Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [22]
Phèdre knew, of course.
There was little that escaped her attention. Still, she was angry at herself for being careless, and I found myself reluctant to discuss it. I begged her not to speak to the Royal Army Captain of it, reckoning it not worth his trouble. In that, she acceded, saying only a quiet word to Joscelin and Ti-Philippe. We did not speak of it that day, not until the next day, as we rode toward the City and she drew the details of the encounter from me.
"Isidore's son," she murmured. "I wonder who his mother is."
"I don't know." I shook my head. "It didn't seem prudent to ask."
"D'Aiglemort was reckoned a hero until he turned," Ti-Philippe commented. "There's any number of L'Agnacite lasses might have lit candles to Eisheth on his behalf."
Gilot laughed. "You ought to know, chevalier!"
At that, Phèdre smiled. There are a good many children in the area surrounding Montrève who bear a certain resemblance to the last of Phèdre's Boys, although not so many in the years since Ti-Philippe took up with Hugues. "Well, Isidore d'Aiglemort didn't strike me as a man given to casual dalliance. There must have been somewhat in it if he was willing to acknowledge Maslin as his heir, at least to Lombelon."
"There's always somewhat in it, my lady!" Ti-Philippe sounded aggrieved. "You of all people should know."
Joscelin cleared his throat.
"Well, yes." Phèdre glanced at her Cassiline consort with amusement. "But betimes more than others."
Despite all the years they have been together, Phèdre and Joscelin have never wed; nor, I think, will they. He was her consort, declared and acknowledged, but he did not share her title. It had to do with the vows he swore as a Cassiline Brother. Although he had broken all of them save one—the one that mattered most—he would not exchange them for the vows of marriage. There was somewhat in it that his sense of honor could not abide. This, Phèdre understood in him.
"Well, that's true enough," Ti-Philippe said, mollified. "Still, whoever the lad's mother was, why blame Imriel? No one forced d'Aiglemort's hand to treason. He was offered a gambit to seize the throne from a young, untried Queen, and he took it."
I was silent, listening to them argue the matter with half an ear. I understood full well why Maslin of Lombelon hated me. We were both the sons of treasonous parents. The difference was that he was landless and poor, laboring in the orchards that would have been his inheritance, while I strolled through them and claimed ownership; a Prince of the Blood, clad in silk and velvet, with the Queen's Champion and a squadron of the Royal Army at my side.
"He's bitter," I said aloud. "Do you blame him?"
Phèdre gave me one of her deep looks. "For being bitter, no. For drawing a weapon on you, yes."
I shrugged. "A pruning hook."
"You can do a lot of damage with a pruning hook," Hugues offered cheerfully, "I could."
"But he didn't," I pointed out.
I thought about it for the remainder of the journey. Once we were within the walls of the City, we dismissed our Royal Army escort. I thanked the men by name, having memorized them as Phèdre had taught me to do, and gave a purse to the Captain to share among them. They saluted me with a good will, and I was glad of that, at least. Any tales they carried to Barquiel L'Envers would be benign. I'd always gotten on well with soldiers, given half a chance.
Therein lay the challenge.
I thought more about Maslin.
He might be a friend, if he knew me. If he gave me a half a chance. Why it mattered, I could not say, except that we shared the heritage of a tainted lineage. And because I had envied him; admired him. He could not know that in some ways, I would gladly trade places with him; that I would happily surrender my claim to Lombelon and the other estates in exchange for