Kushiel's Dart - Jacqueline Carey [78]
This time, I blushed.
"A true anguissette, hm?" he mused. Melisande Shahrizai leaned over and whispered in his ear. Listening, he raised his eyebrows, smiled, then lifted her hand and kissed it passionately, looking into her sapphire eyes with nigh-doting affection. "You are without peer," he murmured to her, and waved his hand again in our general direction. "If you would serve my will, go now, and make merry. Your Prince commands it."
"Yes, my lord," Delaunay said dryly, motioning us to precede him. His tone was wasted on Baudoin, but I caught a gleam of amusement on Melisande's face as she watched us go.
Unnerved by the encounter, I let myself become isolated in the crowd and accepted a glass of cordial from a pretty fosterling. I drank it at a gulp, setting the glass back on the tray. I had not eaten, and the cordial burned sweetly down my throat. The girl stood in obedient attendance, just as I had. She was perhaps thirteen, near to the age of taking her vows; fair-haired and delicate, a true night-blooming flower. I touched her cheek and felt her shudder. This was what it was to be a patron, to have that power. I was discomfited by it, and moved away, feeling her lifted gaze at my back, wondering.
Delaunay had ordered us to watch and listen, but I was hard-put to concentrate. I moved among the crowds, pausing to converse here or there, trying to discern the patterns beneath the merriment, but my veins were afire with the cordial I had drunk, and the music and candles and scent of flowers made my head swim. Prince Baudoin's friends and supporters abounded, declaring in carelessly loud tones that they should call for a public referendum, that the King should appoint Baudoin his successor, that Parliament should intervene. None of the talk was new and none seemed more urgent nor serious than it had a year ago.
Growing weary of circulating and wishing to avoid the advances of a certain persistent Chevalier who was plaguing me to dance with him, I slipped out of the Great Hall and made my way to a seldom-used pleasure niche on the first floor that had served as a refuge sometimes in my childhood.
A flicker of lamplight and a man's beseeching voice stopped me before entering. I drew back into the shadows.
"I have sent word to you five times! How can you be so cruel to refuse me?"
There was desperation in the tone and I knew the voice. It was Vitale Bouvarre.
Alcuin's voice, cool and distant. "Sir, I did not think to see you here. You are not known to be a friend of Prince Baudoin's."
"Nor am I known to be an enemy!" After the alarm in Vitale Bouvarre's voice, there was a pause. "The Lady Shahrizai pays for information on the Stregazza, and the Stregazza pay for talk of House Trevalion. Where is the harm in it? I am a trader, sweet boy." His tone turned wheedling. "Why will you not deign to ply your trade?"
I heard a rustle and a scraping sound; Alcuin had shaken off his touch. "I am a Servant of Naamah, not a galley-slave, sir. Seven times I have agreed to your contract, and seven times you have stinted your offering!"
Another pause. "I will make you a patron-gift." Bouvarre's voice trembled. "Any amount you name! Only say it."
Alcuin drew a deep breath and his voice turned ardent as he answered. "Enough to make my marque. And the answer to Delaunay's question. That is my price, sir."
At this, even I caught my breath sharply. There was a long silence,