Cassiels servant, p.61
Cassiel's Servant, page 61
The diamond settled with a series of faint chinking sounds. In the silence that followed, Melisande Shahrizai turned a bloodless white.
I swear on Cassiel’s dagger, I saw that woman taken by surprise twice in her life, and she was more unnerved by Anafiel Delaunay’s death than the immanence of her own demise. She gave a short laugh, gazing into the past. “My lord Delaunay, you play a considerable endgame,” she murmured, then looked back at Phèdre. Her sapphire-blue eyes held genuine curiosity. “That was the one thing I couldn’t fathom. Percy de Somerville was prepared for Selig’s invasion. You?”
“I saw a letter you wrote to Selig in your own hand.” Phèdre’s voice was shaking, but determined. “You should have killed me when you had the chance.”
If Melisande hadn’t spared me a glance, one would have thought they were the only two people in the room. Stooping, she picked up the cord of the fallen necklace, regarding the diamond as it hung from her fist, scintillating in the surly lamplight of the throne room. “Leaving you the Cassiline was a bit excessive,” she acknowledged. “Although it seems to have agreed with him.”
Ysandre was in no mood for games. “Do you dispute this charge?”
Considering the diamond dangling from one hand, Melisande raised her brows. “I assume you have proof of their story?”
“I have Palace Guards who will swear they saw Phèdre nó Delaunay and her Cassiline guard with you the night of Anafiel Delaunay’s murder,” Ysandre said calmly. “And I believe, my lady Shahrizai, that thirty thousand invading Skaldi attest to the truth of their tale.”
Melisande closed her hand around the diamond, lowered it, and shrugged. “Then I have no more to say.”
“So be it.” Queen Ysandre beckoned to her guards. “You will be executed at dawn.”
No one else spoke; no one was willing to speak on a condemned traitor’s behalf. The Queen had issued a sentence that was wholly deserved and there was nothing else to say. I felt the weight of the silence in the throne room as members of the Royal Guard escorted Melisande to confinement.
“It’s over,” I murmured in Phèdre’s ear. “It’s over, Phèdre.”
She touched the naked hollow at the base of her throat, not looking at me. “I know.”
Although it went against the grain, I sent for Fortun after the meeting and requested a boon. Amongst all of Phèdre’s Boys, I placed the most trust in him. I bade him take extra care to ensure that he or one of the others he trusted kept a discreet guard on her at all times until the Lady Melisande Shahrizai’s execution at dawn tomorrow.
“Of course. We always do, even when you don’t ask.” Fortun frowned at me. “What’s different?”
I considered my answer. “Melisande was a patron.”
“Oh.”
It didn’t begin to explain. “Not just any patron. The patron who paid her debt-bond and gave Phèdre her freedom. Before trading her to the Skaldi rather than killing her.”
“Oh.”
I glanced toward Phèdre, who was facilitating a conversation between Ysandre and Drustan. “She’ll want to be left alone today, as much as possible, anyway. And today of all days, I think it’s best if I do so.”
Fortune nodded. “I understand. Joscelin … will she want to attend the execution tomorrow?”
Blessed Elua have mercy, it hadn’t occurred to me. “I’ll be there if she does.”
It troubled me throughout the day, never far from my thoughts. I wished the business were over and done so that we might truly put it behind us—or at least as far behind us as the passage of time would allow. None of this could be undone. Melisande Shahrizai’s death wouldn’t restore Alcuin and Anafiel Delaunay or their household. It wouldn’t change Hyacinthe’s lonely fate. There was an obscene trail of innocent lives lost in the wake of Melisande’s machinations.
Not hers alone, to be sure. Isidore d’Aiglemort and Waldemar Selig sought to seize the realm for their own purposes. But they had meted out their bitter justice on each other, and it was a fitting fate.
Now it was Melisande’s turn. I would take no joy in the manner of her death, but I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t grateful that her existence was ended.
I left Phèdre in the hospital wards that night. Although she had no formal training in medicine, one of the chirurgeon’s assistants had taught her a few simple skills. Most importantly, she was good at listening to others. The Cruithne and the Dalriada among the gravely injured were especially grateful, often unable to communicate with those trying to aid them. And for those who feared they might never leave the plains of Troyes-le-Mont, Phèdre transcribed letters for their loved ones on whatever bits of paper she could scavenge. It brought them comfort, and her, too. Anything we were able to do to alleviate the suffering created by this war brought a measure of solace.
By the time the moon was high overhead, Phèdre was still wide awake, sitting with a feverish young Dalriadan who was clutching her hand and muttering as he went in and out of sleep. I found a quiet corner to catch a few hours’ sleep of my own.
I was awakened by Ti-Philippe in the darkness before the dawn, on my feet and reaching for my daggers in a heartbeat. “What is it?”
“That woman sent for her,” he said. “I didn’t think it was my place to stop her. But our lady’s been on the battlements since.”
It took a moment to tease out his meaning: Melisande had asked to see Phèdre. Phèdre had gone to see her, then retired to the ramparts.
I sighed and went to her.
Another long night, another bloody dawn. A pair of the Queen’s Guard greeted me and pointed me toward Phèdre, standing alone at the parapet and watching the stars fade in the east. I stood for a moment simply watching her until I saw the slight shift in the angle of her head that meant she knew I was there.
“You went to see her,” I said. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” Phèdre turned to face me. “I suppose I owed her that much. Joscelin…” She searched my eyes, trying to find a way to explain it. “There are things I will never be able to forget. And there will be times when I need to try.”
“I know.” I stood beside her, not touching her. A god’s chosen, marked by the prick of Kushiel’s Dart. That scarlet mote was the seal on a puzzle box of dark and thorny desire that only Melisande Shahrizai had ever fully opened. It would always be there, as much a part of her as blood and bone. It was not for me to open. “You know that I could never hurt you, even if you asked it of me?”
“I know.” Taking my arm, she squeezed it hard against her. “We’ve survived thirty thousand Skaldi and the wrath of the Master of the Straits. We ought to be able to survive each other.”
I laughed because it was true. Phèdre pressed her face against my chest and I held her. It didn’t matter what the puzzle box contained because her heart was mine. I held the whole of her in my arms and awaited the laden approach of dawn. As difficult as it would be, I felt a measure of ease in her body as the first hazy fingers of gold began spidering over the crests of the distant foothills.
It was then that we heard shouting.
A company of the Queen’s Guard spilled out of the towers and onto the ramparts, questioning the guards on night watch with hands on hilts. Recognizing their captain by the insignia on his tunic, I caught him in passing. “What’s happened?”
“They were to execute the Lady Melisande Shahrizai at dawn,” the captain said in a grim tone. “She’s gone.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
It would prove a mystery in the end. Sometime between moonrise and dawn, Melisande Shahrizai sent for Phèdre. They spoke for no more than a quarter of an hour, after which Phèdre retired to the battlements. She remained there until Ti-Philippe woke me. When the guards came to escort Melisande to her execution, they found an empty cell. Two guardsmen and the keeper of the postern gate were dead.
There were no clues. Someone had assisted the traitoress Melisande Shahrizai in her escape. No one was immune from suspicion.
Ysandre was furious, and rightfully so. She had the fortress searched from cellar to rooftop and nigh overturned every broken stone of the much-abused outer fortifications. She sent out scouting parties. She had everyone who was at liberty that night in the fortress itself interrogated—including Phèdre and me, the very witnesses whose testimony had condemned Melisande in the first place.
For that, the Queen did apologize.
I was glad, though, that I’d made sure Fortun and the lads had kept an eye on Phèdre and were able to corroborate her story, especially as days passed and it became increasingly evident that Melisande Shahrizai had well and truly vanished on the eve of her execution. I was glad, too, that Ysandre didn’t know that Phèdre’s initial response to the news of Melisande’s disappearance was hysterical laughter.
I didn’t ask until days later when the search had officially been declared futile. “What did she say to you that night?”
“Not much.” Phèdre’s mouth twisted. “I think she just wanted me to know that even after everything, I still answer to her call.”
“Do you?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. “I asked her why. I wanted to know why she did it, all of it. Do you know what she said, Joscelin? She said, ‘Because I could.’”
“Were you expecting a better answer?” I inquired wryly. “An answer that would make sense to you?”
“Truly?” Phèdre thought about it. “No.”
It is a hard thing to see a woman put to the sword; I’d been shocked by Drustan mab Necthana’s unexpectedly swift and violent dispatch of his father’s wife upon her condemnation. Nonetheless, I’d have sooner seen Melisande Shahrizai meet a brutal death than to vanish and live to plot another day, especially since she couldn’t have managed this without aid. Someone else in the fortress that night was a traitor.
Whoever it was, they had blood on their hands; but whoever it was, they’d covered their tracks well. She was gone.
With reluctance, the Queen’s Council was forced to confront the fact that there were far more pressing matters at hand than tracking one fugitive noblewoman. For now, the only punishment Melisande would be forced to endure was whatever exile she had established in the event that her plans to found an empire went awry.
In the meanwhile I prayed this put an end to Melisande Shahrizai’s machinations, because I don’t think anyone but Phèdre truly understood how instrumental she’d been in setting the wheels of war in motion.
What had Selwyn said so long ago? After all, she’s just a woman.
The Cassiline Brotherhood had a lot to learn about women.
In late summer, when the grapes were ripening on the vine and the air was full of the scent of lavender and the sound of honeybees, Queen Ysandre held a formal ceremony of gratitude in preparation for relocating the throne to its proper seat in the Royal Palace of the City of Elua. She restored sovereignty of the fortress and its holdings to the Duchese de Troyes-le-Mont, who had taken sanctuary in Marsilikos for the duration of the war. She arranged for reparations to the families of the fallen and for all the villagers and crofters who had seen their lands trampled and goods seized by Skaldi invaders and Terre d’Ange’s defenders alike, and for the restoration of Naamah’s temples.
With the most urgent business settled, Ysandre de la Courcel’s wartime court and its noble allies made an official victory procession to the City.
A week’s journey took two, for word of our deeds had spread while we were at Troyes-le-Mont. At every village we passed through, folk lined the roads and threw flowers in tribute, offering their blessings to the victorious young Queen. And they came, too, to see the Cruarch of Alba, the heroic foreign ruler pledged to wed Ysandre. They came to see Drustan and the woad-tattooed Cruithne in their fierce barbarian majesty, the proud warriors of the Dalriada with their tall crests of hair and war-chariots out of an ancient legend. Phèdre and I often rode alongside Grainne’s chariot, offering what solace and companionship we might.
Both of us forbore to tell Ysandre that the bloodstained sack hanging from the Lady of the Dalriada’s chariot contained her brother Eamonn’s head preserved in lime so that she might bring it home to Innisclan.
In the City of Elua, our progress slowed to a crawl as the citizens of the entire city turned out to greet us. It was a far more sparsely populated city than the one I’d entered a year ago. Sickness and war had taken their toll. But for the first time, entering the City of Elua felt like a homecoming.
And it was a joyful one.
The first order of business in the aftermath of the victory of our united realms would be Ysandre and Drustan’s wedding. To that end, the Queen kept Phèdre in her service as her ambassadress and translator. We were provided with our own suite of rooms in the Palace, which resolved the matter of a place to live for now. I was fitted for livery in Courcel midnight blue in a style that hewed close to the familiar cut of Cassiline greys.
A steady stream of couturières and maquillage artists tended to Phèdre’s wardrobe and appearance. I’m fairly sure she bathed at least twice a day during our first week of enjoying royal largesse.
Thelesis de Mornay, the Queen’s Poet, was the first guest to call upon us. With her she brought Cecilie Laveau-Perrin, a legendary courtesan. She had retired from the Night Court many years ago, but even as a child in the mountains of Siovale, I remembered hearing her name. A friend of Delaunay’s, she had served as Phèdre and Alcuin’s mentor in Naamah’s arts. There was a tremendous kindness and grace to Cecilie, and I had grown enough in my understanding of human nature to know that it was those qualities far more than physical beauty or skills in the bedchamber that made a great courtesan.
It was her gentle presence and the reminder of less troubled times that undid Phèdre for the first time since the leaderless Skaldi had fled the battlefield. She flung her arms around Cecilie’s neck and wept unashamed; the latter stroked her back and murmured meaningless reassurances.
“Forgive me, my lady.” Composing herself, Phèdre wiped her eyes. “It’s been a long journey.”
“Phèdre, child.” Cecilie took her face in her hands, kissed her brow. “Few of Naamah’s Servants ever truly know what it is like to walk in her footsteps.” I was uncertain how to behave in the face of such a naked display of emotion, but Cecilie put me at ease. “Such a beautiful young man, Joscelin Verreuil,” she said, taking my hands. “And a true hero, too.” Smiling, she tapped one of my vambraces. “Never let it be said Naamah lacks a sense of humor.”
I could feel myself blush, but I laughed and bowed to her. “I’ll accept such a compliment from the Queen of Night-Blooming Flowers.”
“Truly, Elua’s blessing is on this day,” Thelesis de Mornay said in her melodious poet’s voice. “For all that is lost, so much is won.”
It was a simple, eloquent truth.
Terre d’Ange was ready for a celebration. There was mourning to be done, but there was rejoicing, too. Nobles whose Houses had proved their loyalty to the Queen flaunted their invitations to the royal wedding; others vied with each other to curry favor. Ateliers began creating attire that did homage to our new Alban allies, incorporating accents of Dalriadan plaid and embroidery that echoed the intricate lines of Cruithne tattoos.
Queen Ysandre sought Phèdre’s counsel on all of these matters and others; most of which, Phèdre confided to me, had naught to do with facilitating communications. Ysandre de la Courcel was a crowned monarch presiding over the greatest military victory in a generation, but she was also a young woman facing her impending wedding day. She intended to enjoy every ounce of ceremony, and she needed someone to share the pleasure of planning the intimate details of the event.
“I don’t think she’s ever had a girlfriend near her own age before,” Phèdre mused, then paused. “Nor have I.”
I understood. I’d never had a friendship quite like the one I’d had with Selwyn. I didn’t imagine I ever would.
In honor of the one longstanding friendship that had sustained her since childhood, Phèdre made good on a promise to Hyacinthe. Facing an eternity of exile, Hyacinthe had still thought to write out a deed to his mother’s house and his livery stable business to give to Emile, the second-in-command of his crew. It was on a bit of scraped vellum Phèdre had kept ever since the Straits. Emile kissed her hands and wept with gratitude and sorrow, and I was embarrassed to think how quick I’d been to judge Hyacinthe as a shallow popinjay.
Though Blessed Elua knows, he’d been just as quick to gauge me a Cassiline prig. And neither of us were wholly wrong.
It wasn’t easy to find time for such personal matters with Phèdre at the Queen’s beck and call, but she kept another promise, too. After some persuasion and Cecilie Laveau-Perrin’s influence, the Dowayne of Cereus House, First among the Thirteen Houses, agreed to open the doors of the Night Court to the survivors of Phèdre’s Boys. Since there were only fifteen of them, I rather thought the Night Court got a bargain for the goodwill it created.
There was one last promise that Phèdre had made to Hyacinthe. We made an offering in his mother’s name at the great temple of Elua.
It was the first time I’d set foot in a temple since that fateful Longest Night. A pair of acolytes greeted us in the vestibule. They bade us sit upon one of the ancient carved benches and knelt to remove our boots and shoes and stockings that we might approach the altar unshod. The Great Temple of Elua in the City is the oldest temple in the whole of the realm. As with other temples, it lay open to the skies. A tall pillar stood at every corner, though there were oak trees that had grown taller than the marble pillars, their leafy crowns breaching the roofless space.
Phèdre presented the acolytes with a pouch of coin. Elua’s blessing was given freely, but gifts were traditional and this was a generous one. In return, we were given posies of scarlet anemone for our offering.
Together, Phèdre and I crossed the grounds of the sanctum. Wildflowers and weeds grew rambling among the oaks. The air smelled of damp soil, oak wood, the sweet, delicate fragrance of the anemone.
