Kushiel's Chosen

the guards and held them off for a moment, cursing like the sailor he was. Remy, who had first raised the standard of Phèdre's Boys, that dart-crossed circle of scarlet, on the road to Dobria.
    I watched him die, born down by sheer numbers. He had sung marching-chants on the road, the ones I despaired of quelling. He had sung along the canals of La Serenissima in my service. The treacherous steel of Prince Benedicte's guardsmen silenced him for good.
    They took Fortun from behind, a dagger low to the kidneys. His outstretched hand left a long smear of blood on the gilded woodwork of the throne room door. He still had the map of Troyes-le-Mont slung across his back in its carrying case, a fool's scabbard. I saw his mouth form a circle of pain as he fell slowly to his knees; they had to stab him again, to the heart. Then his face went peaceful, and the light died in his eyes as he slumped to the marble floor.
    Fortun, who had chosen to serve me long before the others, for carrying water to the wounded and dying on the battlefield of Bryn Gorrydum, for the stunned look on my face when I took Quintilius Rousse's sword and dubbed him chevalier.
    He had a good-luck name, Fortun did.
    Now I knew the emptiness of perfect and utter despair.
    All sounds of fighting had ceased, replaced by the mundane clatter of the guards assessing their wounds and laying out the bodies for disposal, muttering of arrangements and cover stories. No joy in it; at least they did not relish their work. One straightened, gazing in my direction, nudging his fellow and fumbling for a pair of manacles hanging at his belt. I turned back to my sovereign lords, the Prince of the Blood and his deadly bride, seated side by side like a pair of Menekhetan effigies on their thrones.
    I didn't bother with him; only her.
    "Why not just kill me?" I asked simply.
    Melisande shook her head slowly, a look of gentle sorrow on her immaculately lovely face. "I can't," she said, almost kindly. "It isn't just the waste, my dear, of something irreplaceable. The punishment for causing the death of Kushiel's chosen is a thousand years of torment." She paused, reflective. "So they say in Kusheth, for the other scions of Elua and his Companions. For one of Kushiel's line, ten thousand years."
    With a murmured apology, the guard with the manacles approached me. I put out my arms unasked, feeling cuffs of cold steel lock about my wrists. "And for treason?"
    "Elua cared naught for mortal politics, nor did Kushiel." Melisande shook her head, the wealth of her blue-black hair caught modestly in a silver mesh caul. "We played a game, Phèdre," she said softly. "You lost."
    "You set me up," I whispered in answer. "From the very beginning."
    "Not really." She smiled. "You got too close. If you'd not played so well..." she nodded to my fallen chevaliers, bodies neatly wrapped in cloaks, "... they might have lived."
    There were tears in my eyes; I blinked them away absently, half-forgetting what they meant, and turned to Prince Benedicte. The chain betwixt my manacled wrists hung slack against the brocaded apricot silk of my gown. "My lord, why?"
    "Elua's bloodline was not meant to be sold for political gain," Benedicte said calmly. "Not to La Serenissima, as my brother Oanelon condemned me. And not to Alba, as my grandniece Ysandre has sold herself. No." He looked sternly at me. "Terre d'Ange requires an heir of pure D'Angeline blood. I have done only what is necessary."
    I would have laughed, if I could have stopped weeping. "With the woman who would have given us to the Skaldi?" I asked, gasping. "My lord, could you not have chosen wiser?"
    "With the woman," Prince Benedicte replied shortly, "who could give the Royal Army into my hand." He rose from his throne, averting his gaze from my slain chevaliers, and gave a crisp nod to Melisande. "It is done, as you wished. I leave her to you."
    He left the throne room through a rear entrance, two of his guard falling in behind him. I gazed at Melisande. "You gave him Percy de Somerville. How?"
    "Ah, well." Her expression was unreadable. "Lord Percy had the same sentiments, you see. He was willing to lend the army's support to Baudoin de Trevalion's bid for the throne. Unfortunately, he was rash enough to say as much in writing to Lyonette de Trevalion, the Lioness of Azzalle. It seems he was passing fond of her, Percy was."
    "And you have the letter." I nodded; it all made sense, now. Lyonette de Trevalion's secrets had not all died with