Kushiel's Avatar

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 Cassiline arms. 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