It was a short journey homeward along
the
Great Canal. Remy and Ti-Philippe were exuberant, and I had to caution them to silence in the boatman's presence as they laid plans to bring this knowledge to Prince Benedicte's attention. All of the missing guardsmen, it seemed, had spoken the same.
Only Fortun was silent and withdrawn.
When we had gained the security of our rented home and secluded ourselves against servants' listening ears, Remy and Ti-Philippe recited to me in a litany the guardsmen's testimony. A full half-dozen, each cited by name—and all had seen the same thing. Duc Barquiel L'Envers, escorting Persia Shahrizai. Dizziness threatened again as I wondered how to convince Ysandre, and I had to grip the edge of the table hard to steady myself. I closed my eyes briefly to make the room stop spinning.
When I opened them, Fortun's somber face caught my eye. "What is it?" I asked him.
He glanced away, then back at me. "My lady," he said quietly. "You taught me to watch, to listen, for certain things. And there was one thing I could not help but notice." He cleared his throat. "They all told the exact same story."
"They all saw the same damn thing, man!" Ti-Philippe exclaimed, thumping him on the shoulder. "What do you expect?"
"Look." Fortun ignored him to lean over the map of Troyes-le-Mont, still laid out on the table. "Here, here and here ..." he pointed to positions marked on the ground and second floor, "... here and here, these are the stations of the guardsmen we spoke to among the Unforgiven. All of them saw a half-dozen folk that night—including Persia Shahrizai in the company of a Cassiline Brother. Look at the routes, my lady. If they're telling the truth, it's impossible that these guardsmen of the Little Court wouldn't have seen the same.”
"Mayhap they lied," I suggested. "We cannot always know."
Fortun frowned. "The Queen had everyone questioned, including the guard, at length. If two-thirds of the guards on duty saw naught but Barquiel L'Envers and Persia Shahrizai, why did they not come forward then? It would have been suspicious." He sighed and rumpled his hair. "Some one is lying, yes. But I think it is these guardsmen, and not well. They have been poorly coached. I asked them why they took posts in La Serenissima. You heard Raimond; they all gave the same answer. And," he added softly, "they were all sent by the same man."
My blood ran cold in my veins, and my lips felt stiff as I forced myself to speak. "What are you suggesting?"
"My lady." Fortun folded his hands on the table, his face grave. "Ghislain de Somerville gave the guardsmen of Troyes-le-Mont leave to join the Unforgiven, and those who returned reported to his father Percy. And Lord Percy made sure, very sure, that those men were sent even farther away than Camlach, all the way to La Serenissima. It is passing strange, I think, that he should send Prince Benedicte rein forcements consisting wholly of the missing guardsmen of Troyes-le-Mont. As it is passing strange all of them should volunteer."
The others had fallen silent. We were all silent. I wanted, very much, to dismiss Fortun's conjecture. These displaced guardsmen of the Little Court had given me the answer I had sought for so long, laying it into my hands. I did not like Barquiel L'Envers; had never, ever trusted him. Nor had my lord Delaunay, who had trained me.
As I had trained Fortun, the best of my chevaliers, who had been there and listened with a critical ear, at my own behest. And if I had any faith in my own training, I could not afford to discount his analysis.
"Phanuel Buonard," I said. "He is still here, if the guardsmen spoke true. On the glassblowers' isle. We need to ques tion him." And I did not need Fortun to say, remembering all too well on my own, that it was not the veterans of Troyes-le-Mont who had volunteered this information. They had played dumb, to a man, regarding the fate of their own comrade-in-arms. It was the long-term appointees to the Lit tle Court who'd offered the knowledge.
"I'll see what I might learn," Fortun said quietly.
I slept ill that night and dreamed, for the first time since my visit to Gentian House. I dreamed of the first time I'd met Percy de Somerville, when the Alban delegation had visited the court of Terre d'Ange. Delaunay had counted him an ally, always, but he'd sent Alcuin to his bed to seal the alliance. Not a true friend, I thought, or Delaunay would not have felt the need. And Alcuin had gone, with never a protest, never letting it show how much he detested Naamah's Service. Percy de Somerville, with whom Delaunay had fought at the Battle of Three Princes; he and dead Prince Rolande, and Benedicte de la Courcel. In my dream, I remembered his upright bearing, his handsome, aging gentleman-farmer's features, white teeth smiling and the smell of apples in the air, heavy and cloying.
I woke gagging, breathed in the night air of La Serenis sima, dank and foetid with canal water, and went back to sleep.
In the morning I found waiting a summons to sing for the Doge.
THIRTY-EIGHT
The Doge's private quarters were as hot and cloistered as the Room of the Shield in which he held his formal audi ences. Braziers burned in every room, and the windows were hung with dense velvet drapery that kept out sunlight and air.
For all that, Cesare Stregazza huddled in his robes of state, a woolen wrap edged in gold fringe thrown over his shoulders. Servants in Stregazzan livery came and went, bringing sweets, mulled wine with spices, the small lap-harp I requested, charcoal for the braziers, fresh candles, a pitcher of water drawn cool from the well, and their faces gleamed with sweat in the stifling quarters. Indeed, they made little effort to hide their discomfort and banged objects around with ill grace. A D'Angeline would have died of shame, to provide such poor service to a sovereign.
I did my best to conceal my embarrassment, and played sweetly on the harp, singing a couple of familiar country lays. It is not a great gift of mine, but my voice holds true and no one leaves the Court of Night-Blooming Flowers without learning to sing and play with some measure of skill. The Doge listened, his hands clasped together beneath his woolen wrap, and the hooded old eyes in that quivering face watched his ill-mannered servants with a dark, ironic gleam.
Me, he praised, and requested that I continue. I sang a haunting Alban air that I had learned from Drustan mab Nec thana's sisters, alternating weaving threads of soprano and contralto as best I could. Truly, it called for a man's tenor in the mix, but I reckoned no one in La Serenissima would no tice. Emboldened, I followed it with a humorous D'Angeline tune usually sung in rounds during a game of
kottabos,
about a wager between a courtesan and three suitors. The Doge laughed aloud as I sang the different roles, and I marked how his trembling diminished as he relaxed. Even the servants ceased their rude blundering about to listen, smiling at the sense of it though they did not know the words, and when they resumed their chores, it was with a greater measure of care.
When I had done, I paused for a sip of water.
Cesare Stregazza leaned back, watching my face. "Leave us, please," he said to the servants. When they had gone, he turned back to me. "Sing me the song that lulled the Master of the Straits, little Contessa."
I glanced up, briefly surprised. The Doge knew more of me than I had known. I bowed my head in acquiescence, took up the harp once more, and sang. It is a hearth-song of the Skaldi, a song such as their women sing, and I learned it among them, during that long, cold winter I spent as a slave in Gunter's steading. There are Skaldic war-songs the world has heard, of battle and glory and blood and iron. This was a gentler, homelier tune, about the sorrow of the women waiting by the hearth-side and the death of a young warrior-husband, of mourning come too soon and children unborn while the snow falls unending and the wolf howls outside the door.
I had not sung it since the day we first crossed the Straits, although I had written down the words for Thelesis de Mornay. I laid the harp aside when I finished.
"Brava," Cesare Stregazza said softly. "Well done, my lady." He lifted his cup of mulled wine and sipped it, and his hand scarce trembled at all. "Five songs, sung in three tongues; three lands you have travelled, and Caerdicca Unitas a fourth. Ysandre de la Courcel had scarce warmed her precarious throne when she chose you to send to Alba, and Marco's spies would have it that she's cast you out for girlish spite?"
"My lord Doge," I said deferentially. "Her majesty did not... cast me out. 'Tis a small misunderstanding, no more."
His wrinkled lips curved in a wry smile. "Oh, aye, is it? My son is a canny man, but he's never sat a throne of state. You are the best kind of weapon there is, Phèdre nó Delau nay; the kind that appears but a charming adornment. No sitting monarch with a measure of sense would leave you lying about for some enemy's hand to pick up, no, and it is my impression that Ysandre de la Courcel has a great deal of sense."
I raised my eyebrows. "My lord does me too much credit."
"Then give me some, Contessa," he snapped. "I've not held this throne by being an idiot, and I'll not hold it much longer if I can't use the tools that come to hand." Almost as if in response, the wine-cup he yet held began to tremble fiercely, hot liquid spilling over the rim. I rose with alacrity to take it from him and set it gently on the marble-topped side table. "You see, even my body betrays me, making bad puns at my dignity's expense," Cesare said dryly, clasping his aged hands together once more. "But I shall at least have the opportunity to test the accuracy of my measurement of Ysandre de la Courcel. Today I learned that your Queen has agreed to make the
progressus regalis
come autumn. And if my enemies have their way, she will be in La Serenissima in time to observe the election of a new Doge, that mutual pledges may be exchanged."
There was a great deal of information in those words. I sat back down on the hassock where I had been playing, and took too long thinking how best to respond.
"Ah, yes, indeed," he said, eyeing me. "What to say? We must gamble here, you and I. I have only one option open to me, and I have chosen it. I have chosen to believe that Ysandre de la Courcel has no part in this conspiracy against me, and thus is my only likely ally." The Doge shrugged his hunched shoulders. "And I have chosen to believe that you are the Queen's woman, and loyal. If I am wrong, in the name of your Blessed Elua, walk out the door now and tell my enemies I am wise to them, little Contessa, and let us make an end to it."
"And have you no spies yet loyal, to follow me and betray the conspirators if I did?" I inquired, provoking a wily smile. "My lord, if you gave me too much credit before, you give me too little now." I shook my head. "Why are you sure there is a conspiracy?"
"Child, there is always a conspiracy," Cesare said irrita bly, twisting the great gold signet ring on his right hand. "Do you see that?" I had seen it before, felt its impress against my cheek. The Crown of Asherat. I gazed at it again and nodded. "While he rules La Serenissima," he continued, "the Doge is called the Beloved of Asherat-of-the-Sea. This, this, all of this ..." he gestured at his scarlet cap, his robes, the trappings of the room, "... these are the symbols of state. But this ..." he held up his trembling hand, the gleam ing band of gold, "... this is the symbol of that wedding.
And none but the bridegroom knows what it means to wear it."
I looked from the ring to his face, questioning.
"Come now, little D'Angeline, with celestial blood in your veins and a god's mark on you," he chided me. "Do you not know better? The sacred marriage is consummated in death. The immortal bride does not set her mortal beloved free to live a few more doddering years. And yet, that is exactly what Her priestess told me. Either I have lived my life a lie, or someone has bribed the Oracle."
This time, he misgauged my silence; I was not pondering my reply, but remembering. It was Delaunay's fault, who trained me too well. My life would be simpler had he not taught me such things, that I recalled immediately the dark room in the Temple and old Bianca's querulous voice, the smell of beeswax and pomegranates.
Well, and why not, I've
given counsel to a thousand and a thousand before, and
never missed a day, except the one I had the grippe, when
His Grace sought advice.
"My lord," I said soberly, meeting his eyes. "I believe you are right."
"Of course I am!" The Doge was snappish again, but I knew well enough to ignore it. "I'm right about all of it, aren't I?"
"Mayhap." I chose my words carefully. "I know her maj esty well enough to know that Ysandre de la Courcel would have no part in plotting against a sitting monarch, and you will not err in trusting her word. Whether or not she will serve as your ally ..." I shrugged. "My lord, why not make peace with Prince Benedicte? You place my Queen in an awkward position, if you do not. He is her great-uncle, and stands yet next in line to the throne until she gets an heir of her own. Your son Ricciardo thinks he would listen to reason, did you but approach him."
"Ricciardo." Cesare Stregazza scowled. "He thinks to set himself at Benedicte's ear, and win his support for his own bid. With Sestieri Scholae and Angelus alike supporting him, he might even do it, the serpent. But he dare not approach Benedicte without my blessing, lest I cut him off at the knees—or Marco. He could do it, if he could make that wife of his hear reason. He might do it yet, and claim my throne in the bargain. No." He shook his head. "There is no one I dare trust, little Contessa, to win Prince Benedicte's support for
my
sake. I sent for him; he ignored my summons. If I approach him myself, I lose all credibility. If I threaten him with violence, I declare against House Courcel and risk severing ties with Terre d'Ange itself. With the support of Alba and Aragon, Terre d'Ange could close the west to Serenissiman trade. No. But your Queen, she can forge a peace. And with her support and Prince Benedicte's, I have leverage to declare the elections null and expose treachery in the very Temple of Asherat. Without it..." He shrugged. "I step down, or die."
