Though her words struck like arrows betwixt my shoulder blades, I did not turn back, but walked steadily away from her. She had told me nothing I did not know, where the Rebbe was concerned; he had never pretended to have the answer to Hyacinthe's riddle. All I required of him was the knowledge to pursue it myself, and that, he taught me fairly.
As for Joscelin; well. Now I knew in full why the Ye shuites courted him. It was his choice, still. Cassiel's Choice, they call it, when a member of his Order chooses banishment rather than abandon his once-sworn ward. He had made it for me, though I had not asked it of him. I had warned her. I could do no more. And perhaps, truly, it would be different, when a god demanded the choice. I could not know, but only grieve at the necessity of it.
In the small courtyard, there was no sign of Joscelin, and three sword-bearing young Yeshuite men set upon Ti- Philippe as he drew up in my carriage; laughing in Habiru, catching at the horses' bridles and snatching at the long reins, mocking Ti-Philippe as he perched in the driver's seat. Wrapping the reins about his wrist, my chevalier scowled and hurled a D'Angeline insult at them; one of the Yeshuites drew his sword and prodded Philippe's boot with the point of his blade.
An anger I'd not known I was suppressing overcame me.
"Gentlemen!" My voice rang out across the courtyard with an icy contempt I didn't know I could muster. I stood motionless, wrapped in my cloak, as they turned guiltily. "Let him be." Lest they were unsure, I added in flawless Habiru, enunciating each word with chill precision. "Leave him. Do you understand?"
Swords were sheathed, the carriage abandoned. The young men walked past me, sullen. The last turned, his face full of loathing. "You would not speak to us so, in Adonai's country!"
Mayhap he was right; I do not know. But this was Elua's country, and free by the grace of soldiers like Ti-Philippe, who had risked his life to beat back the Skaldi invasion. If not for him and ten thousand like him, we would all be equally on our knees, baring our necks for Waldemar Selig's yolk and offering praise to All-Father Odhinn. I thought these things, and did not say them. The Yeshuite glanced quickly from side to side, to be sure no one saw, and made a gesture, poking forked fingers at my face.
"A pox on your witch-marked eyes!" he jeered, spitting at my feet.
Men mock what they fear. I looked at him without an swering, until his belligerence turned to unease and he shuf fled, jerking away from me and hurrying to rejoin his companions, his walk turning to a swagger as they neared the yeshiva.
Ti-Philippe came down from the driver's seat in a fury, swearing a blue streak as he yanked open the carriage door and threatening vengeance.
"Let it be," I said wearily, climbing inside. "Yeshua's House is divided against itself; I will not add to their sorrows. I owe a debt to his children." Remembering Taavi and Danele, the Yeshuite couple who had been so kind to Jos celin and me in our dire flight, I wondered if they were caught up in this schism, and prayed not.
I had money; I bought books, and read them, tracing with my finger the lines of Habiru text. I slept ill at night and tossed in my sheets, waking fevered from dreams I could not remember. I read, and studied, and learned, and came no closer to answering the riddle.
Hyacinthe.
Elua, but I missed him!
I suppose that my rootless sorrow made me reckless, al though it may have been in part the slow-wearing frustration that arose from my stalled inquiries. Whatever the source, it was recklessness that led me to accept an assignation with Nicola L'Envers y Aragon.
It was in the Hall of Games that she approached me, where I watched Fortun engaged in a game of rhythmo machy with the Baronesse de Carvoile, whose mother had been an adept of Bryony House. It is a game for which I have no especial gift, being the province of those whose strength of wit lies in dealing with numbers; I can play it, if I must, but I do not do it well. Fortun, who had never once laid hand to the board ere becoming my chevalier, showed considerable skill at it.
Back and forth they went, placing their different-shaped counters in varying progressions, according to varying math ematical formulae, until I was well-nigh lost. "Ah!" murmured a watching connoisseur, as Estelle de Carvoile laid down a sequence with surety. "A Fabrisian series!"
I blinked, bewildered, seeing no correlation in the num bers she played; Fortun merely frowned and countered with something called a Tertullian set. I can see patterns in events, and behaviors—in mathematics, I follow slower. Still, I added my voice to those lauding Fortun's play.
"A dull game," murmured a nearby voice, "for those who would rather dally with somewhat other than numbers." I turned to meet the violet gaze of Nicola L'Envers y Aragon, who gave me the lazy smile of a stalking leopardess. "Your chevalier is skilled, Comtesse."
"Yes," I said automatically. "He is." I eyed her sidelong. "Where is your companion, Lord Shahrizai, my lady?"
"Oh, Marmion." Nicola shrugged. "Sulking, no doubt. I told him I'd not divorce on his account, and he is wroth with me. It will do him good, in time. Meanwhile, I grow bored." She laid the tips of her fingers on my arm and smiled at me. "Do you know there is a term for your dal liances, Phèdre? Hunting hyacinths, they call it, those peers who have enjoyed your favors."
"No." With an effort of will, I kept my voice steady. "I did not know there was a term for it." I did not need it explained. Every patron knew my
signale.
"Oh, yes." She smiled again, lazy and dangerous. "And no one has plucked one yet, I am told. Tell me, if I made you a proposal, would you accept it?"
Something happened at the gaming table; a good-natured cheer arose. Fortun had won. I stared at Nicola's violet eyes—so like her cousins', Duc and Queen—and weighed the risks, making my decision in spite of them. "Yes," I said, calculating. What was it worth, to Barquiel L'Envers? "If it was fitting."
The proposal came the next day by courier.
TWENTY
A long white cord sturdily-wrought of silken threads hung around my neck.
"I knew a man in Aragon," Nicola mused aloud, drawing the ends of the cord beneath my arms and crossing them at my back, "who had travelled the spice routes to the utter most east; the Empire of the Sun, they call it. They have arts of the bed-chamber as would interest even Naamah, he said." She wrapped the cord about my waist and moved behind me, using it to secure my wrists together. "Of course, I'd not time to learn them all. But what I did was most interesting. Ah, yes, that's nice."
Stepping back, she regarded her handiwork. I stood, doc ile, half-bound and naked as she took up another length of cord and set about securing it, from nape to waist and through my thighs, binding it to my wrists. I shifted my shoulders experimentally, feeling the friction of the cord be tween my legs.
"I'm not done," Nicola L'Envers y Argon said mildly, taking hold of the back of my neck. "On your knees, if you please."
I knelt, bowing my head automatically; the tension on the cord caused the silken length working its way between my nether lips to tighten, making me gasp. I raised my head, forced to kneel with back arched and breasts out-thrust.
"Now," she said, satisfied, "you begin to understand."
And then she set about finishing her work, binding my ankles tight together, and running the cord to knot it at my wrists. No matter how I moved, the cord grew taut between my legs, slipping back and forth. Lest I mistake it for chance, she had cunningly tied a knot there, a small, hard protuberance in the soft cord that taunted me, rubbing against Naamah's Pearl every time I shifted, causing me to bite my lip.
It pleased her; it pleased her a great deal. I could not help but gaze at her, on my knees, my chin upraised by virtue of the cord's necessity. Nicola prowled around me, smiling, violet eyes alit with pleasure, a finely-made deerskin flogger in her hand. There were steel tips at the ends of it.
"Do you like this?" she asked, almost tenderly. "Hmm?"
"No."
Her arm moved in a swinging, sidelong gesture, and streaks of pain burst across my buttocks, my lower back, and my tied hands. I cried out and jerked against my bonds, causing the cord to saw into me, making my breathing ragged.
"You lie, don't you?" Nicola brought the flogger across me in a backhanded blow, raking across my breasts; the pain was so vivid I saw stars, and Kushiel's red haze. "Don't you!" She struck me again. I tossed my head involuntarily to avoid the blow, and the cord tautened against my efforts, tightening at the wrists, the knot between my thighs riding up and down against the sensitive node of flesh there. Nicola laughed, and trailed the flogger over my flesh; like an idiot, I struggled, bound tighter each time I writhed. The cords bit into my flesh everywhere, and a throbbing tide of pleasure rose in me. "Fight it, then, and see if you may free yourself," she taunted, striking me again. "Fight it!"
Half-obedient, half-defiant, I did, until the cord drew so tight my hands were numb, and that knot, that little knot, rode up and down, up and down against Naamah's Pearl, slick with moisture against my swollen flesh, pleasure mounting higher the harder I struggled against it, until I surrendered and cried out at the waves of pleasure that overwhelmed me.
When I opened my eyes—for I had closed them involuntarily—I saw the rich weave of Nicola's woolen carpet inches from me, and felt it scratch against my cheek. I'd not known, till then, that I'd fallen on my side.
"You may struggle all you like, but the result will never change," Nicola's voice said far above me, rich with amuse ment. "What I learned, I learned well. What will you give for your release, Phèdre nó Delaunay?"
"Anything you want," I whispered, trying not to move. The least gesture set off fresh ripples of ecstasy, giving me further into her hand.
Nicola crouched down, flogger in hand, her lovely, amused face close to mine. "What I want," she said, "is your
signale.
You have only given it once, I am told. To Meli sande Shahrizai. Or was that only because you loved her?"
Before the moment those words left her mouth, I swear, I was not thinking of it at all—politics, betrayal, the game of covertcy, and Nicola L'Envers y Aragon's part in it all. These things I relegate to a small part of my mind, the only part I hold back from a patron, and think on afterward. But when she spoke, a connection formed, and I did something I had never done before with a patron. I could not help it. I did not mean to laugh, but I did; soundlessly, barely shak ing, lest the very act of it trigger further arousal. Nicola regarded me with startled displeasure.
"Do you find it such a matter for laughter, Phèdre nó Delaunay?" she asked irritably, sitting back on her heels and giving me a flick with the flogger. "Do I
amuse
you so?"
"No." I sobered, lying quiescent in my bonds and rolling my eyes to look up at her beneath my lashes. "My lady, you tie a very skillful knot, and I am like to expire of in voluntarily pleasuring myself if you do not release me from these bonds. If it please you to watch it, then you may do so. But I will not give you my
signale."
Power is a relative thing; she had been unwise, in letting me know what she desired to learn. "Tell me." I moved my legs and winced, as the knot shifted against me. "Was it Lord Marmion bid you ask that, or the Duc?"
With a disgusted sound, Nicola L'Envers y Aragon threw her flogger to the floor. "I
told
him I was overmatched with you!" she exclaimed, rising to her feet and pacing in an noyance.
Cautious to the utmost, I tucked my knees to my belly and rolled to a kneeling position, legs doubled beneath me, buttocks resting on my calves. Moving stiff fingers, I plucked at the knots that bound my ankles together. "The Duc," I said, as if I were certain; I was, fairly.
Nicola paused to cast a wry glance in my direction. "You could do me the courtesy, at least, of sounding surprised. And I thought you said I tied a skillful knot," she added, watching me kick off the cords that had bound my ankles.
"You do." I wriggled my hands and shrugged my shoul ders, very carefully. "I can't get the rest on my own." I probably could, in time, but the pleasure it would provoke would cause a distraction I didn't wish to afford just now. "Why is it worth my patron-fee to Barquiel L'Envers to know if I once loved Melisande Shahrizai?"
"Once?" Nicola raised her eyebrows.
I knelt and regarded her. "My lady, she is indirectly responsible for
the
death of Anafiel Delaunay, whom I loved, admired and adored. Beyond that, she betrayed me and sold me into slavery among the Skaldi, and committed treason of the highest degree. Whatever I may have felt for her as my patron, I assure you, it pales beside that."
If we were in the Hall of Games, I would say that she hesitated, before laying the hand she had been dealt upon the table. No matter; I had guessed rightly, when I guessed who conned her into the game. "She spared your life, once," Nicola said.
"Does his grace wonder if I returned the favor in kind?" I asked, watching her face closely. I could hear Delaunay's voice, in my mind.
What are the telltales of one who con
ceals information?
Nicola exhibited several of them; eyelids flickering, her hands moving restlessly, busying herself picking up a flagon of cordial and pouring a drink. "I did not. But if he suspects me ..."
"He didn't do it," Nicola said brusquely, tossing off her cordial and setting the glass down hard. "And yes, he wonders who did. Marmion Shahrizai was his first suspect. You were his second."
