Kushiel’s Dart

Delaunay’s home was quiet; it was early enough yet that nigh everyone, the housekeeper told me, was asleep yet, including his lordship. The Longest Night, by tradition, was a late one. Joscelin handed me Melisande’s purse and excused himself, with red-rimmed eyes, to get some sleep. He had slept not at all, maintaining Elua’s vigil.

I’d had little enough of it myself, but my mood was strange and sleep seemed far away. I went to my room and put Melisande’s patron-gift in my coffer, mulling over the amount it contained. Then I closed the lid and sat on my bed, holding the remnants of my costume.

It was enough. It would be more than enough.

I had no idea what to do.

Too much had happened in one night for my mind to compass. My gaze fell once more on my coffer. That, at least, I could learn for myself, I thought, and went down to the library.

I’d remembered rightly. Though I had to crane my neck to see it, there was indeed a coffer gathering dust atop a high shelf along the eastern wall. I listened for sounds of stirring and heard none. Dragging the tallest chair I could find over to the shelves, I stood atop it and reached for the coffer. I lacked a good foot of attaining it. With a whispered apology to Shemhazai and the scholars of the world, I piled several thick volumes on the seat of the chair, and clambered up to balance precariously on them. My fingertips grazed the gold fretwork adorning the coffer, and I succeeded in dragging it within reach.

Holding the coffer carefully, I dismounted from my perch and set to studying it. The rich wood was dimmed beneath a thick layer of dust, and the edges of the fretwork fuzzy with it. I blew gently upon it, raising a cloud, then examined the lock.

There are merits to befriending a Tsingano; Hyacinthe had long since taught me to pick simple locks. I fetched two hairpins from my room, bending the end of one into a tiny hook with my teeth. Manipulating them delicately, listening all the while for the sounds of the household rising, I soon caught the tumbler inside the lock and sprang open the latch.

An odor of sandalwood breathed into the still air of the library when I raised the lid of the coffer. Melisande had spoken truly; it held a slim volume, silk-bound and untitled. Opening the book, I saw page after page of verse in Delaunay’s hand, younger and more painstaking than his current fluid scrawl, but clearly the same. Smoothing the pages open, I read the verses written in faded ink.

O, dear my lord…

Let this breast on which you have leant

As close in love as a foe in battle,

Unarmed, unarmored, grappling chest to chest,

Alone in the glade

Where birds started at our voices,

Laughter winging airborne, we struggled

For advantage, neither giving quarter;

How I remember your arms beneath my grip,

Sliding like marble slickened;

Your chest pressed to mine

Heaving;

As our feet trampled the tender grass

Your eyes narrowed with tender cunning

And I unaware

Until your heel caught my knee; I buckled,

Falling,

Vanquished; O sovereign adored,

To be pierced ecstatic by the shaft of victory;

Sweet the pain of losing,

Sweeter this second struggle…

O, dear my lord,

Let this breast on which you have leant

Serve now as your shield.

Melisande had not lied about the book. If Delaunay had written these lines, surely he had written them for Rolande de la Courcel, who had died at the Battle of Three Princes. Rolande, whose word Delaunay had upheld, when he went back for Alcuin. Rolande, whose wife Delaunay had branded a murderess, whose father the King had ordered Delaunay’s poetry anathematized.

No wonder he hadn’t dared banish him.

A small sound caught my ear, and I spun about to see Alcuin standing stock-still and open-mouthed. Too late, I closed the book.

"You shouldn’t have done that," he said quietly.

"I had to know." I closed the coffer and latched the lock. "It’s what Delaunay taught us to do, after all," I added, returning his gaze defiantly. "Help me put it back."

He hesitated, but the long bond of tutelage between us won out; Alcuin came over to give me a hand up, steadying me while I returned the coffer to its dusty resting-place. We replaced the other books and the tall chair, erasing the evidence of my trespass, then listened. All was quiet.

"So." I folded my arms. "Delaunay was Prince Rolande’s beloved. What of it? Rolande de la Courcel has been dead fifteen years and more; why does House Courcel still traffic with Delaunay, and award him couriers and Cassiline Brothers and the like? And why does he make peace with the Duc L’Envers, who is brother to his equally dead enemy, the Princess Consort?"

Alcuin’s gaze looked past me. "I don’t know."

"I don’t believe you."

He looked straight at me, then. "Believe as you choose, Phèdre. I made Delaunay a promise, too. Who told you? Melisande?" I didn’t answer, and he frowned. "She had no business. Would that I could tell the difference between amusement and ambition in that woman. I’d sleep easier for it."