Kushiel's Chosen

steep going and we rode single file; I found myself looking around at the crowded trunks, half-expecting to find a pair of green eyes peering back. Kazan was impervious; Glaukos had spoken truly, he feared naught but his own especial demon.
    It took an hour's time, but we reached the summit of the island without seeing a Leska. Here, the trees thinned, giving way to barren stone-and a spectacular view of the archipelago. I confess, I gasped in awe to see it, spreading away from me in all directions. In the late-afternoon sun, the distant sea shone like hammered gold, other islands lying dark and hazy on the horizon. Behind us I could see the harbor of Dobrek clearly, shaped like a crab's claw.
    A simple watchman's hut stood atop the summit, and a great pyre of wood some distance from it in a circle of well-cleared ground. A pair of Kazan's men came out to meet us, saluting and grinning. He greeted them in Illyrian, which I more than half understood. I sat patting my mare's sweat-darkened neck and wondering why he had brought me when Kazan pointed to the west and said, "There." There was the vague outline of a low island-Halijar, it was called-a bit to the left, and beyond, only the sea, and a broad, shining path laid on it by the sun. "My lord?" I asked politely.
    "Is in that way Marsilikos lies, eh?" he said, glancing sidelong at me. "I am thinking you would want to see it, you. When Nikanor comes, we will see his sails, eh, and a runner will come to tell of it. So you see, and you will know, you, when he comes."
    It was an unexpected kindness, and it touched me; tears pricked my eyes and the bright vista swam blurrily. "Thank you," I said, meaning it.
    "Yes. You are welcome, you." Kazan sat at his ease in the saddle, reins loose, hands crossed on the pommel, and looked steadily at me. "I am thinking too, that you are well now, eh? And we have a bargain."
    I took a deep breath, without so much as a twinge from my ribs, and let it out slowly. "I am, my lord, and we do. Let it be kept."
    Kazan inclined his head. "Tonight, yes?" he said, then added, grinning, "Or earlier, if we ride fast, eh!"
    I laughed despite myself.

FIFTY-FOUR
    For all his jesting, Kazan did not hasten our return, but held his eagerness in check and rode at a measured pace. Dusk was falling by the time we reached the house and turned the horses over to the care of Lukin and Oltukh, and I saw that the terrace had been made ready for dining.
    Well and so, I thought, he wants this to be properly done. "As it please you," I said to him, plucking at my skirts, "I would bathe, and change into somewhat smelling less Of horse, my lord. So it would be done in Terre d'Ange."
    "I guessed that, I," he said, amused. "D'Angelines, you are always bathing, eh? Go."
    I went, and found that in my room, the rose-damask gown had been laid out fresh, pressed with hot irons. In the bathing room were clean linen towels, and a small flask of scented oil. It amused me that Kazan had prepared so well for this, and made me like him a little better.
    'Twas nonetheless true that he had forced me into this bargain, and that I did not forgive. Still, I had made it, and so doing, given consent. And as I was Naamah's Servant, so was I bound by it. I thought on that, smoothing fragrant oil into my skin in the steam-wreathed room. Naamah herself had made bargains for less.
    Mayhap there were other ways she could have achieved the same end, but such was her gift, and such she gave. Well, I thought, combing out my hair in my bedchamber; if I am truly her Servant, it is much the same. Let it be done, then, and the bargain kept freely. My lady Naamah, pray you see that Kazan Atrabiades keeps his as well as I do. I am in your hand, and must trust to your mercy.
    I asked Marjopí in faltering Illyrian if she had a mirror I might borrow, but she merely looked at me askance and made a sign against evil, disgruntled by the night's proceedings. I knew full well the Illyrians had no proscriptions against mirrors, for Glaukos' wife Zilje had a bronze-handled one she used. No mirror, no cosmetics, nor adornments, nor hairpins; still, I made the best of it, donning a long, shimmering necklace of shells given me by Oltukh and twining my hair into a lover's-haste knot at the nape of my neck.
    It would have to do.
    And it did well enough, I daresay, for when I walked onto the terrace, Kazan did not rise, but merely sat and stared, open-mouthed. There is a feeling one comes to know, in the Service