Kushiel's Chosen

L'Envers" amused glance. "Whom Percy de Somerville does not trust, and where no one has inquired."
    "Even so." He opened his hands. "What will you give me for it in trade?"
    "Phèdre," Joscelin murmured.
    Sometimes, one must play at hazards. "A speculation, my lord; do with it what you will. Persia Shahrizai paid her cousin a visit that night, but it was Melisande who left in her stead. This is the knowledge with which Lord Marmion confronted his sister. What she threatened him with in return ..." I shrugged. "I cannot say, except that I think he killed her for it."
    His violet eyes narrowed. "Mayhap I will ask him."
    "And mayhap I will join the Unforgiven," I said dryly. "Unless I think of a better way to question them."
    "Your usual methods seem fairly effective." He gave me an amused glance. "I am given to understand you've made a bargain with Nicola as well, in exchange for this night's entertainment. I might even claim it myself, Phèdre nó Delaunay, as 'twas my purse funded it in the first place, if you'd not convinced me to be wary of you."
    With that, he bowed and took his leave; I hastily closed my mouth on my astonishment, in time to find my arm caught tight in Joscelin's grasp.
    "No," he said, his voice taut. "Not him. Phèdre, if you love me at all, promise me, not him!"
    I thought of Melisande sending the cloak and laughed despairingly, my voice cracking on it. "And if he were the one? Oh, Joscelin!" I shook the tears from my eyes and caught the front of his doublet, a handful of velvet and the khai pendant bunched in my fist. "What will you give me for it in trade? If you love me at all, will you promise what I might ask?"
    "Don't. Phèdre, don't ask." With infinitesimal gentleness, Joscelin pried my hand loose; turned, and walked away.
    Watching him go, I whispered the words, knowing he wouldn't hear.
    "I promise."

TWENTY-TWO
    After Nicola's fête, I prevailed on Remy to serve as my carriage-driver and ventured out to pay another visit to the Royal Archives. As it transpired, Micheline de Parnasse was abed that day with an ague in the joints, and I spoke to her assistant instead, the Siovalese lordling.
    "Bernard." Having learnt his name, I smiled at him. "Tell me, truly; are no others than the Queen and the Secretaries of the Privy Seal allowed admittance to the archives?"
    Ducking his head, he blushed and mumbled. It took some doing, but eventually he confessed that at those times when the Royal Archivist's steely gaze was elsewhere, various peers of the realm had been known to badger her assistants for access. I made him give me names, and from what he could remember, it was a long list.
    Barquiel L'Envers was on it; so was Gaspar Trevalion, and Percy de Somerville. He remembered them well enough. None, however, had been near the ledger recording members of the Cassiline Brotherhood attendant on House Courcel. Indeed, Bernard swore up and down that no one - no one! - had ever desecrated the archives on his watch.
    "What did they want to see?" I asked him. "Do you remember?"
    He nodded, swallowing hard; the apple in his throat bobbed with it. "Some one of them at least asked after the folios on the trial of Lyonette and Baudoin de Trevalion.”
    Nothing for it then but that I must look through the folios, poring over transcribed records and supplementary materials. The letters were there-all there, insofar as I could tell. Letters written by Foclaidha of Alba to Lyonette de Trevalion, the Lioness of Azzalle, plotting the invasion that would have put Baudoin on the throne.
    Baudoin, infatuated, had showed them to Melisande; even worse, in extravagant, idiotic proof of his love, had given several of them to her. And Melisande used them to destroy him, and any claim to the throne House Trevalion may have held.
    She gave him a farewell gift, though.
    Me.
    Well, and so; it was the past, and should have been over and done, if not for the endless intrusions of old quarrels, old betrayals, into the present. Whatever was there, if it could incriminate one of those three, it was gone now, the allegedly watchful eye of Bernard of Siovale notwithstanding. Some one of them, he said; mayhap others. More than one person had asked to see these folios. I had a good guess about Gaspar's apprehensions; about the Duc L'Envers and the Royal Commander, I could only wonder. And, of course, there were eight or nine others Bernard had named whom I hadn't even begun to suspect.
    "Thank you," I said to him, making ready to