Kushiel’s Dart

Chapter Thirty-Three

Delaunay returned some time in the small hours of the night, and was quiet and pensive the next morning. I more than half thought Joscelin would betray my disappearance to him, but I was wrong. He performed his exercises with a particularly single-minded focus, heedless of the cold air, the twin blades of his daggers weaving elaborate steel patterns.

I stood bundled in my warmest garments and shivered on the terrace, watching him. When he was done, he sheathed his blades and came to speak with me.

"Do you swear to me that what you ask in no way dishonors my vows?" he asked in a quiet voice. All of that, and he wasn’t even winded; I was hard put to catch my breath just standing in the cold.

I nodded. "I swear it," I said, trying to keep my teeth from chattering.

"Then I will say nothing." He raised his mail-backed hand, one finger extended. "This once. If you will swear not to deceive me again while you’re in my protection. Whatever I may think of it, I’d not keep you from honoring your pledge to Naamah, Phèdre. I’m pledged to Cassiel to protect and serve, and I ask only that you respect my vows as I do yours."

"I swear it," I repeated. I hugged myself against the cold. "Shall we go in now?"

There was a blazing fire laid in the hearth in the library, which was always one of the warmest rooms in the house, so it was there that we gathered. There was no sign of Delaunay, but Alcuin was reading at the long table, tomes and scrolls strewn across its surface. He gave a brief smile as we entered. I sat down opposite him and peered at his research, seeing references in several different languages and by as many names to the Master of the Straits.

"You think to solve the riddle of him?" I raised my eyebrows. Alcuin shrugged and grinned at me.

"Why not? No one else has."

"You mean Delaunay?" Joscelin asked, surveying the shelves. He took a volume out and pondered it, shaking his head. "One thing’s certain, this is a Siovalese lord’s library. He’s got everything in here but the Lost Book of Raziel. Can Delaunay actually read Yeshuite script?"

"Probably," I said. "Do all Siovalese treasure learning?"

"There was an old Aragonian philosopher who would cross the mountains every spring to visit our manor," Joscelin said, putting the book back and smiling at the memory. "While the cherry trees were in blossom, he and my father would spend seven days solid arguing whether or not man’s destiny is irrevocable. Then he would turn around and go back to Aragonia. I wonder if they ever settled it."

"How long since you’ve been home?" Alcuin asked curiously.

As if he’d been caught out at something, Joscelin’s formal manner returned. "My home is where duty bids me."

"Oh, don’t be such a damned Cassiline," I grumbled. "So are we to take it you didn’t succeed, as a fellow countryman, in prying any further information out of Delaunay?"

Joscelin paused, then shook his head. "No," he admitted ruefully. "My eldest sister would know. She once charted every one of Shemhazai’s lines, every House, Major and Minor, in Siovale. She could tell you in three minutes whose line ends in a mystery." He sat down and scratched absently beneath the buckles of his left vambrace. "Eleven years," he added softly. "Since I’ve seen my family. We swear our vows at twenty. I’m allowed a visit at twenty-five, if the Prefect gauges I’ve served well my first five years."

Alcuin whistled.

"I told you it was a harsh service," I said to him. "And what about you? What can you add to the mystery of Anafiel Delaunay these days?"

I had tried to be mindful of Thelesis de Mornay’s advice, but that had pertained to Delaunay, not Alcuin, and the banked jealousy smouldered beneath my words. If I’d not had enough questions before, I had a score more after what I’d seen yesterday. What was Delaunay to House Courcel, that Ganelon would use him; and how? What did Ysandre de la Courcel want of him, and what was the "certain matter" she wished to discuss? What oath had he sworn, and upon whose ring?

If Alcuin had no way of knowing what questions roiled around my mind, he knew well enough from whence my hostility came. But he merely sat and regarded me with his grave, dark eyes.

"You do know," I said in sudden comprehension. "He told you." My anger flared, and I shoved at the books nearest me. "Damn you, Alcuin! We always, always promised we would share with the other what we learned!"

"That was before I knew." Quietly, he moved the most brittle of the scrolls out of my reach. "Phèdre, I swear to you, I don’t know the whole of it. Only what I need to aid him in this research. And I promised only not to tell you until your marque was made. You’re near to it, aren’t you?"

"Will you see?" I asked him coldly.

They were the words he had asked Delaunay. I saw him remember, and flush, the color as visible as wine in an alabaster cup. He’d known I knew; he hadn’t known I’d seen. But it wasn’t in Alcuin to evade the truth, and blushing or no, there was no guile in his eyes as he held my gaze. "You were the one who told him, Phèdre. He might never have let it happen, if you hadn’t put it in his thoughts."

"I know. I know." My anger died, and I held my head in my hands and sighed. Joscelin stared at us, blinking and perplexed. It was no easy thing, to follow a quarrel between students of Anafiel Delaunay’s. "I saw too well how you loved him, and for all his cleverness, Delaunay was as simple as a pig-herder where you were concerned. He’d have let you starve your heart out in his shadow before he saw. But I didn’t think it would hurt so much."

Alcuin came over to sit beside me and put his arms about me. "I’m sorry," he murmured. "Truly, I’m sorry."

From the corner of my eye, I saw Joscelin rise silently and give his formal bow, withdrawing tactfully from the room. In that distant part of my mind that was ever calculating, I regretted that we had driven him away, the first time that he had relaxed a little in our presence. But Alcuin and I had been too long together in Delaunay’s household not to have this conversation, and it had been long days in coming.

"I know," I said to him. I laughed, and my breath caught in my throat, but I had no tears left for this. "I wish there were a little unkindness in you, Alcuin, so I could hate you for it. But I suppose I’ll have to settle for wishing you well, and hating you for what you won’t tell me."

He laughed too at that, his breath warm at my ear. His white hair spilled over my shoulder, mingling with my own sable locks. "Well, I’d have done the same."

"Yes," I said, "you would." I stroked his hair where it lay against mine, then drew out two lengths and braided them together, dark and white intertwining. He kept his head next to mine and his arms about me, watching. "Our lives," I said. "Bound together by Anafiel Delaunay."

Who, having entered the room, cleared his throat.

Alcuin, startled, jerked his head up. My hair, braided with his, tugged at my scalp and made me wince.

I can’t imagine how foolish we looked; Delaunay’s mouth twitched with amusement, but he managed to keep a straight face. "I thought you might like to know, Phèdre," he said, working hard at keeping his voice solemn, "that Melisande Shahrizai has come to visit, and would like to make an offer of an assignation."

"Name of Elua!" I yanked at the braid, dragging Alcuin’s head back down with a yelp, and began undoing it frantically. "Why can’t she send a courier, like normal people?"

"Because," Delaunay said, still amused, "she is an acquaintance of long standing, and likely most of all, because she enjoys seeing you discomfited. Be thankful I bid her wait in the receiving room while I summoned you. Shall I say you’ll join us presently?"

"Yes, my lord." I got the braid unbound, and endeavored hurriedly to restore some semblance of order to my hair. Alcuin laughed; he ran his fingers through his hair once, and it fell glistening into its customary river of white silk. I glared at him, and wondered if I had time to change into a different gown. Delaunay shook his head and left us.

In the end, I elected to appear as I was, in the warm woolen gown I’d worn to watch Joscelin practice. It would merely have served Melisande Shahrizai’s entertainment, to suggest that I was unsettled enough to need to arm myself in my best attire. She had arrived unannounced; well, then, I would receive her accordingly, even as Delaunay had.

I could hear the laughter before I even entered the room; whatever else they had been to each other, she and Delaunay made each other laugh. I prayed he wasn’t describing the scene he’d witnessed, though it wasn’t like Delaunay to be thoughtlessly cruel. He beckoned me into the room, and I obeyed. "My lord, my lady." I kept my voice level, made a curtsy and took a chair. Melisande shot me one amused glance that nearly undermined all of my composure.

"Phèdre," she said, cocking her head thoughtfully. "I have made Anafiel an offer he deems acceptable. My lord the Duc Quincel de Morhban is visiting the City of Elua for the Midwinter festivities, and he is minded to host a masque. His is the sovereign duchy of Kusheth, and I am minded to make somewhat of a statement on behalf of House Shahrizai. A genuine anguissette, I think, would be just the thing. Are you contracted for the Longest Night?"

The Longest Night. In the Night Court, no contracts were made for the Longest Night; but I was not of the Night Court any longer, nor ever had been in the service of Naamah. My mouth grew dry and I shook my head. "No, my lady," I answered her, not without difficulty. "I am not contracted."

"Well, then." Her beautiful lips curved in a smile. "Do you accept?"

As if there were some question of it, or I could summon the will to decline. I had been waiting for Melisande Shahrizai to offer me an assignation since I was scarce more than a child. I would have laughed, if I could have. "Yes."

"Good," she said simply, then glanced at Joscelin, who had arrived before me to stand at ease by the door in his cross-vambraced stance. "A long, dull vigil for you, I’m afraid, my young Cassiline."

His face was expressionless as he bowed, but his eyes blazed like a summer sky. I hadn’t realized, when they’d met at the Palace, that he quite despised her. I wondered if it was because she had mocked his vow of celibacy, or for somewhat else. "I protect and serve," he said savagely.

Melisande arched her brows. "Oh, you protect well enough, but I’d ask better service, were you sworn to attend me, Cassiline."

Delaunay coughed; I knew him well enough to know it hid a laugh. I don’t think Joscelin did, but he was filled with enough ire at Melisande’s teasing that it hardly mattered. Oddly enough, it cheered me to know that despite consorting with House Courcel and Cassiline Prefects, Delaunay’s sense of humor was undiminished. I liked Joscelin a little better for keeping my secret and his brief moments of humanity, but he needed to unbend a bit further if he wanted to avoid making a fool of himself in Delaunay’s service.

Or of me, I thought glumly.

"The Longest Night, then," said Delaunay aloud, collecting himself enough to divert attention from poor Joscelin and smooth the awkward moment. He grinned at Melisande. "You don’t do anything by halves, do you?"

"No." She smiled complacently back at him. "You know I don’t, Anafiel."

"Mmm." He sipped at a glass of cordial and eyed her thoughtfully. "What’s your game with Quincel de Morhban?"

Melisande laughed. "Oh, that…as to that, it’s nothing more than Kusheline politics. The duchy of Morhban holds the Pointe d’Oeste, and reckons its sovereignty thusly, but the Shahrizai are the oldest House in Kusheth. Phèdre’s presence will remind him that we trace our line unbroken to Kushiel, no more. I may wish a favor some day; it is good to remind one’s Duc that there is merit in boons granted to ancient Houses."

"No more than that?"

"No more than that for the Duc de Morhban." She toyed with her glass and smiled idly in my direction. "My other reasons are my own."

Her smile went through me like a spear. I shuddered, and knew not why.