Kushiel's Dart

acknowledgment. Once we gained the forest road, we rode in solitude.
    Hyacinthe made for a cheerful companion. He had brought a handheld timbale, which he played as he rode, his nimble fingers drumming and jangling out a merry rhythm. After our terrible journey of desperate, hurried silence and secrecy, it seemed odd and dangerous to Joscelin and me, but I saw the wisdom in it. Tsingani do nothing quietly, and there is as much deception in noise as there is in silence.
    It was after we had paused for a luncheon that we saw the first sign of Tsingani on the road, passing a campsite near a forest stream. Scorched earth and scraps of metal gave evidence that a travelling forge had been erected there, and the Tsingani are known to be smiths. Hyacinthe scouted the area and loosed a shout of triumph. We hurried to his side, and he pointed to a split twig planted in the ground, one side bent westward.
    "A chaidrov" he said, nodding. "We are on the right route."
    So we continued our journey, following such Tsingani signs as Hyacinthe espied; indeed, all of us grew adept at spotting them. I will not speak overmuch of these travels, for the days passed without incident. From Hyacinthe, we learned somewhat of Tsingani ways, preparing ourselves for what we might find. In turn, I taught a few words of Cruithne to both he and Joscelin. It is more difficult than Skaldic, for there are sounds in the Pictish tongue that come hard to D'Angelines. I had always despised the fact that Delaunay had made me learn it; ironic, that I should need it so direly now.
    The remainder of the time, I passed in reading the journal of Prince Rolande de la Courcel, that with which Ysandre had gifted me.
    From this slim book, I pieced together the great and fateful romance that had bound Anafiel Delaunay's fate to the protection of Ysandre de la Courcel, and indeed, made of me what I was, a courtesan equipped to match wits with the deadliest of courtiers.
    They had met at the University in Tiberium, of course; that much I had known. But I glimpsed Delaunay now through another's eyes, as a young man, full of beauty and a splendid passion to know . I had never known Delaunay as a youth. It surprised me to read his poems, carefully recorded by Rolande de la Courcel; wicked, biting satires that lampooned fellow students and masters alike. And it was Rolande who began calling him Delaunay, after his mother's name and the Eisandine shepherd lad Elua had loved. Once they were together-and I blushed to read that passage, wondering how Ysandre had taken it-it was the masters of the University who nicknamed him Antinous, after a lad beloved by an ancient Tiberian Imperator.
    Rolande's nature shone through it all, a generous and reckless spirit who loved freely without reckoning the cost, truer to the Precept of Blessed Elua and the archaic ideologies of glory than the political machinations of a monarchy. I could only imagine how Delaunay had adored and despaired of this careless nobility, incapable of subtlety.
    It was the death of Edmee de Rocaille that had caused a rift between them, after the University, after Delaunay had been castigated by his father and formally taken his mother's name. Hyacinthe and I had not been too far wrong; there was a longstanding bond between the Houses Rocaille and Montreve-strange, still, to think of Delaunay as aught but Delaunay-and Edmee had been a childhood friend to Delaunay in Siovale, betrothed to Rolande out of goodwill and because her family had ties to the royal House of Aragon.
    A good arrangement, it seemed; there was fondness between all of them, and Edmee understood that she was trading passion to be the eventual Queen of Terre d'Ange, mother of heirs.
    Then came her hunting accident.
    It was obvious that Rolande genuinely grieved for her, and obvious too that he was blind to the possibility that Isabel L'Envers had been involved, attributing Delaunay's vehemence to a mix of grief and jealousy. It is a human failing, to attribute the best of motives to those we know the least, and the worst to those we love best; he loved too well, Rolande did, and feared to be lenient in his judgment and favor Delaunay because of it. He heeded Isabel, who flattered and bewitched him. And they were betrothed, for House L'Envers was powerful; betrothed, and wed.
    And Delaunay wrote his satire.
    I think that Rolande knew, when Isabel sought to have him banished. I read what he wrote privately, for none to behold, of how he argued long