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I was content.

We were home, all of us.

One Hundred One

THE SUMMER passed swiftly.

I was visibly and undeniably in favor once more, and the same nobles who had shunned me during the long and bitter winter sent small gifts and jocular invitations to this event and that, most of which I declined, pleading an over-full schedule, which was no lie. At Hyacinthe’s word, Ghislain nó Trevalion sent a galley to retrieve the library from the Master of the Straits’ tower, and I had my hands full cataloguing some four hundred tomes and scrolls, many of which had been believed lost. Word of this was leaked, and I had to field a half-dozen bids from academies and universities throughout the realm that wished to increase their archives. Of course, I intended to see first what was there and have fair-copies made.

Hyacinthe, for his part, dwelt at the Palace and spent long hours closeted with Queen and Cruarch and his intended, Sibeal. What transpired in those sessions, I cannot say, save that an agreement was reached and Drustan mab Necthana granted them a coastal territory in Alba, north of Bryn Gorrydum, where the erstwhile Master of the Straits might maintain his vigil. Thence would they travel, come autumn, after plighting their troth before the Cruarch’s mother and kin in Alba.

Of a surety, he met with the
baro kumpai
of the Tsingani, the four families who were foremost among their folk, and a successor was chosen among them. This meeting took place outside the walls of the City of Elua, for full-blooded Tsingani who follow the Long Road have ever been uncomfortable in enclosed spaces, and I am told it was the greatest gathering of their kind ever held in the shadow of the City walls.

I missed it, for we were in Montrève at the time, returning to my long-neglected estate. It was good to visit Montrève. Imriel loved it there; I hadn’t reckoned on that. I should have, raised as he was in the mountains of Siovale. The pace of life is slower, there. We found everything much in order, for if I had been two years absent, Purnell Friote and his wife Richeline were capable seneschals, maintaining the manor in impeccable readiness for our return, all the while carrying on effortlessly without us. They had three children between them, Imri’s age and younger, and he fell in among them with ease, squabbling and scrapping and jumping out of hay-lofts as a boy his age ought. It did my heart good to see it.

Between them, Joscelin and Ti-Philippe saw to the security of our estate, riding the borders and ensuring that every outlying crofter and free-holder knew the value of what they warded, setting up a system of watchers and messengers to maintain the borders. They are a shrewd folk, the Siovalese-and we had won their loyalty, as much by benign neglect as aught else. Siovalese prefer not to be troubled by their overlords, and I had surely done that much. If they had been uncertain of me at the beginning, they had accepted my stewardship of Montrève over the years. Now it had become a matter of pride, and not a few families sent sons and daughters to the manor to take positions in my household. The garrison, which had stood empty for years, was staffed with some twenty eager young recruits, and Ti-Philippe and Joscelin undertook to train them. By the time they were done, I had no doubts that there were few places in Terre d’Ange safer for Imriel than my lord Delaunay’s childhood home of Montrève.

Afterward, Joscelin set about building a mews. I had promised him that, although I’d forgotten it. Elua knows, he remembered. A bestiary, I’d said, if we returned in one piece. I was fortunate that he sought only a mews; and a kennel, for after the initial word of our return, his brother Luc sent a long, gossip-filled letter and a gift of a hound-bitch from Verreuil ready to whelp, which delighted Imri to no end. As for the mews, Ysandre sent her own Head Falconer to supervise the construction of it, and I must needs be resigned to a portion of my estate being given over to the manly pursuits of hunting and fishing.

If it hadn’t pleased them so, I might have minded more.

A lively correspondence went in and out of Montrève all summer long, keeping me abreast of news in the City of Elua and beyond. Nicola L’Envers y Aragon sent a lengthy reply to my own letter, giving a full account of all that had transpired in Aragonia since our visit. It had been a considerable task, rooting out the hidden network of the Carthaginian slave-trade, and her husband Ramiro had distinguished himself in the process, much to the surprise of those who thought him good only for drinking and gaming. I was glad to hear it, although sorry it meant Nicola would not be travelling that year. It would have been pleasant to see her.

Still, mayhap it was as well, for there was much to be done. For all that our surroundings were idyllic, my days were seldom idle. In addition to staying abreast of the changes being wrought in Montrève and continuing Imriel’s studies-when I could keep him indoors, which wasn’t often-I worked at cataloguing my new-found literary wealth, often lingering over individual texts longer than I ought. Visitors came and went, and our network of watchers in the countryside proved effective, for none came without warning.

Save one.

Hyacinthe.

He came at dusk on an evening when a gathering of storm clouds warred with the setting sun. ’Twas Richeline’s cry in the herb garden that alerted me, and I left the manor in time to see him coming, a dim figure on a grey horse, his shape emerging from the veil of low mist that hung in the olive grove, shot through with the last slanting dazzle of the sun’s gold before it sank behind the hills. Small wonder that he had passed unnoticed, cloaked in the elements he commanded.

“Phèdre.” He smiled at me as the mist dispersed, looming suddenly there and
present
, even as Richeline clapped both hands over her mouth, dropping the herbs she had picked for the evening meal. Droplets of mist clung to his black curls.

“Hyacinthe.” I swallowed. “I thought the night breeze was to whisper my name.”

“Not that,” he said, dismounting; only a man, for an instant, saddle-sore and weary. “Not yet. I have been riding the land, to take the measure of it, that I might know it and remember. And I wanted … I wanted to see how you lived, before I left.”

There was shouting, then, within the household, and Hugues burst from the rear door with his cudgel upraised, staring to see the Master of the Straits at our garden gate.

“Hugues,” I said, “would you see to Hyacinthe’s horse?”

Thunder rumbled in reply and Hyacinthe made an absent gesture, whispering an incantation to dispel the clouds.

“Oh, don’t.” The words came impulsively. “We need the rain.”

He smiled sidelong at me and murmured incomprehensible syllables.

A gentle rain began to fall, making a soft, silvery sound in the olive trees. A smell of damp earth arose around us. Such was his power, who was Master of the Straits.

I cleared my throat. “Will you come in?”

“Yes,” Hyacinthe said softly. “I’d like that.”

We were in the parlour when Joscelin and Imriel returned from their day’s long ramble, damp through and through and in high spirits despite it, having found a meadow perfect for the training of hawks. They stopped short, upon finding Hyacinthe there.

How strange, to see them all in the same place.

Adjourning to the dining hall, we passed a pleasant meal together, and Hyacinthe told us of the gathering of the
baro kumpai
, and how he had chosen among the candidates set forth to lead the Tsingani. He had quizzed them all, asking how each would have handled the fate of his mother, Anasztaizia, driven from the Tsingani for having surrendered her virtue to a D’Angeline, the bitter price paid for a cousin’s ill-placed wager. All of them knew the answer he sought; only Bexhet, son of Nadja, gave it unfaltering, with all the stammering pride of one raised a widow-woman’s son, prepared to challenge the ancient code of the Tsingani that placed such inordinate weight on outmoded rules of honor that valued a woman’s virginity above her person.

“You might have chosen a woman to lead them,” I said to tease him.

Hyacinthe gave me the ghost of his grin. “I might,” he said. “But to force growth is to kill it. Let the Tsingani grow at their own pace. Who knows? They may find the end of the
Lungo Drom
in it.”

Afterward, we retired once more to the parlour and Imriel served cordial on a silver tray, taking pride in his role, as deft and neat-handed as an adept of the Night Court, watching and listening with all the acuity I had taught him.

“Melisande’s son,” Hyacinthe murmured in amazement as Imri left the room.

“No, Tsingano,” Joscelin corrected him. “
Ours
.” He drained his glass and set it down with a faint click, frowning. “Forgive my rudeness, for I am glad of your presence. Yet I must ask it: Why have you come?”

“Cassiline.” There was an ache in Hyacinthe’s voice. “Forgive
me
. Yet I must know it: What is the price you paid for my freedom?”

I sent Imriel to bed, then, before we told the story in its entirety. It was his, yes, and there was no part I would deny him; but he was a boy, still. He would tell it himself in the fullness of time, to those he chooses to trust. Until then, I would protect him from it, from the parts he is too young to understand, from the parts that spark his nightmares anew.

To Hyacinthe, we told the truth.

From Melisande’s first bargain, and the long road-our own
Lungo Drom
-it had engendered, we told him all. There were parts where Joscelin faltered, unable to describe what had ensued. I spoke of the
zenana
and the Mahrkagir’s cruelty, the pall of Angra Mainyu, my voice sounding like a stranger’s to me. And Hyacinthe wept, silently, tears seeping like slow rain on his brown cheeks as he learned the truth of Daršanga; what I had endured there, what Imri had undergone, and Joscelin, too, whose role in some ways was the hardest of all.

Ill thoughts, ill words, ill deeds.

Even to Hyacinthe, I didn’t tell the whole of it.

We told him of Jebe-Barkal, after, and the strangeness that was Saba, in all its attendant terrors and glories, the long effort of our voyage on the Lake of Tears, the awe that befell me upon Kapporeth and the Ark of Broken Tablets. And we spoke of the One God, of Yeshuites and the Children of Yisra-el, of Rahab and the Master of the Straits, of Blessed Elua and his Companions, and where their intertwined paths diverged. At some point, a weary Joscelin rose to bid me goodnight, his lips gentle on my cheek. I let him go, and remained awake long hours with Hyacinthe, the both of us quarreling over pronunciation and origins, tracing inadequate ciphers in the lees of our cordial on the tabletop, arguing the Name of God and the alphabet of heaven.

I don’t know when I forgot his sea-shifting eyes and he ceased to be the Master of the Straits and became only Hyacinthe once more, my oldest friend, stubborn and clever as my lord Delaunay; as I myself had grown, truth be told.

Somewhere.

We knew, both of us. Hyacinthe bent his head and smiled ruefully, passing one hand over the marble table, the marks of our finger-drawn scribbling erasing with its passage. “I’ll do as you asked,” he said, hanging ringlets hiding his face. “The alphabet shall be yours, once … once we’re established in Alba.”

An unexpected pain seared my heart. “You and Sibeal.”

He nodded without looking up. “She sees you in my dreams, you know,” he murmured. “She understands.”

“When will you go?”

“A month.” He did look up, then, and the Tsingano lad I’d loved looked out of his eyes. “Six weeks, mayhap. No longer.”

“Will you go as you came here?” I asked, hating the thought of it. “A mist-wrought shadow crossing the land, your passage unmarked by man nor beast?”

“Mayhap.” Hyacinthe shrugged. “’Tis simpler, thus. Does it matter?”

“Yes,” I said. I had an idea. “Yes, it does.”

Hyacinthe left in the morning, when the early mists still rose from the fields, blending to surround him and shroud his figure as he departed. My household rose to see him off, watching his mounted form vanish into his surroundings, as the night’s rain dripped from the olives and the silvery-green leaves sighed at his passing.

“What are you plotting
now
?” Joscelin inquired, reading my expression with the ease of one who’d had long practice at it.

“Nothing,” I said, then amended it. “A fête. I’m planning a fête.”

One Hundred Two

THEY ARE still talking of it in the City of Elua.

If it had not been for the aid of a good many people, I daresay I could not have pulled it off; and foremost among them is my old mentor, Cecilie Laveau-Perrin, who gave me invaluable advice. There was my factor, Jacques Brenin, who negotiated the sale of various texts, without which I could not have afforded this endeavor. It was his idea, too, to solicit donations from the many lords and ladies who courted my favor, in the name of honoring the Master of the Straits.

Of a surety, I needed Emile’s aid, and that I knew I had. Where he led, Night’s Doorstep followed. Hyacinthe’s return had only augmented that. And for once, the City would follow the lead of Night’s Doorstep instead of the Palace.

That was my tribute to Hyacinthe.

While I have lived, only one thing has brought the City of Elua to a standstill. Fever did not do it, so I am told; I was in Skaldia when it struck. Even Waldemar Selig’s invasion did not do it, for he never got this far south. The City halted, they say, when Percy de Somerville assailed its walls, and Ysandre’s uncle, Barquiel L’Envers, sealed the gates against him. It halted for a day, they say, before wagering resumed and the Court of Night-Blooming Flowers reopened its doors.

Well and so; it halted for my fête.

I took my time making ready that night; an autumn night, unseasonably warm, winter’s chill held in abeyance. Joscelin came into my bathing-room, which was the one chamber of my household I held sacrosanct. He grinned to see me sunk neck-deep in warm water and scented oils. My maid-servant Clory, Eugenie’s niece, retreated blushing at his approach.