Kushiel's Dart (14 page)

After the Camlach host came the train of spoils, loot seized in battle. Arms aplenty were displayed, and I shivered at the massive battle-axes. The Skaldi are mighty poets—I know, having studied their tongue long enough—but their songs are all of blood and iron. And those whom they defeat, they enslave. We D'Angelines are civilized. Even one sold into debt-bondage, as I was, has the eventual hope of purchasing freedom.

At length the baggage train too passed, and Cecilie's guests began to move back into the house. I turned about to see the smiling face of the bearded man behind me. His features were distinctly un-D'Angeline. Recalling the trace of an accent, I marked him as Aragonian.

"You are of the household of Anafiel Delaunay, I think. Did you enjoy the parade?" he asked me kindly.

"Yes, my lord." I had no idea of his status, but the response was automatic. He laughed.

"I am Gonzago de Escabares, and no lord, but a sometime historian. Come, give me your name, and let us go inside together."

"Phedre," I told him.

"Ah." He clucked his tongue and held out his arm. "An unlucky name, child. I will be your friend, then, for the ancient Hellenes said a good friend may stand between a man and his
moira
. Do you know what that means?"

"Fate." I answered unthinking, for Delaunay had specified that neither Alcuin nor I were to betray the extent of our learning without his approval. But a connection had formed in my mind, the linkage surfacing. "You were one of his teachers, at the University in Tiberium."

"Indeed." He made me a courtly little bow, with a click of his heels. "I have since retired, and travel at leisure to see the places of which I so long have spoken. But I had the privilege of teaching your . . . your Delaunay, he and his ..."

"Maestro!" Delaunay's voice, ringing with unalloyed pleasure, interrupted us as we entered the ballroom. He crossed the floor in great strides, beaming, embracing the older man with great affection. "Cecilie didn't tell me you would be here."

Gonzago de Escabares wheezed at his embrace, thumping Delaunay's back. "Ah, Anafiel my boy, I am old, and allow myself one luxury. Where the crux of history turns, I may be there to watch it grind. If it turns in Terre d'Ange, so much the better, where I may surround my aging form with such beauty." He patted Delaunay on the cheek, smiling. "You have lost none of yours, young Antinous."

"You flatter me, Maestro." Delaunay took de Escabares' hands in his, but there was a reserved quality to his smile. "I must remind you, though ..."

"Ah!" The Aragonian professor's expression changed, growing sharper and sadder. "Yes, of course, forgive me. But it is good to see you, Anafiel. Very good."

"It is." Delaunay smiled again, meaning it. "May we speak, later? There is someone I wish Phedre to meet."

"Of course, of course." He patted my shoulder with the same indulgent affection. "Go, child, and enjoy yourself. This is no time to waste on aging pedants."

Delaunay laughed and shook his head, leading me away.

Silently, I cursed his timing, but aloud, I merely asked, "He taught you at the University?"

"The Tiberians collect scholars the way they used to amass empires," Delaunay said absently. "Maestro Gonzago was one of the best."

Yes, my lord, I thought, and he called you Anafiel, and Antinous, which is a name from the title of a poem which is proscribed, but he stumbled once over the name Delaunay, which Hyacinthe says is not truly yours, and he might have told me a great deal more had you not intervened, so while I do as you say, be mindful that I do also as you have taught.

But these things I kept silent, and followed obediently as he turned in a way that caused me to bump into a blonde woman with aquiline features, who turned about with a sharp exclamation.

"Phedre!" Delaunay's voice held a chastising note. "Solaine, I am sorry. This is Phedre's first such gathering. Phedre, this is the Marquise Solaine Belfours, to whom you will apologize."

"You might let the girl speak for herself, Delaunay." Her voice held irritation; Solaine Belfours had no great love for Delaunay, and I marked it well, even as I cast an annoyed glance at him for placing me in this position. The collision was of his manufacturing; no child was trained in Cereus House without learning to move gracefully and unobtrusively through a crowd.

"The Marquise is a secretary of the Privy Seal," Delaunay remarked casually, placing a hand on my shoulder, letting me know the import of her position.

He wanted contrition from me, I knew; but while Delaunay may have known his targets and their weaknesses, he was not what I was. What I knew was born in the blood.

"Sorry," I muttered with ill grace, and glanced sullenly up at her, feeling the thrill of defiance deep in my bones. Her blue-green eyes grew cold and her mouth hardened.

"Your charge needs a lesson, Delaunay." She turned away abruptly, stalking across the ballroom. I looked at Delaunay to see his brows arched with uncertainty and surprise.

Beware of setting brushfires, Cecilie had said. Her comment made more sense to me now, although I did not of a necessity agree with it. I shrugged Delaunay's hand off my shoulder. "Tend to Alcuin, my lord. / am well enough on my own."

"Too well, perhaps." He laughed ruefully and shook his head. "Stay out of trouble, Phedre. I've enough to deal with this night."

"Of course, my lord." I smiled impudently at him. With another despairing shake of his head, he left me.

Left to my own devices, I daresay I did well enough. Several of the guests had brought companions and we made acquaintance. There was a slight, dark youth from Eglantine House whose quick grin reminded me of Hyacinthe. He did a tumbling dance alone with hoops and ribbons, and everyone applauded him. His patron, Lord Chavaise, smiled with pride. And there was Mierette, from Orchis House, who had made her marque and kept her own salon now. Steeped in the gaiety for which her house was renowned, she brought laughter and a sense of sunlight with her, and where she went, I saw pleasure and merriment light people's faces.

Many of them, though, eyed Alcuin, who moved through the gathering oblivious to it all, serene and dark-eyed. I watched their faces and marked that among them all, one stood out. I knew him, for Vitale Bouvarre was an acquaintance of Delaunay's; not a friend, I think, but he had been a guest at Delaunay's house. He was a trader, of common stock—indeed, it was rumored there was Caerdicci blood in his lineage—but an excessively wealthy one, by virtue of an exclusive charter with the Stregazza family in La Serenissima.

His gaze followed Alcuin and his face was sick with desire.

When the last rays of sun had gone and darkness filled the long windows around the balcony, Cecilie clapped her hands and summoned us to dine. No fewer than twenty-seven guests were arrayed about the long table, ushered to our seats by solicitous servants clad in spotless white attire. Dishes came in an unceasing stream, soups and terrines followed by pigeon en daube, a rack of lamb, sallets and greens and a dish of white turnips whipped to a froth which everyone pronounced a delight of rustic sophistication, and all the while rivers of wine poured from chilled jugs into glasses only half-empty.

"A toast!" Cecilie cried, when the last dish—a dessert of winter apples baked in muscat wine and spiced with cloves—had been cleared. She lifted her glass and waited for silence. She had the gift, still, of commanding attention; the table fell quiet. "To the safety of our borders," she said, letting the words fall in a soft voice. "To the safety and well-being of blessed Terre d'Ange."

A murmurous accord sounded the length of the table; this was one point on which each of us agreed. I drank with a willing heart, and saw no one who did not do the same.

"Thelesis," Cecilie said in the same soft voice.

Near the head of the table, a woman rose.

She was small and dark and not, I thought, a great beauty. Her features were unremarkable, and her best asset, luminous dark eyes, were offset by a low brow.

And then she spoke.

There are many kinds of beauty. We are D'Angeline.

"Beneath the golden balm," she said aloud, simply, and her voice filled every corner of the room, imbued with golden light. "Settling on the fields/Evening steals in calm/And farmers count their yields." So simple, her lyric; and yet I saw it, saw it all. She offered the words up unadorned, plain and lovely. "The bee is in the lavender/The honey fills the comb," and then her voice changed to something still and lonely. "But here a rain falls never-ending/And I am far from home."

Everyone knows the words to
The Exile's Lament
. It was written by Thelesis de Mornay when she was twenty-three years old and living in exile on the rain-swept coast of Alba. I myself had heard it a dozen times over, and recited it at more than one tutor's behest. Still, hearing it now, tears filled my eyes. We were D'Angeline, bred and bound to this land which Blessed Elua loved so well he shed his blood for it.

In the silence that followed, Thelesis de Mornay took her seat. Cecilie kept her glass raised.

"My lords and ladies," she said in her gentle voice, marked by the cadences of Cereus House. "Let it never be forgotten what we are." With a solemn air, she lifted her glass and tipped it, spilling a libation. "Elua have mercy on us." Her solemnity caught us all, and many followed suit. I did, and saw Delaunay and Alcuin did as well. Then Cecilie looked up again, a mischievous light in her eyes. "And now," she declared, "Let the games begin! Kottabos!"

Amid shouts of laughter, we retired to the parlour, united by love of our country and Cecilie's conviviality. Her servants had prudently removed the carpet, and in its place was a silver floorstand. Standing on tripodal legs, it pierced and held a broad silver crater, polished to mirror-brightness. Chased figures around the rim depicted a D'Angeline drinking party, a la Hellene. D'Angelines regard the Golden Era of Hellas as the last great civilization before the coming of Elua, which is why such things never go out of style.

Spiring out of the center of the crater, the stand rose to some four feet and terminated. Balanced atop its finial was the silver disk of the
plastinx
. Cecilie's servants circulated with wine-jugs and fresh cups; shallow silver wine-bowls with ornate handles.

To get to the lees, of course, one must drink what is poured, and although I had been prudent in my drinking, I felt it warm my blood as I emptied my cup. It is an art which must be practiced, twirling the handle about one's ringer, flinging the last drops of wine in such a way that they strike the
plastinx
, knocking it into the crater so that it sounds like a cymbal.

When I took my turn, five or six others had gone before me, and while some had hit the
plastinx
, none had knocked it off the shaft. I did not even do so well as that, but Thelesis de Mornay smiled kindly at me. Cecilie succeeded to much applause, but the
plastinx
rattled against the edge before dropping into the bowl of the crater. Lord Childric d'Essoms spun his cup so fast that the dregs of his wine flew like a bolt from a crossbow, knocking the
plastinx
clear off the shaft and onto the floor. Everyone cheered and laughed, though it didn't count. Mierette of Orchis House rang the bowl, and Caspar, Comte de Fourcay, and to everyone's surprise, Gonzago de Escabares, who smiled into his beard.

Alcuin, who shared a couch with a tall woman in a headdress, fared worse than I and only spattered wine about. His companion raised his fingers to her lips and sucked droplets of wine from them. Alcuin blushed. Vitale Bouvarre was sufficiently unsettled that he let go the handle of his cup and threw it with his wine. The
plastinx
dropped into the basin, but it was not counted a legal shot.

When Delaunay took his turn—and somehow it fell out that he went last—he looked calm and collected, austere in his black velvet attire. Reclining on one of the couches and leaning on one arm, he spun the cup and let fly his lees with an elegant motion.

His aim was unerring and the silver
plastinx
toppled neatly into the basin, which rang like a chime. Not everyone applauded, I noted, but those who did, did so loudly, proclaiming him the victor.

"A forfeit, a forfeit!" Mierette cried, flushed and gorgeous on her couch. "Messire Delaunay claims a forfeit from the hostess!"

Cecilie acknowledged it, laughing. "What will you have, Anafiel?" she asked teasingly.

Delaunay smiled and went over to her. Bending down, he claimed a kiss—a sweet one, I thought—and whispered in her ear. Cecilie laughed again, and Delaunay went back to his couch.

"I am minded to grant this claim," Cecilie said archly. "At the stroke of midnight, Alcuin no Delaunay, who is dedicated to Naamah, will gain sixteen years of age. The holder of his marque asks that we hold an auction for his virgin-price. Is anyone here minded to object?"

You may be sure, no one objected, and as if on cue—indeed, I am sure they planned it, Delaunay and Cecilie—the distant voice of a horol-ogist crying midnight in the square filtered through the balcony windows into the waiting silence. Cecilie raised her glass.

"Let it be so! I declare the bidding open!"

In one smooth, graceful motion, Alcuin rose from his couch and stood before us, holding his hands out open and turning slowly. I have seen a hundred adepts of the First of the Thirteen Houses on display, and I have never seen anyone who matched his dignity in it.