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In the small hours of the morning, Ysandre and Drustan took their leave, and we followed them as far as the bedchamber, a great crowd of mixed folk, shouting out good wishes—and some bawdy ones—and pelting them with a hailstorm of petals, until they, laughing, closed the bed-chamber door and barred it, petals clinging to their hair, and Ysan-dre's grim Cassilines turned us away, with an especially dour look for Joscelin.
No end to the revelry, though; the Queen had bid it carry on until dawn, and I saw it through to the end, having a deep need in my soul for a joyous daybreak to cleanse away the memories of too many others.
Joscelin, too; he understood. We had had the first dance together, and we had the last. Later I would laugh to hear the forays he had endured in between, staged by D'Angeline lords and ladies curious to test the virtue of a Cassiline apostate. Then I merely rested safe in the circle of his arms, glad to be there, where neither of us ever thought to find ourselves.
And we watched the sun rise over Terre d'Ange.
The days that followed were full of activity, for there remained a great deal to be done; but my role in it, for the most part, had come to an end. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer bestowed upon me the balance of the proceeds from the sale of Delaunay's estate, I begged of him the name of a reliable agent, and made arrangements for the care and investment of my unexpected wealth.
With some portion of these funds, Joscelin spent his days making preparations for our journey to Montreve. We would not ride alone, it seemed, for three of Phedre's Boys, among those survivors of the wounded at Troyes-le-Mont, begged leave to be dismissed from Rousse's service and enter mine.
Quintilius Rousse acceded and Ysandre agreed to the increase in Mon-treve's allotment of men-at-arms, and that is how I came to acquire three Chevaliers; Remy, Ti-Philippe and Fortun. Why they persisted in their extravagant loyalty, I never understood—although Joscelin laughed and said he did—but I was glad of their presence, for I had no few trepidations regarding the welcome I would find in Montreve.
The folk there had been loyal to Delaunay's father, the old Comte de Montreve and, so far as I knew, to his cousin as well; Delaunay, they'd not known since his youth, and me they knew not at all. Born and bred to the Night Court, I was no blood kin of theirs. I was not even Siovalese.
On the day before our departure, I received one last surprise. A royal page came to fetch me, claiming strangers at the Palace gates were asking for me.
Joscelin came with me as I hurried through the Palace, fearful of who awaited. His face was set and grim, hands hovering over his dagger-hilts; he had leave to wear his Cassiline arms even in the presence of the Queen. It was a kindness of Ysandre's, who had seen how he felt stripped without them—and a cleverness, too, for he would ever have guarded her life as his own, or mine.
What I expected, I could not say, but we found awaiting us a young couple in simple, well-made country attire.
"My Lady de Montreve," the young man said and bowed; his wife curtsied. His face, as he straightened, was familiar, but I was too disconcerted by the greeting to place it. "I am Purnell Friote, of Perrinwolde. This is my wife, Richeline. " She bobbed another curtsy. He gave me an open grin, eyes friendly beneath a shock of brown hair. "My nephew taught you to ride a horse, do you remember? The Lady Cecilie said you might have need of a seneschal. "
I did remember, with such delight that I kissed them both, to their blushing surprise. It was only then that Cecilie showed herself, smiling at the success of her venture.
"Gavin swears Purnell can do aught that he can, and twice as swiftly," she said as I took her hands in gratitude. "My Perrinwolde's grown too small to hold the expansion of the Friote clan, and you'll have need of your own folk about you. Let them work with Montreve's folk, and it will ease your way, for you'll find no kinder hearts in Terre d'Ange. "
Better advice I never had, and if Montreve made me welcome, it was due in no small part to the efforts of Purnell and Richeline Friote, who came willing to learn the ways of the estate, and in such an open and friendly manner that it won the hearts of the Siovalese as easily as Perrinwolde had won mine.
So it was that we were a party of seven when we departed, amid too many farewells to count, striking out once more on the open road and bound for Montreve.
"When we are settled," I said to Joscelin, as the City of Elua dwindled behind us, "there is somewhat that I want to do. " He looked inquiringly at me. "I want to visit L'Arene, to find Taavi and Danele. "
Joscelin smiled, remembering. "I'd like that, actually. You think mayhap they might accept a gift of thanks, now that you're a peer of the realm?" he added, amused.
"They might," I said. "And they might know someone willing to tutor me in Yeshuite. " I glanced over to see his fair brows rise. "If Delaunay knew it, he never taught me. And the Master of the Straits was fathered and cursed by Rahab, who serves the One God of the Yeshuites. If there's aught to be found that might break his binding, it's in Yeshuite lore. "
"Hyacinthe," Joscelin said softly.
I nodded.
"Well, then, we'll go to L'Arene. " He laughed. "And, Elua help us, you can pit yourself against the gods. "
I loved him for that.
Onward we rode to Montreve.
NINETY-SIX
It is one thing to visit a country estate, it is another to inherit one. Even with the very capable aid Cecilie had bequeathed me, it took the better part of a year to settle into the rhythms of Montreve, to gain the trust and goodwill of its folk, who were understandably perplexed at how a Siovalese holding had passed into the possession of a City-bred Servant of Naamah.
Montreve itself was beautiful, a green jewel set in the low mountains. To Joscehn, born in Siovale, it was nearly a homecoming. We rode the length and breadth of it together, and fell in love with its simple charm, its rugged hills and green valleys, the unexpected pleasure of a meadow. It is sheep country, there, and it transpired that I was rich in flocks.
The manor-house itself was all quaint elegance, with touches of Ei-sandine luxury; Delaunay's mother, I guessed. It had small, brilliant gardens, rambling with colorful flowers for three-quarters of the year, grown wild for lack of tending. Richeline Friote made these her especial care.
And there was a library, where Anafiel Delaunay had spent his boyhood study, immersed in the Siovalese love of learning. I found his name one day, scratched with a knife-point into the wooden surface of a reading table, and had to fight back tears.
Joscelin's love of the land, my love for Delaunay; these things, I think, along with the good nature of the Friotes and the bold, cheerful manner of my three Chevaliers, won over the folk of Montreve. Once we were at last ensconced, I began to write letters, and Phedre's Boys leapt at the chance to play courier, crossing the realm with correspondence. I wrote to Ysandre, with gratitude, to Cecilie Laveau-Perrin and Thelesis de Mor-nay, with small tales of our doings, to Quintilius Rousse and Caspar Trev-alion, with greetings; and always, with a plea for news. I wrote even to
Maestro Gonzago de Escabares, in care of the University of Tiberium, and Remy was gone months on that adventure.
And I bought books, and in L'Arene, Ti-Philippe found Taavi and Danele, owners of a prosperous tailor's shop in the Yeshuite quarter.
That spring Joscelin and I rode to visit them, and held a happy reunion. Impossible to believe that scarcely a year ago we had met on the road, where they had saved our lives. The girls had grown taller, and our Skaldi pony, still with them, had grown fatter. If they would still accept no reward, I repaid them as best I was able, with a sizeable commission for livery. The insignia of Montreve was a four-quartered shield, with a crescent moon upper right and a mountain crag lower left. That was ever the standard we flew at the manor, but for Phedre's Boys, I added my own devices: Delaunay's sheaf of grain, and the sign of Kushiel's Dart.
We returned from L'Arene the richer in renewed friendsh
ips, and with one addition: Seth ben Yavin, a young Yeshuite scholar who stammered and turned red in my presence, but was nonetheless doggedly persistent in his teaching.
All that spring and well into summer I studied with him, and the days slid by like water. Sometimes Joscelin joined us, but not always; the lure of the mountains was stronger, and he would rather, he declared, learn it from me. As I gained some small proficiency, Seth began to forget I was an anguissette and sometime Servant of Naamah, and grew more at ease in my company, arguing and debating happily.
It was good to have my mind challenged and occupied, for it kept me from restlessness. We had not spoken of that, of what would happen when Kushiel's Dart began to prick. I was an anguissette; it would. But for now, even I had had a sufficiency of pain.
When deep summer began to give way to early fall, Seth begged leave to depart, having family duties to resume. He left with Fortun to accompany him, a generous purse of his own, and another to accompany a list of books and codices he felt I might need, and for which he promised to search. I had a long way to go in my studies, but I knew enough to begin my quest.
The leaves were beginning to turn gold when Gonzago de Escabares arrived.
He came unannounced, with a lone apprentice tending him, two horses and a well-laden mule between them; a little greyer and stouter, but otherwise unchanged. I threw myself on him with a cry of joy, and he laughed.
"Ah, little one! You'll give an old man the fits. Come, I'm near starved to the bone. Didn't my Antinous teach you aught about hospitality?"
I led him into the manor, talking all the while, I am sure, while Joscelin looked on with polite bewilderment and ordered their horses stabled, and the mule unpacked.
Seth ben Yavin had been a paid tutor; Maestro Gonzago de Escabares was my first genuine guest. In an unexpected state of nervousness, I nearly drove the household staff mad with half-brained requests, until Richeline calmly and firmly ordered me to attend to my guest and leave the arrangements to her.
Over wine, which the Maestro quaffed heartily, and an array of cheeses and sweetmeats, which also met a quick end, I learned that he had been travelling in the northern city-states of Caerdicca Unitas, learning of the upheaval along the Skaldic border. An old colleague of his in Tiberium had received my letter, and he decided to pay a visit, bringing an apprentice who wished to learn of de Escabares' method of studying the world.
It had been his plan to return home to Aragonia and begin drafting his memoirs, but upon receiving my letter, he had determined to come first to Montreve, which lay nearly on his way.
"I would have sent word, my dear, but I would have outpaced it," he said, eyes twinkling. "We travelled like the wind, did we not, Camilo?"
His apprentice coughed and hid a smile, murmuring something about a rather slow breeze.
I laughed and patted Gonzago's hand. "I'm just glad you're here, Maestro. "
After they had retired and rested for a time, we dined, a meal of sufficient rustic splendor that even the Maestro was content. For my part, I ate little, overwhelmed with grateful pride that such hospitality was mine to offer. I knew full well all credit was due to the household of Montreve, and not me; but they had done it on my behalf, investing their pride in mine, and I was grateful.
While we dined, I spun the long story of our journeys, beginning with the death of Alcuin and Delaunay. Much of it, Gonzago knew, but he wanted to hear it firsthand. Tears filled his eyes at the start; he had, in deep truth, been very fond of Delaunay. To the rest of it, told in turns by Joscelin and me, he listened with a historian's tireless fascination. Afterward, he told us of his travels, and the knowledge he had gleaned. The Caerdicci city-states were falling over themselves to establish trade with the no-longer-isolated nation of Alba, jealous of the status enjoyed by Terre d'Ange and her ally, Aragonia.
By the time our meal was cleared and we were lingering over brandy, the apprentice Camilo's head was nodding, and Gonzago sent him to bed.
"A good lad," he said absently. "He'll make a fine scholar someday, if he can stay awake long enough. " He rose, ponderously. "I've some gifts here for you, if he's not misplaced them," he added. "I brought a beautiful Caerdicci translation of Delaunay's verse . . . pity, I'd have looked up some Yeshuite texts for you if I'd known . . . and somewhat odd, beside. "
"I'll fetch your bags for you, Maestro," Joscelin offered, heading for his guest-room. Gonzago sank back down with a grateful sigh.
"A long trip on horseback, for an old man," he remarked.
"And I thank you again for making it. " I smiled at him. "What do you mean, somewhat odd?"
"Well. " He picked up his empty goblet and peered at it; I refilled it with alacrity. "As you know, I was in La Serenissima for some time, which is where my friend Lucretius sought me. I have an acquaintance there, who charts the stars for the family of the Doge. Lucretius inquired for him there, explaining his business. He even had to show the letter, with your seal. They're all suspicious in La Serenissima. " He swirled the brandy in his goblet and drank. "At any rate, my stargazing acquaintance eventually told him that I had gone on to Varro, and gave him the name of a reputable inn. Ah, there you are!" He seized upon the pack that Joscelin brought. "Here," he said reverently, passing me a twine-bound package.
I opened it with care, and found it to be the Caerdicci translation. It was beautiful indeed, bearing a tooled-leather cover with a copy of the head of Antinous, lover of the Tiberian Imperator Hadrian, worked upon it.
Joscelin laughed. "A Mendacant's trick, if ever there was one!"
"Truly, Maestro, it's lovely, and I thank you," I said, leaning to kiss his cheek. "Now will you keep me in suspense all night?"
Gonzago de Escabares gave a rueful smile. "You may wish I had, child. Having heard your tale, I have my guess; hear mine, and make your own. Lucretius and his apprentice bedded down at the inn, and in the morning, he found he had a guest. Now, he is an eloquent man, my friend Lucretius; he is an orator after the old style, and I have never known him to be caught short of words. But when I asked him to describe his guest, he fell silent, and at last said only that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. "
The nights were still warm, but I felt a chill all the length of my spine.
"Melisande," I whispered.
"Ask Camilo," Gonzago said bluntly. "I did, and he said that she had hair the color of night and eyes the color of larkspur, and her voice made his knees go weak. And that lad doesn't have a poetic bone in his body. "
Reaching into his pack, he drew out a large bundle in a silk drawstring bag. "She said since he was carrying a letter from the Comtesse de Mon-treve to me, would he carry this to me, for the Comtesse de Montreve. "
He handed me the bundle, and I took it with trembling hands, feeling it at once soft and heavy.
"Don't open it!" White lines of fury were etched on Joscelin's face. "Phedre, listen to me. She has no hold on you, and you owe her nothing. You don't need to know. Throw it away unopened. "
"I can't," I said helplessly.
I wasn't lying, either. I couldn't. Nor could I open it.
With a sharp sound, Joscelin tore the parcel from my hands and wrenched open the silken drawstring cords, reaching inside to yank out its contents.
My sangoire cloak unfolded in a slither of velvet drapery to hang from his grip, rich and luxuriant, a red so deep it was almost black.
We all stared at it, saying nothing. Gonzago de Escabares eyes were round with perplexity; I don't think he knew what it was. I did. Joscelin did. I had been wearing it that last day, the day Delaunay was killed. The day Melisande had betrayed us.
"What in the seventh hell is this supposed to mean?" Joscelin demanded, throwing it down on the couch beside me. He gave a bewildered laugh, running his hands through his hair. "Your cloak? Do you have the faintest idea?" He looked at me, then looked again. "Phedre?" I did know.
Someone had aided Melis
ande, had helped her escape from Troyes-le-Mont. Whoever it was, they had never been found. Ysandre's suspicion, in the end, had fallen most heavily on Quincel de Morhban and the two Shahrizai kin, Marmion and Persia. If they were exonerated, it was only because there was no proof and it was too ludicrously obvious, all of them too canny to stage such a blatant ploy. But there was another reason, I knew. I spent that night atop the battlements, and never heard a sound. The guard at the postern gate was killed by a knife to the heart. He'd seen his killer; it was someone he trusted, face-to-face. And the guardsmen of Troyes-le-Mont didn't trust anyone who hadn't fought at their side. Certainly he would have challenged any one of the Kusheline nobles, approaching him in the dark of night.
Someone he trusted. Someone we all trusted.
And now Melisande was in La Serenissima, close enough to the family of the Doge to learn in a day that their soothsayer had received a visitor. Prince Benedicte's eldest daughter, Marie-Celeste, was wed to the Doge's son . . . a near-incestuous knot of the deadly Stregazza, who had poisoned Isabel L'Envers de la Courcel.
Ysandre's nearest kin who were of the Blood.
Oh, I knew. My hands closed on a fold of the sangoire cloak, feeling the rich velvet beneath my fingertips. I could smell, faintly, Melisande's scent. Why had she kept it? I couldn't answer it, my mind shying away from the question. But what she meant it for now, I knew well enough.
A challenge, an opening gambit.
I touched my throat, bare of her diamond.
Somewhere in that deadly coil of La Serenissima, a plot was hatching. It was a long way, a very long way, from Ysandre's throne in the City of Elua. But intrigue has a long reach, when thrones are at stake. Someone, at Ysandre's right hand, concealed poison at their heart.
And I could find them out.
That was what the cloak meant, of course. Melisande knew full well how I had served Delaunay, Alcuin and I. He'd let her know as much. Like her, he was a master, and could not bear to be entirely without an audience . . . one solitary witness, who could appreciate his artistry, the tremendous scope and complexity of his undertaking. Whoremaster of Spies, his detractors called him, when the halcyon days of Ysandre's wedding and D'Angeline victory had passed.
Witness and opponent, Melisande had chosen me as her equal.