Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [173]
"As opposed to the insistence of the Queen of Terre d'Ange?" Alais inquired.
"Yes," he said.
We all sat in silence for a moment. I didn't like it, but I understood it; and in the end, it was Alais' choice. If she aspired to rule Alba one day, either on her own or at Talorcan's side—who knew my young cousin harbored such ambition?—she was getting her first real taste of Alban statecraft.
"All right," she said at length. "I'll say naught to counter the notion." She gave the Cruarch's heir a sudden, dazzling smile. "Thank you, Talorcan.”
I couldn't be sure, but I thought he flushed beneath his warrior's markings. "You're welcome, Alais. I'm sorry. I didn't know you were so scared.”
So the matter was decided. Having delivered the Cruarch's answer, Talorcan departed with promises to return the following month after the babe's birth, although not before giving me a most welcome gift—a letter from Phèdre.
It was old, having been written during the early months of autumn and sent…well, I wasn't entirely sure from whence it had been sent. Of a surety, it had spent long months on the road. According to the letter, Phèdre and Joscelin had elected to travel to Illyria to pay a visit to an old friend, and mayhap conduct some business on behalf of the Queen there.
There was indeed an old friend in Illyria—Kazan Atrabiades, Commander of the Illyrian Merchant Fleet and former pirate. However, I sincerely doubted that Joscelin harbored any deep desire to visit with him. Kazan Atrabiades had been Phèdre's rescuer, once; and her lover, too. With the aid of the Ban of Illyria, Kazan had smuggled her into La Serenissima in time to prevent the assassination of Queen Ysandre. It was Joscelin who had done the actual preventing, but without Kazan, neither of them would have been there.
That was another of the many stories whose details I'd learned from Gilot.
Strange to think, if it hadn't been for an Illyrian pirate I'd never met, my mother's scheme might well have succeeded. I'd been a babe of six months' age; neither Sidonie or Alais had been born. At that time, my aging father was still Ysandre's heir.
And I…
I might be the King of Terre d'Ange by now.
The thought made me shudder.
It made me think, too, about what Dorelei had said of the Maghuin Dhonn; how it might drive one mad to know too much, to see too many possible futures. I was glad my life was free of such burdensome gifts. Merely surviving without doing harm seemed chore enough.
At any rate, I didn't believe the letter; or at least not wholly. They might have gone to Illyria, but I suspected it was a starting point and not an end. Wherever they were, I suspected, very strongly, it had to do with my theory about whatever they'd been plotting at Stormkeep and the pages of the lost Book of Raziel.
That suspicion, I kept to myself.
If you've need of aught, Phèdre had written, speak to Ti-Philippe. He knows Montrève's business. Take the best of care of yourself and Dorelei and the babe-to-come. May Blessed Elua hold and keep you until our swift return.
Well and so, I thought; Ti-Philippe knows. That was good. He'd been Phèdre's man since before I was born. Cheerful and irreverent as he was, he was loyal to the bone, and I thought he'd sooner die than divulge her secrets.
It saddened me a bit to think that they wouldn't be here to attend the birth. It made me feel older, too. I was a man grown, and soon to be a father. It was heartening to know they trusted me to handle it without their assistance. Still, it would have been a comfort to have them here.
Especially after Urist's discovery.
'Twas a few days after Talorcan had departed. Urist begged a word of me without saying why. His face was grim as he led me across the fields, past the ollamh's stone hut and into the woods. Pale green leaves were budding on the beech trees, the oaks were beginning to bear fuzzy catkins