Kushiel's Mercy

although she’d taught me to read faces, I couldn’t read hers in this moment. For the first time, it struck me— truly struck me—that this was a grave trust indeed. Cythera ran a serious risk in this scheme. If I failed, if I was caught, the consequences could be dire. I was leaving her to wait and worry, while her poor, besotted son chafed at his inactivity and I went off to attempt to seduce the woman he loved.
    It made me feel strange in my skin.
    “Be safe,” her ladyship said in a low voice. “Nothing more.”
    “My lady Melisande,” I said to her, “I swear to you in Blessed Elua’s name that I will make you proud.”
    She shook her head. “Just be safe.”
    It was a peculiar moment. I took it to be a final warning against taking any unnecessary risks, probably one that was well merited, given my exuberant spirits. I noted it duly.
    And then it was time to go.
    I boarded the flagship, waving a final farewell to those gathered on the docks. Solon had moved to stand at her ladyship’s side, and though he looked smaller and more wizened than ever next to her, she had laid a hand on his shoulder as though to draw strength from him. It was curious, and it made me feel oddly melancholy.
    Then Captain Deimos gave the order to raise the anchor and set to oars, and the ship began to move. Our prow nosed seaward and the harbor began to fall away behind us, taking my melancholy with it.
    I was bound for Carthage.
    Her ladyship needn’t have warned me against unnecessary exuberance. By the end of our first day at sea, my initial rush of excitement had settled into a more calm, calculating frame of mind. I examined the manifest of tribute that Solon had provided. He really had been generous. Gods above, the old ape doted on her ladyship! A lifetime of caution and restraint, and he was throwing it all to the wind, risking Carthage’s ire—and a considerable amount of money—in a mad scheme like this.
    And to whose benefit? That was the part that made me shake my head. Terre d’Ange and its spell-beleaguered Queen, who had insisted on pressing for her ladyship’s execution.
    Her ladyship’s own son, who, until Carthage struck and he desperately needed her help, had seemed perfectly willing to see her executed if it meant he got to wed his princess.
    Yet her ladyship and Solon were aiding him.
    Love makes fools of us all, I supposed. Solon loved her ladyship. And she loved her son Imriel, and bore a strong measure of guilt in the bargain. I’d heard the tales of what he’d suffered as a child, and I had to own, it sounded awful.
    One had to wonder about him.
    I knew what slavery had done to Sunjata. It had made him bitter. And as much as I loved his caustic wit, there were times when I wondered what he would have been like if he’d not been taken. He’d come from a line of warriors. He remembered his father dressing for battle, tall and strong, laughing deep in his chest. Teaching him to throw a spear, to lift his heavy shield. I knew how much it hurt Sunjata that that had been taken from him. One skirmish gone awry, and his father was dead and he’d become chattel.
    Imriel . . . Imriel was different.
    Well, of course he hadn’t been gelded. Two quick cuts of a slaver’s knife, and good-bye to the ballocks. Small wonder Sunjata was bitter. He’d been eleven years old. But from what I’d heard about the mad ruler of Drujan, Imriel had cause of his own to harbor soul-twisting bitterness, ballocks or no. And I hadn’t sensed that in him.
    Anger, yes. Of course he was angry. Either Astegal of Carthage had stolen his beloved, or he’d been unexpectedly thwarted in playing a very, very deep game to place himself on the throne of Terre d’Ange. I wondered which was true. If it was the latter, he played it very well.
    But then, he was her ladyship’s son.
    Such were the intriguing puzzles that occupied my mind during my voyage to Carthage.
    I pored over the manifest, making notes in my mind about which items were suitable for what purpose. Good hard coin was always suitable for a bribe, and I’d need a fair bit of it to set myself up with a decent household. There were various baubles and trinkets that might suffice for lesser personages. I might need them to gain access. Access to the Dauphine Sidonie, access to the magus Bodeshmun. Access, in time, to Astegal himself. I went over the things that Solon had told me.
    So much to be done.
    There was a very fine chess set listed in the manifest, with