Kushiel's Chosen

I thought of Malvio's darting eyes and felt sick. "When you are gone," I echoed, repressing my rising gorge. "And when will that be? Autumn, mayhap, when Ysandre leaves the royal army in the hands of Percy de Somerville and makes the progressus, riding into a Serenissiman trap?" Melisande didn't answer, and 1 laughed hollowly. "You were condemned as a traitor, my lady. Do you think the D'Angeline people will forget so easily?"



"People believe what they are told." Her expression remained serene. " 'Twas your word condemned me. Already, Ysandre has disavowed you, through your own cleverness. If you are found traitor as well for conspiring against D' Angeline trade interests, few will doubt it when they are told you lied."



"1 didn't conspire against D'Angeline trade interests."



"No?" Melisande raised her brows. "But Marco Stregazza will swear you did."



"Ah." 1 glanced out the window at the churning grey sea beyond the cliff's verge. "And did he suborn the corruption of Asherat's Oracle as well? I have endured her grief for many days now. I would not like to face her wrath."



"No." Her tone was complacent. "He wouldn't have dared; that was Marie-Celeste's idea. I am not fool enough to mock Asherat-of-the-Sea. Her temple gave me sanctuary, and I am grateful for it. If her means suit my ends, so much the better, but I do not risk blasphemy. No D'Angeline would, nor true Serenissiman. Marie-Celeste straddles two worlds, and fears answering to the gods of neither," she added. "You do not sound surprised."



"I have had some time to think, my lady," I said dryly, looking back at her. "What choice is this you offer?"



"For now, your choice of prisons. This one..." Melisande gestured at the stone walls, the straw pallet and empty bucket, "... or mine." The words hung in the air between us, and she smiled slightly. "You would make a good traitor, Phèdre. But you would make an exquisite penitent on my behalf."



I stood balanced on my stool, curiously light-headed. "And what do you propose to do, my lady?" I asked, hearing my own voice strange and unfamiliar, as blithe as hers had been when she teased me about the gulls. "Break me to your will like a fractious colt?"



Melisande smiled gently. "Yes."



I swallowed and looked away.



Too close and too small, this cell of mine, to contain the both of us. The vast wide world was too small. It is a weakness, Kushiel's Dart. The scarlet mote that marked my eye was but a manifestation of the true flaw within, the wound that penetrated to the marrow of my soul. What Melisande offered; Elua, the promise was sweet to me! To struggle no more against my very nature but surrender to it wholeheartedly, offering it up with both hands to the one person, the only person, who had always, always known the true essence of what I was.



As I knew hers.



Melisande wanted something of me.



Heart and mind raced alike, as I stood trembling before her. My hand rose unthinking to seek out the bare hollow at my throat where her diamond had hung for so long, the leash she had set upon me to see how far I would run. "Joscelin," I whispered. "You can't find him."



Her eyelids flickered, ever so slightly.



I laughed aloud, having nothing to lose. "And Ti-Philippe? Don't tell me! What makes you think I would know where to find them, my lady? Joscelin Verreuil left me, for committing the dire crime of seducing him. If Philippe evaded your guardsmen ... how can I guess? Marco's men would do better than I, if Benedicte can't find him."



"He jumped into the canal, actually." Melisande's voice was surprisingly even. "From the balcony. It seems Rousse's sailor-lads swim like fish. Marco is of the mind that he's dying of the ague, if he yet lives. The canals are known for pestilence. La Serenissima is well-cordoned, they'll not leave it by water or land, nor send word either. Even if they did, they know too little to undo our plans. Still, too little is too much. But we will speak more of this later." She came close, too close, smiling, and reached up to lay one hand against my cheek. "Think on my offer."



Her touch was cool, and yet it burned me like fire. I closed my eyes, shaking like a leaf in a storm. I could smell her scent, a faint musk overlaid with spices. 1 wanted to fall to my knees, wanted to turn my head, taking her fingers into my mouth.



I didn't.



"Think on it," Melisande repeated, withdrawing her touch. "I'll be back."



FORTY-THREE



An offer.



A dangerous offer.



After Melisande had left, I sat huddled on my pallet, arms wrapped around my knees, thinking. It had been different, before. There is a certain calmness in despair. Now even that luxury had been torn away from me.



I had to think.



Joscelin and Ti-Philippe, alive! They were in the Yeshuite quarter, I was sure of it. It was the one place neither Benedicte nor the Stregazza would think to look; it was the first place Joscelin would have gone. And if Ti-Philìppe had escaped, if he was clever and able enough, it was where he would look. I gave thanks to Elua, now, that my chevaliers had been suspicious enough to follow Joscelin during his disappearances.



They knew enough, the two of them, to lay charges against Percy de Sotnerville-although they had no proof". It was what they didn't know that could kill them. Prince Benedicte ... Benedicte and Melisande. Still, I thought, TiPhilippe was smart enough to run, when he saw Benedicte's guards.



Percy de Somerville's guards, whom we all thought Prince Benedicte took into his service all unwitting.



He knew Remy, Fortun and Ileft for the Little Court, never to be seen again.



But he would not know why, and a great many "accidents" could have befallen us between home and palace. I mulled the problem over and over in my mind, and came inevitably to the same conclusion. The scope of it was simply too vast, too hard to encompass. Neither Ti-Philippe nor Joscelin would guess Benedicte's treason.



What you seek you will find in the last place you look...



I hadn't thought it; nor would they. The best I could hope for was that my disappearance and the traitorous guardsmen would make them wary, wary enough to avoid the Little Court and go straight to Ysandre.



If they lived. If Ti-Philippe wasn't lying on a cot somewhere sweating out his last ounce of life with some dreadful canal-bred pestilence. If Joscelin wasn't halfway to the northern steppes, chasing some arcane Yeshuite prophecy.



And if they could reach the Queen, which Melisande, who brooked few illusions, believed impossible.



If, if, if.



It is a dire thing, to hope against hope.



I did not doubt the veracity of Melisande's claims. It is a truism; history is written by the victors. With the solid support of Duc Percy de Somerville and Prince Benedicte de la Courcel behind her, her reputation would be restored, nearly spotless. There would be protest from a few, silenced swiftly. A few might rebel; not many, I thought. I had not forgotten the murmurs among the nobility when Drustan mab Necthana rode into the City of Elua.



Many, too many, would be glad to be shed of a Pictish Prince-Consort, whose bloodline would taint the heirs of House Courcel. None of that for Benedicte, still Ysandre's heir. No, his Serenissiman-born children would inherit here.



For Terre d'Ange, a true-born son, gotten on his D'Angeline wife.



Melisande's son.



And as for Ysandre de la Courcel, I thought, she would become a tragic footnote in D'Angeline history. Slain, no doubt, during some Serenissiman intrigue gone deadly awry. What Melisande had planned, I did not know, but I could guess well enough that no trace of it led back to her, nor to Benedicte.



Who would stand against her, then, with Benedicte at her side?



There was Quintilius Rousse-and him, I could not guess. Would he swallow it or no? He would never believe me a traitor, 1 thought, nor Melisande innocent. And yet, he knew Benedicte of old, and Percy de Somerville, too. What could the Royal Admiral do, if the army held the land? Little enough, it might be; especially if the Serenissiman navy stood in support of Benedicte's claim. And if Marco Stre-gazza were elected Doge, I'd no doubt that would follow. Quintìlius Rousse was canny and a survivor. He might back Benedicte's claim, if he felt he had no other choice.



There was Barquiel L'Envers.



And he, I thought ruefully, was the key. The Duc L'Envers, whom I had thought my enemy. He was the reason Benedicte dared not act without the support of the Royal Army. As Ysandre's maternal uncle, he stood the nearest challenger to the throne, with ties by marriage to Aragonia, to Alba, to Khebbel-im-Akkad. All of whom might rally to L'Envers' cause if there was a whiff of suspicion concerning Ysandre's death. Drustan would, I was sure of it; nor had I forgotten the company of Aragonian spearmen which had fought beside us against the Skaldi, and the deadly Akkadian cavalry.



They would need to act quickly, Benedicte, Melisande and de Somerville, to secure the throne and dispose of Barquiel L'Envers.



1 am a fool, I thought, to have believed so easily. All is not lost until the game is played out in full, and it is not, not yet. It is a bitter hand Melisande has dealt me, but there are some cards still unplayed.



So I mused and thought, until the light began to fail in my stifling chamber and one of the guards brought my evening meal. Constantin, he was called, silent and grey. As the prison guards went, I liked him well enough, for he troubled me not.



"Constantin," I said to him when I returned my empty tray. "Will you carry a message to the warden for me?"



He shifted the tray in his arms and looked stolidly at me. "I will carry it. I do not promise he will hear."



"I understand," I said gravely. "Pray tell him I seek an audience with him."



"I will do that."



No more did he say, and with that, I had to be content. Falling night leached the last of the light from my cell. I sat on my pallet and watched the afterglow fade through my narrow window, blue twilight turning to grey and thence to star-pricked black. As vision failed, the endless moan of Asherat's grief filled my senses. Awake, I listened, picking out the sounds of my prison mates amid the cacophony. I had named them all, in the endless nights. The Wailer, whose ululating cries rose and fell without ceasing. The Scratcher, who made sounds like a small animal trying to tunnel through solid rock. The Snarler, who had wits left to curse his fate. The Banger... I did not like to think what the Banger did, producing dull muffled thuds that punctuated the howling night. There were others, mayhap seven or eight. It was hard to tell, even to my trained ear. I was not sure but that the Pleader and the Screamer were not the same person. I never heard them at the same time, but I was not certain if it were one prisoner alternating between begging despair and wild rage, or merely the orchestrations of madness.



When I am gone... it will be worse.



It would get worse. It would get a great deal worse. I did not yet cry out in the night, but only woke whimpering from a fitful sleep. When my dreams were full of naught but Malvio's slippery, grinning gaze, Fabron's lewd whisper in my ear ... ah, Elua!



It would get much, much worse.



If Joscelin and Ti-Philippe lived, if they stood a chance, it would be worth it.



Because I did not think I could withstand Melisande for very long.



If.



I fell asleep at last, exhausted by the torments of my mind. Morning came and wore on late; at length, a guard came with food. It was Tito, his gaze sympathetic in his broad, homely face. I asked him if the warden would see me today, and he shrugged, shaking his head. He did not know. I thanked him anyway, and ate my morning meal. A slab of cold porridge, but drizzled with honey. Tito watched hulking to see if I liked it.



"From you?" I asked.



He nodded and beamed like a child. "The beekeepers' tribute came. I had a piece this big." With massive hands held apart, he indicated the size of the honeycomb. "I saved some for you."



Despite it all, I smiled. "Thank you, Tito. It's very good."



There is no rock on which the mortal soul may founder but that contains some frail tendril of human kindness struggling to grow; this much I have found to be true. Is it a weakness in me that I sought ever to reward it? I cannot say, only that I would do the same, though Tito's simple-minded fondness proved blessing and curse alike, in the end. So I think now; then, I merely watched him carefully swipe the last telltale traces of honey from the platter and suck his fingers, at once grateful and sorrowing that this was what kindness had come to in my life.



The warden did not come that day, nor the next. I paced my stifling cell, sweating and irritable. Each time I heard a key in the lock, my heart raced with fear that it would be Melisande, come for my reply. Fear and dread bound in an awful knot of complex desire that left my mouth dry and my pulse pounding in my veins.



On the third day, the warden came.



I heard the key, this time, too soon to be a guard come with the evening meal. Quickly, with trembling fingers, I bound my hair at my nape with the loose knot we called lover's-haste in the Night Court, that will stay without pins or a caul. Gathering myself into a semblance of dignity, I stood to receive my guest, smoothing the grey dress.



When the warden entered, accompanied by Fabron, I inclined my head, according him the greeting among equals we use at court. He made no response, but only said in his colorless voice, "You asked to see me."



"Yes, my lord warden." I took a breath; I had not expected him to soften. "My lord, I wish to beg of you a boon. I wish to send a letter, no more." I paused, and he said naught. "I will not insult you by protesting my innocence, my lord," I continued. "I daresay you hear it often enough, and 'tis not your place to judge, but only to enforce. I ask only the chance to notify my Queen of my fate. As she is my sovereign, she has the right to know; no less would we accord to any foreign national in Terre d'Ange. And you may believe me," I added, "when I tell you that Ysandre de la Courcel would pay dearly for this knowledge." His expression did not change. I took a step forward. "Aught you might ask, my lord," I said steadily. "I will set it in writing, and bind her by the sacred words of House L'Envers, her mother's line, that not even the Queen herself may refuse."