Kushiel's Mercy

“She bade me use it on her if need be. Use her own tactics against her. She reckons she won’t remember them by the time it’s needful.”
    “Sidonie.” I sighed. “Kratos, do me a kindness. Have you run of the City unheeded?”
    He nodded. “As far as anyone’s concerned, I’m General Astegal’s right-hand man. No one tells me what to do but her highness.”
    I handed him a letter. “Deliver this to Lieutenant Faucon. He and his men are lodging at the Jolly Whistler near the wharf. Tell him to get it to Alais as quickly as possible.”
    “What’s in it?” Kratos asked.
    “Everything we know,” I said grimly. “Our failure to find the gem, all the places that I know for a surety have been thoroughly searched. The fact that Sidonie’s bindings are failing. The fact that Queen Ysandre has pledged herself to a death-pact if Alais and L’Envers take the City. Is there aught I’ve forgotten?”
    Kratos shook his head. “Do you reckon any of it will help?”
    “I don’t know.” I raked a hand through my hair. “If they know about the death-pact, they can hold off on entering the City. But what then? Do they remain camped outside its walls while day by day, week by week, month by month, the madness grows? You saw the way the violence has escalated. How long until those trapped within the City begin to turn on one another?”
    He didn’t answer.
    I shrugged. “We do what we can, my friend, and pray.”
    Kratos delivered the letter and reported back to me to say it was safely done, and that Marc Faucon believed he could get it to Alais without trouble. Their guise as barge-hands had proved effective; indeed, the men who’d ferried Sidonie up the Aviline were reckoned heroes by the City Guard. Captain Gilbert would carry Faucon and his men to Yvens, from whence they would make haste to Turnone.
    I wished to Blessed Elua I could think of a way to get Sidonie back aboard that barge. I couldn’t. All vessels, incoming or outgoing, were being searched with ruthless thoroughness. I thought Marc Faucon stood a good chance of getting away with hiding a letter on his person. I didn’t think there was a chance of hiding the Dauphine of Terre d’Ange on an outgoing barge.
    Long ago, Phèdre had been smuggled into the city of La Serenissima aboard a ship, hidden in a chest with a false bottom large enough to conceal her. I’d mulled over the possibility. But fate hadn’t seen fit to place such an item at my disposal, and I could only imagine the suspicion it would provoke if mad Prince Imriel sought to commission a carpenter to build him one.
    Of course, if I was wrong about Faucon’s chances, it was all moot. That letter would damn me for a traitor if it was found.
    The following day, Kratos strolled the wharf and came to report that to all appearances, the barge had departed without incident. I breathed an inward sigh of relief. For the moment, at least, I was safe, safe in the knowledge that I’d done all I could think of to do, and safe from the accusation of treason.
    Then the Caerdicci idiot came.
    His name was Antonio Peruggi, a name that became etched in my memory for its eternal association with sheer stupidity. The details of his story, I learned later; he was a merchant-captain trapped by the blockade in Amílcar with a cargo of silk he was unable to sell during wartime. When the blockade lifted, he decided his cargo would fetch better prices in Terre d’Ange.
    And so he sailed to Marsilikos carrying silk and news out of Amílcar.
    Barquiel L’Envers had been right; he and Alais had done an outstanding job of keeping the news from the City of Elua. They held the river and they held the roads, and no one they deemed unworthy of absolute trust had been allowed to pass. Unfortunately, Peruggi had heard the rumors in Marsilikos and gotten it into his head that Ysandre would surely reward him for being the first to deliver the news. He’d purchased a horse and hired a guide to lead him to the City of Elua across the countryside, avoiding all of L’Envers’
    checkpoints.
    Stupidity, cunning, and greed.
    The first we heard of it was a summons from a Queen’s courier bidding me to Court. I thought mayhap I’d rejoiced too quickly at Marc Faucon’s successful escape and felt the blood drain from my face.
    “Why do you look so pale?” Phèdre asked. “Mayhap the news is good.”
    I forced myself to smile. “Mayhap.”
    “Not likely,” Joscelin observed.
    We arrived at the Hall of