Kushiel's Dart - Jacqueline Carey [131]
"No more than that?"
"No more than that for the Duc de Morhban." She toyed with her glass and smiled idly in my direction. "My other reasons are my own."
Her smile went through me like a spear. I shuddered, and knew not why.
THIRTY-FOUR
When poets sing of the winter upon whose threshold we stood, they call it the Bitterest Winter; indeed, so it was, and I pray never to know one more bitter. But as the days grew ever shorter, we knew naught of what was to come. Betimes I have heard people bewail the fact that our destinies are shrouded in mystery; I think, though, that it is a blessing of sorts. Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by untasted.
And mayhap there are those who would claim 'twere best were it so, but I cannot believe it. I am D'Angeline to my core, and we are Elua's chosen, descendants of his seed, born to the soil where his long wandering ended and he shed his blood for love of humankind. So I think, and betimes I believe it. I cannot do otherwise. Though I think they would have laid long odds on my chances in Night's Doorstep, I survived the Bitterest Winter, and I must believe, as survivors do, that there is reason in it. Were there not, the sorrow would be too much to bear. We are meant to taste of life, as Blessed Elua did, and drink the cup of it to the dregs, bitter and sweet alike.
But these beliefs came later, and are the fruit of long thought. Then, life was sweet, spiced only with apprehension, and tempered only by the gall of petty jealousy.
In the days before the Longest Night, my coming assignation was much on my mind, and I fretted over the preparations until Delaunay, exasperated, sent word to Melisande, who replied-by courier, for once-that she would see to all that was needful for my attendance at the Duc de Morhban's Midwinter Masque. I remembered the cloth-of-gold gown she had sent for my assignation with Baudoin de Trevalion, and was comforted in part; in another part, I was no less uneasy in mind, for the fate of Prince Baudoin remained fresh in my memory.
Delaunay, for his part, was amused by my worries, when he paid them heed, which was seldom. Whatever the game in which he was immersed, Melisande Shahrizai played no direct part in it by his reckoning, and there was naught he wished of my other patrons. The game, it seemed, had moved to another level, one to which I had no access.
With snow in the mountain passes, there came the resumption of Skaldi raiding parties, and the Allies of Camlach began to ride once more under the Duc d'Aiglemort's banner. This we heard, and in slow, creeping whispers the name Waldemar Selig surfaced in the salons of the City: a rumor still, nothing more, a name heard too oft to be ignored on the lips of fur-clad raiders who rushed Camaeline villages with axe and torch, sometimes escaping with loot of grain and stores, sometimes dying at the end of a D'Angeline sword.
These stories Delaunay heard with interest, cataloguing them in a record he kept; and another story too, from Percy de Somerville, of how the King had commanded him to send the Azzallese fleet against the island of Alba. Ganelon de la Courcel had not forgotten how the usurping Cruarch-whose name, it seemed, was Maelcon-and his mother had conspired to aid House Trevalion in treason.
As a reward for his loyalty, the King had deeded the duchy of Trevalion to the Comte de Somerville, who gave it over to his son, Ghislain, to rule in his name. And on the King's order, Ghislain de Somerville had set the Azzallese fleet to gain Alban shores, but the waves rose up four times higher than a man's head, and after several ships capsized, Ghislain de Somerville gauged failure to be the better part of wisdom, and shouted orders for a retreat, staying behind on his flagship until the last man still afloat could be rescued.
I am no fool; I marked at hearing it how Alcuin continued to pore over