Kushiel's Dart

blazing fire laid in the hearth in the library, which was always one of the warmest rooms in the house, so it was there that we gathered. There was no sign of Delaunay, but Alcuin was reading at the long table, tomes and scrolls strewn across its surface. He gave a brief smile as we entered. I sat down opposite him and peered at his research, seeing references in several different languages and by as many names to the Master of the Straits.
    "You think to solve the riddle of him?" I raised my eyebrows. Alcuin shrugged and grinned at me.
    "Why not? No one else has."
    "You mean Delaunay?" Joscelin asked, surveying the shelves. He took a volume out and pondered it, shaking his head. "One thing's certain, this is a Siovalese lord's library. He's got everything in here but the Lost Book of Raziel. Can Delaunay actually read Yeshuite script?"
    "Probably," I said. "Do all Siovalese treasure learning?"
    "There was an old Aragonian philosopher who would cross the mountains every spring to visit our manor," Joscelin said, putting the book back and smiling at the memory. "While the cherry trees were in blossom, he and my father would spend seven days solid arguing whether or not man's destiny is irrevocable. Then he would turn around and go back to Ara-gonia. I wonder if they ever settled it."
    "How long since you've been home?" Alcuin asked curiously.
    As if he'd been caught out at something, Joscelin's formal manner returned. "My home is where duty bids me."
    "Oh, don't be such a damned Cassiline," I grumbled. "So are we to take it you didn't succeed, as a fellow countryman, in prying any further information out of Delaunay?"
    Joscelin paused, then shook his head. "No," he admitted ruefully. "My eldest sister would know. She once charted every one of Shemhazai's lines, every House, Major and Minor, in Siovale. She could tell you in three minutes whose line ends in a mystery." He sat down and scratched absently beneath the buckles of his left vambrace. "Eleven years," he added softly. "Since I've seen my family. We swear our vows at twenty. I'm allowed a visit at twenty-five, if the Prefect gauges I've served well my first five years."
    Alcuin whistled.
    "I told you it was a harsh service," I said to him. "And what about you? What can you add to the mystery of Anafiel Delaunay these days?"
    I had tried to be mindful of Thelesis de Mornay's advice, but that had pertained to Delaunay, not Alcuin, and the banked jealousy smouldered beneath my words. If I'd not had enough questions before, I had a score more after what I'd seen yesterday. What was Delaunay to House Courcel, that Ganelon would use him; and how? What did Ysandre de la Courcel want of him, and what was the "certain matter" she wished to discuss? What oath had he sworn, and upon whose ring?
    If Alcuin had no way of knowing what questions roiled around my mind, he knew well enough from whence my hostility came. But he merely sat and regarded me with his grave, dark eyes.
    "You do know," I said in sudden comprehension. "He told you." My anger flared, and I shoved at the books nearest me. "Damn you, Alcuin! We always, always promised we would share with the other what we learned!"
    "That was before I knew." Quietly, he moved the most brittle of the scrolls out of my reach. "Phedre, I swear to you, I don't know the whole of it. Only what I need to aid him in this research. And I promised only not to tell you until your marque was made. You're near to it, aren't you?"
    "Will you see?" I asked him coldly.
    They were the words he had asked Delaunay. I saw him remember, and flush, the color as visible as wine in an alabaster cup. He'd known I knew; he hadn't known I'd seen. But it wasn't in Alcuin to evade the truth, and blushing or no, there was no guile in his eyes as he held my gaze. "You were the one who told him, Phedre. He might never have let it happen, if you hadn't put it in his thoughts."
    "I know. I know." My anger died, and I held my head in my hands and sighed. Joscelin stared at us, blinking and perplexed. It was no easy thing, to follow a quarrel between students of Anafiel Delaunay's. "I saw too well how you loved him, and for all his cleverness, Delaunay was as simple as a pig-herder where you were concerned. He'd have let you starve your heart out in his shadow before he saw. But I didn't think it would hurt so much."
    Alcuin came over to sit beside me and put his arms about me. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "Truly, I'm sorry."
    From the corner of my eye, I saw