Kushiel's Dart - Jacqueline Carey [139]
Holding the coffer carefully, I dismounted from my perch and set to studying it. The rich wood was dimmed beneath a thick layer of dust, and the edges of the fretwork fuzzy with it. I blew gently upon it, raising a cloud, then examined the lock.
There are merits to befriending a Tsingano; Hyacinthe had long since taught me to pick simple locks. I fetched two hairpins from my room, bending the end of one into a tiny hook with my teeth. Manipulating them delicately, listening all the while for the sounds of the household rising, I soon caught the tumbler inside the lock and sprang open the latch.
An odor of sandalwood breathed into the still air of the library when I raised the lid of the coffer. Melisande had spoken truly; it held a slim volume, silk-bound and untitled. Opening the book, I saw page after page of verse in Delaunay's hand, younger and more painstaking than his current fluid scrawl, but clearly the same. Smoothing the pages open, I read the verses written in faded ink.
O, dear my lord . . .
Let this breast on which you have leant
As close in love as a foe in battle,
Unarmed, unarmored, grappling chest to chest,
Alone in the glade
Where birds started at our voices,
Laughter winging airborne, we struggled
For advantage, neither giving quarter;
How I remember your arms beneath my grip,
Sliding like marble slickened;
Your chest pressed to mine
Heaving;
As our feet trampled the tender grass
Your eyes narrowed with tender cunning
And I unaware
Until your heel caught my knee; I buckled,
Falling,
Vanquished; O sovereign adored,
To be pierced ecstatic by the shaft of victory;
Sweet the pain of losing,
Sweeter this second struggle . . .
O, dear my lord,
Let this breast on which you have leant
Serve now as your shield.
Melisande had not lied about the book. If Delaunay had written these lines, surely he had written them for Rolande de la Courcel, who had died at the Battle of Three Princes. Rolande, whose word Delaunay had upheld, when he went back for Alcuin. Rolande, whose wife Delaunay had branded a murderess, whose father the King had ordered Delaunay's poetry anathematized.
No wonder he hadn't dared banish him.
A small sound caught my ear, and I spun about to see Alcuin standing stock-still and open-mouthed. Too late, I closed the book.
"You shouldn't have done that," he said quietly.
"I had to know." I closed the coffer and latched the lock. "It's what Delaunay taught us to do, after all," I added, returning his gaze defiantly. "Help me put it back."
He hesitated, but the long bond of tutelage between us won out; Alcuin came over to give me a hand up, steadying me while I returned the coffer to its dusty resting-place. We replaced the other books and the tall chair, erasing the evidence of my trespass, then listened. All was quiet.
"So." I folded my arms. "Delaunay was Prince Rolande's beloved. What of it? Rolande de la Courcel has been dead fifteen years and more; why does House Courcel still traffic with Delaunay, and award him couriers and Cassiline Brothers and the like? And why does he make peace with the Duc L'Envers, who is brother to his equally dead enemy, the Princess Consort?"
Alcuin's gaze looked past me. "I don't know."
"I don't believe you."
He looked straight at me, then. "Believe as you choose, Phedre. I made Delaunay a promise, too. Who told you? Melisande?" I didn't answer, and he frowned. "She had no business. Would that I could tell the difference between amusement and ambition in that woman. I'd sleep easier for it."
"What I now know," I said, "half the peers of the realm knew already, and I think no one is anxious to kill for it. Isabel de la Courcel had her revenge, when she had his verses banned. Thelesis de Mornay told me Delaunay might have been the King's Poet, if matters hadn't fallen out differently. It's what he became instead that is dangerous to know."
"And do you suppose Melisande Shahrizai