Kushiel's Dart

comment away in my memory as Delaunay had taught me. It is interesting to note your interest, my lord, and your tastes as well.
    The two men parted and I followed the smaller, straining to overhear as a tall woman with an elaborate headdress greeted him by name, but just then the trumpets sounded and someone cried out that the triumph was approaching. Everyone crowded to the edge of the balcony. I had lost sight of Delaunay and Cecilie, and was trapped behind the press of bodies. For a moment it seemed that my view of the royal triumph would consist of the brocaded and silk-swathed backsides of Cecilie's guests; then a portly gentleman with a grey beard and a gentle smile took note, and made room for me at the parapet. Thanking him, I gripped the stone and leaned over to see.
    Every terrace along the route was crowded with people, and there were crowds lining the street. The triumph approached at a distance, shining under the weak winter sun, announced by the brazen call of trumpets. A detachment of the Palace Guard rode ahead, pressing the spectators back against the buildings. Behind them came the standard-bearer, riding alone. We were near enough that I could make out faces, and his was young, stern and handsome. He gripped the haft firmly, and the standard snapped in the air below us, a golden lily on a field of rich green surrounded by seven golden stars: the sign of Blessed Elua and his Companions, emblem of Terre d'Ange.
    After the standard-bearer came another row of guards, and then Ga-nelon de la Courcel, scion of Elua, King of Terre d'Ange.
    I had known the King was elderly, but still it surprised me to see it. Though his carriage in the saddle was straight and tall, his hair and beard were almost completely white and his fierce eyes were set in hollows, partially overhung by grizzled white brows. At his side rode Ysandre de la Courcel, his granddaughter, Dauphine and heir to the throne of Terre d'Ange.
    If this were an allegory play, they might have represented the Old Winter and New Spring, for Ysandre de la Courcel was as fresh and beautiful as the first day of spring. She rode sidesaddle on her dappled courser, clad in a gown the color of the first shoots of the crocus to poke through the cold earth, with a cloak of royal purple over it. A simple gold fillet bound her flowing hair, which was of the palest blonde, and her face was youthful and fair.
    On the street, D'Angelines hailed her with affectionate cries, but on the balcony, I detected a murmurous undertone. Ysandre de la Courcel was young, beloved and beautiful, heir to a kingdom; and notably unwed, neither betrothed nor promised. Though her face betrayed nothing, she had to be aware of the undertone, I thought, watching from above. Surely it must follow her everywhere she went. The emblem of de la Courcel, the House Royal, flew beside them; lower than the flag of Terre d'Ange, but preceeding all others, as was custom. A silver swan on a field of midnight blue, the small party gathered beneath it made it look somehow forlorn. Ganelon de la Courcel's line ended with Ysandre. His only son was dead, and his only brother, Prince Benedicte, had wed into the ruling Caerdicci family in La Serenissima to a woman who gave him only daughters.
    All these things, of course, I knew; yet somehow seeing it made it so. On that balcony, surrounded by murmurs, I watched the elderly King and the young Dauphine-no older than I myself-and I felt around me the eddies of hunger centered on a precariously held throne.
    And behind the King rode his sister and her husband, the Princess Lyonette and her Due, Marc de Trevalion. The Lioness of Azzalle looked indulgently pleased; the Due's face was unreadable. Three ships and the Navigators' Star flew on their standard, and under these arms too rode their impetuous son. I could hear the chant rising up from the street as they passed; "Bau-doin! Bau-doin!"
    He was little changed from the young lord who had stolen the role of the Sun Prince five years past. A little older, perhaps; in the prime of his youth, rather than entering the threshold, but the wild gleam in his sea-grey eyes was the same. A chosen cadre of Glory-Seekers, the personal guard to which he was entitled as a Prince of the Blood, surrounded him loosely. They took up the chant too, shouting his name, raising their swords to catch the light.
    And at his side, composed and serene, rode Melisande Shahrizai, Bau-doin's delight, and the single thorn in the side of