When it was done, they skinned it, and found a human body inside its pelt.
I shuddered. "Not a pretty tale.”
"No," Phèdre said thoughtfully. "The rest is all about Cinhil Ru and the uprising and there's naught in it that's not written elsewhere. Caledonius survived the battles and the retreat. He spent the rest of his days in a country villa outside Tiberium, eschewing war and politics. And to the end of his life, he had nightmares.”
"About the bear?" I asked.
She nodded. "It's all I could find.”
I debated whether or not to tell Alais the story. In the end, I decided not to. She'd already had one nightmare, and there was no need to feed her fancy with bloody tales. I thought about asking the ollamh about it, too. I daresay Firdha suspected—or mayhap she'd heard I'd been asking her honor guard about the Maghuin Dhonn—for she fixed me with a challenging stare at our next session, black eyes glittering.
"Did you have a question, Prince?" she asked.
I returned her gaze without blinking, until her knuckles whitened where she gripped her gilded oak branch. There were fault-lines. For all her lore, for all the hundreds upon hundreds of tales she knew, one unspoken truth could render so much a lie. I could say so, and humble her with it, earning her enmity in the bargain.
Or I could wait and ask Drustan mab Necthana, whose business it was to speak of such matters. There was no hurry. My wedding was months in the offing, and if the Cruarch truly wished for it to take place, he would deal honestly with me.
"No, Daughter of the Grove." I inclined my head, ceding the victory. "No question.”
"Good," she said dryly.
For once, I felt wise.
Chapter Seven
"NAME… OF… ElUa!”The feverish whisper of gossip surged through the crowd assembled in the Palace ballroom on the Longest Night: Sidonie de la Courcel, the Dauphine of Terre d'Ange, had usurped the costume of the Sun Prince.
I laughed aloud when I heard it. It was the last time in years, mayhap, that I would celebrate the Longest Night on D'Angeline soil, and I felt strangely lighthearted. Doubtless some of it was due to my own costume, for there was a certain freedom in being clad in rags—albeit rags of coarse, undyed silk—barefoot and unmasked, my hair unkempt and tangled. It was scandalous in its simplicity, and Favrielle herself had evinced a certain grim satisfaction with it.
But Sidonie had outdone me.
"Is it true?" Phèdre asked Ysandre, her eyes alight with mirth.
"Oh, yes." The Queen laughed. "Don't you think it meet?”
"Why not?" Phèdre raised a glass of cordial. "Joie!”
They drank; we all drank. The clear cordial burned a pleasant trail down my throat and made my skull expand. Ti-Philippe shook his head to clear it, and the absurdly unnecessary gilt-fringed parasol he held for Phèdre bobbed dangerously.
I steadied his arm. "Careful, chevalier.”
He gave me a lopsided grin. "Found an honest man yet?”
I held my silver lamp aloft. "Still searching.”
"Be careful with that, love." Phèdre kissed my cheek. Her gown was a shimmering column of crimson silk, draped with gold netting into which a thousand tiny mirrors were sewn, and she scintillated with every movement, casting myriad points of light around her. Opulence, indeed. It wasn't Favrielle's finest work, but it would serve.
"I will," I promised.
It was already hot and crowded in the ballroom, redolent with the aroma of fresh-cut evergreen boughs, beeswax, and a hundred competing perfumes. Soon the odor of roasted meats joined the fray as the Queen's kitchen staff began loading the massive table with all manner of savories. I decided to make a circuit of the room before I found myself swept into the merriment. I had my lamp and I wore the medallion I'd commissioned from the silversmith, my sole adornment. If anyone was going to react to either in a suspicious manner, it would likely be earlier than later. Or at least I was likely to note it earlier; wine and joie were flowing in abundance.
As it proved, the response revealed little.
My costume drew reactions aplenty; for its daring lack, not its accoutrements. I began to give up on my plan when Mavros nearly fell down laughing at the sight of me.
"Oh, Imri!" he gasped. "It's, it's…" He caught himself and gave his head a shake. "Well, it's quite fetching, in a unique way." His blue eyes gleamed behind his mask, an ornate affair of black leather with tall, spiraling horns. "Tell me, have you seen your sweet cousin?”
"Not yet," I said. "But I've heard.”
"Look yonder." He slid one arm around my waist and pointed with his free hand.
I looked.
By tradition, the Sun Prince awoke the Winter Queen to youthful rebirth in the Midwinter Masque we enact every year on the Longest Night. It is an old ritual, with roots going back to before the coming of Blessed Elua, and there is a distant connection between the Sun Prince and the ruler of the land. Mostly that is all forgotten and it's only pageantry, nowadays. But Baudoin de Trevalion resurrected it as a symbolic gesture when he was plotting to usurp Ysandre's inheritance. I remembered how Sidonie asked me last year, when I came attired as a Skaldic deity of light, if I thought to play the Sun Prince. In answer, I'd offered her my oath of loyalty.
She must have remembered, too. And she was using the costume to serve notice to the peers of the realm that she had no intention of being supplanted as the heir to Terre d'Ange.
Gold; cloth-of-gold. Her gown was gold, her shoes were gilded. The half-mask that hid her upper face was gold, and the sun's rays burst outward gloriously from it. Lest anyone should mistake the symbolism, she carried a gilded spear in her right hand.
Sidonie's head turned as though I'd called her name. I raised my lamp in salute. I could see her lips move in a smile beneath the half-mask, and her spear dipped briefly in reply.
"Well, well," Mavros murmured in my ear.
"Oh, hush." I shrugged him off me. "Is Roshana here?”
"No. There's a Kusheline fête. Most of the family in the City is there." He read my expression. "I was supposed to invite you, but trust me, Imri, you wouldn't have liked it. And anyway, we're going to the Night Court later, yes?”
I was still watching Sidonie. "Right.”
Mavros gave me a shove. "Go on, I'll find you.”
I hadn't gone more than a few steps in her general direction before I was waylaid by an older woman with a beaked mask and a towering headdress of feathers. "Prince Imriel!" She inclined her head, surveying me with a disapproving gaze. "What costume is this, pray?”
"Diogenes," I said. "My lady …?”
"Marguerite Lafons, Marquise de Lafoneuil." Her lips thinned. "My estate lies on the western border of the duchy of Barthelme. You are aware of your holdings, are you not?”
"Yes, of course." I'd visited it exactly once. "Well met, Lady Marguerite.”
"Are you aware that now that you've reached your majority, you're entitled to a hereditary seat in Parliament as the Duc de Barthelme?" She didn't wait for my answer. "No, I didn't think so. No one's claimed it since your father went off to La Serenissima. Young highness, I want a word with you." One hand clamped firmly on my elbow. "You'll do me the kindness of filling a plate for me while you listen, will you not?”
The habit of politeness was too deeply instilled in me to protest.
I escorted the Marquise de Lafoneuil to the Queen's table, where I procured a pair of seats and directed the serving staff to fill two plates, reckoning I might as well eat in the bargain. Meanwhile, Marguerite Lafons filled my ear with the inequities of taxation on the Namarrese wine trade. It went on at great length, but it seemed the gist of it was that there was a tax on the wine itself and a cooper's tax on the barrels, both of which the vintner was forced to pay.
I sat, chewing and nodding, as she expounded on it, thinking about Canis in his barrel. I thought about Gilot, too. I'd planned to make him steward of one of my two estates. He would have liked it, I thought; and he would have done a good job, too.
"Well?" the Marquise demanded. "Does that not seem unjust?”
I swallowed a mouthful of squab. "It does, my lady.”
"You're wasting your time, Marguerite," a familiar voice drawled. "Yon princeling is bound for Alba, as surely as his father was for La Serenissima." A booted foot descended on the edge of my chair and a male figure leaned over me, arms propped on one knee. "Isn't that right, your highness?”
"Duc Barquiel." I glanced up at him. "What a pleasure.”
Barquiel L'Envers, the Queen's uncle, snorted. He wore the same Akkadian finery he'd worn to the last Midwinter Masque, and he hadn't bothered with a mask either, only a turbaned helmet. "Lies don't become you, lad, any more than those rags do." He stroked my hair with a gauntleted hand. "Nor this tangled mane. I thought you might keep it short. It was quite becoming.”
I went rigid with fury and stared at my plate, afraid I might strike him. I hadn't the slightest doubt he'd strike back, and a good deal of doubt over which one of us would prevail. I had youth on my side, but Barquiel L'Envers had a name as a formidable fighter. He'd been Commander of the Royal Army for a long time, before Ysandre made him step down.
"Barquiel!" Marguerite Lafons said tartly. "Leave the lad be. You always were a bully.”
A chair scraped. "Hear, hear," a new voice said.
L'Envers straightened. "D'Essoms?”
I raised my head to see who had put that incredulous note in Barquiel L'Envers' voice. There were two men: one tall and D'Angeline, one slight and foreign. The D'Angeline smiled at me. He had dark hair and hooded eyes. "You must be Imriel de la Courcel. Well met, your highness. Childric d'Essoms, formerly of the Court of Chancery, lately ambassador to Ephesium.”
"Well met, my lord." I stood, ignoring L'Envers, and reached across the table to clasp d'Essoms' hand. I didn't know who he was, but if Barquiel L'Envers didn't like him, I did. My silver medallion swung forward as I leaned over, and I heard d'Essoms' companion take a sharp breath. At the same time, there was some commotion a few yards away; a fresh swirl of gossip, the crowds parting.
"Pray, your highness, come and—" Childric d'Essoms stopped. A muscle in his jaw twitched. "Phèdre nó Delaunay," he said softly.
There she stood, her cheeks flushed. "My lord d'Essoms.”
A patron, a former patron. Elua knew, he couldn't be aught else. It wasn't anything like the priest in Naamah's Temple. The air between them fairly crackled. Ti-Philippe, a step behind Phèdre, looked worried and a little foolish, holding her parasol. D'Essoms dismissed him without a second glance.
"Where's your Cassiline?" he asked her. "I've heard stories.”
"Keeping Elua's vigil." Flushed or no, Phèdre kept her voice steady. " 'Tis the Longest Night, my lord.”
"So it is." He reached for a glass of cordial and downed it. "Joie! Phèdre nó Delaunay, Comtesse de Montrève, this is Diokles Agallon of Ephesium, on embassy from the Sultan.”
I murmured apologies to the Lady Marguerite and brushed past L'Envers. He was standing with arms folded, a look of distaste on his features. There was a story there, no doubt, but I didn't care at the moment. I made my way around the table and put myself between Phèdre and Childric d'Essoms, ostensibly that I might be introduced to the Ephesian ambassador.
Diokles Agallon bowed. "My very great pleasure, your highness," he said in heavily accented D'Angeline. There was somewhat familiar about the accent; and yet, not quite.
"And mine, Ambassador." I fingered the medallion on my chest, feeling its notched edges. "Will you be with us long?”
"Not long, no. Only until the spring, when I return to serve the Sultan." He glanced downward. "Is that a part of your costume, highness? It doesn't look like D'Angeline workmanship.”
"No," I said. "It was a gift from a fellow Cynic. It seemed fitting I wear it tonight.”
"I see." Diokles touched it lightly, tracing the edge. He nodded gravely. "Treasure it well. All gifts have merit.”
"Yes," I said. "They do.”
I wanted more from him; ah, Elua! I always wanted more. I wanted to wring his neck until he talked freely and openly, admitting himself a Guildsman without secretive insinuations, and I wanted to shake Phèdre until she stopped looking at Childric d'Essoms that way, and I wanted to punch d'Essoms for looking at her like a bird of prey eyeing a rabbit. I especially wanted to punch Barquiel L'Envers, who had stalked away from the table and was lounging against a column with an insouciant look on his face.
But none of it would avail anything.
"…like to see you," Childric d'Essoms was saying to Phèdre. "Although I suppose many things have changed in the years since Delaunay's anguissette became the Comtesse de Montrève.”
"A few, yes." Phèdre caught my eye. "Ah, Imri. Princess Alais was looking for you. Shall we—?”
"Please." I grabbed her arm and steered her unceremoniously away from d'Essoms. "Who is he?" I demanded when I had her alone.
"It's a long story." Phèdre closed her eyes briefly. The flush began to fade from her cheeks. "I'll tell you later." She opened her eyes and regarded me with a hint of amusement. "Love, listen. Believe it or not, I've managed to pass the Longest Night without betraying Joscelin for a very long time now. The last time I was with anyone else on this night…" She stopped, her color returning, and I knew with absolute certainty it had been my mother. Melisande.
