Kushiel's Dart

"Anafiel Delaunay taught me and used me and kept me in ignorance, thinking to protect me. And if he had not, mayhap he would not have died, for I might have guessed Melisande Shahrizai's game, if I'd known what was at stake. I was the only one close enough to see it. But I did not, and he is dead." Joscelin stirred next to me, willing me to silence; we understood these things, who had been slaves together. Too late, and I was too far gone in my anger. I stared at the Dauphine and a connection formed in my mind, so simply that I almost laughed with relief. "The guard, your highness question the guard!"
    Joscelin moved again, this time with a jolt. "Your highness! We sought an audience with you, then with the King's Poet, the night of Delaunay's murder. Both times we were turned away." He grinned, the flash of white teeth unexpected. "A Cassiline Brother and an anguissette in a sangoire cloak. Surely one of them would remember."
    For a moment, I thought she would refute the idea, then Ysandre de la Courcel nodded to the guard she'd sent before. "Go," she said. "Be discreet." She looked back at us, and I saw for an instant a frightened young woman gazing from behind the mask of authority. "Ah, Elua!" she said, grief in her voice. "You're telling the truth, aren't you?"
    I understood, then, the nature of her anger and her fear, and sank to my knees, gazing up at her. We had brought to her the last news any ruler wished to hear, of war, war incipient, and treason at the heart of her realm. "Yes, my lady," I said softly. "It is true."
    She was silent a moment, accepting the truth of it. I saw in that moment something else surfacing in her, a dreadful resolve that she drew from some inner depths, hardening the planes of her lovely young face and firming the line of her mouth. Ysandre de la Courcel would stare unblinking at this terror. I remembered, then, that she was the daughter of Rolande de la Courcel, whom Delaunay had loved.
    "And my uncle?" Ysandre asked, coming back to herself. "The Due L'Envers?"
    Still kneeling, I shook my head, then rose in the fluid movement I had first learned at Cereus House. "To the best of my knowledge, Barquiel L'Envers had naught to do with it, your highness. He and Delaunay had settled the score between them."
    "Is it true that he had Dominic Stregazza killed?"
    Ysandre de la Courcel would be ruthless in acknowledgement of the truth, I saw that much. "I believe it to be true," I said quietly. "The name of your mother's murderer was the coin Delaunay paid for the truce between him and the Due L'Envers. He reckoned it worthwhile to protect you from the same fate, your highness."
    She absorbed it without blinking. "And you gathered this intelligence for him."
    "I had a companion; we both did." Grief sank its claws into my heart, fresh again now that I was home in the City. "His name was Alcuin no Delaunay. It was he who garnered the Stregazza's name. He died with my lord Delaunay."
    "You weep for him." Ysandre looked curiously at me, saddened. "I wish I had known him better. I wish there had been time." She glanced at the door through which the guard had left, then rose, beckoning. "Come here."
    We followed her, then, the four of us and her guard, through two doors, into a cloistered bedroom. It was heavily guarded, and two elderly Cassilines stood aside at her command, opening the door. Joscelin took care not to meet their eyes. The Dauphine stood in the doorway and looked within; pressed close behind her, we gazed over her shoulder.
    Ganelon de la Courcel, the King of Terre d'Ange, lay in a canopied bed, his face waxen and unmoving, fallen into deep lines. He was more ancient than I remembered. At first I thought he slept the long sleep of death, then I saw his breast rise and fall, disturbed by a long breath.
    "So lies my grandfather the King," Ysandre said softly, twisting a heavy gold ring on the finger of one hand. I knew it; it was Rolande's signet, on which Delaunay had sworn his oath. "So lies the ruler of our fair realm." She backed out of the doorway, and we hastened to get out of her way. "He suffered a second stroke in this Bitterest Winter," she murmured, closing the door and nodding to the Cassilines, who took up their pose, arms crossed at ease. "I have been ruling in his name. Thus far, the nobles of the realm have endured my pretence. But if we stand upon the brink of war ... I do not know how long I can last before someone wrests the reins of control from my hands. I do