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."