Kushiel’s Dart

The doctor shook his head again, sidelocks swinging, and murmured something in his own tongue. "It is nothing," he said, and though his voice was curt, he touched Delaunay’s arm briefly before he left. The door closed behind him. Delaunay laid Guy’s body down carefully, arranging his lifeless limbs as if he could still feel discomfort.

"You should have told me," he said to Alcuin. "You should have told me the bargain you made."

"If I had told you," Alcuin whispered, "you wouldn’t have let me make it." He closed his eyes, and the tears that the Yeshuite’s needle hadn’t bidden seeped from beneath his lids. "But I never meant anyone else to bear the price."

Delaunay sank down on his knees, bowing his head over Guy’s body and pressing his hands against his eyes. I hovered between staying and leaving, wanting to leave him to grieve alone, and not knowing if I should. But his head rose, a terrible imperative in his gaze that outweighed even guilt and grief. "Who was it?" he asked, voice scarce more than a whisper.

"Thérèse…and Dominic Stregazza." Alcuin’s eyes opened a crack, speech coming with difficulty. "Prince Benedicte’s daughter."

Delaunay covered his eyes again, and a shudder racked him. "Thank you," he whispered. "Blessed Elua, I am sorry, but thank you."

Chapter Twenty-Five

Alcuin was a long time recovering from his wound.

It was true that he had lost a great deal of blood, but I daresay it was the blow to his spirit which lay at the heart of the matter. He had known the risk he was taking, but he had never thought past the bedchamber, and Bouvarre’s desperation. Unlike me, Alcuin had never seen Guy act in his capacity as an unofficial man-at-arms. He never reckoned on the coach being attacked nor Guy’s role in the threat; and for that, he could not forgive himself.

Delaunay, half-mad with grief and guilt, would have tended him night and day, but he was the last person Alcuin wanted to see. I understood it, better than I let on. What Alcuin had done, he had done for love of Delaunay; he couldn’t bear, now, to reap the reward of Delaunay’s concern. So I tended him through his fitful recovery, acting as go-between for them, and gradually got from Delaunay the story of what had happened after he’d left that night.

He had arrived in time to find Guy still alive, fighting like a cornered wolf against four attackers. Bouvarre’s coachman was cowering in the driver’s seat, sniveling but unharmed. Delaunay’s description of his own arrival was terse-he said only that he dispatched three of the footpads, while the other one fled-but having seen him leave, I can well imagine how he burst onto the scene. When all was said and done, he was a seasoned cavalry-soldier, and a veteran of the Battle of Three Princes.

At first he thought he had arrived in time; but when he turned to Guy, he saw how many wounds he had taken, and the hilt of the dagger that stood out from his ribs. Guy took two steps toward him, then faltered and sank to the street. With a hurled curse at the coachman, Delaunay went to his side.

If I describe it as if I were there, it is because Delaunay told me, for he had no one else to tell. And if I have embellished, it is only because I know my lord too well, and know what he left out.

Of Guy’s heroism, he spoke freely. Guy had known. He had felt the coach slow, heard the approach of booted feet racing across the street, and known. He shoved Alcuin out ahead of him, fending off the first attackers as he slashed the traces and got the lead mare free. That was when Alcuin had taken his wound, but Guy had boosted him astride, smacking the mare across the haunches with the broadside of his dagger.

All of this he told Delaunay before he died-or most of it, at least, for some parts Alcuin filled in later. Of a surety, though, Guy told him they were Bouvarre’s men, for as he said, "My lord, the coachman knew." As Delaunay told it, he knelt by Guy’s side all the while, and both of them had their hand on the hilt of the fatal dagger. When Guy had told all he knew, his breath came short, and his skin grew cold and pale. His grip grew limp, fingers falling away from the hilt. I daresay I understood his final words as well as Delaunay, if not better. "Draw out the dagger, my lord, and let me go. The debt between us is settled."

Delaunay did not tell me that he wept as he obeyed, but I can guess it well enough, for I saw him weep at the telling. Blood enough to kill him, Guy had lost already, but the dagger had pierced a lung. Quickly enough, it filled; a bloody froth came to his lips, and he died.

As for the coachman, I daresay he thought his end was upon him as Delaunay rose and made toward him, bloodstained sword naked in his hand. But Delaunay did not kill him; it was never his way, to slay the weak. "Tell your master," he said to the coachman, "he will answer to me before the King’s justice or on the dueling field, but answer he will."