Kushiel's Chosen

drawing back the hood of my cloak, until I stood before the raised dais.
    "Look well at me, father," I said softly, turning my face up for his regard. "I am Phèdre nó Delaunay, and Joscelin Verreuil is my oath-sworn companion. With those words and this visage I show to you, I have put my life into your hands."
    The Rebbe licked his lips again, and glanced past me toward the Illyrians. He was not old for the position, no more than forty. Behind him, the flickering light of the Ur Tamid, the light that is never extinguished, cast shadows over the sacred ark of scrolls. "I... hear your words, child. But this person you seek ... is not here."
    "You can get word to him." I kept my voice steady. "I beseech you, by all you hold sacred, to do so. Tell him I have come. Tell him you have seen a D'Angeline woman, who bears in her left eye a fleck of crimson. The men I am with are friends; I trust them with my life. Tell him I swear it, by Cassiel's Dagger. Until the sun stands high overhead, I will wait for him, at the Inn of Seven Strangers."
    No more could I say. Putting up my hood, I turned and made my way back. In the shadowy antechamber, Kazan grinned, teeth gleaming white against the darkness save for the gap where one was missing. "We wait?" he asked; he may not have understood my words, but he read the Rebbe's face well enough and he knew my plan.
    "We wait," I said.
    The Inn of Seven Strangers had the advantage of being highly disreputable, and an establishment given a wide berth by the Serenissiman Guard unless absolutely necessary. It was a tavern and flophouse recommended with considerable enthusiasm by one of Pjètri Kolcei's sailors, who had sojourned as a mercenary before joining the Ban's service.
    Even in the morning hours, it was thronging with out-of-work seafarers from a half-dozen nations; Caerdicci, Ephesians, Akkadians and Umaiyyati, even a few Skaldi, which always gave me an involuntary shiver. No other Illyrians, which I was glad to see. There is privacy in a tongue unshared. Two men stayed with the gondola, and Kazan and Tormos forged a path to the rear of the common room, bulling their way by main force while the others took care to keep me surrounded.
    I kept my head down and hooded; there were a few good-natured curses but, for the most part, the other patrons of the inn took no notice, supposing I was a harbor-front whore hired to be shared among Kazan and his men. For once, I was glad of such a mistake.
    Kazan secured a table in the farthest, darkest corner of the inn by shifting a sleeping drunkard, who took little notice. We disposed ourselves about the table, and Ushak went to purchase a jug of wine, carefully counting over the Serenissiman coins Kazan gave to him to be sure of the currency's value.
    "That's foul stuff!" Tormos proclaimed, drawing in his breath with a sharp hiss as he tasted it. "We make better on Dobrek. I thought it would be all ichor, here in Serenissima."
    "That's because you're an idiot," his brother Stajeo said promptly. "My lady Phèdre... I will drink bad wine and play dice all day, if you like, but why are we here? I thought we came to kill Serenissimans and save your Queen! What can this ... D'Angeline ..." he pronounced the word with a contempt that I was now spared, "... do that we cannot?"
    There were grumbled echoes of the query all around, and Kazan raised his brows at me; although he had forborne asking, he was surely wondering.
    "I don't know," I answered honestly. "In truth ... mayhap naught. If nothing else, he will make our count eight men rather than seven; nine, if Elua's mercy is with me, and my chevalier Philippe yet lives."
    "Nine will die a little slower than seven," Kazan said. "Not much."
    "It may be." I took a breath. "From the age of ten, Joscelin Verreuil was raised a member of the Cassiline Brotherhood, taught fighting skills to ward the scions of Elua and his Companions from harm. My lord Kazan, you and your men are doughty warriors, that much I have seen, but to thwart the assassination of a regent at close quarters ... this is what Joscelin has trained all of his life to do. If there is a way it may be done, he will find it."
    The other Illyrians made disparaging remarks and jests-they had never faced a D'Angeline in battle, let alone a Cassiline-but Kazan's face was thoughtful. "Your Queen," he said. "Does she not already have such guards in her service?"
    "Yes," I admitted. "At least two, mayhap more, for the progressus. But if aught