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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
- 4
- 5
- 6
FIVE
It did not surprise me, that Imriel had fewer scruples at Mavros’ proposition than my parents did. After all, he and the Shahrizai were kin. He had seen them entertain, had seen them languish, had observed them with their families, and had, no doubt, also seen them debauch. Furthermore, he trusted Mavros. My father did not like it, but deferred to mother in the matter, and she, in turn, to Imriel. Curiously enough, it seemed that Sidonie, too, was supporting my association with the house that had threatened, even before her birth, to dethrone her. It is true that she, herself, had declined their invitation, but she wished Imriel and I to go.
I heard, later, that Queen Ysandre had summoned Mavros Shahrizai, and made him swear, on pain of death, that nothing untoward should happen to me. I do not believe she thought I would be in any real danger, but it is true that she enjoyed discountenancing the Shahrizai in such ways, when she had the excuse.
I spent much time at the Palace over the next week, with my mother, though she was often closeted with either Ysandre or Imriel, while I was entertained by Sidonie. I came to like her a fair sight better during those hours, when I, with my restlessness expunged by my morning exercise with father, would walk with her in the Palace gardens, my hand in hers, while she told me stories of her childhood. I vaguely recalled her father, Drustan mab Necthana, Cruarch of Alba, as a man with her dark eyes and stubborn spirit, big, rough hands, and strange blue markings limned into his face, like my mother’s marque was limned into her back. I remembered liking him, the power in his presence, and in the affection he displayed for my parents. Sidonie seemed to know, already, my interests, and spoke knowledgeably on horses and hunting.
One afternoon, she brought me to the Royal stables, and showed me the pair of greys that had pulled the carriage to Eldora’s party. They were stabled together, and I remarked afresh how unique their lines were, and their peculiarly curved ears. ‘Do you like them?’ Sidonie inquired.
‘They are beautiful,’ I replied, ‘but I have never seen their like.’
‘Neither have many d’Angelines.’ She reached forward toward one of them, which had reached its nose over the stall door, and nuzzled her palm. ‘They serve to remind us that beauty is not confined to Terre d’Ange.’
‘Where are they from?’
‘Khebbel-im-Akkad. They were a gift from the Khalif.’
‘Oh, I met his daughter.’ I said unthinkingly, remembering a girl with hooded eyes and a beauty which was rendered the more striking by its exoticism.
‘Yes,’ Sidonie smiled. ‘Little Yseulte. She and her mother are visiting the City of Elua from the Khalifate, and Yseulte will remain here for tutelage till she is sixteen, and ready to try suitors. She will be your cousin, when I foster you.’
‘So, then, I will be your daughter, and not your sister?’
‘My mother has many things to attend to, and the responsibility of looking after a kingdom. As much as she would like to return to motherhood, she is not at liberty to give you the attention you will require. Besides, I have been of some experience in this field before I get with child myself.’ She stroked my cheek. ‘Would you prefer my mother?’
‘No.’ I said, a little quickly for politeness. ‘I mean, she is stern betimes, and you, well…Imri loves you, so there must be somewhat very special in you.’ She laughed at this.
‘I will be honoured, if you would yourself see it, rather than trusting blindly to Imriel’s judgment that which you cannot yourself perceive.’

I lifted my chin. ‘I do like you, majesty,’ I said, perhaps a little haughtily, ‘you give me more reason to respect you every day.’ At this, she smiled, and embraced me.
‘I hope, someday, to show you that I am more than a figurehead, and an object for distant respect.’
‘And I hope,’ I interposed, grinning back, ‘that I do not prove to embarrass you. Doubtless my mother has told you how she despairs of ever making me a lady.’
‘Well, you shall have lessons enough, in the Palace.’ She straightened. ‘I shall see to it.’ I looked dubiously at her. ‘Come, Anafielle, to my study. I have a gift for you there, should it be your pleasure to receive it.’
I bowed. ‘Your majesty will lead me anywhere, and I must follow.’ It was a paraphrase of something I had heard my father say, betimes, to my mother, which always pleased her, and Sidonie seemed, also, to find it charming. Taking me by the hand, she led me back into the Palace proper, and, as we passed through a hall, we encountered a peculiar character.

He was standing in the Hall of Portraits, in an attitude of waiting, dressed in military regalia, with close-cropped, iron grey hair and violet eyes. He impressed me, at once, as hunter, with a lounging quality that was too much like a wildcat for comfort, and an expression which might have made a hawk blink.
‘Uncle Barquiel.’ Sidonie greeted him frostily. ‘Pray, what is signified by your presence?’
‘Dauphine, I bring word from the Khalifate, to be shared only with you, or your mother.’ He spoke in brisk, clipped tones, shooting uncomfortable glances at me as he did so.
‘Ana, will you give me a moment?’ Sidonie laid a hand on my shoulder.
‘Of course.’
‘Whose brat is this?’ the man barked suddenly, and I felt a jerking desire to strike him, though I thought he would not hesitate to strike me back.
‘This, uncle, is Anafielle Verreuil, Vicomtesse de Montrève.’ Some sparked in Sidonie’ voice, and the man took two steps toward me, taking my chin in one hand and forcing my eyes up to his.
‘The daughter of Delaunay’s anguisette, eh?’ his tone became derisive. ‘No dart in this one’s eye, I see.’ I batted his hand away, conscious that he was Sidonie’s blood relative, naming him, in my mind, a l’Envers, and the former Royal Commander and sometime regent of Terre d’Ange. I did not care if he was the Sultan of Khebbel-im-Akkad, but he would not treat me so cavalierly.
‘I am, my Lord.’ I gave my Cassiline bow. ‘And that of Joscelin Verreuil.’ His bark of laughter startled me further.
‘A fine morsel you shall make for the court someday, little Montrève. Some diversion, perhaps, from the limp wrested inbreds we have crawling out of the woodwork.’
‘Uncle,’ Sidonie’s voice was commanding, ‘you will find that my mother is indisposed, but if you would please to wait for me, I shall be with you directly.’
‘Of course.’ He drawled lazily, and made a curt bow, scarce inclining his head. ‘I shall await you in the throne room.’
Sidonie took my hand, then, and led me to her study. It was a room filled with books, draped in greens and blues, with high windows which were, presently, covered by heavy, brocaded drapes. Motioning me to sit, she went to a recess, and withdrew a little box, wrapped in green velvet, about as large as my outstretched hand.
‘This was to be yours when you came to live here, but I cannot wait. You must promise, however, to use it only for writing to Imriel or myself until you are fostered proper. Agreed?’
‘Agreed.’ I lifted the lid, and found, nestled in a bed of silk, a pair of seals, one attached to the end of a signet, and the other set into a silver ring. I looked uncomprehendingly at the reversed shield, divided in three, with a swan, a sheaf of corn, and Kushiel’s dart, inset. I blinked, then looked at Sidonie.
‘Do you like it?’ she waited for my reply, almost eagerly, and I smiled at the mixture of excitement and trepidation in her eyes. I nodded.
‘Yes, I like it very much, your majesty. It is a fitting gift, and one which I shall use.’
‘Not till your fosterage, remember, unless it be to Imriel or me. It might be seen as impertinent, otherwise.’
‘I promise.’ I secreted the box in my pocket, and stood.
‘Now, Anafielle,’ Sidonie said, ‘I regret I must go entertain my uncle. Will you be all right on your own?’
‘I will go find Ti-Philippe.’ I replied. ‘I know where he is.’
‘It is well.’ She kissed me, and, leading me from her study, disappeared down the hall toward the throne room.
Though Sidonie had gone, I was not, however, alone. There were guards in every hall, and I knew Hugues and Ti-Philippe would be in the Hall of Games, so it was there I retired. I found Philippe dicing at a table with three other men, and he pulled me fondly onto his lap, kissing my hair. I smiled at his avuncular attentions, amused had having gone from entertaining the future queen to being embraced by a former sailor, and preferring by far the sailor.
‘Hey, little Ana,’ he said, ‘come to bring me luck?’
‘Philippe,’ I turned to him, brows knitting, ‘am I simply being contrary, or is Barquiel l’Envers the most distasteful bastard in the world?’
He laughed, as did his dicing companions. ‘Oh, I don’t know, Ana, your papa can be a right foul git where your mère’s safety is concerned.’ I slid from his lap, and studied the men sitting with him. They were all Palace guardsmen, between the ages of thirty and forty-five, and Ti-Philippe held undoubted seniority in their midst. As I looked down at the coins they had each collected, I realised that Ti-Philippe must know, and be friends with these men, as he was not cheating at all, and therefore, what followed had been a fairly even fall of luck on all sides.
‘Philippe, why was I never taught to play quoits?’
‘Well, when had we time to play children’s games with you?’ he withdrew a weathered and creased deck of cards from his pocket and handed it to me, instructing me to shuffle it.

‘We taught you the games we played, and you like them, do you not?’
‘Yes,’ I shuffled the cards, as he had taught me, flicking them over one another to ensure an even fall.
‘They are games I wished to play, and games you wished to learn. What is all this about quoits, anyway? Has someone introduced to you it?’
‘Yes, at a party.’
‘Well, you shall have plenty of your own games to teach these noble children, yourself. I’ll wager that none o them is a good hand at rubayar, or jack-a-knapes.’
‘Yes, but are those the sort of games that it is civilised to play?’
‘Civilised?’ he snorted. ‘They are the games of civilised d’Angeline men. Consider yourself well taught at them, and accept new knowledge as a gift.’ He seemed a little annoyed that I was questioning the merit of all the games he had taught me, and motioned impatiently to have his cards back. ‘Shall we have a game with four in hand, lads?’ he inquired of his companions, and they all nodded assent.
‘May I play?’ I reached into my pocket, and produced some small coins. ‘I promise to hold my tongue and not to cheat.’ Ti-Philippe glanced at his fellows.
‘She will be out of money after one hand.’ He assured them, and they all shrugged. I daresay they were curious to see how I would fare. He dealt the cards swiftly, with a familiar hand for the old deck, and we set to the game.

I was not out of funds by the end of the first round, nor, even at the second. I did not, it is true, win every hand, but I won enough that by the end of an hour, I was wealthier by some five ducats. When my mother came to collect me, she smiled ruefully at Ti-Philippe. ‘It is one thing to dice with my daughter in Montrève, where the roughest company she may fall into is that of Charles Friote, but here? In the Hall of Games? Ah, talk will spread, Philippe.’
‘Well, and so,’ I replied defiantly, shooting a grin at our steward, ‘it is a game of civilised men.’ I parroted him, and he coloured.
‘Lady Phèdre, it is only that…well, she asked to join the game, and she is a fair hand. Besides, it isn’t as though some Bryony adept will be carting her off to the Night Court the moment they hear she plays wagering games.’
Mother laughed. ‘Come along, we will retire to the house. The Trevalion hunt is on the morrow, and then we give Anafiel to Imriel’s keeping for the next four days, and wish him and those poor Shahrizai the joy of her.’
As Ti-Philippe stood, he murmured, ‘I hear Barquiel l’Envers is returned from his sojourn in the Khalifate.’
‘Yes,’ mother’s face turned solemn. ‘It seems as though Menekhet is on the rise.’
~
Papa escorted me to the Trevalion hunt, which was held a little way out of the City. I had been impatient to ride Hephaestos again, for much of the travelling within the City of Elua had been by carriage. Hephaestos greeted me warmly when I went to saddle him, whickering effusively and thrusting his nose into my belly, lipping at the buttons on my jacket. He kept a very jaunty pace, as we rode, and I felt so keenly the happiness of riding him that I began to sing aloud, a charming country air which my aunt, Jehane Verreuil, had taught me.
When we arrived on the scene of the hunt, Laurient and his father greeted us immediately, and my father was whisked away to find some bolts for his bow. Laurient dismounted to greet me, and I did the same, giving him the kiss of greeting. ‘It is good to see you, Anafielle,’ his grey eyes sparkled, ‘for I am not yet allowed to join the hunt, and my father sees no reason to allow me any other companions. Come, will you have some refreshment before our little excursion?’
I accepted, and he led me toward a pavilion decorated with the Trevalion arms, in which was a board, with cheese and bread, and a flask of a warm cordial. Laurient poured two glasses, and sliced a bit of cheese, offering me a glass. ‘Where are we going to ride?’
‘Well,’ he motioned toward the outside, ‘the hunt will, of course, be held in the wood, but there are a few orchards and vineyards through which we have leave to promenade. Do you think that appeals to you, or shall we simply go round to the highway?’
‘No, no.’ I shook my head. ‘That sounds charming, indeed. I have just gotten off the highway, and it is very dry. Observe, the dust upon my boots.’
‘Well enough,’ he paused, taking a mouthful of cordial. ‘Will you have a fresh horse?’
‘Oh, no. Hephaestos will be so put out if I should stable him now. He is jealous of me, and has not, besides, had much exercise lately. I think he would sulk at me on the way home if I did not take him.’
‘As you wish. My own courser, Stygies, has Aragonian bloodlines, and is impatient enough to have some exercise.’ We left the pavilion, and outside found a pair of attendants holding our mounts. Hugues had accompanied my father and I, in order to chaperon me, and he sat astride his own horse.
Laurient and I mounted up, and I followed him to the orchards he had mentioned, talking all the while about various fêtes and gatherings I had endured over the course of the past two weeks, not the least of which was a dinner with Apollonaire and Diànne de Fhirze and their families, at which we had been treated to live wrestling in their dining room as we supped. ‘They are notorious,’ Laurient observed, ‘and have been for over twenty years. It is not that they are so outrageous, but that they have carried on like a pair of Orchis adepts even now, well into their fifties.’ I knew it to be so, indeed, for the wit had flown thickly during the evening, and even my father had not been exempt from bearing the brunt of a few bantering remarks.
It was not strange, for me, to see my mother smiling and laughing with hosts, but papa had been very civil himself, even bearing up to the flirting of the Marquise’s son with a few fine jests concerning the discipline of Cassiline chastity allowing only for the most exquisite of Naamah’s servants. I, myself, had been taken under the wing of the Marquis’ daughter, a girl of fifteen, who appeared rather older, owing to the ironic glint in her eye. She had spoken to me at length of the niceties of wrestling, blushing when her parents’ jests became rather more libertine than was wont in the presence of young children. We are d’Angeline, however, and love is well known to us all.
‘They are a singular pair, and their children more so. I did not observe the presence of a wife or husband of either the Marquis or Marquise.’
‘Ah, that is another little peculiarity of their choices,’ Laurient nodded sagely. ‘They produced their heirs by contract with Bryony House. It is said that the wager was a pair of true-blooded heirs against their entire estate, and the Marquisate came out the winner.’
‘It is indeed singular,’ I marvelled that Bryony adepts had made so wild a bargain, but it did take much of the guesswork out of producing a heirs to an estate that was double seated, and neither was it much a surprise that the wild pair of Apollonaire and Diànne had dared to mingle their blood with that of one of the Houses of the Court of Night-Blooming Flowers.
‘Tell me,’ Laurient interposed upon my thoughts, ‘have you friends your age in Montrève?’
‘Not my age,’ I reflected, ‘but there is a crop of children younger than I. I have friends. Ti-Philippe, our steward, and Charles Friote, who is one of our guardsmen at Montrève, he taught me to trap and skin rabbits. I spend my days very well, at my county. What of your friends?’
‘Well, you met Béringuier Roualt, and Gaël de Morbhan. Betimes we ride together, or have our lessons with the same tutor. But I like you better than I like them.’

We rode for some time, dismounting here and there to observe a stream, or a late-migrated group of geese, speaking about Montrève and the Duchy Trevalion, at which Laurient had spent the autumn. He told me of the sailors, of soldiers, and I found that we had a mutual friend in Admiral Quintilius Rousse, who had been a good friend of my mother, and had known her since her childhood, and visited us often in Montrève. I knew, also, his son, an Eiran giant, and Imriel’s boon companion, Eamonn mac Grainne, of whom I had always heard much, but whom I had only met thrice.
By the end of the hunt, we had come round to the pavilions, and a feast had been spread out in the largest, and I ran toward my father. I would have embraced him, but I saw that his hands were covered to the wrist in blood. ‘I skinned the buck,’ he explained, before I had a moment to worry whether it was his, ‘and have not had time to make ablutions.’
‘Here, I will help,’ I led him to a salver of warm water, and received a cotton rag from an attendant, and sloughed away the drying blood. Laurient was speaking solemnly with his father, but our eyes caught briefly as he passed, and he winked at me.
‘Did you enjoy your ride?’ my father inquired.
‘Yes. And the hunt?’
‘Well enough,’ he grinned at me. ‘There are times when I have been in better form.’ My hand tightened on his arms, and he winced. ‘My left arm, Ana,’ he murmured, hair falling into his eyes. I apologised, for it was the arm that had once been shattered by a morningstar mace, nearly twenty years ago. ‘It caught between myself and the buck, as it was in its last struggles. It is a little tender.’ I traced my fingers up the veins and corded muscle of my father’s arm as I dried away the water, as though I might impart a measure of my own strength into him, to ease the pain. When I looked up at him, he was smiling. ‘It is nothing more than a brief discomfort, love,’ he bent forward, and kissed my forehead, and his hair fell round our faces like cables of wheat. ‘Let us avail ourselves of the Lord de Trevalion’s bounty.’
We fell to the board, and it was a bounty indeed. The buck they had felled was roasting, and being served in dense slabs, fresh from the fire. I filled my plate with dripping venison, seasoned with slices of garlic and rubbed over with bruised rosemary sprigs. I wondered whether there should be much hunting at the Shahrizai lodge, and if I should be permitted to join, rather than riding on the sidelines with the children. I had hunted, at Montrève, and was even a fair hand with the bow. If I could not send a shaft much farther than ten feet, I was at least a more than accurate shot. I wondered, too, how I should get on with Mavros Shahrizai’s mysterious son.
I remember, now, that day, as a warm and shadowy descent into the complexity of my future life. I recall well how simple riding with Laurient was, and how his eyes shone for me, how I loved him without reason, our young hearts rendered eternal in friendship. I recall, too, that Bertran watched me as closely as his son, and that I liked him as little as I had Barquiel l’Envers.
There are many people I have, in my life time, miscalculated, and more, I daresay, that even my mother misjudged, astute in the ways of human nature, and well versed in the arts of covertcy. I admit freely that I sorely underestimated both Bertran de Trevalion and the uncle of the queen.

~
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Kushiel's Pupil