Kushiel’s Dart

"Did he trust them with his secrets?" The arched brows turned toward the King’s Poet. "Did he tell Phèdre nó Delaunay that he was my oath-sworn protector?"

Thelesis made a slight, helpless gesture, glancing at me. She knew, I think, that he had not.

The feeling returned, the wave lifting me out of myself. "No, my lady," I whispered. "He did not. But you would have been better served if he had." I had given no thought to what I uttered, and it terrified me to hear my own words, for there was bitterness in them. "Anafiel Delaunay taught me and used me and kept me in ignorance, thinking to protect me. And if he had not, mayhap he would not have died, for I might have guessed Melisande Shahrizai’s game, if I’d known what was at stake. I was the only one close enough to see it. But I did not, and he is dead." Joscelin stirred next to me, willing me to silence; we understood these things, who had been slaves together. Too late, and I was too far gone in my anger. I stared at the Dauphine and a connection formed in my mind, so simply that I almost laughed with relief. "The guard, your highness question the guard!"

Joscelin moved again, this time with a jolt. "Your highness! We sought an audience with you, then with the King’s Poet, the night of Delaunay’s murder. Both times we were turned away." He grinned, the flash of white teeth unexpected. "A Cassiline Brother and an anguissette in a sangoire cloak. Surely one of them would remember."

For a moment, I thought she would refute the idea, then Ysandre de la Courcel nodded to the guard she’d sent before. "Go," she said. "Be discreet." She looked back at us, and I saw for an instant a frightened young woman gazing from behind the mask of authority. "Ah, Elua!" she said, grief in her voice. "You’re telling the truth, aren’t you?"

I understood, then, the nature of her anger and her fear, and sank to my knees, gazing up at her. We had brought to her the last news any ruler wished to hear, of war, war incipient, and treason at the heart of her realm. "Yes, my lady," I said softly. "It is true."

She was silent a moment, accepting the truth of it. I saw in that moment something else surfacing in her, a dreadful resolve that she drew from some inner depths, hardening the planes of her lovely young face and firming the line of her mouth. Ysandre de la Courcel would stare unblinking at this terror. I remembered, then, that she was the daughter of Rolande de la Courcel, whom Delaunay had loved.

"And my uncle?" Ysandre asked, coming back to herself. "The Duc L’Envers?"

Still kneeling, I shook my head, then rose in the fluid movement I had first learned at Cereus House. "To the best of my knowledge, Barquiel L’Envers had naught to do with it, your highness. He and Delaunay had settled the score between them."

"Is it true that he had Dominic Stregazza killed?"

Ysandre de la Courcel would be ruthless in acknowledgement of the truth, I saw that much. "I believe it to be true," I said quietly. "The name of your mother’s murderer was the coin Delaunay paid for the truce between him and the Duc L’Envers. He reckoned it worthwhile to protect you from the same fate, your highness."

She absorbed it without blinking. "And you gathered this intelligence for him."

"I had a companion; we both did." Grief sank its claws into my heart, fresh again now that I was home in the City. "His name was Alcuin nó Delaunay. It was he who garnered the Stregazza’s name. He died with my lord Delaunay."

"You weep for him." Ysandre looked curiously at me, saddened. "I wish I had known him better. I wish there had been time." She glanced at the door through which the guard had left, then rose, beckoning. "Come here."

We followed her, then, the four of us and her guard, through two doors, into a cloistered bedroom. It was heavily guarded, and two elderly Cassilines stood aside at her command, opening the door. Joscelin took care not to meet their eyes. The Dauphine stood in the doorway and looked within; pressed close behind her, we gazed over her shoulder.

Ganelon de la Courcel, the King of Terre d’Ange, lay in a canopied bed, his face waxen and unmoving, fallen into deep lines. He was more ancient than I remembered. At first I thought he slept the long sleep of death, then I saw his breast rise and fall, disturbed by a long breath.