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stained. He was in good spirits despite his loss.
    “If it wasn’t L’Envers,” he said, speculating aloud, “then who?”
    “I don’t know. You think he was telling the truth?”
    “As surely as you do.” He glanced at me. “It increases the odds that the boy’s alive. L’Envers is right, he’s a dangerous weapon for someone’s hand.”
    “I wish I could think of whose.” I sighed. “You know we’re going to have to go to the Sanctuary of Elua in Landras and ask questions before Ysandre decides to summon Brother Selbert.”
    “Mm-hmm.”
    “Joscelin?” I looked at his calm profile. “You let him win, didn’t you.”
    The corner of his mouth lifted in the hint of a smile. “What self-respecting Cassiline would do such a thing?”
    I raised my brows at him. “Only one.” Joscelin laughed and made no reply.

Fourteen
    UPON RETURNING to the City of Elua, I sent word to Ysandre, reporting briefly on my meeting with her uncle the Duc L’Envers and asserting my belief in his innocence. I stated also my intention to travel to Siovale, to the Sanctuary of Elua in Landras, in order to question the priests there about the disappearance of Imriel de la Courcel.
    Well and so; if Ysandre wished to forestall me, let her do so. Until she did, I would pursue my inquiry in my own fashion.
    First, though, I kept my postponed appointment with Audine Davul at the City Academy.
    I have been there many times, but seldom to the Musicians’ Hall, where I was escorted past various salons from which issued sounds both melodious and cacophonous. Students of all ages were intent upon their lessons, learning to play harp and lyre and mandolin, tambors and timbales, flutes and pipes-and of course, the drums. Audine Davul’s quarters held more drums than I ever believed existed, great and small, low and squat, tall and narrow, goat hide stretched taut over bases of wood, copper and ceramic, steel kettles struck with tiny mallets, hand-held rattling drums. And each one, I was told, had its own voice.
    An intent, wiry woman in her forties, grey-eyed and honey-skinned, Audine Davul was the product of her D’Angeline father’s liaison with an Ephesian dancing-girl. When her mother died in childbirth, her father had taken her with him on his wanderings, paying passage aboard ship with his drumming, entertaining crews and setting the beat for the rowers. It was said that an oarship had wings when Antoine Davul gave the pace. From the time Audine was five until she was fifteen, they had lived in Jebe-Barkal. She grew up speaking and writing Jeb’ez while her father studied the “mountain-talkers,” the percussive language of the great hollow log drums used in the highlands of Jebe-Barkal.
    Audine Davul had translated the scroll Melisande had called the Kefra Neghast .
    “Yes,” she said, indicating the vellum parchment she had prepared. Not only was a translation in D’Angeline neatly transposed beneath each line of Jeb’ez, but she had included phonetic markings to indicate the pronunciation of the unfamiliar script. “Your information is correct; this is the story of Melek al’Hakim, the Prince of Saba. One does not hear it so much, any more.”
    I held the precious document gingerly, scanning the text. “It’s true, then? He was Shalomon’s son?”
    “True.” The music teacher smiled, turning calloused palms outward. “What is true? It is true that this legend is told in Jebe-Barkal, where the inhabitants of Saba fled after quarreling with the Pharaoh of Menekhet, and ruled for many years. I have translated the words truly as they are written. No more can I tell you, Comtesse.”
    “Thank you.” Until that moment, I hadn’t dared believe with a whole heart. Putting down the parchment, I flung both arms about her neck, impulsively kissing her cheek. “Mâitresse Davul, thank you!”
    She laughed, returning my embrace. “Now the Academy will talk, saying I have known the favors of Phèdre nó Delaunay.” Faint lines crinkled at the corners of her eyes. “And mayhap it will bring more students to study drumming.”
    “I hope it does.” I accepted the scroll-case she handed me containing the original Jebean manuscript. “You’ve never been back to Jebe-Barkal, have you?”
    “No.” Audine Davul shook her head. “My father’s feet followed a rhythm only he could hear. I did but follow him. When he brought me at last to Terre d’Ange, I knew I had come home. I have brought his rhythms with me to