I shivered in the warm sunlight, remembering the day she spoke the Name of God and broke the curse that bound him to an immortality of dwindling age on that lonely island. There are some memories so profound they cannot be conveyed in words.
Some of them, for a mercy, are good ones.
Gilot let out a low whistle, breaking my reverie. "Look at him, will you! What a beauty."
There was an admiring crowd around the spotted horse staked on the outskirts of the circle. I had to own, the horse was a beauty—a powerfully arched neck, strong, straight legs, a smooth back. His coat was a deep red-bay, speckled with white as though, in the middle of summer, he stood amidst a snowstorm. He basked in the adulation of the crowd, tossing his head and stamping his forefeet, almost as though to beat time with the nearby timbales.
"Imriel, Katherine!" Charles Friote detached himself from the throng of admirers and waved us over. He was my age, though to my chagrin, he too had grown in the past year, overtaking me by a head. "Hello, Gilot," Charles added belatedly, then dropped his voice to a whisper. "He's not for sale, the Tsingani say. But maybe for Lady Phèdre… ?"
I was opening my mouth to reply when the Tsingano holding the spotted horse's head beckoned to me, calling out. "Hey, rinkeni chavo! Come meet the Salmon!"
It was the spotted horse's name, I guessed. While Charles squirmed with envy behind me, I moved forward. The Tsingano who had beckoned me grinned, his teeth very white against his brown skin.
"Here, chavo" he said, pressing something into my palm. "Give him a treat."
It was a bit of dried apple; the end of last autumn's stores. I held my hand out flat. The Salmon eyed me, lordly and considering, then bent his head to accept the tidbit, his lips velvety against my palm. I began to think about what a glory it would be to ride him—to own him—and wondered if perhaps the Tsingani might sell him to Phèdre after all. I could repay her for him. There were monies that were mine to spend, held in trust for me; the proceeds of estates I had never seen, nor cared to.
"A gadjo pearl, with black hair and eyes like the deep sea," the Tsingano horse-trader murmured.
I jerked back, startling the horse.
"Peace, chavo." The Tsingano raised one hand, palm outward. His dark eyes were calm and amused. "We remember, that is all. Does it trouble you?"
It was the second question of the day I had no chance to answer. On the far side of the field, familiar shouts arose—the battle-call of House Montrève, giving an alarm. I turned to see a single rider departing from the road to race hell-for-leather toward the fair. Whatever his intentions, the sight didn't bode well. I was abruptly aware that I had only Gilot for protection.
Ti-Philippe and his men were on a course to intercept the rider, but they were too far away. The rider would reach us first. Gilot swore and drew his sword. In three swift steps, he reached me, grabbing my arm and yanking me behind him. Katherine and Charles were round-eyed with fearful awe. The spotted stallion reared against his tether, trumpeting, while his Tsingano owner sought to soothe him.
In the midst of the fair, pandemonium broke loose. A handful of villagers sought to rally to our aid, seizing weapons from the arms-sellers' stalls. Protesting merchants blocked their way, grabbing at their purloined goods. Here and there was a struggling knot where one of Montrève's retainers sought to shove a path through the throng.
I watched the rider loom nearer and drew my dagger, flipping it to hold it by its point. At fifteen paces or less, my aim was good. In front of me, Gilot maintained a defensive stance, legs planted, sword tight in his fist. A muscle in his jaw trembled. Katherine's fingers dug into my left forearm. I pried them loose, shoving her toward Charles.
"Take care of her," I said, the words coming harshly. He nodded, his face pale, brown hair flopping over his brow.
A single voice, raised, called my name. "Imriel!"
I raised mine in reply, and though it cracked, it carried. "Joscelin, here!"
There; bursting free of the crowd. He came at a dead run, crossing the horse-fields to the Tsingani camp, passing Gilot. The rider thundered toward us, Ti-Philippe and the others following hard behind, a few seconds too late.
Not Joscelin.
His sword sang as he reached over his shoulder and drew it; a high, keening note. Tradition holds that Cassiline Brothers draw their swords only to kill. When it came to my defense, Joscelin observed no such niceties.
"Stand down or die!" he called to the rider, angling his sword across his body in a two-handed grip.
The rider drew rein, hard, turning his lathered, hard-ridden mount. Froth flew from its bit. A hafted pennant, now visible, fluttered from a hilt mounted on the pommel of his saddle—a square of rich blue with a diagonal bar of silver.
"Queen's Courier!" he shouted. "In the name of Queen Ysandre, hold your hand!"
Joscelin did not shift, his voice remaining taut. "Stand down, man!"
In that moment, it seemed everyone else converged. Ti-Philippe, Hugues, and Colin arrived in a thunderous flurry of hoofbeats, blocking the rider's retreat. Tsingani armed with light hunting bows emerged from the circle of wagons. Villagers armed with sticks, cudgels, and appropriated swords ran into the field.
And Phèdre.
She stepped lightly past me, touching my shoulder briefly in passing. At her appearance, everyone grew quiet. She wore a gown of vibrant blue, the color of the summer sky; the color of Joscelin's eyes. It was trimmed with gold embroidery, a handspan deep, and a caul of gold mesh bound her dark, shining hair.
"Queen's Courier?" she asked, frowning slightly. Joscelin adjusted his stance, angling his sword to protect her. "What news is so urgent?"
The rider dropped his reins. His mount lowered its head, blowing hard, its nostrils flaring. "My lady Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève?"
"Yes." She regarded him calmly.
He raised his hands, showing them to be empty. "I bear an urgent dispatch from the Queen," he said. Reaching slowly into a pouch slung over the crupper of his saddle, he drew forth a sealed missive. "Here."
Joscelin took it from his grasp, examined it, then handed it to Phèdre. It was a slim envelope, sealed with the swan insignia of House Courcel. She cracked the wax seal and read the single sheet of parchment within. I watched the frown lines reemerge beween her graceful brows. "The Queen requires our presence in the City of Elua," she said. "There is a situation."
"What is it?" Joscelin asked brusquely.
Phèdre handed him the missive, but it was on me that her gaze settled, pitying and grave. "It is Melisande," she said gently. "It seems she has vanished."
Chapter Two
We made the return ride to the estate in silent haste, all thoughts of the fair forgotten. One new thought preyed on my mind, over and over. I gnawed on it like dog with a bone, until I could stand it no longer. I brought my mount alongside Phèdre's.
"Her letters," I said. "The ones she wrote to me."
Phèdre nodded. "Do you think there may be somewhat in them?"
"I don't know," I said miserably. "Do you?"
She was quiet for a moment, gazing at the road ahead. "I don't know," she said finally. "I think not. But one may never be certain, with Melisande." She turned her head to look at me. "Do you want to read them?"
I shuddered. "No." I waited, hoping she would offer, until it was clear she wouldn't. "Will you?" I asked. "Please?"
For a long moment, Phèdre studied me. "If you're sure it's what you want, love."
I sighed with relief. "Yes. I'm sure."
"All right, then." She shifted in the saddle, squaring her shoulders. "I will."
I felt guilty then, thinking on it. I didn't like to be a burden to anyone, and least of all to Phèdre, who had borne so many. I'd asked out of selfishness, little thinking how it might be painful to Phèdre to read words my blood-mother had written to me. When all was said and done, Melisande could claim what Phèdre could not—she was my mother, whether I liked it or no. And yet I could not bear to read them myself. My stomach churned at the thought. "You don't need to," I said. "We could give them to Queen Ysandre."
"No. "Phèdre's reply was swift and certain. "Not unless we must."
I looked away. "Why do you always protect her?"
"Imriel." She waited until I looked back at her. "I made a promise," she said. "I am keeping it in the only way I know."
It was that simple for her. I wished, sometimes, that she had never made a promise to my mother, never extracted one in return. She had, though. My mother had promised not to raise her hand against Queen Ysandre and her daughters. In turn, Phèdre had promised to adopt me into her household, to deliver such letters as Melisande might send, and never to seek to turn me against my mother. To allow me to make my own choices. How she could bear it, I do not know. I didn't know, for a long time, the whole of what my mother had done to her—how she had betrayed her, twice. It was a long time before I grasped the whole of my mother's infamy.
And yet they understood one another.
My mother had been one of Phèdre's patrons, once. The very marque inked on Phèdre's back, the vast and intricate briar rose that signified she had paid her bond-debt as a Servant of Naamah, was completed thanks to Melisande's patronage.
What that entailed, I never wished to know.
Upon our return to Montrève, Phèdre retreated into her study to read my mother's letters. Elsewhere, the household was a flurry of activity as our staff and retainers began to prepare for the unexpected journey, packing trunks and loading provisions. I prowled the manor in a state of nervous anxiety, until I was shooed out of every room I entered.
It was Joscelin who took me in hand, finding me making a nuisance of myself in the pantry where Katherine was helping her mother. "Come with me." He beckoned with one hand, holding a pair of wooden swords in the other. "Let's have a bout."
"Now?" I protested. "I'm in no fit mood for it."
"You're wound up like a top," he said pragmatically. "It will do you good."
I followed him out to the courtyard, beyond Richeline's herb gardens. Joscelin practiced there every morning, flowing through the forms of the Cassiline discipline. Although he had been teaching me for over two years, I didn't know them all, nor ever would. For ten years, until the age of twenty, Joscelin had studied little else—and he practiced every day.
He is not as good as he was, once. I saw him at his finest, on that terrible night in Daršanga, when he built a wall of corpses in the Mahrkagir's hall. That was before his left arm was shattered by a blow from a morning-star mace. I don't think anyone will ever match what he did there, and I pray no one ever need to. Still, it wasn't Joscelin who struck the blow that mattered the most that night.
That was Phèdre, who killed the Mahrkagir with a hairpin.
"Come." Joscelin tossed me one of the practice-blades and took a stance. "Have at me."
I struck a halfhearted blow which he parried with ease, unbalancing me.
"Watch your feet." He pointed toward them with the blade's tip. "Your weight was on the rear."
Scowling, I shifted my weight to my lead foot, raised my sword, and drove a straightforward strike toward his unprotected face; or as near to it as I could reach, given the disparity in our heights. Our blades clattered as he reacted, startled, and brought his up in an awkward horizontal parry. "I told you I was in no fit mood!" I shouted.
Joscelin grinned at me. "Better," he said. "Now again."
We practiced in earnest, then. The Cassiline fighting style was a circular one; spheres within spheres. There was the inner sphere of one's own space, and the outer sphere encompassing one's opponent's. If there were multiple opponents, there were multiple spheres. Each sphere was defined by its own quadrants, marked and measured like hours on a sundial. It was a hard thing to keep in mind, and only long practice made it possible.
There was also the sphere of one's ward, which was integral to the philosophy of the Cassiline Brotherhood, and in many ways the most important of all. It was the essence of their training—to protect and serve. Indeed, the final strike the Cassiline Brothers were taught—the ultimate blow, the last resort—was called the terminus. It was one of those performed with the twin daggers, not the sword. In it, the Cassiline throws his right-hand dagger to slay his ward, slitting his own throat with the left-hand dagger.
Joscelin came within a hairsbreadth of performing it on Phèdre once. So Gilot told me, not realizing I had never heard the tale of what happened on the battlefield outside Troyes-le-Mont, where the Skaldi warlord Waldemar Selig attempted to skin her alive.
I'd never told them I knew.
My mother was Selig's ally.
The sphere of the ward was one that Joscelin never tried to teach me, reckoning I would be best served by learning to protect myself, which was true enough. But he taught me the others. So we circled one another in the courtyard, testing one another's spheres, probing at each angle of every quadrant with quick, flickering two-handed blows.
I watched his face and his body, too.
This, Phèdre taught me. She was trained by her lord Anafiel Delaunay in the arts of covertcy—how to watch and remember, how to listen to what is said and unsaid. How to discern the tell-tales of a lie. How to move in silence, how to pay heed to those senses beyond sight, and how to find the deeper patterns linking one thing to another.
