"Are you?" I asked, a little reckless. He shook his head and smiled. It made me like him better, for some reason.
It was strange indeed, to be a patron of the Night Court, and I struggled to relax. I, who could surrender my will in an instant to a patron's desires, was hard put to accept in dulgence. Raphael watched me and cocked his head, hair falling to one side, and beckoned to an apprentice to issue a request. In this place, his soft voice commanded. Taking my hand, he led me to his quarters, where silk hangings swathed the walls in dim colors and lamplight flickered on a rich, velveted pallet. A boy sat cross-legged in the corner playing a lyre, and a young female adept knelt
abeyante
beside the bed, warming a bowl of scented oil on a brazier.
"My lady," Raphael whispered, undoing the sash of my robe with skilled, gentle hands and sliding it from my shoul ders, kissing me softly. The robe pooled around my feet, and for a moment, his eyes gleamed. I could hear the adept draw in her breath. He loosed my hair, gathering it up in both hands, the rich, dark mass of it. "Naamah's blessing is upon her servants." Kissing me again—he had lips as soft as a woman's—he urged me gently to the pallet. "It is not yours only to give, but to receive."
I lay down, obedient, and felt the young adept's hands spread warmed oil over my skin, fragrant and pleasing. I had not known, until then, how much tension my body held; even the bath had not assuaged it. Bit by bit, it eased beneath her skillful massage, muscles easing one by one, until I lay upon my belly, loose-limbed and languorous, watching Raphael move gracefully about the room. He opened a coffer on his nightstand and withdrew a lump of resin, placing it in a small brazier, and the sweet scent of opium filled the room, a thin line of blue smoke redolent with visions. The music slowed, the lyricist's fingers wandering dreamily.
Growing light-headed, I sprawled at ease beneath the adept's slow-kneading hands; she bent low, when Raphael was not looking, to place a kiss at the base of my spine where my marque began, and I could feel her breath warm against my skin.
When her hands bid me turn over, I made no protest. I lay languid and waiting, watching Raphael Murain remove his clothing as the adept—I never learned her name—per formed the arousement, hands slick with oil sliding over my body; my breasts, nipples taut and upright, my hipbones and the flat hollow of my belly, clever, oiled fingers exploring the valley between my thighs, parting me as one would open the petals of a flower. All the while, he smiled at me, undressing slowly to reveal a body lithe and boyishly muscled, the tip of his erect phallus brushing his belly. When he turned, I saw the marque of Gentian House limned on his spine, complete even to its moon-and-flower finial. As young as I, and as experienced. He took a long time with the
languisement,
until I could not tell where my flesh ended and his mouth began.
By the time he knelt over me, I was ready and more, and I cried out at the pleasure of it as he entered me, oil- slickened body sliding up the length of mine. There are those who think an
anguissette
knows pleasure only through pain, but it is not so. Though any one of my patrons would have seized his pleasure or forced mine, thrusting hard, Raphael Murain was an adept of the Night Court. He braced himself on his arms above me, smiling and moving in slow, languorous strokes, lowering his head to kiss me. Elua, it was sweet! His hair fell around my face in shining curtains, and I returned his kisses as only another of Naamah's Servants might, an intricate dance of tongues, slow and unhurried. His hard, slender chest brushed my breasts. I could hear my breathing, and his, and that of the young adept, who knelt watching.
One surrenders, as a patron; I never understood that be fore. I surrendered that night, to Raphael and Gentian House, the fragrance of scented oil and the sweet blue opium smoke, letting pleasure mount in slow-building waves, while we rocked on it as on the breast of the sea. It seemed to come from a very great distance when it broke, moving in a great tidal surge, vaster and slower than any climax I had known. I closed my eyes, feeling it spiral outward from our conjoined bodies to the vast reaches of time, wave after wave breaking on the outermost shoals of my awareness, distant and ponderous.
"May I?" Raphael Murain whispered when my eyes opened.
I felt him still moving inside me, and whispered back, "Yes."
It was his eyes that closed, then, long lashes curled like waves breaking; I gasped as he inhaled sharply, drawing in the very breath of our commingled pleasure. His body went rigid against me as he spent himself, a sweet, hot throbbing deep inside of me.
Afterward, we slept, and I dreamed.
Not since Joscelin had foresworn me had I spent a night's slumber with any other living soul; I could have grieved, to realize how much I had missed it. After all his careful grace, Raphael slept with a child's abandon, fine silken hair spill ing across my face, limbs slack with spent pleasure. The lamps had burned low, the opium expired. The lyricist and the adept had discreetly withdrawn. Because I had given myself no choice, I welcomed Raphael's weight, his even breathing, and slept.
Slept, and dreamed.
I dreamed I was a child once more in Delaunay's house hold. Alcuin was there, and our old study, in Delaunay's home. We sat across a table from one another, he and I, poring over scrolls, pursuing the mystery of the Master of the Straits. I was near to grasping the key, when an adept of Cereus House wearing a snow-fox's mask poked his head in the door, and I bid him crossly to leave me. "You're late," the snow-fox said, voice muffled.
"
The
joie
has already been poured."
With the shock of horror one feels only in dreams, I realized that I was not in Delaunay's home at all, but Cereus House; not a child, but an adept, late for the Midwinter Masque. My costume was unfinished, and I had no mask. Despairing, I hurried to join the fête, thinking I might find Favrielle nó Eglantine and beg her to loan me a mask.
The Great Hall of Cereus House was filled with light and gaiety, and all the adepts of the Thirteen Houses in their finery, and I had come in time to see the Sun Prince revealed. I was laughing, then, thinking everything would be well, and wondering what foolishness had possessed me to imagine I should have been studying with Alcuin, when this, yes of course, this was my life, laughing and cheering as the Winter Queen was unmasked as the beautiful Suriah, who had always been kind to me.
That was when I realized the Sun Prince was Waldemar Selig.
No one else noticed, as he took off his mask, smiling, half a head taller than anyone there; no one noticed, as he ran Suriah through with the Sun Prince's gilded spear and she sank to the dais, mouth open and eyes blank, hands clutching around the haft as a dark stain spread across her breast. Waldemar Selig stepped down, wolfskin cloak swinging from his shoulders, and the D'Angeline revelers smiled and bowed and moved out of the way, while the musicians struck up a merry reel.
My scream caught in my throat, struggling for air; dancers swept past me, bright and glittering—and Delaunay, my lord Delaunay was among them. Almost, I got out his name; then he turned, and I saw he held Melisande Shahrizai in his arms, smiling down at her. And Melisande looked past him, over his shoulder, across the crowded hall, to meet my eyes, and the shock of her beauty turned my knees to water. And she smiled at me.
I knew. She knew. And I was too late.
The voice that woke me, reciting the details of the dream, ragged with panic, was my own. I took a deep, gasping breath, half-choking on it, and knew myself to be awake in the chambers of Gentian House. Like an echo in my memory, I could hear Raphael Murain's soft murmur winding through the dream, drawing the account of it from my unwilling lips. I sat upright in the bed, willing the pounding of my heart to slow and waiting for my vision to clear.
When it did, I saw Raphael kneeling at the bedside, his face quiet and composed. "Do you want me to tell it to you?" he asked gently.
"No." I passed my hands blindly over my face and shud dered. "I remember."
"It is often so, when the dream is caught in the making." Rising gracefully, he turned open the shuttered lamps, let ting their soft glow brighten the room, and poured me a glass. "Watered wine. Drink it, it will do you good."
I obeyed unthinking, gulping the cool liquid, which soothed my throat and nerves. Raphael sat back on his heels and regarded me.
"It is an easy dream to interpret," he said in his soft voice. "You are putting off a hard choice, Phèdre nó Delaunay, and only ill can come of it. If you wish, we may explore this dream together, and learn what is this choice you fear."
"That won't be necessary." I laughed shortly, and felt myself tremble a little. "I already know." It was not so much easier, after all, to face it waking. I did, and knew fear, smiling crookedly at Raphael Murain nó Gentian. "You see, I have to go to La Serenissima."
TWENTY-FIVE
Though I did not think I would be able to sleep after that nightmare, in time, I did; and that, too, was due to the gift of Raphael, who bid me stay when I would have gone, using his calm presence and soft voice to weave a spell to catch slumber. I slept without dreaming, and in it regained a measure of the ease the night's pleasure had afforded. In the morning, I was glad I had stayed.
Before I left, I knelt before him, placing two fingers against his lips. "Naamah's Servant, in her name, I bid you keep her secrets. Do you understand?"
Raphael nodded against my fingers. There were violet smudges of weariness beneath his eyes; this process took a toll on him. "It is a sacrosanct law of Gentian House. You need not fear. I have taken an oath." His expression changed, lightening a shade as he smiled at me. "Anyway, I would never betray your dreams. It must be difficult," he added gently, "to have feelings for a patron that conflict so deeply."
I did not need to ask who he meant. "Yes," I said, a tremor in my voice, more grateful than I could say. There was a tremendous relief in uttering the words, in the one place it would not draw suspicion upon me. "Yes. It is." And to that, Raphael Murain said nothing, but merely understood. "Thank you." I kissed him lightly, and went to leave a purse of coin, my patron's gift to him, on the night-stand. There is an item they use in the Night Court for the purpose—Naamah's Hands, we called it, a sculpture carved to resemble a stylized pair of cupping hands. Raphael's was of pale, translucent jade. He had prospered in Naamah's Service, I was thinking as I set down the purse, and well he should.
"My lady!" His voice rang like an untuned lyre, and ] turned to see a stricken look on his face. "Please. I cannot accept a patron-gift from you!"
"Why?" I asked curiously. "You have opened my dream to me like a book."
Standing, Raphael Murain nó Gentian shifted and ran a hand through his shining hair. "You paid the fee of the House," he said awkwardly. "For the rest, it was gift enough to serve." Seeing me hesitate, he gave that sweet smile so reminiscent of Alcuin. "I will only give it in offering to Naamah. Better you should do it, and speak my name. I would have her hear it from your lips." "Then I will," I promised.
In the courtyard of Gentian House, Fortun glanced at my face and asked me no questions, which was well. Freed of the oppressive weight of my nightmares, I felt my mind keen and sharp again. Upon returning home, I went imme diately to my study and drafted a note to Ysandre, begging a meeting with her and Drustan, sealing it with a blot of red wax and the impress of the official signet of Montrève. I dispatched Remy with it forthwith, giving him explicit in structions. "If you cannot gain access directly to the Queen, try the Cruarch. Drustan's guard will make allowances for a veteran of Troyes-le-Mont. Only to her or him, mind! No one else, not even one of her Cassilines."
"I understand," Remy said solemnly, bowing; when he raised his head, his eyes gleamed. "Are we bound for trou ble, my lady?"
"We will be, if you don't do exactly as I say, and quietly," I threatened him. He just laughed, bowed again and left. I don't know why I worried about Raphael Murain's discre tion, with retainers like Phèdre's Boys.
For all my concerns, Remy carried out my instructions faithfully. I daresay Ysandre was intrigued; at any rate, she granted my request almost immediately, making time in her schedule and sending a royal coach to escort me into the joint presence of the regents of Terre d'Ange and Alba. A private audience in truth, neither servants nor guards nor Cassilines in attendance.
"Well?" Ysandre asked, raising her eyebrows.
Taking a deep breath, I began, telling her the whole story, beginning with Gonzago de Escabares bringing me the
san-goire
cloak, and leaving out none of the details I had omitted in the Hall of Portraits. Melisande's challenge, and all my quest thereafter, all the suspicions I harbored, and the wind ing path I'd taken in pursuing them.
When I had done, both of them were troubled and thoughtful.
"It would ease my mind," Ysandre said slowly, "if you had some proof of your suspicions, Phèdre. If there were cause, I would not hesitate to pursue it... Trevalion, the de Somervilles, even my own uncle. I would summon the Prefect of the Cassiline Brotherhood before the throne if I thought there was cause. But what you tell me is guesswork, and nothing more. I will not act on supposition, not even yours."
I had not expected her to; only to heed my warning. "There is the cloak."
"Yes," Ysandre said wryly. "There is. I should tell you, I have had a correspondence from my great-uncle, Prince Benedicte de la Courcel. Did you know I dispatched couriers to him after Marmion's hearing?" She looked sharply at me, and I shook my head. "I did. And he has scoured La Ser-enissima, and found no trace of Melisande. Indeed, he in vites me to make the Caerdicci
progressus regalis
ere winter, that the city may receive me as Queen of Terre d'Ange."
"Why doesn't Benedicte come here to acknowledge
