Kushiel's Dart

Prince of Travellers.



I made an offering, then, in his mother's name, at the temple of Elua where we had gone together after Baudoin's death. Clutching the scarlet anemones, damp with dew, I laid them at the base of the statue, kneeling to kiss Elua's cool marble feet. "For Anasztaizia, daughter of Manoj," I murmured, smelling all around me the moist soil and green things growing, the deep shade of the mighty oaks. Far above me, Elua's vast features bent an enigmatic smile through the gloaming twilight.



I knelt there a long while.



This time, it was Joscelin's hands that bid me rise; but the priest of Elua was there, the same, I swear it, though all priests and priestesses resemble each other in some way, for they are all part of an unbroken line of service. He smiled at us, barefooted in the damp mast, hands in the sleeves of his robe.



"Cassiel's child," he said gently, remonstrating Joscelin, "do not rush. You have stood at the crossroads and chosen, and like Cassiel, you will ever stand at the crossroads and choose, choose again and again, the path of the Companion. The choice lies ever within you, the crossroads and the way, and Elua's commandment to point you on it."



Joscelin gave him a startled look, but the priest was already reaching out one hand, laying it upon my cheek.



"Kushiel's Dart and Naamah's Servant." He smiled, leaf-shadowed in the twilight; a smile of blessing, of remembrance, I thought. Who could say? I believed him the same priest. "Love as thou wilt, and Elua will ever guide your steps."



He left us to linger there.



When he had gone, I laughed. "It seems my turn for dire prophecy has passed."



"You can have mine," Joscelin said wryly. "It seems I'm doomed to make the same choice a thousand times over."



"Are you sorry?" I searched his face in the faint light.



"No." Joscelin shook his head. "No," he whispered, and took my face in his hands, lowering his head to kiss me, unbound hair the color of summer wheat falling forward to curtain us.



It was sweet, very sweet, and I felt the Tightness of it in our shared breath, the steady beat of his heart matching time with my own.



When he lifted his head, the shadow of a smile curved his lips. "But there will likely be times when I am."



"Likely there will," I murmured. "As long as it's not now."



"No," he said, and smiled in full. "Not now."



Above our heads, Elua's marble hands remained spread in blessing.



Thus did I keep the promises I had made on that long and terrible journey; and afterward, you may be sure, Ysandre de la Courcel had me dancing attendance upon her to make up for time lost on my own business. While she bid fair to make a wise and compassionate ruler, she was also a D'Angeline noblewoman approaching her wedding-day, and indulged her foibles accordingly. Never in her life had she been allowed the luxury of being girlish; if she seized it now, I, who had been raised to fripperies, could not blame her.



One such which demanded my attention was the bedecking of Alban royalty in D'Angeline finery: to wit, the splendid gown Ysandre commissioned for Grainne.



The Queen of Terre d'Ange was more than a little fascinated with the Warrior Queen of the Dalriada. There must have been threescore women fighting among the Albans, but Grainne was the only one whose status was, in its own way, comparable to Ysandre's.



Eamonn's death had not diminished her. If her bright spirit was banked with sorrow, it was deepened as well. She stood patiently beneath the Royal Tailor's prodding as he fitted her, showing a glimmer of her old amusement as she caught my eye.



The gown, a glory of scarlet silk and gold brocade, was too narrow through the waist, though she had been measured no more than a week prior. I listened to the tailor's muttering and laughed.



"How long?" I asked Grainne in Eiran.



"Three months." She laid her hand on the faint swell of her belly and smiled complacently. "If it is a boy, I will name him Eamonn."



"Is it Rousse's?"



She smiled again. "It may be so."



Ysandre raised impatient brows. She spoke some bit of Cruithne, but the Eiran dialect took time to master, or great necessity. I'd had the advantage of both. I explained to her what Grainne had said.



"She fought," Ysandre said in astonishment, "with child?"



"It was too soon to be sure, then," I said diplomatically. There is a dreadful Eiran tale about an ancient Queen running a footrace great with child; I spared her that, and was glad I'd not told her about Eamonn's head, preserved in quicklime.



"Will Quintilius Rousse wed her?" Ysandre inquired.



I translated for Grainne, who laughed.



"I do not think it matters to her, my lady," I replied.



"That's fine," Ysandre said to the Royal Tailor, waving one hand dismissively. "Make the adjustments." She looked consideringly at me. "What of you, near-cousin? Will you wed your Cassiline?"



One does not refuse to answer a direct question from one's sovereign, but glancing at her face, I saw that she was genuinely interested. "No, my lady," I said simply. "Anathema or no, Cassiline vows bind for a lifetime. Joscelin betrays them every day he is with me, and that is his choice. To wed would be a mockery, and that he cannot do, nor I ask."



Ysandre, I think, understood; her ever-present Cassiline guards stared straight ahead, and what they thought, I cannot guess, nor did I care.



"Will you return to Naamah's Service?" she asked then.



"I don't know." I busied myself with assisting Grainne as she divested herself and dressed in her own garb, handing her kirtle over the tailor's folding modesty-screen. It was one of those questions that lay between Joscelin and I, and one we had avoided. I faced it now, in part, meeting Ysandre's gaze. "You have been kind, your majesty, and I have assurances of hospitality from good friends." It was true; Caspar Trevalion had promised I should never want for aught, and Cecilie and Thelesis as well. "But if I am rich in friends, I am penniless in pocket."



This, too, was true; and a considerable fortune awaited me as a Servant of Naamah. There were other reasons, too, but those were harder to voice. Poverty, everyone understood.



"Oh, that't" Ysandre laughed, beckoning to a page. "Summon the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Tell him it's regarding Lord Delaunay's estate."



He came with alacrity, a lean and grizzled man, clutching sheaves of paper. Ysandre had dismissed the Royal Tailor by then, and given Grainne leave to go, which she took, bending one last look of quiet amusement my way.



"Go on," Ysandre bid the Chancellor, reclining on a couch and sipping at a glass of wine. I sat in a chair and gazed with perplexity as he cleared his throat and shuffled through his papers.



"Yes, your majesty . . . regarding Anafiel Delaunay's estate, the town-house in the City, and all its holdings ... it seems these were purchased from the judiciary by one . . ." he peered at a parchment, ".. . Lord San-driel Voscagne, who deeded it to ... well, it doesn't matter, we can begin proceedings for its reclamation at your insistence, my lady Phedre, or the Exchequer will recompense you the full amount of the sale . . ."



"Why?" I interrupted out of pure bewilderment.



The Chancellor of the Exchequer looked at me over his papers, startled. "Oh, you didn't. . . your majesty . . . well, of course, my lady, his lordship Anafiel Delaunay filed the papers some time ago, naming you his heir, you and one ..." he consulted a sheet, "... Alcuin no Delaunay, deceased. By her majesty's proclamation of your innocence, our seizure is now unlawful, and we must by rights recompense you."



I opened my mouth and closed it, in my shock picturing the house as I'd last seen it, a dreadful abattoir, Delaunay dead and Alcuin dying. "I don't want it," I said, shuddering. "Not the house. Let Lord Sandriel or whomever keep it. If I am owed . . ." It was hard to credit. "If I am owed, well, then, fine."



"Yes, of course, quite," the Chancellor said absently, shuffling through his papers. "Recompense in full." Ysandre sipped her wine and smiled. "And then there is Montreve, of course," he added.



"Montreve?" I echoed the word like a simpleton.



"Montreve, in Siovale, yes." His gaze came into focus as he found the document for which he was searching, tapping it smartly. "With his disinheritance, upon his father's death, it passed to his mother, and thence to Lord Delaunay's cousin, Rufaille, who is, sadly, listed among the dead of Troyes-le-Mont." The Chancellor cleared his throat again. "A codicil in the will of the Comtesse de Montreve specifies that if he should die without issue, the estate would revert to her son Anafiel Delaunay or his heirs. And that, it seems, is the case, my lady."



Although his words clearly formed sentences, I could make no sense of them. He might as well have been speaking Akkadian, for all I understood.



"What he is saying, Phedre," Ysandre said succinctly, "is that you have inherited the title and estate of Comtesse de Montreve."



I stared blankly at her. "My lady will have her jest."



"Her majesty does not jest," the Chancellor of the Exchequer said reproachfully to me, and rattled his sheaf of papers. "It's all very clear, and documented in the archives of the Royal Treasury."



"Thank you, my lord Brenois," Ysandre said graciously to the Chancellor. "Will you draw up the papers of investiture?"



"Your majesty." He bowed deeply, hugging his sheaves to him, and hurried out of the royal presence.



"You knew," I said to Ysandre, my voice sounding strange to my ears. She took a sip of wine and shook her head.



"Not about Montreve, no. That only came to light after the lists were published, and Lord Brenois determined that Rufaille de Montreve had designated no heir. You may refuse, of course. But it was Delaunay's mother's wish that the estate return to her son, or his line. And he chose you, you and the boy Alcuin."



"Delaunay," I whispered. He had never told me. I wondered if Alcuin had known. "No. I'll... I accept."



"Good," Ysandre said simply.



Afterward the matter was concluded in her mind, and Ysandre consulted with me on some small choices of jewelry and hairstyle for her wedding-day; what I said, I have no idea. My mind was reeling, dumbstruck. She was Queen of Terre d'Ange, Montreve was naught to her. A tiny, mountainous Siovalese holding with nothing to offer but a score of men-at-arms and a decent library, it was interesting only in that it had begotten Anafiel Delaunay, whom her father had loved.



So it was, to her. To me, named by the ancient Dowayne of Cereus



House for what I was, a whore's unwanted get, it was somewhat else indeed.



When she was done with me, I went in search of Joscelin.



"What's wrong?" he asked in alarm, looking at my flushed face, my eyes bright as with fever. "Are you all right?"



"No." I swallowed. "I'm a peer of the realm."



NINETY-FIVE



Thus did it come to pass that I attended the wedding of Ysandre de la Courcel and Drustan mab Necthana, Queen of Terre d'Ange and Cruarch of Alba, as the Comtesse Phedre no Delaunay de Montreve.



I kept Delaunay's name, out of pride. What I had, he had given me; much of what I was, he had made me, under the name he had chosen, and not that to which he was born. I never forgot, never, that it had been he who, with two words, turned my deadliest flaw to a treasure beyond price.



Ysandre rescinded her grandfather's old edict against Delaunay's poetry and, after twenty-odd years, his verses were once again spoken openly, charged with all the passion and brilliance of his youth.



At the wedding-feast Thelesis de Mornay would debut her epic verses, in praise of bride and groom alike. But at the ceremony itself, she recited one of Delaunay's poems.



I daresay the whole world knows it now; it was a rage of fashion for months afterward in the City, for lovers to quote the verse of Anafiel Delaunay to one another. Then, no one had heard it, and I wept at the final words.



/, and thou; our hands meet and a world engendered.



It was fitting, for the two of them, truly rulers of two worlds, conjoined into one. The ceremony was held in the Palace gardens, with gay pavilions erected on the lawn and a fragrant bower under which they stood. Elua's temple is everywhere in Terre d'Ange where earth meets sky. It was an old priestess who performed the ritual, silver-haired, her face lined and lovely with age.



Ysandre looked as beautiful as a summer's day, in a gown of periwinkle silk, her pale hair done up in a crown, laced with gold filigree, in which blue forget-me-nots were twined. I had counseled her well, if I had so advised her. As for Drustan, he was truly a vision to D'Angeline eyes, all his Pictish barbarism recreated in our luxuriant textiles, the red cloak of the Cruarch hanging in velvet folds from his blue-whorled shoulders, gold torque against his bare brown throat.



This, too, set quite a fashion.



As King and Queen, they had greeted each other, but when the words were spoken and they shared a kiss to seal it, it was as man and woman, husband and wife. I saw Ysandre's eyes sparkle as they parted, and Drus-tan's white smile, and I cheered them, with a whole heart. I knew, better than anyone, at what cost this union came.



We dined, then, on the greensward, and there were many tables laid, shining with white linen and settings of silver and gold; and I was seated, with Joscelin, at their own table, albeit far from the center where they reigned. For each of us, a nuptial goblet, silver chased in gold, depicting the siege of Troyes-le-Mont and the victorious alliance that followed. I have mine still, and it is among the chiefest of my treasures.



Suckling pigs were roasted whole, and pheasants, and oysters rushed packed in ice from the Eisandine coast, mutton and venison and tender rabbit, cheeses and apples soaked in brandy, pears and a spicy currant sauce; there were crisp green sallets with shredded violet-petals and comfits and glaces. And through it all washed a river of wine, soft oaken whites, crisp rose and hearty red, while musicians strolled and servants bustled.



When the sun sank low, the torches were kindled, a thousand candles set in glass globes about the garden, a beacon summoning to moths. Then did Thelesis de Mornay recite her fledgling verse, that would grow one day into the Ysandrine Cycle. Strange, to hear one's name spoken in passing poem; although the focus of these verses was Ysandre and Drustan, my tale was woven in it. Not a little drunk, I leaned my head in my hand and listened.



After that, came the toasts, which I will not recount. I had to rise when Grainne, resplendent in the crimson-and-gold gown of Ysandre's choosing, gave hers in a thick Eiran accent. It was something to do with the Fhalair Ban and the honor of the Dalriada, and a wish for fruitful joy; I cannot remember, now. I must have rendered it well enough, for everyone cheered. When I had done, Grainne gave me thanks and named me her sister, with an embrace and a deep glimmer of amusement that was not entirely sisterly.



I'd not told Ysandre that, either; only that the Lords of the Dalriada had been persuaded. Later I learned that Quintilius Rousse had related the tale of how I had brought the Twins into accord, and Ysandre laughed until she wept.



It was her fault, for making me her ambassador. Still I grieved that never again would Eamonn balance his sister.



Drustan made a toast, then, and to my great pride, he gave it first in Cruithne, then in near-flawless D'Angeline. His dark eyes shone with wine, and the flickering light of a thousand candles turned the intricate blue whorls of woad into a subtle, shifting pattern on his skin.



"We have won this day's joy at great price," he said solemnly. "Let us treasure it all the more, and pledge, together, that as Ysandre and I have joined our lives, so will our nations be joined, in strength and harmony, that we may never be any less than what we are today."



It was well-said, and they cheered him wildly; he gave a courtier's bow and sat down.



Then Ysandre stood. So young, to have borne what she had, but there was steel in Ysandre de la Courcel, forged between the bitter triangle of Rolande, Isabel and Delaunay, hammered on the anvil of her grandfather's rule, mettle tested in the dreadful siege of Troyes-le-Mont. Tempered, by love.



"D'Angeline and Alban alike," she said. "We give praise this day to Blessed Elua, and celebrate his words! Why are we here, if not for that? Nation, home and hearth, land, sea and sky, kith and kin, friend and lover, mistress and consort—" A rippling laugh answered, and she smiled. "—and husband and wife, we honor Elua's sacred precept. Join me, then, on this day and ever after, and love as thou wilt."



No other sovereign would have given such a toast, I think; but this was Terre d'Ange, and Ysandre was our Queen.



We drank, and drank deep, servants filling our nuptial goblets with joie, that clear, bright cordial that made the torches burn brighter.



Afterward, the musicians struck up in earnest, and we danced on the green lawn, while the soft candlelit twilight faded unnoticed and the stars kindled in the black sky, a scent of flowers heady in the summer night. I danced first with Joscelin, and then Caspar Trevalion bowed and extended his hand, and after that I lost count, until Drustan mab Necthana claimed a dance.



There were whispers, at that; some of the nobles knew who I was, and some did not, but now my name was known, and Kushiel's Dart gave me away. Always, at court, there runs the murmuring river of politics, beneath the surface at any occasion.



Drustan ignored it and so did I; he danced well for an Alban, despite his lameness. I remembered the first time I'd heard his name. Ysandre de la Courcel shall teach a dubfoot barbarian Prince to dance the gavotte. So she had, and I danced with him now, while we smiled at one another. Cullach Gorrym, Earth's eldest children. It meant nothing to the D'Angelines, but they had not been there when the black boar burst from its copse outside Bryn Gorrydum. I had.



We always did understand one another, Drustan and I.



I had patrons there, too. I'd chosen my assignations from among the highest-ranked in the realm, that last year or so. I gave none of them away. It was not the place to acknowledge such things. Some, like Quincel de Morhban, would not have cared; others depended on the discretion of Naamah's Servants. It did not matter. I knew, and they knew, whose patron-gifts were etched indelibly onto my skin, link by link, forming the chain of my marque that rendered me free.