Kushiel's Dart (39 page)

Joscelin paused, then shook his head. "No," he admitted ruefully. "My eldest sister would know. She once charted every one of Shemhazai's lines, every House, Major and Minor, in Siovale. She could tell you in three minutes whose line ends in a mystery." He sat down and scratched absently beneath the buckles of his left vambrace. "Eleven years," he added softly. "Since I've seen my family. We swear our vows at twenty. I'm allowed a visit at twenty-five, if the Prefect gauges I've served well my first five years."

Alcuin whistled.

"I told you it was a harsh service," I said to him. "And what about you? What can you add to the mystery of Anafiel Delaunay these days?"

I had tried to be mindful of Thelesis de Mornay's advice, but that had pertained to Delaunay, not Alcuin, and the banked jealousy smouldered beneath my words. If I'd not had enough questions before, I had a score more after what I'd seen yesterday. What was Delaunay to House Courcel, that Ganelon would use him; and how? What did Ysandre de la Courcel want of him, and what was the "certain matter" she wished to discuss? What oath had he sworn, and upon whose ring?

If Alcuin had no way of knowing what questions roiled around my mind, he knew well enough from whence my hostility came. But he merely sat and regarded me with his grave, dark eyes.

"You do know," I said in sudden comprehension. "He told you." My anger flared, and I shoved at the books nearest me. "Damn you, Alcuin! We always,
always
promised we would share with the other what we learned!"

"That was before I knew." Quietly, he moved the most brittle of the scrolls out of my reach. "Phedre, I swear to you, I don't know the whole of it. Only what I need to aid him in this research. And I promised only not to tell you until your marque was made. You're near to it, aren't you?"

"Will you see?" I asked him coldly.

They were the words he had asked Delaunay. I saw him remember, and flush, the color as visible as wine in an alabaster cup. He'd known I knew; he hadn't known I'd seen. But it wasn't in Alcuin to evade the truth, and blushing or no, there was no guile in his eyes as he held my gaze. "You were the one who told him, Phedre. He might never have let it happen, if you hadn't put it in his thoughts."

"I know. I know." My anger died, and I held my head in my hands and sighed. Joscelin stared at us, blinking and perplexed. It was no easy thing, to follow a quarrel between students of Anafiel Delaunay's. "I saw too well how you loved him, and for all his cleverness, Delaunay was as simple as a pig-herder where you were concerned. He'd have let you starve your heart out in his shadow before he saw. But I didn't think it would hurt so much."

Alcuin came over to sit beside me and put his arms about me. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "Truly, I'm sorry."

From the corner of my eye, I saw Joscelin rise silently and give his formal bow, withdrawing tactfully from the room. In that distant part of my mind that was ever calculating, I regretted that we had driven him away, the first time that he had relaxed a little in our presence. But Alcuin and I had been too long together in Delaunay's household not to have this conversation, and it had been long days in coming.

"I know," I said to him. I laughed, and my breath caught in my throat, but I had no tears left for this. "I wish there were a little unkindness in you, Alcuin, so I could hate you for it. But I suppose I'll have to settle for wishing you well, and hating you for what you won't tell me."

He laughed too at that, his breath warm at my ear. His white hair spilled over my shoulder, mingling with my own sable locks. "Well, I'd have done the same."

"Yes," I said, "you would." I stroked his hair where it lay against mine, then drew out two lengths and braided them together, dark and white intertwining. He kept his head next to mine and his arms about me, watching. "Our lives," I said. "Bound together by Anafiel Delaunay."

Who, having entered the room, cleared his throat.

Alcuin, startled, jerked his head up. My hair, braided with his, tugged at my scalp and made me wince.

I can't imagine how foolish we looked; Delaunay's mouth twitched with amusement, but he managed to keep a straight face. "I thought you might like to know, Phedre," he said, working hard at keeping his voice solemn, "that Melisande Shahrizai has come to visit, and would like to make an offer of an assignation."

"Name of Elua!" I yanked at the braid, dragging Alcuin's head back down with a yelp, and began undoing it frantically. "Why can't she send a courier, like normal people?"

"Because," Delaunay said, still amused, "she is an acquaintance of long standing, and likely most of all, because she enjoys seeing you discomfited. Be thankful I bid her wait in the receiving room while I summoned you. Shall I say you'll join us presently?"

"Yes, my lord." I got the braid unbound, and endeavored hurriedly to restore some semblance of order to my hair. Alcuin laughed; he ran his fingers through his hair once, and it fell glistening into its customary river of white silk. I glared at him, and wondered if I had time to change into a different gown. Delaunay shook his head and left us.

In the end, I elected to appear as I was, in the warm woolen gown I'd worn to watch Joscelin practice. It would merely have served Melisande Shahrizai's entertainment, to suggest that I was unsettled enough to need to arm myself in my best attire. She had arrived unannounced; well, then, I would receive her accordingly, even as Delaunay had.

I could hear the laughter before I even entered the room; whatever else they had been to each other, she and Delaunay made each other laugh. I prayed he wasn't describing the scene he'd witnessed, though it wasn't like Delaunay to be thoughtlessly cruel. He beckoned me into the room, and I obeyed. "My lord, my lady." I kept my voice level, made a curtsy and took a chair. Melisande shot me one amused glance that nearly undermined all of my composure.

"Phedre," she said, cocking her head thoughtfully. "I have made Anafiel an offer he deems acceptable. My lord the Due Quincel de Morhban is visiting the City of Elua for the Midwinter festivities, and he is minded to host a masque. His is the sovereign duchy of Kusheth, and I am minded to make somewhat of a statement on behalf of House Shahrizai. A genuine
anguissette
, I think, would be just the thing. Are you contracted for the Longest Night?"

The Longest Night. In the Night Court, no contracts were made for the Longest Night; but I was not of the Night Court any longer, nor ever had been in the service of Naamah. My mouth grew dry and I shook my head. "No, my lady," I answered her, not without difficulty. "I am not contracted."

"Well, then." Her beautiful lips curved in a smile. "Do you accept?"

As if there were some question of it, or I could summon the will to decline. I had been waiting for Melisande Shahrizai to offer me an assignation since I was scarce more than a child. I would have laughed, if I could have. "Yes."

"Good," she said simply, then glanced at Joscelin, who had arrived before me to stand at ease by the door in his cross-vambraced stance. "A long, dull vigil for you, I'm afraid, my young Cassiline."

His face was expressionless as he bowed, but his eyes blazed like a summer sky. I hadn't realized, when they'd met at the Palace, that he quite despised her. I wondered if it was because she had mocked his vow of celibacy, or for somewhat else. "I protect and serve," he said savagely.

Melisande arched her brows. "Oh, you protect well enough, but I'd ask better service, were you sworn to attend me, Cassiline."

Delaunay coughed; I knew him well enough to know it hid a laugh. I don't think Joscelin did, but he was filled with enough ire at Melisande's teasing that it hardly mattered. Oddly enough, it cheered me to know that despite consorting with House Courcel and Cassiline Prefects, Delaunay's sense of humor was undiminished. I liked Joscelin a little better for keeping my secret and his brief moments of humanity, but he needed to unbend a bit further if he wanted to avoid making a fool of himself in Delaunay's service.

Or of me, I thought glumly.

"The Longest Night, then," said Delaunay aloud, collecting himself enough to divert attention from poor Joscelin and smooth the awkward moment. He grinned at Melisande. "You don't do anything by halves, do you?"

"No." She smiled complacently back at him. "You know I don't, Anafiel."

"Mmm." He sipped at a glass of cordial and eyed her thoughtfully. "What's your game with Quincel de Morhban?"

Melisande laughed. "Oh, that... as to that, it's nothing more than

Kusheline politics. The duchy of Morhban holds the Pointe d'Oeste, and reckons its sovereignty thusly, but the Shahrizai are the oldest House in Kusheth. Phedre's presence will remind him that we trace our line unbroken to Kushiel, no more. I may wish a favor some day; it is good to remind one's Due that there is merit in boons granted to ancient Houses."

"No more than that?"

"No more than that for the Due de Morhban." She toyed with her glass and smiled idly in my direction. "My other reasons are my own."

Her smile went through me like a spear. I shuddered, and knew not why.

THIRTY-FOUR

When poets sing of the winter upon whose threshold we stood, they call it the Bitterest Winter; indeed, so it was, and I pray never to know one more bitter. But as the days grew ever shorter, we knew naught of what was to come. Betimes I have heard people bewail the fact that our destinies are shrouded in mystery; I think, though, that it is a blessing of sorts. Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by untasted.

And mayhap there are those who would claim'twere best were it so, but I cannot believe it. I am D'Angeline to my core, and we are Elua's chosen, descendants of his seed, bom to the soil where his long wandering ended and he shed his blood for love of humankind. So I think, and betimes I believe it. I cannot do otherwise. Though I think they would have laid long odds on my chances in Night's Doorstep, I survived the Bitterest Winter, and I must believe, as survivors do, that there is reason in it. Were there not, the sorrow would be too much to bear. We are meant to taste of life, as Blessed Elua did, and drink the cup of it to the dregs, bitter and sweet alike.

But these beliefs came later, and are the fruit of long thought. Then, life was sweet, spiced only with apprehension, and tempered only by the gall of petty jealousy.

In the days before the Longest Night, my coming assignation was much on my mind, and I fretted over the preparations until Delaunay, exasperated, sent word to Melisande, who replied—by courier, for once—that she would see to all that was needful for my attendance at the Due de Morhban's Midwinter Masque. I remembered the cloth-of-gold gown she had sent for my assignation with Baudoin de Trevalion, and was comforted in part; in another part, I was no less uneasy in mind, for the fate of Prince Baudoin remained fresh in my memory.

Delaunay, for his part, was amused by my worries, when he paid them heed, which was seldom. Whatever the game in which he was immersed, Melisande Shahrizai played no direct part in it by his reckoning, and there was naught he wished of my other patrons. The game, it seemed, had moved to another level, one to which I had no access.

With snow in the mountain passes, there came the resumption of Skaldi raiding parties, and the Allies of Camlach began to ride once more under the Due d'Aiglemort's banner. This we heard, and in slow, creeping whispers the name Waldemar Selig surfaced in the salons of the City: a rumor still, nothing more, a name heard too oft to be ignored on the lips of fur-clad raiders who rushed Camaeline villages with axe and torch, sometimes escaping with loot of grain and stores, sometimes dying at the end of a D'Angeline sword.

These stories Delaunay heard with interest, cataloguing them in a record he kept; and another story too, from Percy de Somerville, of how the King had commanded him to send the Azzallese fleet against the island of Alba. Ganelon de la Courcel had not forgotten how the usurping Cruarch—whose name, it seemed, was Maelcon—and his mother had conspired to aid House Trevalion in treason.

As a reward for his loyalty, the King had deeded the duchy of Trevalion to the Comte de Somerville, who gave it over to his son, Ghislain, to rule in his name. And on the King's order, Ghislain de Somerville had set the Azzallese fleet to gain Alban shores, but the waves rose up four times higher than a man's head, and after several ships capsized, Ghislain de Somerville gauged failure to be the better part of wisdom, and shouted orders for a retreat, staying behind on his flagship until the last man still afloat could be rescued.

I am no fool; I marked at hearing it how Alcuin continued to pore over the most obscure of books and treatises for references to the Master of the Straits, sending word to libraries in Siovale and even to the scholars of Aragonia and Tiberium for copies of materials. Maestro Gonzago de Escabares arrived one day with a pack-mule full laden with fair copies of books and old parchments for Alcuin, and whispers of a direr rumor. The city-states of Caerdicca Unitas had formed strong alliances, and the north wind bore rumor, they said, that Waldemar Selig looked to Terre d'Ange, a riper plum for the plucking, and one fair rife with dissention.

I do not think, then, that we were quite so rotten-ripe; Ganelon de la Courcel held the throne, and no one challenged it. He had the support of Percy de Somerville, at command of the royal army, a powerful ally still in his brother, Prince Benedicte, and the interest of the Due L'Envers, who held the favor, distant but lucrative, of the Khalif of Khebbel-im-Akkad.