Kushiel’s Dart

"You say the Prefect sent a letter?" he asked Hyacinthe, who nodded. Joscelin shook his head. "I don’t know," he said reluctantly. "If he protested the order’s innocence and not mine…if he wrote rather than came to speak in person…no. I wouldn’t trust him not to call the Royal Guard on us. I’ll go to him myself, rather. Can you provide a mount?" The last was addressed to Hyacinthe.

"Yes, of course."

"No." I pressed my fingers to my temples. "It’s unsure, and would take days. There’s got to be another way." A thought struck me, and I raised my head. "Hyacinthe, can you find someone to deliver a letter to Thelesis de Mornay?"

"Absolutely." He grinned. "A love letter, perhaps? A message from an admirer? Nothing easier. The only thing I can’t guarantee is that it will arrive with the seal intact."

"It doesn’t matter." My mind was racing. "Do you have paper? I’ll couch the real information in Cruithne. If any one of your poets can read Pictish, I’ll eat this table whole."

After rummaging in a chest, Hyacinthe brought me pen and paper, shaving the quill with a sharp knife and setting the inkpot at hand. I penned a quick, fervid note of admiration in D’Angeline, then added a few lines of Cruithne, structuring them to look like verse to the uneducated eye. The last student of he who might have been the King’s Poet awaits, at the home of the Prince of Travellers, begging your aid in the name of the King’s cygnet, his only born.

I read it aloud, in D’Angeline then in Cruithne, stumbling over the pronunciation.

"Cruithne," Joscelin murmured; he’d thought himself beyond surprise. "You speak Cruithne."

"Not well," I admitted. I’d glossed over the fact that I knew neither the word for cygnet nor swan; I had translated Ysandre de la Courcel’s emblem, in truth, as something closer to "long-neck baby water bird." But Thelesis de Mornay spoke and read Cruithne, and moreover, it was she who’d told me that Delaunay might have been the King’s Poet, had matters not fallen out as they had. "Will it do?"

"It’ll do, and more. Leave it unsigned." Hyacinthe, idling with his chair tipped back, moved into action, snatching the letter from my hand and grabbing a taper to seal it deftly with a blob of wax. "Give it me now, there’s a party bound for the Lute and Mask later this evening. I’ll see it in Thelesis de Mornay’s hand by noon tomorrow, if I have to bribe half of Night’s Doorstep to get it there."

He was out the door within seconds, swirling his cloak around him.

"You were right to trust him," Joscelin said quietly. "I was wrong." I met his gaze across the table; he gave me his wry smile. "I can admit that much."

"Well, and you were right about Taavi and Danele," I said to him. "I never told you, but I could have killed you when you asked their help. But you were right."

"They were good people. I hope they’re well." He stood up. "If there’s naught more to be done this night…"

"Go, get some sleep." I stifled a yawn at the thought of it. "I’ll stay awake until Hyacinthe comes back."

"I’ll leave you alone, then. I’m sure you want a chance to talk with him." The same wry smile, but something caught at it, twisting at my heart.

"Joscelin…" I looked up at him. It seemed impossible to believe, here in this childhood haven, all that we’d been through together. All of it. "Joscelin, whatever happens to us…you did it. You kept your vow to protect and serve. You brought me home safe," I said softly. "Thank you."

He swept his Cassiline bow, and left me to wait.

Hyacinthe was some time returning, and entered the house quietly, turning the key carefully in the lock. I started, having fallen into a doze, slumped at the kitchen table.

"You’re awake." He came to sit with me, taking my hands in his. "You should be in bed."

"How did it go?"

"Fine." He inspected my hands, turning them gently. "Thelesis should have the letter by tomorrow, unless young Marc-Baptiste has a terrible quarrel with Japheth nó Eglantine-Vardennes, which is not likely. He thinks I’m sheltering Sarphiel the Reclusive, who is indeed mad enough to send the Prince of Travellers with an unsigned love note to the King’s Poet. Thelesis was ill, you know, but the King’s own physician attended her, and she’s on the mend. Phèdre, it looks like you’ve been working as a galley-slave."

"I know." I pulled my hands away. They were red-roughened and chafed by cold, scratched and torn, with dirt engrained that a single bath couldn’t remove. "But I can build a fire with a single sodden log in the middle of a snowstorm."