Kushiel's Dart (73 page)

"Blessed Elua bid us to love as we willed," I said. "Not even the King can violate that precept."

"No." She moved restlessly around the room, her pale hair like a flame in the dim light. "But you should understand. When you were a bond-slave to Anafiel Delaunay, you could not spend the coin of your love as you willed, no? I am bond-slave to the throne, Phedre. Still, I would obey Elua's Precept, and that is why I am sending you to Alba to bear word to Drustan mab Necthana. If you fail ... I will still have the coin of my unsullied bridal bed. Elua grant I have somewhere to spend it."

"I will do my best," I whispered.

"You have a gift for survival." Ysandre leveled her violet gaze at me. "I can but hope it holds true." Her tone changed back to one of curiosity. "Tell me, why do Naamah's servants bear such a marque?"

"You do not know?" I smiled, shrugging my shoulders to feel the silk brush against tender skin. "It is said that Naamah so marked the backs of those lovers who pleased her, scoring her nails against their skin. They bore the traceries of those marks of ecstacy all the days of their lives. We do it in homage, and out of memory."

"Ah." Ysandre nodded once, satisfied. "I understand. Thank you." She turned to go, then paused. "Your companion Hyacinthe will return on the morrow, and you will make ready to leave. I thought you might like to have this. 'Tis small enough to port." She handed me a small, slim volume, much mended. I took and opened it, glancing at the pages, writ in an unfamiliar hand. "It's my father's diary," Ysandre said quietly. "He began it at the University in Tiberium. It ends shortly after my birth. There's a great deal about Delaunay. That's what made me dare to approach him."

"In the players' changing-room," I said without thinking, remembering. I looked up at her shocked face, and colored. "It is a long story, your majesty. Delaunay never knew I was there."

Ysandre shook her head. "My uncle was right. Whatever it is you do, Phedre no Delaunay, you seem to do it very well." Her violet gaze deepened. "My father wed out of duty, and not love. Elua grant you spare me the same fate. I will pray for your safe return, and pray you bring the Prince of the Cruithne with you. No more can I do. I must protect the realm as best I can."

I grieved for her burden; mine own seemed light beside it. "If it is possible, I will do it, my lady."

"I know."

We gazed at each other, the two of us, both of an age, yet so different.

"Be well," Ysandre said, and took my head in both hands, laying the formal kiss of blessing upon my brow. "May Elua bless and keep you. I pray that we will meet again."

She left, then, leaving me alone with my finished marque and my book. Since I had nothing else to do, I sat and read.

In the morning, Hyacinthe arrived, returning from the City. He had with him three rather good horses, foodstuffs in abundance, and two pack-mules that would bear our gear.

And he had clothing.

For himself, he would wear his usual garb, garishly colorful, covered over with a saffron cloak that was the Tsingani travelling color. He had brought a like cloak for me, with a maroon-lined hood, that went over a blue velvet gown with a three-flounced skirt with a maroon underlining. It was very fine, though a bit much, and the fabric was well-used, the nap worn shiny in places.

"Tsingani discard nothing needlessly," he reminded me. "Phedre, you will be my near-cousin, a by-blow gotten in one of the pleasure-houses of Night's Doorstep by a half-breed Tsingano trader. You've the eyes for it, anyway, at least excepting the one." He grinned. "As for you, Cassi-line ..." Hyacinthe held up a voluminous grey cloak, swirling it to reveal the lining.

It held an opalescent riot of color: madder, damson, ochre, cerulean and nacre. I laughed, covering my mouth.

"You know what it is?" Hyacinthe asked.

I nodded. "I saw one, once. It's a Mendacant's robe."

"It was Thelesis' idea, she conceived it with the Lady of Marsilikos." He handed the cloak to Joscelin, who received it expressionless. "You can't pass as Tsingani, Cassiline, not even a by-blow. And we need somewhat to explain your presence."

The wandering fabulists known as Mendacants come from Eisande. Among Elua's Companions, it was Eisheth who gave to mortals the gifts of music and story. So D'Angelines claim; our critics hold that she taught us to play and to lie. Be as it may, Eisandines are the finest storytellers, and the best among them the Mendacants, who are sworn to travel the realm, embroidering truth and fable together into one fabric.

If any D'Angeline would travel the long road with the Tsingani, it would be a Mendacant.

"Can you lie, Cassiline?" Hyacinthe was grinning again.

Joscelin swung the cloak over his shoulders. It settled around him, dove-grey and somber as his former priest's garb, until he shifted and a glimpse of swirling color was revealed. "I will learn," he said shortly.

"You can start with this." Ysandre de la Courcel had entered unannounced. She nodded at one of her dour Cassiline Guards, who held out an armload of gleaming steel.

Joscelin's gear—daggers, vambraces, sword and all. He gazed wide-eyed at the Queen.

"The arms belong to the family, and not the Cassiline Brotherhood, yes?" Ysandre said. "You offered me your sword, Joscelin Verreuil, and this is the sword I accepted. You will bear it, and your arms, in my service." A small smile played about her lips. "It is up to you to conceive a tale of why a wandering Mendacant should bear Cassiline arms."

"Thank you, your majesty" he murmured, bowing without thinking with arms crossed. He reached out then and took his gear from the scowling Brother, settling the belt around his waist, buckling on his vambraces and slinging on his baldric. With the hilt of his sword protruding from beneath the Mendacant cloak, he seemed to stand taller and straighter.

"You have done well," Ysandre said to Hyacinthe, who bowed. She surveyed the three of us. "All is in readiness for your journey. Phedre . . ." She handed me an object, a heavy gold ring on a long chain. I took it and looked; it bore the Courcel insignia, the swan crest. "It is my father's ring," Ysandre said. She held up her hand, which bore its twin. "I wear my grandfather's now. You may show it to Quintilius Rousse, if he doubts the truth of your word. And when you gain the distant shore of Alba, give it to Drustan mab Necthana, that he might know from whence it came. He will know it. I have worn it since my father's death."

"Yes, your majesty." I lifted the chain over my head and settled the ring under my clothing, where it lay below Melisande's diamond.

"Good," Ysandre said simply. She held herself proud and upright, letting nothing but courage show on her face. She was the Queen, she could afford to do nothing less. "Blessed Elua be with you all."

It was a dismissal, and our order to go. Hyacinthe and Joscelin bowed; I curtsied.

And thus did we set out.

SIXTY-0NE

The place to which we were bound was called the Hippochamp. One thinks of Kusheth as a harsh and stony land, but, of course, this is only true of the outermost verges. Inland, it is as rich and fertile as any of the seven provinces, with deep valleys cut through by mighty rivers.

We would travel westward across L'Agnace, taking the Senescine Forest road into Kusheth; or so Hyacinthe believed. He could not be sure until we intercepted one of the
chaidrov
, the imperceptible markings the Tsingani leave along their route. It would not matter, overmuch, in L'Agnace, which was under the Comte de Somerville's rule and peaceful. Of the Companions, Anael's gift was husbandry, and he taught much to mortals of the growing of good things and the care of the land. It made for a peaceful province, although L'Agnacites are fierce as lions when roused to defend their land, as Percy de Somerville's noble history as the Royal Commander evidenced.

Good weather graced our leavetaking, a damp early thaw rendering the air moist and gentle. Despite my fear at the vastness of our undertaking, I found myself in good spirits to be riding once more. Truly, nothing is worse than waiting idle, while fear preys on one's mind like ravens upon a corpse. And after the frozen terrors of Skaldia, the Senescine seemed almost friendly.

Our first day proved uneventful. We saw no one save a few farmers at early tilling for spring crops, who nodded in taciturn acknowledgment. Once we gained the forest road, we rode in solitude.

Hyacinthe made for a cheerful companion. He had brought a handheld timbale, which he played as he rode, his nimble fingers drumming and jangling out a merry rhythm. After our terrible journey of desperate, hurried silence and secrecy, it seemed odd and dangerous to Joscelin and me, but I saw the wisdom in it. Tsingani do nothing quietly, and there is as much deception in noise as there is in silence.

It was after we had paused for a luncheon that we saw the first sign of Tsingani on the road, passing a campsite near a forest stream. Scorched earth and scraps of metal gave evidence that a travelling forge had been erected there, and the Tsingani are known to be smiths. Hyacinthe scouted the area and loosed a shout of triumph. We hurried to his side, and he pointed to a split twig planted in the ground, one side bent westward.

"A
chaidrov"
he said, nodding. "We are on the right route."

So we continued our journey, following such Tsingani signs as Hyacinthe espied; indeed, all of us grew adept at spotting them. I will not speak overmuch of these travels, for the days passed without incident. From Hyacinthe, we learned somewhat of Tsingani ways, preparing ourselves for what we might find. In turn, I taught a few words of Cruithne to both he and Joscelin. It is more difficult than Skaldic, for there are sounds in the Pictish tongue that come hard to D'Angelines. I had always despised the fact that Delaunay had made me learn it; ironic, that I should need it so direly now.

The remainder of the time, I passed in reading the journal of Prince Rolande de la Courcel, that with which Ysandre had gifted me.

From this slim book, I pieced together the great and fateful romance that had bound Anafiel Delaunay's fate to the protection of Ysandre de la Courcel, and indeed, made of me what I was, a courtesan equipped to match wits with the deadliest of courtiers.

They had met at the University in Tiberium, of course; that much I had known. But I glimpsed Delaunay now through another's eyes, as a young man, full of beauty and a splendid passion to
know
. I had never known Delaunay as a youth. It surprised me to read his poems, carefully recorded by Rolande de la Courcel; wicked, biting satires that lampooned fellow students and masters alike. And it was Rolande who began calling him Delaunay, after his mother's name and the Eisandine shepherd lad Elua had loved. Once they were together—and I blushed to read that passage, wondering how Ysandre had taken it—it was the masters of the University who nicknamed him Antinous, after a lad beloved by an ancient Tiberian Imperator.

Rolande's nature shone through it all, a generous and reckless spirit who loved freely without reckoning the cost, truer to the Precept of Blessed Elua and the archaic ideologies of glory than the political machinations of a monarchy. I could only imagine how Delaunay had adored and despaired of this careless nobility, incapable of subtlety.

It was the death of Edmee de Rocaille that had caused a rift between them, after the University, after Delaunay had been castigated by his father and formally taken his mother's name. Hyacinthe and I had not been too far wrong; there was a longstanding bond between the Houses Rocaille and Montreve—strange, still, to think of Delaunay as aught but Delaunay—and Edmee had been a childhood friend to Delaunay in Siovale, betrothed to Rolande out of goodwill and because her family had ties to the royal House of Aragon.

A good arrangement, it seemed; there was fondness between all of them, and Edmee understood that she was trading passion to be the eventual Queen of Terre d'Ange, mother of heirs.

Then came her hunting accident.

It was obvious that Rolande genuinely grieved for her, and obvious too that he was blind to the possibility that Isabel L'Envers had been involved, attributing Delaunay's vehemence to a mix of grief and jealousy. It is a human failing, to attribute the best of motives to those we know the least, and the worst to those we love best; he loved too well, Rolande did, and feared to be lenient in his judgment and favor Delaunay because of it. He heeded Isabel, who flattered and bewitched him. And they were betrothed, for House L'Envers was powerful; betrothed, and wed.

And Delaunay wrote his satire.

I think that Rolande knew, when Isabel sought to have him banished. I read what he wrote privately, for none to behold, of how he argued long and hard with his father the King on Delaunay's behalf. The agreement they reached was a bitter compromise. Delaunay would live, and retain status such as his father's repudiation had left him, but his poetry was declared anathema. To own it was tantamount to treason.

That much, I had known. I had not known that every extant copy of Delaunay's works was gathered and burned. Nor that Prince Rolande de la Courcel had wept at the conflagration. I daresay no one knew, save Ysandre, who read these same words.

Somehow, then, somewhere, they were reconciled, Rolande and Delaunay. It falls within a gap in Rolande's journal; he wrote only, "
All is forgiven, though nothing is the same. If we cannot have the past, Elua grant us a future
." One might argue that he wrote of Isabel and not Delaunay, but for what followed.