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accusing her, nor in reporting the incident-ostensibly, all she could do was to express deep regrets and offer to appoint us guards, which would put her people even closer at hand. That, I wished to avoid at all costs. Still, I wished to see her, and deliver a subtle message.
    Valère received me in her private paradise, which Sinaddan had had built for her. It is not so splendid, I am told, as the famous roof-top gardens of Babylon. Mayhap it is so; since I have not seen them, I cannot say. This was splendid enough, a tiny corner of Terre d’Ange recreated within the red-clay walls of Nineveh.
    Fertile soil had been imported, and lush green lawn. The cost of the irrigation system alone must have been phenomenal, creating the gentle brook that wound throughout the garden, crossed by quaint, arching bridges. Flowers bloomed in profusion, quickened by the Akkadian spring-violets, roses, sweet alyssum, jumbled and out of season. Valère L’Envers was picnicking with her ladies-in-waiting beneath a cherry tree, luxuriant carpets spread on the petal-bestrewn grass.
    “Phèdre nó Delaunay,” she hailed me in Akkadian, lifting a glass of chilled D’Angeline wine. “Pray, come and join us. We are escaping the unpleasantness of the world for an afternoon of leisure.”
    “Is the world so unpleasant, my lady?” I inquired, kneeling on a carpet and arranging my skirts about me.
    “Have you not found it so?” Valère’s tone was light, but something in it caught my ear. She smiled blandly, gesturing for an attendant to pour a glass of wine for me. “Given your recent experience, I would have thought you to find it unpleasant indeed.”
    I sipped my wine. “And which experience would that be, my lady?”
    Valère’s lids flickered. “Why, Drujan, of course. Surely you’ve experienced no unpleasantness in Nineveh?”
    “No, no.” I shook my head. “Nothing of import. I slept poorly last night, is all. I trust it will not happen again. Poor Joscelin was up half the night.”
    At that, one of her ladies laughed behind her hand, and made a speculative comment about Joscelin’s prowess, wondering if his beardless state indicated he was a eunuch. I assured her that his manhood was intact, and another of the women offered that she had heard he had been seen in the hallways of the Palace last night, in such a lack of attire as made it obvious he was indeed very much intact. This gave way to speculation as to why Joscelin Verreuil was roaming the halls mother-naked, the consensus being that with the exception of the Lugalin, all D’Angelines were mad and unpredictable, but nonetheless pleasant to look at, particularly the spectacularly naked ones, a sight doubtless wasted on the Palace guards.
    Throughout it all, the bland smile never left Valère L’Envers’ face.
    I smiled too, and thanked her when my wine was done, taking my leave.
    Well and so; it left no doubt in my mind, although I was sorry for it. She was the Queen’s own cousin, and I owed my life to her father. Moreover, she was Nicola’s cousin, too-Nicola, to whom I had given a lover’s token, and who had taught me once a valuable lesson about my own suspicions. I would far rather, I thought ruefully, have them proved false. Valère L’Envers had done good things in Khebbel-im-Akkad. In my brief time in Nineveh, I had gathered that her influence with Sinaddan was to the good, tempering his Akkadian ferocity and nourishing his forward-looking method of rule, at odds with his father the Khalif’s heavy hand. She had borne him three sons, and like as not the eldest would be named Lugal when Sinaddan assumed the Khalifate.
    Why did she want Imriel dead?
    Loyalty, mayhap; House L’Envers protects its own. It is why they are so fiercely loyal to the code of their password. What plans did Valère have for her younger sons? I could not say; did not know aught of the lads, who had been shielded from our presence here. Loyalty, or ambition? Ysandre was the first member of her House, insofar as I knew, to place the good of the realm above her family ... but Ysandre, I thought, was a rare being by anyone’s terms. I missed her, then; missed her terribly. Cool and calculating she might be, ruled by her intellect, but in her own way, she honored the precept of Blessed Elua to its fullest. Love as thou wilt . When it came to it, my icy and precise Queen was willing to stake her life on love. I remembered how she had ridden through the ranks of de Somerville’s