Kushiel's Mercy

Audience to find Ysandre pacing in a fury, her color high and hectic. I glanced at Sidonie. She returned my gaze, but I couldn’t read her expression.
    Beside her, Kratos grimaced in warning.
    “Imriel.” Ysandre fetched up before me, pointing toward a trembling figure. “Do you know this man?”
    I looked at him. He was of average height and middle years, muscle running to fat.
    Brown hair, a forgettable face. He sported several ostentatious rings, and his chin was quivering. “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
    “His name is Antonio Peruggi,” Ysandre said in a taut voice. “He claims to have news from Amílcar. He claims that you and Sidonie conspired to bring the Euskerri to defeat Astegal. He claims you killed Astegal with your own hand, and that my daughter aided you. And he seems to think I will reward him for this knowledge.”
    I went ice-cold.
    “Who paid you to say that?” The words were out of my mouth before I knew I’d thought them. Fear and rage drove my body and wits; I found myself standing before Peruggi without realizing I’d moved. He gaped at me, uncomprehending. I struck his face hard enough to wrench his head sideways. “Who?”
    “No one!” Peruggi cried in broken D’Angeline. “It’s true! Everyone knows!”
    I struck him again. “Who?”
    “No one!” he cried again.
    “Do you know me?” I demanded. “Have you ever seen me before?”
    “No!” Peruggi said raggedly. “But I heard the tales—”
    I backhanded him across the face. “Was it Alais? Barquiel L’Envers?”
    “Enough.” It was Sidonie who spoke, her voice cool and commanding. “He speaks sedition,” she said to her mother. “I told you as much. I sense L’Envers’ hand behind it. It reeks of his tactics. This is some scheme to drive a wedge between us.”
    Ysandre considered her daughter’s words. “Is that so?” she asked the Caerdicci merchant.
    She sounded eminently reasonable. “Will you hold to your story or shall I have you tortured until you divulge the truth?”
    Antonio Peruggi shook his head. There was a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth where I’d struck him. “No,” he whispered. “Please, your majesty.”
    “So it was L’Envers,” Ysandre pressed.
    “Yes.” He gazed at me, eyes damp. “Yes, the Duc L’Envers.”
    “Sedition.” Ysandre lingered over the word. “You have sacrificed your rights here, Messire Peruggi, and I would be within mine to have you executed.” He flinched. She glanced at Sidonie. “What do you say?”
    “Let him be flogged.” Sidonie fixed the Caerdicci merchant with an implacable gaze.
    “Let him be put in stocks and given a public flogging, then turned loose to leave the City, his back bloody and bare, that all across the realm might know the price of speaking sedition in the matter of my husband.”
    Ysandre nodded. “So be it.”
    Ah, gods! I was torn between relief and horror. Elua knows, the man had spoken the truth, even if it was driven by greed and idiocy. My rage had been unfeigned, although no one would have guessed at its cause.
    But Sidonie . . .
    I wasn’t sure.
    Later that day, Antonio Peruggi was flogged in Elua’s Square, kneeling on sifted dirt denuded of its paving-stones, his bent head and helpless hands held in stocks, his thick, fleshy torso bare. I watched the Queen’s chastiser’s arm rise and fall, wielding the metal-tipped flogger. I watched it shred Peruggi’s skin as he jerked and moaned in the stocks, blood running freely down his back. I watched Sidonie’s calm, appraising gaze.
    My heart ached.
    When it was done, a watching crowd roared their approval. Members of the Queen’s Guard helped a stumbling Peruggi from the stocks, helped him to mount. Slapped his horse’s haunches and sent him toward the southern gates. I made my way unobtrusively to Sidonie’s side.
    “Are you still there, love?” I murmured under my breath.
    For the space of a few heartbeats, she didn’t answer; but at last her head moved in an imperceptible nod. Wherever she’d gone, it took a long time to come back. “Get out of the City,” she said in a low voice. “Save yourself before this truth breaks in earnest.”
    “Not without you,” I said steadily.
    A glance, one glance. Anguish surfacing in her dark eyes. Gods, I wished I could make it go away! Instead, Kratos shifted, placing himself closer to Sidonie. Ysandre’s suspicious gaze found us. I moved away.
    That night I couldn’t sleep. I gazed out