Kushiel's Dart

soul. The torments of the flesh were as nothing to them.
    On the fourth day, Ysandre summoned me into her presence.
    "I have brought someone to see you, Phedre," she said judiciously. "Someone whom I have gauged worthy of trust."
    It was my first thought that it was Cecilie Laveau-Perrin, for I had missed her sorely since returning to Terre d'Ange, and Thelesis had confessed to me that she had confided in Cecilie, who had wept tears of joy to hear that I was alive. But Ysandre beckoned, and the frail figure that stepped forth was not Cecilie.
    It was Master Tielhard, the marquist.
    I knelt at the sight of him, my eyes blurred with tears, grasping his gnarled hands and kissing them. He drew them back, fussing.
    "Always this," he complained, "with anguissettes . My Grandpere warned me it was so. Well, child, we have a contract unfulfilled between us, and my Queen commands me to see it finished. Will you disrobe, or have these old bones made this journey for nothing?"
    Still kneeling, I gazed through tear-flooded eyes at Ysandre. "Thank you, your majesty."
    "You should thank me." She smiled faintly. "Master Tielhard was not easy to persuade. But it is best to start a journey with all unfinished business concluded, and Thelesis de Mornay told me of yours."
    She left us, then, and the servants of the lodge led us to a private room, where the marquist's things had been laid out for him. They even had a table made ready. I stripped naked and lay down upon it. He grumbled at the nearly healed weals left by the priests of Kushiel's temple, but it seemed I would do.
    "Where is your apprentice, Master Tielhard?" I asked him as he pottered muttering among his things.
    "Gone," he said shortly. "The fever took him. You will be my last great work, anguissette . I am too old to start anew, training one to take my place."
    "Naamah will surely bless you for the service you have given," I whispered. Master Tielhard grunted an unintelligible response and laid the tapper against my spine, striking it smartly.
    A hundred needles pierced my skin, bearing pigment to limn it indelibly. I closed my eyes, awash in pleasure at the exquisite pain of it. And no matter what else happened, this much I was granted. My marque would be made. No matter that I ventured forth into certain danger; I would do it as that which I had claimed to be to Waldemar Selig: A free D'Angeline.
    "At least you've learned to lie still," Master Tielhard said irascibly, and struck the tapper again.
    Pain blossomed like a red flower at the base of my spinal column, suffusing my limbs. I gasped, clutching at the corners of the table, and proved him wrong. If Ysandre had told him I was a hero of the realm, it made no difference. Master Robert Tielhard was an artist, and I was his canvas. He swatted irritably at my writhing buttocks, ordering me to stillness.
    "Damned anguissettes" he muttered. "Grandpere was right."
    Later I had time alone in the room I'd been given to consider it. It was a well-appointed room, if a bit dark and frowsty for my taste, but it was a hunting lodge, after all. Still there was a great oval mirror, gilt-edged, in which I could gaze at my finished marque. I stood naked before it, twisting my hair out of the way and gazing over my shoulder.
    In truth, the finished marque was stunning.
    Thorny black lines, intricate and powerful, rose from the graceful scrollwork at the base to twine upward the full length of my spine, ending in an elegant finial. The teardrop-shaped scarlet accents had been used sparingly, serving as vivid counterpoints to the black lines and my own ivory skin. Echoing Kushiel's Dart, I had thought at the time; now it reminded me too of the Bitterest Winter, of the Skaldic wilderness, branches stark against the snow, spattered with crimson blood.
    Stunning; and fitting.
    A knock sounded at the door, and I slid on the silk robe that had been provided me. I opened the door to see Ysandre de la Courcel, and began to kneel.
    "Oh, stop," she said restlessly. "I've ceremony enough in my life, and we're near bed-cousins after all, between Delaunay and my father." It was a startling thought, but Ysandre gave me no time to dwell on it. "Was it done to your satisfaction?"
    "Yes, your majesty." I stepped back from the door, allowing her to enter. "It was a great kindness. Thank you."
    Ysandre eyed me curiously. "May I see it?"
    One does not refuse such a request from one's sovereign. Silently, I undid the sash of my robe and slipped it off,