Kushiel's Justice by Jacqueline Carey

“
All
of them?”
    “Well.” With the weals of my visit to Kushiel’s temple still healing, I amended my boast. “All save one.”

F OUR
    I N THE WEEKS THAT FOLLOWED , the good news was that Bernadette de Trevalion made an unexpected decision to return to Azzalle for the winter, taking her son Bertran with her. I didn’t blame her, though I wondered what she told Bertran and Ghislain. Once they had gone, it seemed easer to breathe at the Palace.
    The bad news was that I spent less time than I might have wished in the Houses of the Night Court, and a good deal more immersed in foreign cultures.
    One, of course, was Alba’s.
    The matter of succession in Alba had been a point of contention for as long as I could remember. Now, at last, it was settled in a manner pleasing to everyone. In accordance with matrilineal tradition, Drustan mab Necthana had named his nephew Talorcan his heir. I was to wed Dorelei, Talorcan’s sister, and our children in turn would be named Talorcan’s heirs.
    And Alais had consented to wed Talorcan to satisfy the demands of concerned peers that Terre d’Ange might wield influence in Alba in every generation. Although she would not rule nor her children inherit, one day she would be a Cruarch’s wife.
    Since the agreement was made, Alais had been appointed a Cruithne tutor that she might learn more about the country, and we agreed that I would benefit from taking part in her lessons.
    The tutor’s name was Firdha, and although she was small, she was imposing. When I first encountered her, she cut a fierce and upright figure, standing in the center of the well-lit study that had once served as the royal nursery. Her iron-grey hair was as thick and coarse as a mare’s tail, caught at the nape of her neck by an elaborate pin, and her eyes were like polished black stones. In one hand, she held a golden staff in the likeness of an oak branch.
    Behind her back, Alais mouthed the word “bow” at me.
    “
Bannaght
, my lady,” I said, bowing deeply.
    Her black eyes flashed. “Daughter of the Grove.”
    I straightened. “Your pardon, my lady?”
    “Firdha is an
ollamh
,” Alais informed me. “A bard of the highest rank. That’s the proper greeting. Even my father uses it,” she added. “An
ollamh
is the king’s equal.”
    “And my superior, I take it?” I asked. There was the faintest glint of amusement in the bard’s eyes. I bowed a second time. “
Bannaght
, Daughter of the Grove.”
    Firdha inclined her head. “Greetings, Prince.”
    So my studies began. There were no books, no scrolls. Alba had no written tradition. Everything worth knowing was committed to memory. Firdha had studied for twelve years to gain her rank, and she knew hundreds upon hundreds of tales—a vast history of Alba and Eire, encompassing all manner of lore and law.
    The islands were a strange place. Once, I daresay, our people wouldn’t have found them so. We share a distant ancestry in common, or at least some of our people do. There were dozens of tribes in Alba, but they reckoned themselves divided roughly into four folks: The Tarbh Cró, or people of the Red Bull; the Fhalair Bàn, the White Horse of Eire; the Eidlach Òr, or Golden Hind of the south; and the Cullach Gorrym, or Black Boar.
    Those were the true Cruithne—Drustan’s folk, and Firdha’s, too. Earth’s oldest children, they called themselves. They had borrowed many customs from the others, but they had held the islands first.
    “Many thousands of years ago, we followed the Black Boar to the west,” Firdha said with a certain satisfaction. “Long before you D’Angelines learned to count time on your fingers, the Cullach Gorrym were in Alba. The Tarbh Cró, the Fhalair Bàn, the Eidlach Òr; they all came later.”
    Mayhap it was true, but then had come the Master of the Straits and his curse. For almost a thousand years, there was little exchange between the islands and the mainland. Alba and Eire were sealed, and they had grown