Kushiel's Dart

will come."
    "And you." Grainne looked at me, still kneeling, and smiled. "You come as the Swan's emmissary, you ask the Cullach Gorrym to follow you. They need to see."
    "I'm coming," I said, and stood, small beside the Twins. Joscelin gave his smooth Cassiline bow, not quite meeting my eyes. I glanced at Hy-acinthe. Our eyes met in a small silence, the old familiarity and the new.
    "I will stay," he said softly. "Let the dreamers and the seers keep watch. It is what we do."

SEVENTY-FOUR
    The next day we marched into Bryn Gorrydum.
    It was a small city, which surprised me; I recognized the underpinnings of Tiberian stonework. We intersected with a mighty river and marched along its banks, toward a bay, for the city lay on the eastern shore of Alba. Commonfolk turned out and cheered. Maelcon had not been loved. When we reached the fortress proper, we found the gates open and the door lowered, the garrison turned out to surrender arms.
    They had heard. And they gave us Foclaidha.
    Maelcon's mother.
    Later we learned that it was not only the defeat of Maelcon's forces that put the fear of the Cullach Gorrym into the followers of the Red Bull, but the numbers of commonfolk, especially within the fortress itself, servants who had escaped the slaughter of Maelcon's betrayal, whose black eyes gleamed to hear the news of the Cruarch's return.
    Discretion is the greater part of valor; the Tarbh Cro surrendered.
    So it was that Drustan mab Necthana took his throne.
    Down came the standard of the Red Bull; the Black Boar flew once more from the peaks of Bryn Gorrydum. The Cruarch's sister, Moiread, was buried in state. The head of Maelcon the Usurper was nailed above the gates of Bryn Gorrydum. Drustan had not spoken in jest.
    We do not call them barbarians entirely without reason.
    Seated on the throne, he heard Foclaidha's petition.
    As a guest of honor, I was privileged to attend; a privilege I'd gladly have foregone. I stood, watching. It seemed a thousand years ago that I had stood in the Hall of Audience where Lyonette de Trevalion stood trial, Alcuin and I straining to catch a glimpse of the proceedings. Now I stood at the left hand of the throne of Alba, my Cassiline companion attendant, struggling to keep my features expressionless as I represented the Queen of Terre d'Ange. If I had felt a fraud bestowing knighthood on Quintilius Rousse's men, it was nothing to this.
    I could not help but think, if Ysandre de la Courcel knew we would succeed thus far, she would never have chosen to send me. A whore's unwanted get, I remembered, the Dowayne's voice echoing in my memory.
    But send me she had, and if I was a whore's unwanted get, I was Anafiel Delaunay's chosen pupil too, and he had deemed me worthy of his name, when my own parents sold my right to carry theirs. And this woman who stood before Drustan's throne, tall and unrepentant, had caused not only the bloodshed to which I'd born witness yesterday and that which had stained these halls, but the deaths I'd witnessed decreed that other day, when I stood on tiptoe in the Hall of Audience.
    Baudoin de Trevalion, who'd given me my first kiss. He'd taken the luck of it with him; I'd been his parting gift.
    From Melisande, who brought to light letters, written to Lyonette de Trevalion, from this woman.
    Who stood before Drustan's throne.
    The Tsingani are right; it is a Long Road.
    Drustan let her speak, and she spoke well, impassioned, of the passing of the old ways, of the need to join the new, where son succeeded father. No betrayal, but a noble cause, she said in ringing tones, to sweep away the cobwebs of superstition that said no one may know a child's father, to acknowledge the sovereignty of paternity. A tall woman, Foclaidha, with red hair and the whorls of a Cruithne warrior tattooed on her cheeks. I heard later that she killed four men by her own hand when the garrison came for her.
    The Lioness of Azzalle had been overpowering too, although she'd never held a sword. It had made Baudoin wild and daring and a little mad. I wondered if Maelcon had been the same.
    It was a good speech, and there were men who would have listened, inspired to overturn the bonds of matrilinealism, to raise up the children of their blood and seed, making them heirs to all they owned, all they claimed.
    Not Earth's eldest children.
    Four sets of identical dark eyes watched, as they listened: Drustan, Necthana, Breidaia, Sibeal. It should have been five. I wondered, did we follow the