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foothills. The wounded man followed at a hunched, limping run.
    For a moment, I thought Joscelin would remount and pursue them, then I saw him gather himself. Thrusting his fingers between his lips, he gave the shrill, trilling whistle that summoned all our mounts. It is a trade-secret of Tsingani horse-trainers, though they taught it to us; more than that, I have sworn not to say. The errant packhorse came running, and my own mare’s ears perked. I nudged her to a trot.
    Joscelin stood in the road, breathing hard, blood sliding in crimson runnels toward the point of his lowered sword. “You’re all right?” he asked without looking at me.
    “I’m fine.” I didn’t wholly trust my voice.
    He nodded, wiping his blade carefully on the roughspun tunic adorning the nearest corpse, and then, without warning, knelt in the dust. With his head bowed, he laid his sword down and crossed his forearms, murmuring a Cassiline prayer. The packhorses and I waited silently, while his gelding leaned in to whuffle his hair in curiosity. Joscelin’s eyes, when he rose, were filled with anguish.
    “It gets easier, you know.” In one fluid motion, he sheathed his sword at his back and went to pluck his thrown dagger from the throat of the bandit leader, face averted from me. “Too easy.”
    “I’m sorry.” There was nothing else I could say.
    “I know.” Cleaning and sheathing his dagger, he went about the business of splicing our severed lead-lines. “Give me a hand, you’ve a better touch with knots.”
    I worked without comment. When we had finished, we remounted and rode onward toward Pavento, where we sought lodgings for the night and reported the incident to the Principe’s guard. No further hostilities troubled us that day or the next. If the local banditry had any network of information, I daresay word went out along the northern route that the pair of harmless-looking D’Angeline travellers were best left undisturbed.
    On the next day, we reached La Serenissima.
    Twilight hovered smoky and blue on the waters of the canals and soft roseate hues washed the buildings around the Campo Grande, here and there picked out with a brazen note of gilt where the sun’s dying rays still pierced. Laughter carried over water, and voices raised in song. The painted bissoni and gondoli were out, young men of the Hundred Worthy Families courting and wooing in the ways of Serenissiman nobility.
    It could have been my world. I even entertained the thought-once, briefly, for a heartbeat’s space of time. Severio Stregazza, who is the Doge’s grandson, proposed marriage to me in this city. His family would never have permitted it, of course. Still, he did not know it at the time.
    I looked at Joscelin’s profile, silhouetted against the deep blue of falling night.
    I never doubted that I chose aright.
    It made it all the harder to ask him what I had to ask, that night in the dining-hall of our elegant inn, the same we’d stayed in before. I’d no more inclination than I’d had the first time to burden any of my acquaintances in La Serenissima with this visit. The rooms were fine and the service well-trained; the food was outstanding for Caerdicci fare.
    “Joscelin.”
    Amid the clamor of voices and rattling cutlery, he caught the hesitation in my tone. “What is it?”
    I beckoned for the neatly-attired servant to bring more of the sweet muscat wine the inn served with its dessert course. He bowed, smiling with pleasure, and refilled my glass. I took a sip, and another, delaying. “I want to go alone tomorrow.”
    Joscelin sat unmoving, then blinked, once. Something hard surfaced in his expression. “To see Melisande. Why?”
    “Because.” I turned the delicate wineglass, watching the candlelight refracted in the fluted rim. It was exquisitely made. Serenissiman work, no doubt, blown on the Isla Vitrari. “What I have to tell her ... it is about her son. And it is a matter between her and Kushiel. No one else.”
    “Oh, Phèdre.” It was the sorrow in his voice that jerked my gaze back to his. “Do you have such a care for her pride? Even still?”
    “It’s not only that. Not pride.” I shook my head. “Joscelin ... you saw the children, the children we saved. And they were the lucky ones. I have to tell her that.”
    “It is Kushiel’s justice,” he said softly. “You said so yourself.”
    “Yes.” I drained my glass and set it back. “Did you think it just, when we found those children in