Kushiel's Dart (67 page)

It was strange, to be in that house without the presence of Hyacinthe's mother, muttering over her cookstove. He used it to heat water for the bath, sending one of his runners to the Cockerel for hot food, with word only that he was entertaining in private that night.

To be warm and clean and safe seemed a luxury beyond words. We sat around the kitchen table and ate squab trussed in rosemary, washing it down with a rather good red wine Hyacinthe had procured, taking turns telling what had happened between famished bites, sketching in the events. To his credit, Hyacinthe never interrupted once, listening gravely as Jos-celin and I unwound our tale. When he learned of d'Aiglemort's betrayal and the Skaldi invasion plan, he looked sick.

"He wouldn't," he said. "He
couldn't
?

"He thinks to pull it off." I gulped a mouthful of wine, and set down my glass. "But he has no idea of the numbers Selig can muster. We have to talk to someone, Hyacinthe. The Dauphine, or someone who can reach her."

"I'm thinking," he murmured, reaching for his own glass. "Your lives are forfeit, if anyone knows you've set foot in the City."

"How. . . why? Why would they think we did it?" Joscelin had had a bit of wine too, and was impassioned with it. "What possible gain would there have been?"

"I can tell you the popular theory." Hyacinthe swirled the wine in his glass, gazing into its depths. "Rumor has it that Barquiel L'Envers paid a fabulous sum for you to betray Delaunay—and you your oath, Cassiline—and admit his Akkadian Guard into the house, to settle the old score for Isabel, and set you both up in Khebbel-im-Akkad. There's no proof of it, of course, and he's not been formally charged, but the stories about the assassination of Dominic Stregazza haven't helped his cause."

"I would never—" I began.

"I know." Hyacinthe raised his gaze, dark eyes meeting mine. "I knew it for a lie, and told whoever would listen. There were a few others who spoke on your behalf, I heard. Caspar Trevalion, and Cecilie Laveau-Perrin both did, and the Prefect of the Cassiline Brotherhood sent a letter protesting his order's innocence." He inclined his head to Joscelin. "But Parliament wanted a conviction, and the courts obliged. It won't do to have people thinking D'Angeline nobles could be slain out of hand, and their killers go unpunished."

"Melisande?" I asked; I had already guessed.

Hyacinthe shook his black curls. "If she was behind it, she kept her hand well hidden."

"She would. She played that card at Baudoin's trial, she's too canny to play it twice." I fingered the diamond without thinking. "It would look suspicious," I added dourly.

Hyacinthe began to clear away the remains of our dinner without comment, stacking the plates in a washtub for later. "All I have is at your disposal, Phedre," he said presently, returning to sit at the table, propping his chin on his hands. "Poets and players go everywhere, know everyone; I can get word through them to whomever you like. The problem is, not a one of them can be trusted to keep silence."

I looked instinctively at Joscelin, who frowned.

"You say the Prefect sent a letter?" he asked Hyacinthe, who nodded. Joscelin shook his head. "I don't know," he said reluctantly. "If he protested the order's innocence and not mine ... if he wrote rather than came to speak in person . . . no. I wouldn't trust him not to call the Royal Guard on us. I'll go to him myself, rather. Can you provide a mount?" The last was addressed to Hyacinthe.

"Yes, of course."

"No." I pressed my fingers to my temples. "It's unsure, and would take days. There's got to be another way." A thought struck me, and I raised my head. "Hyacinthe, can you find someone to deliver a letter to Thelesis de Mornay?"

"Absolutely." He grinned. "A love letter, perhaps? A message from an admirer? Nothing easier. The only thing I can't guarantee is that it will arrive with the seal intact."

"It doesn't matter." My mind was racing. "Do you have paper? I'll couch the real information in Cruithne. If any one of your poets can read Pictish, I'll eat this table whole."

After rummaging in a chest, Hyacinthe brought me pen and paper, shaving the quill with a sharp knife and setting the inkpot at hand. I penned a quick, fervid note of admiration in D'Angeline, then added a few lines of Cruithne, structuring them to look like verse to the uneducated eye.
The last student of he who might have been the King's Poet awaits, at the home of the Prince of Travellers, begging your aid in the name of the King's cygnet, his only born
.

I read it aloud, in D'Angeline then in Cruithne, stumbling over the pronunciation.

"Cruithne," Joscelin murmured; he'd thought himself beyond surprise. "You speak Cruithne."

"Not well," I admitted. I'd glossed over the fact that I knew neither the word for cygnet nor swan; I had translated Ysandre de la Courcel's emblem, in truth, as something closer to "long-neck baby water bird." But Thelesis de Mornay spoke and read Cruithne, and moreover, it was she who'd told me that Delaunay might have been the King's Poet, had matters not fallen out as they had. "Will it do?"

"It'll do, and more. Leave it unsigned." Hyacinthe, idling with his chair tipped back, moved into action, snatching the letter from my hand and grabbing a taper to seal it deftly with a blob of wax. "Give it me now, there's a party bound for the Lute and Mask later this evening. I'll see it in Thelesis de Mornay's hand by noon tomorrow, if I have to bribe half of Night's Doorstep to get it there."

He was out the door within seconds, swirling his cloak around him.

"You were right to trust him," Joscelin said quietly. "I was wrong." I met his gaze across the table; he gave me his wry smile. "I can admit that much."

"Well, and you were right about Taavi and Danele," I said to him. "I never told you, but I could have killed you when you asked their help. But you were right."

"They were good people. I hope they're well." He stood up. "If there's naught more to be done this night..."

"Go, get some sleep." I stifled a yawn at the thought of it. "I'll stay awake until Hyacinthe comes back."

"I'll leave you alone, then. I'm sure you want a chance to talk with him." The same wry smile, but something caught at it, twisting at my heart.

"Joscelin ..." I looked up at him. It seemed impossible to believe, here in this childhood haven, all that we'd been through together. All of it. "Joscelin, whatever happens to us ... you did it. You kept your vow to protect and serve. You brought me home safe," I said softly. "Thank you."

He swept his Cassiline bow, and left me to wait.

Hyacinthe was some time returning, and entered the house quietly, turning the key carefully in the lock. I started, having fallen into a doze, slumped at the kitchen table.

"You're awake." He came to sit with me, taking my hands in his. "You should be in bed."

"How did it go?"

"Fine." He inspected my hands, turning them gently. "Thelesis should have the letter by tomorrow, unless young Marc-Baptiste has a terrible quarrel with Japheth no Eglantine-Vardennes, which is not likely. He thinks I'm sheltering Sarphiel the Reclusive, who is indeed mad enough to send the Prince of Travellers with an unsigned love note to the King's Poet. Thelesis was ill, you know, but the King's own physician attended her, and she's on the mend. Phedre, it looks like you've been working as a galley-slave."

"I know." I pulled my hands away. They were red-roughened and chafed by cold, scratched and torn, with dirt engrained that a single bath couldn't remove. "But I can build a fire with a single sodden log in the middle of a snowstorm."

"Ah, Elua." Emotion flooded his face, his dark eyes liquid with unshed tears. "I thought I'd lost you, truly. Delaunay, Alcuin . . . Phedre, I never thought to see you again. I can't believe you survived what you did. To return here, and find yourself branded a murderess ... I'd have fought harder against it, if I'd known you were alive. I'm so sorry."

"I know." I swallowed, hard. "At least it's home, though. If I have to die anywhere . . . Oh, Hyacinthe, I'm so sorry about your mother."

He was quiet a moment, gazing unthinking toward the cookstove that had seemed so eternally her domain, rife with muttered prophecy and the chink of gold coins. "I know. I miss her. I always thought she would live to see me claim my birthright among the Tsingani, and not this sham I play at in Night's Doorstep. But I waited too long." He rubbed at his eyes. "You should sleep. You must be exhausted."

"Yes. Good night," I whispered, kissing him on the brow. I felt his gaze follow me as I made my way to a warm and waiting bed.

There is a point beyond exhaustion, where sleep is hard in coming. I had reached it that night. After so long sharing a bed, it seemed strange to be alone in one, in clean linen sheets with a warm velvet coverlet atop them. Even after the strangeness of it wore off, giving way to drowsing familiarity, something seemed to be missing. The realization of what it was struck me with a shock, just before the tidal wave of sleep finally claimed me and dragged me under to the depths of oblivion, erasing the thought as the waves erase a line drawn in the sand by a child's stick.

It was Joscelin.

I slept late into the morning, and awoke remembering nothing of it. Hyacinthe had been up and about and busy already, and the modest house gleamed; he'd brought in a girl he could trust, the daughter of a Tsingano seamstress his mother had known, to cook and clean. She went about her business with ducked head, eager to please and fearing to meet the eye of the Prince of Travellers or his mysterious friends.

"She'll say naught," Hyacinthe assured us, and we believed him. He had found clothing, too; or bought it, rather, from the seamstress. I bathed again, murmuring a prayer of thanksgiving as the hot water steeped further traces of the Skaldi from my skin, and dressed afterward in the gown he'd provided, a dark-blue velvet that did not fit too ill.

Joscelin, in a sober dove-grey doublet and hose, struggled to drag a comb through his hair, damp and clean, but matted with Skaldi braidwork. He made no protest when I went to aid him with it, easing out the tangles.

His daggers, vambraces and sword lay in a tangle of steel and leathers on the kitchen table.

"You're not. . .?" I began to ask; he shook his head, hair sliding over his shoulders.

"I may have kept you alive, but I've broken my vows nonetheless. I don't have the right to bear arms."

"Do you want me to put it in a single braid, then?" I gathered his hair in my hands, feeling the fair, silken mass of it.

"No," he said resolutely. "I'll put it in a club. I've still the right to that much, as a priest."

He was that, though I had forgotten it. I watched as his hands moved deftly, binding his hair into a club at the nape of his neck. Even without his arms, he looked a Cassiline again. Hyacinthe observed it all without comment, only the arch of his brows reminding me how far it was from where we'd begun.

"We should burn those," he said aloud, wrinking his nose at the pile of garments, furs and woolens, we'd shed.

"No, leave them," I said quickly. "Elua, the smell alone will testify to our story! And we've naught else to prove it."

Joscelin laughed.

Shaking his head in bewilderment, Hyacinthe glanced out the window onto the street and tensed. "There's a carriage drawing up to the doorstep," he said, his voice tight. "You'd best get in the back, there's an exit out the postern gate. If it's not de Mornay, I'll hold them off as long as I can."

We moved quickly, Joscelin sweeping his gear off the table, and hid ourselves in the scullery, where there was a passage to the rear of the house.

It didn't take long. I heard the door open and one person enter, Hyacinthe's courteous greeting. The voice that answered was unmistakable; fainter than I remembered, but rich and feminine.

Thelesis de Mornay.

I remember that I stumbled out of hiding weeping, even as she drew back the hood of her cloak, revealing the familiar plain features illumed by her dark eyes, which held grief and welcome alike. She took me in her arms, her embrace quick and fierce, unexpectedly strong.

"Ah, child ..." her voice whispered at my ear. "I'm so glad to see you alive. Anafiel Delaunay would be proud of you." She grasped my arms then, shaking me a little. "He would be so proud," she repeated.

I gulped back my tears, gathering myself, fighting the shudder in my voice. "Thelesis . . . We need to speak to the Dauphine, to Caspar Trev-alion, Admiral Rousse, to whomever you trust. The Skaldi are planning to invade, they've a leader, and the Due d'Aiglemort plans betrayal—"

"Shhh." Her hands at my arms steadied me. "I got your message, Phedre. I knew you were no traitor. I'm taking you now to an audience with Ysandre de la Courcel. Are you ready to bear that much?"

It seemed sudden, too sudden. I looked around for an instant, frantic and uncertain. Joscelin stepped up to my side, empty-handed, but armed in Cassiline rigor.

"She will not go alone," he said in his softest, most deadly tone. "In the name of Cassiel, I will bear witness to this."

"And I." Hyacinthe bowed gracefully in his best Prince of Travellers manner, but his eyes when he straightened were cold and black. "I have lost Phedre no Delaunay once already, my lady, and protested too little. I do not propose to let the same mistake happen twice. And mayhap it will be that my small gift of the
dromonde
may be of service in this matter."