She nodded. “He can’t do it, though. It’s tied too closely to Maelcon the Usurper’s revolt.”
It was yet another event that had happened long before we were born. The old Cruarch’s son, Maelcon, had seized the throne and overturned the old traditions of succession. Drustan, the Cruarch’s nephew and heir, had fled into exile among the Dalriada. In time, with the aid of the Dalriada—not to mention Phèdre and Joscelin—Drustan had raised an army of his own and taken the throne back. He had restored the matrilineal lines. There would be a fearful outcry against the hypocrisy if he overturned them now.
“Gods.” I groaned. “I know it’s not old history to those who lived it, but I get infernally tired of having our lives shackled to the past.”
“I know,” Sidonie said with sympathy. “Believe me, I do. But it won’t be forever, or at least not all of it. Mayhap the Ephesian ambassador will have a swift reply at a cost we’re willing to bear.”
“Mayhap,” I said. “Claudia said there were factions within the Guild, and I got the sense Agallon was no ally of my mother’s. If he had been, he would have known the medallion’s origin and dangled it before me as a surety, not a possibility. I pray he can discover it, and I pray he’s willing and eager to betray her, because that’s exactly what we need.”
It had been one of the factors, a big one, in my decision to contact Diokles Agallon. Ysandre had made her decree in a public forum, heard and acknowledged. By now, all of Terre d’Ange knew, and gossip had doubtless spread beyond our borders. There was simply no way my mother was unaware of it. And while I had come to believe that she did indeed love me in her own way, I didn’t think she was likely to wait patiently for me to find her and fetch her back to Terre d’Ange to be executed, a notion that made me queasy when I contemplated it.
No, if I tried to trace her trail, years old, amid a tangled maze of allies and enemies, Melisande would know. She would know my next step before I took it. It would be child’s play for her to stay a step ahead of me.
Taking her by surprise was our best chance. And even at that, even if Agallon did betray her, even with Ysandre’s promise of aid, I didn’t expect it to be easy.
The decision came at a price, though. Seeking to bargain with the Guildsman might have been the most expedient course with the best chance of success, but no one could know of it. Sidonie told her mother; Ysandre extracted a promise that I’d not grant any favors without her consent. And I told Phèdre and Joscelin, of course. Beyond that, we didn’t dare tear away the Unseen Guild’s veil of secrecy.
I had been allowed to walk away from the Guild, but there was a price for that, too. Silence. Claudia Fulvia had been clear; if I revealed the Guild’s existence and what little I knew of the extent of their vast web, my life—or worse, the lives of my loved ones—was forfeit.
Spies will be spies, Ysandre had said; but I’d seen a measure of their influence in Tiberium. When it suited their purposes, the Guild had provoked a dangerous riot. I remembered Claudia, careless and dismissive. Starting a riot’s one of the easiest things in the world. Even with her warning, I’d gotten caught in it and nearly died. Of course, that was because Bernadette de Trevalion had hired a man to kill me to avenge the death of her brother Baudoin, whom my mother had betrayed—yet another delightful piece of Melisande Shahrizai’s legacy—but it would have been terrifying anyway.
And my comrade Gilot, who had served House Montrève since I was a boy, had died. Not that night, not then and there, but it was the injuries he sustained in the riot that killed him in the end.
So we kept our silence.
And people began to wonder at my lack of action.
Spring blossomed. A letter came from the Master of the Straits. Hyacinthe wrote with regret that he had found no trace of my mother anywhere on D’Angeline soil. Wherever she was, it was beyond the limits of the gaze of his sea-mirror, which could not see past the lands bounded by the Straits. This news, we did not divulge.
But people began to wonder.
Of her own initiative, Phèdre elected to write once more to old acquaintances and allies among the Stregazza in La Serenissima, pressing them to make one last inquiry into Melisande’s disappearance from the Temple of Asherat there. As a stopgap measure, it wasn’t much, but at least it might serve to provide a viable explanation for any information we did learn without compromising the Guild’s secrecy.
Sidonie’s birthday came and passed; mine fell a few weeks later. The celebrations were muted. After the ugliness of the Longest Night, we’d fallen back into the habit of being circumspect in public. Jean Le Blanc hadn’t been entirely misled. There were a couple members of the Dauphine’s Guard who had been indiscreet, gossiping about what they suspected went on in the bedchamber when they were posted outside her quarters. Claude de Monluc had been furious, had wanted to dismiss them altogether. Sidonie, cool-headed and pragmatic, had refused.
“Gossip’s not a crime,” she observed.
“Lack of loyalty is,” de Monluc said in a grim tone.
“There’s no shame in aught done in love,” Sidonie said, unperturbed. “And no sin in gossiping about it. But matters are tense and I’d sooner be served by men with sense enough not to throw oil on fire. Let them serve in the regular Palace Guard. Give them my thanks and a generous purse. Make the same offer to any who want it.”
Claude obeyed her order.
There were three men who took it; there were thirty who applied for their posts. Young men, mostly, half in love with the notion of our star-crossed romance. They doted on Sidonie, which startled her a bit.
“No one’s ever doted on me before,” she mused.
“You’ve never defied half the realm for the sake of love before,” I said. “And I think they’re beginning to suspect you don’t exactly have ice water running in your veins.”
She laughed. “True.”
The nights . . . Elua, the nights were still wonderful. Knowledge that our time was beginning to dwindle lent a constant sense of urgency. Still, I could feel the tensions at Court rising.
There were moments of respite. In an effort to keep at least half my promise to Alais, I went to Montrève to choose a puppy for her from that spring’s litter. Long ago, I’d given her one of Montrève’s wolfhounds. Alais and the dog had been inseparable, but the dog had been killed at Clunderry, torn open by a swipe of the bear-witch Berlik’s claws.
Sidonie accompanied me, her mother reckoning that having the both of us out of sight for a few weeks might help reduce the sense of unease.
It was strange and wondrous having her there. We rode together, exploring the places I’d loved as a child. I took her to the spring-fed pond hidden in the mountains. I told her about how my cousin Roshana had sought to teach Katherine Friote, the seneschal’s daughter, and me a Kusheline game of courtship, teasing with a quirt of braided grasses. How I’d been unable to bring myself to do it.
“Show me,” Sidonie said, eyes sparkling.
I did.
There in the meadow, I plaited long stalks of grass. I stroked her soft skin and bade her to keep still and quiet, rewarding her with kisses when she obeyed, punishing her with the quirt when she didn’t. The memory stirred all that old, aching adolescent yearning, banishing the fear that had accompanied it. I ended up tumbling her there in the meadow, the sun warm on my naked back, the sweet scent of bruised grass rising all around us.
We rode home adorned with wreaths of flowering bindweed vine, butterflies trailing in our wake, members of the Dauphine’s Guard following at a discreet distance. At times like that, it almost seemed it would be worthwhile to give up the quest in favor of a flawed joy. To allow Sidonie to step down, to return to the City of Elua and say to Ysandre, Forgive me. It’s too hard, too much to ask.
We didn’t, though.
Instead, we chose a puppy; or I did, in consultation with old Artus Labbé, the kennel master, who would see to the pup’s training. We spent time with Phèdre and Joscelin, who had elected to accompany us. There at Montrève, with no duties to attend to, no constant presence of judging eyes, Sidonie was more at ease. I saw them begin to see her as I did. Not so much Phèdre—Elua knows, there wasn’t much hidden from her—but Joscelin.
One night, after much pleading on my part, he reenacted a famous performance from the time he had been disguised as a travelling Mendacant with Phèdre and Hyacinthe. He hadn’t done it since I was a boy. We all laughed until we wept. And when we had done, I prevailed on Sidonie to re-create an imagined scene from the youthful courtship of Ysandre and Drustan, somewhat she and Alais had concocted between them as children.
It was wickedly funny—Sidonie had a knack for mimicry. She emulated her mother at her coolest, uttering declarations of undying passion and high-minded romance in a crisp, exacting tone, until even Joscelin was wiping his eyes.
“I think I begin to understand,” he said to me that night.
“You ought to,” Phèdre said in her mild way. “When all’s said and done, she’s a bit like you, love.”
It was true, although I’d never thought on it. Sidonie’s habitual composure was as much a part of her as Joscelin’s Cassiline discipline. When it was laid aside, it could be an unexpectedly delightful thing. And yet she was a bit like Phèdre, too. Not an anguissette, no. I don’t think I could have borne it. But she was fearless in her desires, and utterly unapologetic.
Gods, those were good times.
When we returned to the City of Elua, there was another glad surprise awaiting us. Amarante of Namarre, who had served as a lady-in-waiting, among other things, to Sidonie for a number of years, had returned to take service in the Temple of Naamah.
Her mother was a priestess and the head of Naamah’s Order. During the year she had been gone, Amarante had been fulfilling her own final duties before taking her vows. She had spent a year wandering Terre d’Ange, serving Naamah. Now she was back, and a priestess in her own right.
Mavros threw a fête in her honor, staging it to accord with our return.
He had long maintained an obsession with Amarante, which I knew. I do believe he genuinely liked her. I also knew that he had sought her out once her term of Naamah’s Service had begun. What had passed between them, no one knew for certain. I knew what Amarante had predicted, because Sidonie had told me.
It won’t be what he wants, Amarante had said. But it will leave him wanting more.
More than that, Sidonie hadn’t cared to know.
It was the first time I found myself jealous; and to my surprise, there was a certain smoldering pleasure in it. I’d known about Amarante for a long time. In some ways, her claim superseded mine; she had been recruited to instruct Sidonie in Naamah’s arts. And she had done a damnably good job of it. Still, it stung to see Sidonie’s eyes sparkle for someone else, even if that someone had shining hair the color of apricots, apple-green eyes, and plump lips for kissing.
“I’ve missed you,” Sidonie murmured.
“Oh?” There was a teasing undertone to Amarante’s reply, although it was uttered with her usual unearthly calm, which had only deepened during her absence. “I’d hardly thought you’d have time.”
Sidonie laughed, and said somewhat too low for anyone else to hear.
Amarante glanced at me, lips curving. “If it’s what you want, of course.”
Mavros punched me hard in the shoulder. “I hate you,” he said cordially. “Only know that, cousin. I hate you with the blistering heat of a thousand fiery suns.”
The three of us passed the night together; and it was a night impossible to describe, except to say that it was surpassingly beautiful, and when it was over, there was no jealousy left in me. Priests and Priestesses of Naamah are trained in the same arts of pleasure as adepts of the Night Court, but the year of Service they undertake differs. Afterward, they are free to choose patrons or lovers at will. When Naamah stayed beside Blessed Elua during his wanderings, she gave herself to strangers that he might eat, to the King of Persis that he might be freed. During their year of wandering, Naamah’s acolytes are forbidden to refuse anyone who seeks them out of true longing, that they might better comprehend the sacrifice of the goddess who lay with mortals.
And in turn, Naamah graced them with desire.
I could feel her presence lingering over Amarante like a touch, a claim, and a blessing at once. A mantle of grace lay over us that night: love, desire, and selflessness all intertwined. There were no violent pleasures, only tender ones, but I learned somewhat of myself. I learned I was capable of sharing and being shared, of holding fast and letting go all at once. And I realized I was surpassingly grateful that Amarante had returned, albeit altered. She had long been Sidonie’s closest confidante, her safe harbor. I was glad she would be here while I was gone.
In the morning, Sidonie was thoughtful. “I knew it was time to send you to Naamah,” she said to Amarante. “I didn’t know she would keep so much of you for herself.”
Their eyes met in a manner born of long familiarity, and Amarante smiled. “I held a little back. I’ll always be there when you need me.”
“Soon, I hope,” I said.
She didn’t mistake my meaning. “There’s no word of your mother yet?”
I shook my head. “We’re waiting on word from La Serenissima.”
“I hope it comes soon,” Amarante said quietly.
It did, although it didn’t come from La Serenissima.
It came only a few days later, in the midst of sufficient uproar at Court that it easily passed unnoticed. If tensions in Terre d’Ange were internal and simmering, they were external and rising to a boil elsewhere in the world. Alba’s future remained unsettled. Queen Ysandre had been unable to broker any lasting peace between Aragonia and the Euskerri, and now fighting had broken out between them in the mountains south of Siovale. Delegates from both nations were beleaguering her—the Aragonians begging her to honor her alliance and stay out of the matter, the Euskerri begging for acknowledgment of their sovereign rights—and the Siovalese lords worried that the fighting would spill across the border.