Kushiel's Dart

before, but because this Cruarch had set foot on D'Angeline soil, it merited a passing interest. In a joint venture with the royal House of Aragon, Quintilius Rousse was ordered to bring his fleet through the southerly CadishonStrait and scout the coastline; he reported that Elder Brother maintained his sovereignty over Alban waters. Thus Ganelon de la Courcel strengthened his alliance with the King of Aragon, and Quintilius Rousse found an excuse to leave a portion of his fleet on the coast of Kusheth. At De-launay's, he boasted of his cunning, but I liked him well enough to forgive it. Delaunay was summoned twice to court, and afterward said nothing of it.
    No word came from de Escabares, nor any rumor of Waldemar Selig. The borders of Camlach remained quiet; so quiet that Prince Baudoin grew bored of seeking glory in the mountains and began to divide his time between the royal court and his home in Azzalle. His father, the Due de Trevalion, was quarreling with the King. Azzalle maintained a small but capable fleet of its own, and the Due was put out that the King had called upon Quintilius Rousse to scout the coastline instead of him.
    There was some merit to his grievance, for Azzalle lay almost in hailing distance of Alba, whereas Quintilius had needed to bring his fleet a fortnight's journey around Aragonia. That the joint venture strengthened ties with the House of Aragon, Due Marc knew full well; but Quintilius Rousse was not of royal blood, and the slight stung.
    I do not know if the King mistrusted the Due de Trevalion, on this score. I do know that he mistrusted his sister and her all-too-obvious ambition for her son, and was too canny to pass up a means of undermining her power when there was political gain to be had in the process.
    All of these things I heard and knew-indeed, Delaunay and Caspar Trevalion had a falling-out over the quarrel between House Courcel and Trevalion-but during this time they registered lightly on my consciousness. I was young and beautiful, and I chose my patrons from among the scions of Elua. I would be lying if I said all of this did not go to my head. There is a power in being able to choose one's patrons, and I learned to wield it well. Three times running, I declined offers from Lord Childric d'Essoms, until even Delaunay debated the wisdom of my judgment, but in this, I was the master of my art. When I acceded to his fourth offer-his final, his servant warned-his stored fury was prodigious indeed.
    That was the night he burned me with a red-hot poker.
    It was also the night he let slip his patron's name.
    Servants of Naamah are not the only ones with patrons, of course; in court society, nearly everyone is either a patron or patronized. It is only the services which differ. One of the reasons I loved Delaunay so well was that he was one of very few people I ever met who truly stood free of the system. I suppose it is one of the reasons d'Essoms hated him so.
    The other reason came clear with the name he so carelessly uttered. Always, without exception, it pleased Childric d'Essoms to press me to reveal Delaunay's motives. Where Solaine Belfours sought a myriad of reasons to punish me, d'Essoms needed only the one: Delaunay.
    When he used the poker, he knew he had gone too far. Fqr my part, I sagged in my bonds, splayed against the X-shaped cross he so favored, fighting to remain conscious and thinking how Delaunay would berate me for failing to give the signale . In truth, I hadn't thought he would do it. But d'Essoms had laid the poker against the inside of my thigh, and the stench of my own scorched flesh surrounded me. The poker had stuck when he pulled it loose, tearing skin.
    There was no pleasure in this, at least not in the way that anyone but an anguissette would understand it. Pain strung my body like a plucked harpstring, and behind closed eyes my vision was washed in red. I was in it and of it, at once the taut, quivering string and the high sustained note of it, a note of purest beauty uttered in the depths of torment. In a crimson haze, I heard as if from a great distance d'Essom's agitated voice and felt his hands patting my cheeks. Somewhere I could hear the echoes of a great clangor and knew he had thrown the poker from him in horror. "Phedre, Phedre, speak to me! Oh, for Blessed Elua's sake, speak to me, child!" There was anxiety in his tone, and caring; more than he ever would have confessed. I felt his hands patting me, chafing, rough tenderness, and