had flirted with my father during our supper with them not a week previous.

‘Little Anafielle de Montrève,’ he took my hand with a smile, and kissed it. ‘Joie to you, little one.’

Warily, I returned the smile. ‘Joie, my lord.’

‘Will you watch the play with me, vicomtesse? I would take it was a great favour if you would.’

I glanced at Taurus for a cue, almost without thinking. His blue eyes were shuttered, but a curious light had entered them. I dipped again. ‘My Lord de Fhirze, I am your servant.’ I expected him to hold out his arm for me; even at nine, I was tall enough to walk arm-in-arm with any grown man without discomfort. We breed tall in Verreul. But Tycélin de Fhirze scooped my hand into his casually, almost as though he’d not considered his actions, and towed me toward the false mountain crag on which the play would unfold.

‘Have you enjoyed the masque, vicomtesse?’ he inquired solicitously, and I looked round, relieved to see Ti-Philippe and Hugues were not four paces behind us.

‘My lord, I have.’

‘Good.’ To my surprise, his smile was one of genuine pleasure. ‘I hoped you would enjoy it. This is your first Midwinter Masque in the City of Elua, is it not?’

I nodded. ‘So it is, my lord.’ And then the lights dimmed, trumpets blared, and the play began.

I do not think I need relate it, how the Sun Prince enters and the Winter Queen drops her staff, how he puts the ring upon her finger, and she discards her mask and rags to become upright and beautiful, as the Night Crier strikes his gong and the horologists cry out the hour of midnight. It is a very old play. My mother says it is older even than Elua, an ancient tradition which he came to love. I cheered as the Queen shed her age and became the handsome Prince’s bride, cheered with everyone, with the voice of all the peers and attendants. I turned exuberantly and embraced Tycélin de Fhirze, upswept in the joy of the moment, how the new year had entered. He pressed me in his arms and kissed my temple, his arms slender steel cables beneath his corded silk jacket, and in that moment, in his smile, I saw somewhat familiar, his dark and shining eyes were eyes I had known all my life.

When the music of the trumpets had died away, I looked up at him. His face had changed again, settling into its habitual half-smiling cleverness. He was very handsome, was Tycélin de Fhirze, and I found myself wondering what a true-blooded scion of Naamah could possibly want with me. Certainly, I was conscious that I was due for a good position in the court, and that there were nobles who knew they could not begin too early to build up a rapport with me, and I dismissed his attentions as such. But I could not deny the motion of my own thoughts, how something in him called to me, like brother to brother.

Before I was sent away from the masque, before the attendees sank deeper into their cups and the entertainment became raucous, I sought out my friends. I embraced Laurient and Béringuieur, and got myself stuck with Maphiste clinging to me. As Hugues and Ti-Philippe came forward to collect me, I turned to Taurus. ‘Write to me,’ I said, ‘in Montrève. During the spring.’

He pressed my hands, and kissed me. ‘Of course. Joie, Montrève.’

Thus passed the Longest Night.

I was put down for the night in Yseulte’s quarters, for which I was grateful. I was not yet prepared to sleep alone in the palace, and I was still in a tizzy of excitement from the ball. Though we were excluded from the remainder of the festivities, a time of license in a city renowned for its permissiveness, we were not required, exactly, to go to sleep. An attendant brought a platter with various pastries and savouries from the finger-board for us to eat, and we talked long into the wee hours. There are a thousand things a pair of young girls can speak of, even two as different as Yseulte and I, not the least of which was boys. ‘Eldora likes Laurient.’ Yseulte confided in me, ‘thought she pretends not to. And Gaël, well, he dotes on Taurus, does he not?’ she snickered when I made a comment more suited to a sailor than to a girl of nine. I am d’Angeline. Even then, I was not ignorant of some things. ‘Who do you like?’ she nudged me. ‘You get on so well with all the boys, you’d never know, listening to you, that you aren’t one.’ Her voice held a faint note of envy. I shook my head ruefully.

‘Oh, they’re all too busy admiring you to bother with me, Yseulte.’ I curled toward her in the half-light cast by the flickering tapers. ‘They don’t see me as different from one another. Anyhow, I like them all. Even Maphiste. He’s a dear little thing.’

‘His elder sister is so lovely.’ Yseulte reflected with a sigh. At fourteen, Narcisse had attended the main body of the ball, but she had stopped by, on the arm of Estienne de Morbhan, to bid us joie, and to kiss her cousins.

‘All the Shahrizai are beautiful.’ I murmured. ‘Imriel is their kin, by his mother.’

‘Yes,’ she reflected, ‘but he has somewhat apart from them. He is more thoughtful, and,’ she smiled secretively, ‘he has the same eyebrows as the dauphine.’

I nodded. They did share similar features, the line of the jaw, the Courcel stubbornness. With his blue-black hair and dangerous beauty, it was easy to forget that Imri was Elua’s scion as much as Kushiel’s. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘Taurus is thoughtful, too.’

‘Yes.’ Yseulte snuggled closer to me, eyelids fluttering closed, ‘I suppose he is.’

It was not at all very many minutes later that she was asleep, and I followed soon thereafter, passing from the Longest Night into blessed silence, with the peace of Elua all round us.

~
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Kushiel's Pupil