Kushiel’s Dart

"Your marque is not yet limned, Servant of Naamah," he said stiffly, and I bit my tongue; it was true. He looked straight ahead. "Anyway, it’s naught to me where you bestow your…gifts."

Only a haughty Cassiline could have summoned that much contempt for the word. He set spurs to Delaunay’s saddle horse and left me scrambling to keep up, detesting him once more.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

In due time, the deal with the gem-merchant was concluded, each tiny diamond assessed for its quality and worth, and when all was tallied and counted, I was presented with a goodly sum of money.

With Joscelin’s rebuke still stinging, I wasted no time in arranging a final appointment with Master Tielhard. I confess, I looked forward to the day with no small excitement. Like most Servants of Naamah, I had made my marque in slow, agonizing inches; to have it done in one blow, as it were, was a coup indeed.

Alcuin had done it, of course, but Alcuin had forced his patron’s hand to it, and done penance to Naamah for it. Melisande’s gift, whatever motivated it, was genuine. Whatever strings were attached to her gifts lay in the one about my throat, and not the one to be limned on my back.

Until the day of my appointment arrived, I dwelled in a strange hinterland, neither bond-servant nor free D’Angeline citizen. For once, though, I did not chafe at my confinement, but strove to make sense of all that had happened, not the least of which was my last encounter with Hyacinthe. I had a strange longing then to see his mother.

I wish, now, that I had seen her; Delaunay would decry it as superstition, but there was a grim truth in her prophecies. Perhaps things might have fallen out differently, if I had.

The wisdom of hindsight is always flawless. I know, now, that I should have told Delaunay the whole of what had befallen between Melisande and I; I should have told him that I knew about Prince Rolande. Indeed, I should have guessed it for myself. Of all the shadows that darkened Delaunay’s soul, that had always been foremost among them: the Battle of Three Princes.

Rolande had fallen; Delaunay had failed to save his liege-lord. I had thought that was all it was. But now, I looked at him differently, remembering the words of his poem. O, dear my lord, Let this breast on which you have leant, Serve now as your shield. He had loved Rolande, and failed him. "Rolande was always rash," Delaunay had said, his voice bitter. "It was his only flaw, as a leader."

I should have known.

So I think, and doubt, and second-guess myself. But in truth, would it have mattered? I cannot know. I never will.

The day of my final appointment with Master Tielhard dawned cold, crisp and bright. Delaunay, half his mind elsewhere, was expecting a visitor; he agreed unthinking to the loan of his horse and Alcuin’s, so my surly Cassiline companion and I rode to the marquist’s shop.

Master Tielhard was not a greedy man. He was an artist, and no question about it. But artists, no less than other mortals-and betimes more-aspire to heights unreached by their peers, and I saw his aged eyes glimmer at the sight of the gold I offered, and the prospect of an anguissette’s marque fulfilled. I was the first, in his lifetime.

We spent a fair amount of time in the stifling-hot back room of his shop, confirming the design and the lineaments of my marque. I could see Joscelin through the curtain, waiting with outstretched legs and folded arms. Well, then, let him wait; I was not about to rush the completion of my marque upon a youthful Cassiline’s impatience.

I had only just disrobed, and felt the first blow of Master Tielhard’s tapper pierce my skin, when the commotion arose in the front room. As it was no business of mine-so I thought-I remained upon the table while Robert Tielhard sent his apprentice to investigate.

I wish, now, that I had known Master Tielhard’s apprentice’s name; I never did, and I am sorry for it now. He came through the curtain, eyes wide.

"There is a man, Master," he said. "He insists upon seeing m’lady-upon seeing Phèdre nó Delaunay. The Cassiline has him well in hand. Shall I call for the King’s Guard?"

I sat up, then, wrapping a sheet about me. "Who is he?"

"I don’t know." He swallowed hard. "He says he bears a message, which you must deliver to Lord Anafiel Delaunay. My lady, shall I call for the Guard?"

"No." I was too long Delaunay’s pupil to turn away information; I scrambled for my gown, pulling it over my head in haste. "Send him in, and Joscelin with him. Master Tielhard…?"

The old marquist held my gaze a moment, then gestured with his head toward the rear of his shop, where he and his apprentice ground their pigments. "See him, then, anguissette, and give me no cause to regret it," he growled.