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“Good.” Severio smiled. “Then we are agreed, little cousin. Shall we become friends? Your foster-mother Phèdre seems to think it a good idea.”

Although I was not, properly speaking, Imriel’s foster-mother, there was nothing Severio could have said to gratify him more. We passed some hours in pleasant conversation, giving once again a very abbreviated history of our adventures. Even Joscelin relaxed, forgetting his old resentment. It had been a bad time between us, when Severio became my patron-the worst of times. But we had grown through it and past it, and no one could not deny that Severio too had grown. The rude Serenissiman lordling with royal D’Angeline blood in his veins had become a man whose merit was worth reckoning.

I would have liked to meet his wife. But this was La Serenissima, still, and for all it is goddess-ruled, the role of women does not equal that of men. And too, I suppose, she may not have been as eager to meet me. In the City of Elua, they still speak with awe of the fee Severio Stregazza wagered for the first assignation upon my return to the Service of Naamah.

For all that, Severio was not insensible of how matters differed in Terre d’Ange. “What of his mother?” he asked, nodding at Imriel when we had finished our tale. “She sought once before to set him on the D’Angeline throne. Will she try it again?”

“Not as before,” I said. “Not by such means.”

“Asherat-of-the Sea grant it may be so,” he said.

Thus passed our meeting with Severio Stregazza, and I was glad we had done it. By the time we departed La Serenissima, Imriel was more at ease with the notion that he was indeed a Prince of the Blood and a member of an extended family, not all of whom were traitors and conspirators. Thanks to my folly, the knowledge of his lineage had been broken harshly to him, and the attempts upon his life in Khebbel-im-Akkad had done little to endear his kin to him.

Severio had helped offset that impression, he and his high-spirited Immortali, who ferried us back to Villa Gaudio, all the while serenading us-or me, at least-with absurdly high-flown lyrics, until Joscelin rolled his eyes in mock dismay and Imriel laughed aloud.

For that alone, it was worth it.

Eighty-Nine

IT WAS an uneventful journey home, for which I was grateful.

Home.
Home
!

How long had it been? Two years come spring, since I’d awakened in the night weeping and shaking, dreaming of Hyacinthe. It seemed longer, sometimes; sometimes, it seemed the time had gone in the blink of an eye.

A year ago, we had been in Daršanga.

Imriel had grown taller, an inch at least since we had arrived in Jebe-Barkal. In the spring, he would be twelve. What remained of his childhood-what the Mahrkagir had left of it-would pass quickly. I was reminded of it every day, watching him.

Our mercenary escort treated him with good-natured affection, and he was comfortable with that, more comfortable than he was with being treated as nobility. Goat-herd prince, barbarian’s slave. These were the things he knew. They taught him how to curse in Caerdicci when they thought I was out of earshot. I smiled to myself and allowed it.

At night, I dreamed.

I dreamed I was alone on a barren island, surrounded by mists, and somewhere on the island was Hyacinthe. I never saw him, although I heard his voice, speaking my name. “Phèdre. Phèdre.” And I danced alone on the barren rock, a vast courtly measure, retracing in a circle every step I had taken before. When I came to the beginning, I knew, the mists would clear, and at the center of my circle would be revealed the tower of the Master of the Straits.

Hyacinthe.

Only I never got to the end, in my dreams. I awoke before I could arrive, my heart pounding, the Name of God straining on the tip of my tongue.

All across the peninsula of Caerdicca Unitas, we retraced our steps. How many times had I made this journey? Once, with Ysandre and Amaury Trente-that is the one they tell tales about. Once, there and back, with Joscelin … and once, there. That was the last time. We had sailed to Menekhet, afterward.

Now we returned, step by step. Pavento, Milazza … we stayed at inns, where we might, and the Serenissiman sailors who escorted us stayed up late, drinking and carousing. I paid the tally unquestioning. When we were caught between towns, we made camp by fresh water. It was at one such site that I told Joscelin while we lingered beside the campfire, Imriel already abed, the Serenissimans passing the wineskin unheeding.

“She knew,” I said, gazing into the flickering flames.

“What?” He was slow to understand, not having lived in my thoughts. “Melisande?”

I nodded. “She knew what I asked, and why, and made the bargain anyway. And then she told me.”

Joscelin was silent for a time. “Why would she do it?”

“It was her gift,” I said, raising my gaze. “Her gift to Imriel, she said. Because of love.”

“Love.” He repeated the word, and prodded the fire with a long branch.

“Love,” I said.

In the embers of the fire, a half-charred branch shifted and fell, sending a shower of orange sparks ascending heavenward. “Can you claim to know the whole of Elua’s will?” Joscelin murmured. “Those were the priest’s words, in Siovale. If he told me then I would defy my Queen for the sake of Melisande Shahrizai’s son, I would have laughed in his face.”

I smiled. “’Tis a dangerous force, this
love
.”

One corner of Joscelin’s mouth twitched. “That it is.”

We crossed the border south of Milazza on a cold, dreary day. The ground was frozen solid and our horses stamped restlessly, hides cooling as we milled and awaited clearance from the Eisandine border-guards. If we had crossed in Camlach, we would have encountered the Black Shields of the Unforgiven, but this far south, they were the Lady of Marsilikos’ men, clad in chain-mail with thick cloaks of sea-blue wool to keep them warm, each worked with Eisheth’s symbol on the breast-two golden fish, nose to tail, forming a circle.

“Comtesse.” The Captain of the Guard approached, bowing deeply. His face was troubled. “We did not look for you here.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Is it ordered that I may not pass?”

“No. No, of course not, my lady. It is only that… you were rumored to have disappeared, in a faraway land.” His gaze slide sideways toward Imriel. “Who is the boy?”

It was hard to gauge how much he knew; not much, I thought, or we would have been seized upon entry. Ysandre had kept the story quiet, fearing for Imriel’s safety. But it was no secret that Prince Imriel de la Courcel had gone missing from the Little Court of La Serenissima ten years and more gone by, and Imri … Imri looked like who he was, his mother’s son. The guard along the border of Caerdicca Unitas would have reason to recognize the stamp of Shahrizai blood.

“He is my ward, for the moment.” I folded my hands on the pommel of my saddle. “And we do indeed come from a faraway land, much farther than you might imagine. That is all you need know, my lord Captain, and all the Queen would wish known. If it does not suffice, we will travel north and cross into Terre d’Ange at Southfort in Camlach. I am sure the word of Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève will be good enough for the Unforgiven …”

“No!” The Captain winced, imagining the repercussions of turning away the Queen’s favorite confidante and the missing Courcel prince. “Of course not. Passage is granted, for you and your companions. My apologies, Comtesse.”

Thus did we enter Terre d’Ange.

It looked little different from the Caerdicci lands we had left behind-hills and low mountains, growing more gentle the further in we rode. Fields lay fallow for winter, dull and grey beneath the lowering skies. Only the cedars that blanketed the sloping hillsides in patches were green. But it was
home
, and I breathed deeply of D’Angeline air. In the towns and villages, I heard nothing but my native tongue. It seemed strange, after so long. Now it was our Serenissiman escorts who were the foreigners, laughing as they struggled to communicate in langue d’oc and sailors’ argot.

Imriel gazed about him with new eyes, seeing the land for the first time as both one who stood in line to inherit its rule, and as an exile returning. There were sorrow and hunger both in his gaze. What he thought, he kept to himself, and I did not press him.

At the inns where we stayed, we were recognized by the common-folk-I by the scarlet mote in my left eye, and Joscelin by his Cassilinearms. It was an occasion for a fête, each time, for our long absence had indeed engendered rumors of our death or disappearance. Wine flowed freely, for which I was hard-put to get them to accept coin, and the finest poets of the village turned out to vie for the honor of singing verses acknowledging our deeds.

Some were heroic.

Some were bawdy.

Imriel listened to both in silent amazement. For a mercy, no one in the villages put a name to his face. Here, in the countryside, the precise nature of Melisande’s beauty has been forgotten. All the poems that once bore her name have been changed. At a casual glance, Imriel might pass for our son, the product of our commingled blood. In Saba, they believed it without question. And why not? My own appearance differed from that of my parents, who were dark and fair in turn.

I remember that much about them.

“They write poems about you,” Imriel said, the night after the first such fête. “Poems! Why didn’t you tell me, in Daršanga?”

“Would it have mattered?” I asked him.

After a moment, he shook his head. “No. Not then.”

“I didn’t think so, either. Anyway,” I added, “they tell a good deal more stories about other people. When we are home, in the City, you will hear the Ysandrine Cycle, which is the great work of Thelesis de Mornay. Now that is a story worth hearing sung, how Ysandre assumed the throne and saved the realm from the Skaldi.”

“You were there.”

I shrugged. “Only at the end.”

“You brought the Alban army, you and Joscelin.”

“Well.” I thought of Drustan mab Necthana, of Grainne and Eamonn of the Dalriada. “We carried the Queen’s plea, yes. But I rather think they brought themselves. And,” I said soberly, “it was Hyacinthe who paid the price of that crossing.”

“Hyacinthe,” Imriel murmured.

“Yes,” I said. “Hyacinthe.”

They don’t tell his story in the inland villages of Terre d’Ange. Hyacinthe, son of Anasztaizia, a footnote in the Ysandrine Cycle. Outside the Tsingani and those who maintain watch along the coast of Azzalle, no one remembers more. A bargain was struck with the Master of the Straits, a price was paid. The mystery of the Master of the Straits, eight hundred years old, endures. An apprentice was taken; the cycle continues unbroken. About me, they tell stories, because I remained, scarlet mote and all, to become the Comtesse de Montrève, the Queen’s confidante, the most famous of Naamah’s Servants in many generations, who stood upon a balcony in the Temple of Asherat and denounced a vast conspiracy.

Of Hyacinthe-of his quick grin and his irrepressible charm, of his knack with horses and his gift of the
dromonde
-of Hyacinthe, the poets do not sing.

One day, I thought, they will.

I hoped Hyacinthe could still laugh when they did.

Ninety

IT WAS snowing the day we sighted the white walls of the City of Elua.

Our Serenissiman escorts insisted on seeing us into the city, although I would have dismissed them earlier. “Ah, no, lady,” their leader said cheerfully. “Lord Ricciardo paid us to see you home, and it’s home we will see you, to your doorstep and no less.”

The sky was leaden, flakes of snow drifting aimlessly to lie without accumulating on the frozen earth. In the vineyards, the grape vines were desiccated tangles of brown along the fences. At the southern gate, a pair of guards in City livery traded places, sharing a charcoal brazier, stripping off their gloves to warm their chilled hands. The rest were lurking in the garrison.

Joscelin rode forward to announce us. “The Comtesse Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève returns,” he said in his most inflectionless voice.

There was a brief, stunned silence.

“My lady!” One of the guards stepped forward, bowing low. “Welcome home.”

“Thank you.” I gazed through the gate, at the familiar streets that lay beyond, the elegant architecture in perfect scale to its surroundings. People strolled the streets, swathed in warm cloaks against the chill, laughing and remarking on the snow. A smart carriage drawn by a pair of matched bays passed; I knew the arms emblazoned on the door, the silver harrow of the Marquis d’Arguil. He had chided Joscelin and me for failing to attend their cherry-blossom fête when last I had seen him, and begged us to attend their next gathering. It seemed a very long time ago. “My lord guardsman,” I said, drawing a deep breath. “Pray send word to her majesty Queen Ysandre that I have returned. We will go now to my home, and thence to the Palace forthwith to attend upon her pleasure.”

“My lady.” He bowed again; his tone had changed. He had seen Imriel. Like the border-guard, he guessed. “It will be done.”

“These men,” I said, indicating our Serenissiman escort, “are in the service of Lord Ricciardo Stregazza of La Serenissima, and due free passage in the City in accordance with our alliance.”

“It is granted.” He stepped aside to allow us through, watching and wondering. Half the garrison turned out to watch as we entered the gates; the other half crowded in the doorway of the gatehouse, fighting for exit.

Hearing the whispers, Imriel drew up the hood of his cloak and lowered his head.

“You have nothing to hide,” I told him.

He glanced at me from under the shadow of his hood and said nothing, but his bare knuckles were white on the reins.

Behind us, I heard the sound of a mounted guardsman pelting for the Palace.

Joscelin took the lead as we rode through the City of Elua, unperturbed by the whispers. They recognized him, of course. No one else who is not a sworn member of the Cassiline Brotherhood would dare wear the arms-the vambraces glinting steel beneath his sleeves, the twin daggers at his hips, the hilt of his sword riding over his shoulder. And they knew me. Imriel was a slight figure, shrouded and hooded. Our Serenissiman guards pressed close around us, glowering, and I was glad they had stayed.