Kushiel's Dart

over the pad. "Others may err, but not Alcuin no Delaunay. Well, and if you think you are berating yourself for the failure, how much the more so do you guess Delaunay does for failing to discern that you despised the service of Naamah? I tell you, you should speak with him, Alcuin."
    I thought for a moment that he would soften, but his lips hardened, and he gave another brief shake of his head, withdrawing from conversation. Undismayed, I busied myself about his room, moving the washing bowl, folding bandages, corking the doctor's salve.
    "Now, which one of the Stregazza is Therese?" I asked, when I gauged that he was no longer paying attention to me. "Is she the firstborn? Prince Benedicte's daughters are House Courcel, I thought."
    "They're of the Blood by birth, like Lyonette de Trevalion, but Therese married a Stregazza cousin. Dominic." I had caught his interest; his voice ran a little ahead of his thoughts. Alcuin had always been better than I at royal genealogies. "A bad match, by all reckoning; he's a minor Count, but then she was second-born. First is Marie-Celeste, who wed the Doge's son. It's her son stands to inherit La Serenissima. Once Prince Rolande died, I wager Dominic Stregazza thought to poise his family near the D'Angeline throne, though."
    "And found his path blocked by House L'Envers," I mused. "How disappointed he must have been. But why would Delaunay care who killed Isabel L'Envers? By all counts, she was his enemy."
    Alcuin shrugged, lifting up one hand and letting it fall. "That, I don't know."
    "Perhaps it was her he loved, and not Edmee de Rocaille," I suggested. "Perhaps her betrayal lay not in causing the death of Prince Rolande's first-betrothed, but in becoming his second."
    His eyes widened. "You can't think it, Phedre! Delaunay would never condone murder. Never! And why would he honor the Prince's promise concerning me, if it were true?"
    "Guilt?" I suggested. "He grew angry enough when I mentioned Rolande's name, the other day. Perhaps we have had it wrong all the while, and this feud between Delaunay and Isabel L'Envers de la Courcel was not enmity, but a love affair turned deadly bitter."
    Alcuin gnawed his lower lip, mulling over my words while I concealed a smile. I had proposed it only to distract him, but it was too plausible to ignore. "You're mad to think it," he repeated, visibly distraught, color risen in his pallid cheeks. "It isn't in Delaunay to so dishonor himself, I know it."
    "Well." I sat back and folded my arms, favoring him with a long glance. "You'll never know, if you won't speak to him. And you've a better chance than I of getting the truth out of him, by a far shot."
    We were trained by a master, both of us; it was only seconds before Alcuin realized what I had done and laughed. It was his true laugh, free and unfettered; the very one that had greeted me the first day I had arrived at Delaunay's house. "Ah, no wonder they pay again and again for your charms! I laid my price before Vitale Bouvarre like a farm-wife in the market, while you coax secrets from their tongues and leave them none the wiser. Would that I'd had half your gift for it."
    "I would that you had, too," I said ruefully. "Or found at least half the pleasure in it that I do."
    "Even half might kill me." He smiled, quieting, and ran a fold of my gown through his fingers. "Your pleasures are too strong for my taste, Phedre."
    "Talk to him," I said, giving Alcuin a kiss and rising.

TWENTY-SIX
    Healing of all kinds maintains its own pace, but there was no putting off the visit of Rogier Clavel, the lordling from Barquiel L'Envers' entourage. For one long day prior to our assignation, I thought Delaunay would cancel the contract, but at the last, he came home with a mercenary in tow: a man with the unlikely name of Miqueth, an Eisandine tauriere who had grown bull-shy after an incident which left a scar gouged into his left temple.
    My new guard had parlayed his skill with weapons into a lucrative sideline, and Delaunay gauged him reliable enough. He was slight and dark, with brows that drew together in a perpetual half-frown, and while I had no doubt of his skill with a blade, I was surprised to find how greatly I missed Guy's silent presence. We rode together in Delaunay's coach and Miqueth grated on my nerves with his restlessness.
    My assignation with Lord Clavel was at the Palace itself. To my relief, my guard remained blessedly silent as we traversed its marbled halls, contenting himself