Kushiel’s Dart

We would travel westward across L’Agnace, taking the Senescine Forest road into Kusheth; or so Hyacinthe believed. He could not be sure until we intercepted one of the chaidrov, the imperceptible markings the Tsingani leave along their route. It would not matter, overmuch, in L’Agnace, which was under the Comte de Somerville’s rule and peaceful. Of the Companions, Anael’s gift was husbandry, and he taught much to mortals of the growing of good things and the care of the land. It made for a peaceful province, although L’Agnacites are fierce as lions when roused to defend their land, as Percy de Somerville’s noble history as the Royal Commander evidenced.

Good weather graced our leavetaking, a damp early thaw rendering the air moist and gentle. Despite my fear at the vastness of our undertaking, I found myself in good spirits to be riding once more. Truly, nothing is worse than waiting idle, while fear preys on one’s mind like ravens upon a corpse. And after the frozen terrors of Skaldia, the Senescine seemed almost friendly.

Our first day proved uneventful. We saw no one save a few farmers at early tilling for spring crops, who nodded in taciturn acknowledgment. Once we gained the forest road, we rode in solitude.

Hyacinthe made for a cheerful companion. He had brought a handheld timbale, which he played as he rode, his nimble fingers drumming and jangling out a merry rhythm. After our terrible journey of desperate, hurried silence and secrecy, it seemed odd and dangerous to Joscelin and me, but I saw the wisdom in it. Tsingani do nothing quietly, and there is as much deception in noise as there is in silence.

It was after we had paused for a luncheon that we saw the first sign of Tsingani on the road, passing a campsite near a forest stream. Scorched earth and scraps of metal gave evidence that a traveling forge had been erected there, and the Tsingani are known to be smiths. Hyacinthe scouted the area and loosed a shout of triumph. We hurried to his side, and he pointed to a split twig planted in the ground, one side bent westward.

"A chaidrov" he said, nodding. "We are on the right route."

So we continued our journey, following such Tsingani signs as Hyacinthe espied; indeed, all of us grew adept at spotting them. I will not speak overmuch of these travels, for the days passed without incident. From Hyacinthe, we learned somewhat of Tsingani ways, preparing ourselves for what we might find. In turn, I taught a few words of Cruithne to both he and Joscelin. It is more difficult than Skaldic, for there are sounds in the Pictish tongue that come hard to D’Angelines. I had always despised the fact that Delaunay had made me learn it; ironic, that I should need it so direly now.

The remainder of the time, I passed in reading the journal of Prince Rolande de la Courcel, that with which Ysandre had gifted me.

From this slim book, I pieced together the great and fateful romance that had bound Anafiel Delaunay’s fate to the protection of Ysandre de la Courcel, and indeed, made of me what I was, a courtesan equipped to match wits with the deadliest of courtiers.

They had met at the University in Tiberium, of course; that much I had known. But I glimpsed Delaunay now through another’s eyes, as a young man, full of beauty and a splendid passion to know. I had never known Delaunay as a youth. It surprised me to read his poems, carefully recorded by Rolande de la Courcel; wicked, biting satires that lampooned fellow students and masters alike. And it was Rolande who began calling him Delaunay, after his mother’s name and the Eisandine shepherd lad Elua had loved. Once they were together-and I blushed to read that passage, wondering how Ysandre had taken it-it was the masters of the University who nicknamed him Antinous, after a lad beloved by an ancient Tiberian Imperator.

Rolande’s nature shone through it all, a generous and reckless spirit who loved freely without reckoning the cost, truer to the Precept of Blessed Elua and the archaic ideologies of glory than the political machinations of a monarchy. I could only imagine how Delaunay had adored and despaired of this careless nobility, incapable of subtlety.

It was the death of Edmée de Rocaille that had caused a rift between them, after the University, after Delaunay had been castigated by his father and formally taken his mother’s name. Hyacinthe and I had not been too far wrong; there was a longstanding bond between the Houses Rocaille and Montrève-strange, still, to think of Delaunay as aught but Delaunay-and Edmée had been a childhood friend to Delaunay in Siovale, betrothed to Rolande out of goodwill and because her family had ties to the royal House of Aragon.

A good arrangement, it seemed; there was fondness between all of them, and Edmée understood that she was trading passion to be the eventual Queen of Terre d’Ange, mother of heirs.

Then came her hunting accident.