Kushiel’s Dart

His face was like a mask as he inclined his head to Baudoin, then bowed to the King and gave his testimony before the High Court. Only his eyes glittered, dark and impenetrable. It was the same story Gaspar had told: a soldier’s drunken boast, a loyal Duc’s investigation. Baudoin flushed, and stared at him with hatred. I remembered that they had been friends. Isidore d’Aiglemort withdrew, and Melisande Shahrizai was summoned.

It is so clear in my memory, that day. How much of it they knew, I am not certain-nor have I ever known-but House Shahrizai had come out in her support, and Melisande was surrounded by her kindred. As so often happens in the old lines, they bore the stamp of a common heritage, and the Shahrizai made a splash amid the Hall of Audience, with their blue-black hair and their long, brocaded coats of black-and-gold. All of them had the same eyes, too; set like sapphires in pale faces. In none did Kushiel’s flame burn as fiercely as it did in her, but it burned in them all, and I was grateful for Alcuin’s arm.

I do not think Melisande Shahrizai could ever manage a true semblance of modesty, but she came closer than I would have reckoned. With downcast lashes, she answered the questions of Parliament, laying out a tale of an ambitious Prince in the thrall of his powerful mother, allies to be made, and a throne to be won. The letters, she said, he had showed her in boast, to make good on his claim.

Whatever the truth of it, she spoke naught he could dispute. If Baudoin had glared his hatred at the Duc d’Aiglemort, it was nothing to the rage that purpled him as he listened to her litany. In the end, it was enough and more. With stern remorse, the nobles of Parliament voted. One by one, while Baudoin stared, incredulous, their thumbs turned down.

Death.

It came at last to Ysandre. She looked at Baudoin, unmoved as ice. "Tell me, cousin," she asked him. "Would you have wed me off to a foreign potentate, or killed me outright?"

He had no answer at the ready; and it was answer enough. Her hand moved, thumb pointing downward. There would be no reprieve for Baudoin.

There was too much evidence; no sighs echoed the King’s. "So be it," he said, and no one doubted that he grieved to say it. "Baudoin de Trevalion, you are sentenced to death. You have three days to name the manner of your choosing."

He did not make as good an exit as his mother. I watched him go, and his feet stumbled, disbelieving. Thus the fate of the son of too fierce a mother, whose ambition outpaced the law. Perhaps it was not so easy, I thought, to be the Lioness' favorite cub.

The trial of Gaspar Trevalion went smoothly; there was no evidence, and no accusation save his bloodline. I watched Delaunay give his testimony, saying how Gaspar had known naught of the plot and brought word straight to him, heeding his advice to make a clean breast of it to the King, and I was proud to be a member of his household. In the end, Gaspar was absolved of any wrongdoing, and his title and estate affirmed in public forum.

Delaunay had regained his composure; his face gave nothing away. But I marked, all the while, how Ysandre de la Courcel hung on his every word, and there was a hunger in her gaze I could not name.

Chapter Twenty-Three

In the end, the executions were held privately.

It was a matter of much speculation, for the Lioness of Azzalle had threatened to grieve her brother through the final minute of her life by whatever means she could, and surely a public execution would have raised much ill-feeling against him; but at the last, her pride won out. She would die with dignity, and not on display for the masses. It was a swift-acting poison, I am told; she drank it straight off, and laid down to wake no more.

Of Baudoin, it was said that he died well. When he was told that his mother had chosen a private death, he called for his sword. The King ordered his bonds struck, and his own Captain of the Guard to stand at second. But whatever his flaws, Baudoin de Trevalion was a Prince of the Blood and no coward. When he fell on his sword, he aimed true, the point positioned directly over his heart. The Captain of the Guard sheathed his blade unused.

A strange and somber mood held the City in the aftermath of the trial and execution. I felt it myself. To mourn their deaths would have been to sympathize with high treason; yet mourn we did. For as long as I could remember, the Lioness had ruled in Azzalle, and her wild boy had been the D’Angelines' darling: the Sun Prince, the daring war-leader. Now they were gone, and her husband and daughter wandered in exile. The shape of our world was forever changed.

Even Hyacinthe, by nature cynical about the fate of nobility, was touched by it. He had placed a considerable wager on the manner of death Lyonette and Baudoin de Trevalion would choose, but a morbid superstition was on him when he collected his winnings on the following day.