"Surely you have some inkling of how the election will fall out?" I asked him.
Severio shrugged. "My father is well loved among the clubs of our Sestieri, my lady, but it is no guarantee, and less for me. He must needs court the approval of Prince Benedicte, and that has been a shaky thing since Dominic and Thérèse's treachery was exposed. Meanwhile, my uncle Ricciardo plots against him, rousing the craft-guilds. It is important, therefore, that I win some regard for my family on this visit. D'Angeline trade-favor has prospered La Serenissima." He refilled his wineglass, looking rueful. "I've not made a good job of it, thus far. And a good portion of the funds my father allotted me to win favor among the nobles, well..." Gazing at me, Severio cleared his throat and flushed. "My father was very generous, but I do not know that he will consider his monies well spent."
When I took his meaning, I laughed out loud. "You bought
me
with your father's goodwill purse?"
"Ah, well. Not the whole of it, no." He fidgeted with a fold of his tunic. "A goodly portion," he admitted.
"Severio." I leaned forward, my eyes dancing. "Do you realize there's naught else you could have done with that money that would impress D'Angeline nobles more? They were laying odds on who my first patron would be! In one grand gesture, you have acquired a status no D'Angeline will ever hold. It is not my place to advise you, but believe me, if you make it known, you will be admired and envied by the Palace entire."
His face lit up, making him look younger and handsomer. "You truly think so?"
"I know it." I did, too. The stakes were different, when I was Delaunay's
anguissette,
a delightfully decadent secret to be shared among peers with certain vices. The Comtesse de Montrève was a hotly sought prize.
"Why did you choose me?" A thought struck him, and he frowned. "Was it only the money? I thought it would be. That's why I made the offer so high."
"No." I gazed at his scowling face and smiled. "I liked your anger."
"Did you really?" Reaching for me, he drew me onto his lap so that I straddled him and began to open my robe, hands laying claim to my flesh. "Do you like me still, now that I am not so angry?" he asked curiously, tugging his toga half- off. The blunt head of his rising phallus probed between my nether lips as his hands, inside my robe, slid up my welted back.
"Yes, my lord," I managed to gasp before he entered me, his nails digging into my skin.
Young men.
SIXTEEN
Severio Stregazza took my advice, although I did not hear the whole of it until I returned to court. As had been my wont in Delaunay's service, I took some few days' leisure to recover from the assignation, after being tended by an Eisandine chirurgeon.
It had been my intention to contract the Yeshuite doctor who had tended Alcuin and me in prior days, but Joscelin objected adamantly. I gazed at his beautiful, implacable face, the
khai
pendant gleaming silver on his chest, and gave way, too tired to do battle with his conscience. Let no Yeshuite be offended by my nature; I would be tended by one of our own. Eisandines are mayhap the most skilled healers in the world, and I had no objection on that score. Delaunay had trusted the Yeshuite's discretion; they do not gossip
about their clients. I resolved the matter by setting Fortun to contract the dourest Eisandine he could find.
Joscelin had said naught when I returned to him in Severio's quarters; I daresay only we two knew the unspoken shoals that loomed beneath the surface of our cordial greet ing. He had bowed, I had inclined my head, and perforce kept from wincing as my heavy cloak brushed against my freshly-lashed skin. I have had far worse than I endured at the hands of the young Stregazza and walked away with a steady gait.
What Joscelin felt, I did not ask, knowing it well enough. The pain of the flesh is naught to that of the heart.
Severio had come forward as my first patron, and allowed the amount of the fee he paid for our assignation to be whis pered in the corridors. This I learned from my chevaliers, who had it from the Palace Guard—nothing escapes the Guard's ears—and from Cecilie Laveau-Perrin, who paid me a visit during my time of recuperation.
"Twenty thousand ducats, they say," she related, eyeing me speculatively. "Is it true?"
"True enough," I said, laying aside another stack of pro posals. The offers had risen considerably with this batch; some were outlandish. One L'Agnacite lordling promised me a vineyard. "Do they say what I've done with it?"
"No." Cecilie eyed me shrewdly. "I heard, though. I've ears still in the Night Court. You paid Favrielle no Eglantine's marque. Did you know it's said she was pushed?"
"In the bath, when she split her lip?" I raised my brows. "No, but I guessed as much. I grew up in the Night Court too, remember. When she said she fell, she recited it like a Yeshuite catechism."
"It was a fortnight before the eve of the new-made adepts' debut. They have leave to design their own costumes, at Eglantine." Cecilie picked up one of the proposals and glanced absently at it. "There was some dissent over the advantage it gave her, I heard. Jealousy is a cruel mistress. Who's the Baroness de Chariot and what do you want with a team of matched blood-bays?"
I took the parchment away from her. "Nothing. But House Chariot breeds very fine horses. In Kusheth. And blood-bays ... oh, never mind, Cecilie, I'm not accepting it. What else have you heard?"
"Are you feeling quite well?" Cecilie looked mischie vously at me. "I think you should pay a visit to the Palace."
More than that, she would not say, leaving me to learn it for myself. I bethought myself of visiting Thelesis de Mor nay, but an opportunity came quicker than I reckoned when Ysandre sent an invitation to attend a concert held in honor of a tentative reconciliation between her uncle, the Duc L'Envers, and the Stregazza family. Echoing the theme of liaison, an Eisandine composer—music and medicine are among the gifts of Eisheth—and a Siovalese engineer had collaborated on a concerto involving a cunningly wrought instrument of Siovalese design that used a bellows-and-pedal system to force air through myriad pipes of differing pitches.
It made for a strange and haunting sound that was not displeasing, full of odd harmonics. Seated toward the rear of a half-dozen rows of chairs, I listened with half an ear, my attention on the principles at the front of the salon. Tibault, Comte de Toluard—Marquis, now, as reward for his role in defending against Selig's invasion—sat beaming; an avid Siovalese scholar himself, he was also the engineer's patron. Many of Shemhazai's line are interested in such things. I daresay if Delaunay had been here, he would have wished to examine the instrument too. Severio Stregazza was seated between the Queen and Duc Barquiel L'Envers, and I noted how Ysandre leaned toward him and whispered from time to time. She was as anxious, I thought, to have this rift mended as Severio was to acquit himself well.
Barquiel L'Envers managed to lounge in his stiff chair, stretching his long legs before him. One might take it for irreverence, or not; I never knew with him. He had been a long while posted in Khebbel-im-Akkad, and claimed to prefer its cushioned comforts. For all that, I would never make the mistake of reckoning him soft.
Beside L'Envers, I was surprised to see Percy de Some rville, the Royal Commander, his son Ghislain and daughter- in-law Bernadette beside him. The last I had known, he had been reviewing the strengths of the border guard in Cam lach—the remnants of d'Aiglemort's men who called them selves the Unforgiven. No one had a stronger motive for dedicating themselves to the protection of the Skaldi bor ders, having once betrayed our nation; but then again, Ysan dre was wary enough to keep them under watch.
If Percy de Somerville had returned, perhaps then so had those men posted on guard the night Melisande escaped from Troyes-le-Mont, I thought hopefully. I would have to dispatch my chevaliers for a scouting expedition to the bar racks.
Less cheering to my eyes was the sight of Marmion Shahrizai in the second row, near enough to the Queen to murmur in her ear, as I saw, twice, he did. There was a youngish woman seated next to him whom I knew not at all; slight, with an upswept mane of bronze-gold curls. She treated Marmion coolly, I saw, but I saw too a faint, amused smile on her face as she watched him address the Queen. Barquiel L'Envers turned once and said somewhat to her, grinning. I thought that she laughed.
When the concert was done, we applauded politely. The musicians—it had taken three to operate the instrument— bowed, and then the composer and the engineer bowed, and the engineer invited the audience to inspect the instrument. Tibault de Toluard, for all that he must have known it better than any noble there, was first on the dais, his face aglow with pleasure.
For my part, I mingled among my peers, making pleasant conversation as servants circulated with wine and chilled fruits. I kept my eye on Severio, and marked how he greeted the assembled D'Angeline nobles with unfailing courtesy.
"Phèdre!" Ghislain de Somerville hailed me cheerfully. "What on earth did you do to that boy?" he asked, laughing. "I swear, you've transformed him! Five days ago, he was scarce fit for polite company; now, he's well-nigh a court darling. How did you do it?"
"Naamah's Servants keep her secrets," I said, smiling. "I'm pleased to hear it, though. How is your father? He looks well."
"Hale as ever." Ghislain threw an admiring glance toward his father, a stalwart figure with golden hair turned mostly grey. "He rode the length of Camlach himself, midwinter, to inspect the garrisons there. I hope I've half his stamina at his age."
"You've his gift of command, my lord," I said. "No doubt you've inherited his constitution as well."
Ghislain flushed, smelling faintly of apples. "You're kind to say so, but I fear I'm a pale imitation of my father on the battlefield."
I do not think it was true, although I am no judge; father and son had headed the armies that formed the hammer and anvil between which we caught Selig's forces, enabling the Allies of Camlach to breach their might. Neither would have succeeded alone. Of a surety, Percy's brilliant plan had held the Skaldi at bay long enough for the Alban army to arrive—but without Ghislain's leadership, I daresay we never would have reached Troyes-le-Mont. "Say what you will, my lord," I said diplomatically, "but it is the two strong branches of House Somerville that upheld Terre d'Ange in her direst hour."
"Well." Ghislain looked gravely at me. "It was a near thing. Do not think I forget, Phèdre, your part in it. I would have tied you to a tree, had I known what was in your mind that night, but if you'd not broken Selig's lines to warn the fortress ..." He shook his head. "You saved a great many lives in that battle, and mayhap our victory in the bargain."
"Mayhap," I said softly; I do not like to remember that night. If I never have to live through its like again, it will be too soon. I felt the ghost of remembered pain, the delir ium of agony as Waldemar Selig's dagger-blade sheared my skin from my flesh, and shuddered. Even I had my limits. "Kushiel's blessing is a dubious gift, my lord. I spent it as I thought best."
"And I am glad you are here to say it." Smiling, he patted my shoulder—setting off a fresh wave of remembered pain—and left me.
Blinking away the scarlet haze that threatened my vision, I accepted a glass of wine from a passing servant, sipping it to calm my nerves. I nearly missed seeing Severio coming to intercept me, his face lit with pleasure.
"Comtesse de Montrève," he said with elaborate formal ity, bowing; his dark eyes danced as he straightened. "I stand indebted to your wisdom!"
The memory of Troyes-le-Mont faded; I collected myself and returned his smile. "It worked, then?"
"Every bit as you said it would." Severio laughed. "It is a different land, this Terre d'Ange! I am grateful to you for playing guide in it, as well as ... other things."
"As for those, my lord magistrate," I said teasingly, "I am equally grateful to you, and we owe thanks to Naamah, if anyone, for the diverse gifts she shares with lovers."
"So you say, here." He took my hands. "In La Serenis sima, we do not speak of such pleasures. Truly, I thought my spirit malformed, for entertaining such desires. For that alone, I am grateful—" Severio broke off his sentence mid-thought, gazing over my shoulder. "I wish he wouldn't look at me like that," he said, annoyed.
I turned and looked to see Marmion Shahrizai staring at us, a sickly cast to his ivory skin. He gave an ironic smile and moved onward, but not before I caught the look in his eyes. It was fear. "You mean Lord Shahrizai?" I asked, keeping my tone light.
"Oh, he's always about the Queen. I played batarde with him the other day, in the Hall of Games," Severio said, frowning. "When I made an outrageous bluff, he said the strangest thing ... what was it? 'If she's sent you to threaten me, tell her I'm not frightened.' When I asked him what he meant, he brushed it off. What on earth did he mean by it?"
I swear, my heart skipped a beat, and when it resumed, it pounded at double time. "Oh, it was rumored that his cousin Melisande was in La Serenissima, under the protec tion of the Doge," I said casually, horribly aware of the risk I was taking. It wasn't rumored, not in the slightest. The only incident to even hint at such a thing was a parcel that had made its way to my doorstep, in Montrève. "So it is not so, then?”
"If it is, I've never heard of her." Severio shrugged. "It could be. I don't know the name of every D'Angeline noble to seek refuge in La Serenissima's arms."
