Kushiel’s Dart

Chapter Forty-Three

Boisterous and crude he might be, but Gunter was a man of his word, and he had Joscelin’s chains struck the following morning. Knud, who harbored a fondness for me, took me to see it. I’d no doubt that Joscelin would keep his own word, but still, freedom was a heady thing to one who’d been kept in chains. He started briefly when the manacle about his neck was unlocked, muscles quivering with the urge to strike out.

But Cassiline discipline prevailed quickly, and he regained his composure, bowing obediently.

"Well, we will see, eh?" Gunter said. He jerked his thumb at one of his thanes. "Thorvil, you will stay with him today, and keep a watch. Let him do a carl’s work. Only, give him no weapons, eh? If he need break ice on the stream to fetch water, let him use his hands. Mayhap when he’s proved himself, we’ll let him chop wood or somewhat."

"Aye, Gunter." Thorvil fingered the hatchet in his own belt and grinned, showing a gap in his teeth, knocked out in a friendly contest of strength. "I’ll keep my eye on him, never fear."

From what I could see that day, Joscelin gave him no cause for concern. Indeed, he worked with a will, hauling buckets of water tirelessly from the stream to refill the cisterns of the great hall; no small task. Thorvil sauntered behind him, whistling and cleaning his fingernails with the point of his dagger.

And the women of Gunter’s steading stared.

None of them had seen Joscelin, save for a brief glimpse that first night, when he’d been brought in at the end of a line, half-wild and snow-covered. They got a good look at him now. Filthy and disheveled, smelling of the kennels, Joscelin was still, undeniably, a D’Angeline.

"He must be a prince in your land!" Hedwig whispered to me, awed, watching him emerge from the kitchen with his buckets empty. "Surely all the men do not look so!"

"Not all, no," I said wryly, wondering how Gunter would contend with this reaction. One of the younger women-Ailsa, her name was-contrived to brush into Joscelin, giggling when he blushed and dropped his buckets. Of the two men, I reflected, Joscelin might have a harder time of it.

Gunter and his thanes returned from the hunt flushed and triumphant, dragging a good-sized hart with them. He was minded to celebrate and we had a feast that night. Gunter got roaring-drunk, but not so drunk he didn’t have the presence of mind to have Joscelin chained by the ankle to a great stone bench by the hearth. At least, I thought, both admiring and despising his foresight, it was warm and indoors. Joscelin curled up in the rushes on the floor, exhausted beyond caring. Even if it hadn’t been for his oath, I don’t think he would have fled that night if Gunter had left him free with the door standing wide open.

As the cold winter days passed and Joscelin gave no indication of untrustworthiness, matters settled into a routine. One day, when Gunter and his thanes were out, Hedwig and I conspired to see Joscelin bathed. If I had been grateful for my first bath in the steading, I cannot even begin to fathom how much more so Joscelin was. We emptied the water twice, so filthy was it. And if I thought my bath had been well-attended, it was nothing to his. Women of all ages, from the giggling Ailsa to dour old Romilde, whom I’d never seen smile, crowded into the bath-room to peek at him.

The Joscelin of my earliest acquaintance would have died of mortification; now, he merely blushed and looked politely away, trying to preserve what little dignity they allowed him. Even the most retiring of the women, dark-eyed Thurid, came to see, shyly offering a clean woolen jerkin and hose that had belonged to her brother, killed in a raid.

He looked dismayed to see his grey Cassiline rags piled for discard, so I gathered them carefully. I understood; it was all he had left of home. "Don’t worry," I promised him. "I’ll see them washed and mended if I have to do it myself."

I spoke to him in Skaldic, as I tried always to do when others were about. His understanding had improved, and his speech. "I would thank you," he grinned at me, "only I hear talk of your sewing."

The women giggled. It was true, Hedwig had been teaching me, that I might help with the endless mending, and my skills were thusfar deplorable.

"I will mend them," Ailsa said slyly, taking the clothing from me and making eyes at Joscelin. "There is virtue in a kindness dealt to strangers."

Joscelin blinked helplessly at me, drawing his knees up further in the bathing tub to hide his privates. "Serves you right," I said to him in D’Angeline, then in Skaldic to our putative mistress of the steading, "Hedwig, I would see him groomed, if you would loan me your comb."

She eyed him doubtfully. "See that he is soaped and dunked once more," she said. "I’m not minded to share fleas with Gunter’s dogs. 'Tis hard enough to contend with them as it is." For all that, she brought the comb, and had the grace to order the others out of the bathing room so Joscelin could dress in peace. I combed his hair then, taking pains to ease through the mats and snarls.

It was strangely soothing, putting me in mind of my childhood at Cereus House. Properly washed and combed, Joscelin’s hair fell, blond and shining, halfway down his back. I didn’t try to bother with the Cassiline club, but twined it in one thick braid, binding it with thong. He endured the process with patience, for it was the closest thing to luxury either of us had known in a long time.

"There," I said, unconsciously falling back into D’Angeline. "Let them see you now!"

He made a face, but went out from the bathing room. If the women had stared before, now they gaped. I could understand why. Clean and groomed, he shone like a candle in the rude, timbered interior of the great hall. Seeing him among the Skaldi women, I thought, it was no wonder Gunter’s thanes made of me what they did, if I looked so to them.

Having nigh emptied them with his bath, it was Joscelin’s job to refill the house cisterns. He did it with quiet grace, making trek after trek with the yolked buckets across his shoulders, stamping the snow from his boots before he entered the hall.

Ailsa, sewing in a corner, watched him and smiled.

If Gunter had not noticed before, he noticed it that night. He remarked on it to me as we lay in bed, afterward. It had surprised me, that he liked to talk after pleasure, when he’d not drunk heavily before it.

"He is pleasing to the women, your D’Angeline," he mused. "What do they see, so, in a beardless boy?"

So that was why he thought Joscelin a boy still. "We do not grow hair like the Skaldi," I said to him. "Some of the old lines, where the blood of Elua and his Companions runs strong, grow none on the face. Joscelin is a man grown. Perhaps women are less easily misled than men in this," I added, smiling.

But Gunter was in no mood to be teased. "Does Hedwig find him pleasing?" he asked me, yellow brows scowling in thought.

"She finds him pleasing to behold," I said honestly, "but she does not make eyes at him, as does Ailsa, my lord."

"Ailsa is a trial," he muttered. "Tell me, is the D’Angeline trained as you are? Kilberhaar’s men did not say so."

I nearly laughed, but smothered it, as he was minded to take it wrong. "No, my lord," I said instead. "He is sworn to lie with no woman. It is part of his oath."

At that, his brows shot up. "Truly?"

"Yes, my lord. It is true that he is a lord’s son, but he is a priest, first; a kind of priest, as you know it. That is the nature of his oath."

"So he is not trained to please women, as you are to please men," Gunter said thoughtfully.

"No, my lord. Joscelin is trained to be a warrior and companion, as I was trained to please in bed," I said, adding, "Men and women both."

"Women!" His voice rumbled with surprise. "Where is the sense in that?"

"If my lord has to ask," I said, somewhat offended, "there is no merit in answering."

I thought perhaps I had annoyed him then, and he would turn over and speak no more that evening, but Gunter was considering something. He lay gazing at the ceiling, running one finger beneath the cord of Melisande’s diamond. "I please you," he said eventually. "But you say it is the gift of your patron-god."

"A gift, or betimes a curse," I muttered.

"All the gifts of the gods are like that," he said dismissively, pinning me with his shrewd look. "But I thought maybe you only said it that I would let you see the D’Angeline boy, eh?"

It was hard, sometimes, to remember that he was a clever man, for all his Skaldi ways. I shook my head. "What I said was true, my lord." It wasn’t, of course, exactly true; I’d no idea if Kushiel’s Dart could be unstricken. But of a surety, it was true that I was its victim.

"So you say that I would not be pleasing to a D’Angeline woman who lacked your curse of a gift?"

"I am the only one with this gift," I murmured. "Does my lord wish me to answer him truly?"

"Yes," he said bluntly.

I remembered what Cecilie had said about Childric d’Essoms. "My lord makes love as if he is hunting boar," I said; it was not as much of an insult to a Skaldi as it would be to a D’Angeline. "It is a heroic act, but not necessarily pleasing to women."

Gunter thought about this, absently smoothing his mustaches. "You could teach me," he said cannily. "If you are trained as you say."

I nearly laughed at that, too, albeit bitterly. I would be dead now, were I not pleasing to Melisande Shahrizai, whose skills I would match against any adept of the Night Court. "Yes, my lord," I said. "If it is your wish."

"It would be a mighty thing to know." He still had that canny look on his face, though in this, he wasn’t nearly as shrewd as he thought. I knew well enough that Hedwig had refused him three times. If he meant to give me to Waldemar Selig at the Allthing, surely he would ask her a fourth. After his time with me, I did not think Gunter Arnlaugson would be one to welcome a cold bed for long.

"It is a dangerous thing to know," I said without thinking. But Gunter’s mood had turned, and he laughed uproariously at my words.

"You will begin to teach me this tomorrow, eh?" he said, adding cheerfully, "And if you speak of it, little dove, I will send your friend back to the kennels."

Matters resolved to his own satisfaction, Gunter rolled over, and was soon snoring. I lay awake, rolling my eyes at the prospect, and prayed to Naamah for aid and guidance.

It would be, I thought, a formidable task.

So began my second tutorship among the Skaldi, and I daresay it went well enough, at least as the Skaldi would measure such things. I never heard, afterward, that Gunter had any complaints. It brought to light, though, a deeper danger.

If the greatest danger one faces as a slave is displeasing one’s masters, this is the second: pleasing them. All too soon, it becomes all too easy to forget doing aught else. Skaldi reckon time differently than we do, but the meeting of the tribes they named the Allthing was still some weeks away; and once we had found our feet, Joscelin and I, on solid ground at Gunter’s steading, we began sliding into the trap of growing too comfortable in our roles. Wearing the mask of obedience so long, I saw Joscelin forget at times that it was but a mask.

And for my part, to my dismay, I found myself falling asleep at times thinking with pride-and even pleasure-upon Gunter’s progress at our private lessons.

Until the next time they raided.

The shock of it was like ice-cold water. Gunter and his thanes arose in the small hours of the morning, rousing the entire household to service as they armed themselves for the raid, laughing and jesting and testing the edges of their weapons. They wore little in the way of armor, but wrapped themselves well in furs, and each man carried a shield as well as a sword or axe, and the short spear they favored.

The horses were brought round, stamping and blowing frost under the faint stars. They would ride through the waning hours of the night, bursting through the pass at dawn to descend upon a hapless village in full daylight. Amid the clangor and bustle, Joscelin and I stared at each other, pale with horror. I saw him begin to shake all over with repressed rage, and turn away to hide his face from Gunter and his thanes. He made himself wisely scarce, and I did not see him until Gunter came striding, sheathing his sword, to bid me farewell, shouting as he came. "I ride into battle, little dove! Kiss me and pray to see me alive come nightfall!"

I believe, in truth, that he had forgotten for the moment who I was, and where I came from. I had not, and froze.

And then Joscelin was between us, brushing Gunter’s reaching hands aside with a sweep of his forearms, effortless as thought. His blue eyes locked with Gunter’s. "My lord," he said softly. "Allow her one ounce of pride."

What passed between them, I do not know. But Gunter’s eyes narrowed, gauging the measure of Joscelin’s rebellion, while the Cassiline kept his face calm. After a moment, Gunter nodded. "We ride!" he shouted, turning and beckoning to his thanes.

They streamed out of the great hall, brawn and fur and iron, mounted and rode, while those left behind cheered them on. Joscelin sank to his knees and gave me a sick look. I, I just stood, gazing out through the open doors of the hall, and wept.

They came back after nightfall.

They came back victorious, boisterous and half-drunk and singing, staggering under the spoils they’d taken: meager enough stuff, sacks of grain, and stores of winter roots and fruit. I heard Harald boasting about the number of D’Angelines he had slain; when I caught his eye, he fell silent, blushing. But he was one among many.

Piecing the story together, I gathered that they had met with a party of warriors; Allies of Camlach, riding under the sign of the naming sword. There had been a second banner, someone said, with a red forge on brown. Not d’Aiglemort’s men, then, I thought. Two thanes had fallen-Thorvil among them-but they had won the day, slaying half the D’Angelines before retreating through the skirling snows.

If Gunther had been mindful of my sensibilities upon leaving, he took no such niceties upon his victorious return, and I had had the wit to caution Joscelin not to intervene. Thanks to Elua, he did not, for I think Gunter in a drunken state might have set upon him. When the celebration had reached its apex and besotten warriors sprawled about the hall, Gunter hoisted me over his shoulder amid roars of approval, carrying me away.

It was not a night for lessons.

When he was done, I left him snoring and crept from his bed, into the great hall, where his thanes slept off their mead, rumbling and murmuring. Someone had remembered to secure Joscelin’s leg-irons. I thought he too slept, there by the hearth-bench, but his eyes opened at my near-soundless approach.

"I couldn’t stay there," I whispered.

"I know." He moved over, cautious not to clank his irons, and made room for me on the rushes. It was one of his duties, to see that they were replaced when the hall was swept. I sank down to the floor and curled up next to him. His arm came around me, and I laid my head on his chest and stared into the dying embers of the fire.

"Joscelin, you have to leave," I murmured.

"I can’t." Low as it was, I could hear the agony in his voice. "I can’t leave you here."

"Damn your Cassiel to hell, then!" I hissed, eyes stinging.

His chest rose and fell beneath my cheek. "He believed he was, you know," Joscelin said in a low voice. He touched my hair lightly with one hand, stroking it. "I learned it all my life, but I never truly understood it until now."

A shudder ran through me. "I know," I whispered, thinking of Naamah, who had lain with strangers, who had lain with the King of Persis, thinking of Waldemar Selig, the Skaldi warleader. "I know."

We did not speak then, for a long time. I had nearly fallen asleep when I heard Joscelin ask softly, "How can d’Aiglemort bear it? He is sending D’Angelines to die against the Skaldi."

"Ten may die, and a hundred more rally to his banner," I said, staring into the embers. "And he can blame the King for Camlach’s losses, for not sending him further troops. That was his plan, with the Glory-Seekers. He is building an empire. How he can do it, I don’t understand, but I can see the why of it. What I would like to know is, why does Gunter have no fear of him?"

"Because d’Aiglemort pays him," Joscelin said bitterly.

"No." I shook my head against his chest. "It’s more than that. Gunter knows something that d’Aiglemort doesn’t; he laughed, when I told him there were things Kilberhaar didn’t know. Gonzago de Escabares said it, a year ago. The Skaldi have found a leader who thinks."

"Elua help us all," Joscelin whispered.

After that, neither of us spoke, and then I did sleep, and wakened only to a light tug on my sleeve. Opening my eyes, I met the worried features of Thurid, the shy one, who had risen early to her chores. Dim light filtered into the great hall from the oiled skins over the windows, and slumbering thanes still snored around us, stinking of stale mead.

"You must go," she whispered to me. "They will wake soon."

It was the first moment, I think, that I realized how things had begun to change between Joscelin and me. In the shock and horror of the night, it had only seemed natural that we held to each other for comfort. The faint awe on Thurid’s face made something different of it. I sat up, brushing away bits of rush tangled in my hair and caught in my skirts. Joscelin’s eyes were open, watching me. What he thought, I could not say. Neither of us dared speak now, for fear of rousing the thanes. I squeezed his hand once and rose, stealing after Thurid, who picked her way carefully among the snoring warriors, to slip back into Gunter’s room and between the warm furs of his bed.

He made a rumbling noise in his sleep and turned over, drawing me into his embrace. I lay wide-eyed in the curve of his massive arm, despising him.