Kushiel's Chosen

Melisande, somewhat that put the fear of Kushiel into him. It's a matter of state, and you gave the Admiral your word. Let Prince Benedicte handle it."
    "You're right," I said slowly, and sighed. "I'd rather we had proof, a great deal more of it. But he won't talk of his own accord, and I don't think we can afford to let him go. Remy, if you'll stay and keep a watch, we'll go straightaway to the Little Court, and pray that Rousse's name opens doors there as quickly as he thinks it will."
    "Aye, my lady." Remy saluted, taking up a post leaning against the wall outside the astrologer's door. "Elua grant you luck."
    That was when we heard the second thud, and this one didn't sound like furniture.
    It sounded very like a falling body.
    TiPhilippe swore and put his shoulder to the door, shoving hard. Remy set to beside him, and between the two, they forced open the door, which was blocked by a large trunk. I would have gone inside, but they made me wait while they went first.
    "It's safe, my lady," Remy called back, his voice disgusted. "But so much for going to Prince Benedicte. You may not want to look."
    I went to see anyway, and found the astrologer's body lying in a pitiful heap on the floor of his pitiful lodging. His eyes were open and staring, and there was a little foam about his mouth. At his side lay a shattered phial. Magister Acco was very much dead. TiPhilippe stooped and sniffed at his foam-spattered lips, touched one finger to the glass shards of the phial and sniffed that as well.
    "Laugh at my nose all you like," he said, wiping his finger on his trousers, "but it smells just like the rat poison my Da used to set out, my lady."
    "He poisoned himself." I pressed my hand hard to my breast, shaking. "Oh, poor man! And we drove him to it. I should have seen he was that terrified."
    "My lady." Remy took my arm and urged me turn away. "I think mayhap he was a little bit mad," he said softly. "That business he spoke at the end, about crossing threads cutting short his lifeline? I think whatever fear he had of Melisande was jumbled in his mind with his expulsion from the Palace, and he drove himself mad with it rather than face his own guilt. The man nearly killed the Doge's wife. Surely it haunted him."
    "Mayhap." My head ached. "But if he stood at the verge, Remy, I am the one who pushed him. I wonder if he knew what we meant to do."
    "How could he?" TiPhilippe asked rhetorically. "Lucky we didn't, now. I'd hate to have dragged out the Prince's Guard to visit a corpse. You can still tell Benedicte, and let him investigate it."
    "No." I rubbed my temples. "There's naught to learn here, with the astrologer dead. Whatever else is true, he did violence by his own hand, and there's no one Benedicte could question that he hasn't asked before. It would only alert Melisande, if she's tied to him in any way. And if she's not, 'twould only embarrass us, and give away our game in the bargain. I'll go to Benedicte when I've proof, not speculation and bodies."
    We made a cursory search of Magister Acco's lodgings, turning up naught but the tools of his trade, texts and charts. A few Serenissimans began to gather outside the door, and Remy went out somber-faced to report the news and send for the undertaker, telling them only that the astrologer had bid us leave in a temper, then suffered a seizure.
    No one seemed surprised, and a few nodded solemnly, as if they'd expected no less. Magister Acco, it seemed, had a reputation for having an uncertain temper and occasional fits of raving.
    He also had a reputation for unerring prognostication.
    I thought about that, during the silent trip back to our rented house, the gondola emerging onto the Great Canal to glide softly over water tinted lavender by the setting sun, the boatman dipping his long oar in mesmerizing rhythm, singing absently to himself. I did not think the astrologer was mad, any more than I thought a tincture of sulfur would kill in small doses. If the Doge's wife had died, if Benedicte's chirurgeon had not intervened, Magister Acco would likely have been executed. Whether or not Melisande had done it, I did not know; if she had been in the Doge's Palace, and that close to his astrologer, someone else had known it, someone who had lied to Prince Benedicte - and it had never been her way to use her own hand. Mayhap it was different, now that she was more desperate.
    One thing I did know. Magister Acco had seen her, and if he was not merely raving, he had seen in