Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [35]
At that I squirmed, knowing it was all too true. "Where did he learn it?" I asked, casting out a question to distract her. "Delaunay, I mean. Where did he learn the arts of covertcy?"
It worked. She frowned, thinking. "I don't know," she said at last. "I've wondered at it, too. What he taught us, Alcuin and me…" Phèdre shook her head. "It's not taught in any academy nor army, not in Terre d'Ange. I cannot think he learned it here. That leaves—"
"Tiberium," I whispered.
"Tiberium," she agreed, favoring me with an absentminded smile. "He attended the University there. But who, and why? It's no part of the official curriculum." She gazed into the distance, remembering. "I asked Maestro Gonzago about it, once."
"What did he say?" I had never met the Maestro Gonzago de Escabares, but I knew his name. He was an Aragonian historian who had been one of Delaunay's teachers at the University of Tiberium. He had also been chosen by my mother as an unwitting messenger, many years later.
"Nothing," she said. "He disavowed any knowledge."
"Did you believe him?" I asked.
Phèdre smiled at me again. "No," she said. "Not for a minute."
I had other visitors, too. Alais came almost as often as Phèdre, and I was glad of her company. We played cards together and she chattered freely of Palace gossip. For a young girl, she overheard a great deal.
Most of it was inconsequential. Ysandre was a strong ruler; even I, who found it hard to love her, was willing to admit it. For as much as her early reign was fraught with challenge and upheaval, she had since presided over great peace and prosperity. Her marriage to the Cruarch of Alba lends strength to both realms.
And yet it was also the greatest abiding source of contention, for in Alba, the lines of succession were matrilineal.
So it had been from time out of mind among the Cruithne. There had been efforts to change it—indeed, Drustan's throne was usurped in one such. He reclaimed it at the battle of Bryn Gorrydum, triumphing over Maelcon the Usurper as the true and rightful heir of the old Cruarch, his uncle.
It was a sticking point, and a hard one. In accordance with Cruithne tradition, Drustan's heir should be his sister's son; and it was in his heart that it would be a betrayal of his people to do aught else. There was reason for it—Maelcon the Usurper was the old Cruarch's son. To violate tradition now would undermine the legitimacy of his own claim. Although Drustan had made no formal declaration, in Alba, his nephew Talorcan, the eldest son of his sister Breidaia, was widely regarded as his heir.
D'Angelines held a different view.
It sat ill with them to give the succession of Alba over to a complete and utter stranger, a Cruithne with no blood ties to Terre d'Ange. And it sat doubly ill because my cousin Sidonie, Drustan and Ysandre's daughter, had been, from the moment of her birth, the acknowledged Dauphine of Terre d'Ange. It was a double standard, and one that did not favor Terre d'Ange.
If the peers of the realm were willing to accept Sidonie as Ysandre's heir, half-Cruithne though she was, they wanted somewhat in return. They wanted Drustan to name an heir with D'Angeline blood, preferably Alais. They feared that if he didn't, Alba's influence in Terre d'Ange would grow, while our influence in Alba would dwindle.
"What is it your mother wants?" I asked Alais one day, curious.
She sat cross-legged at the foot of my bed, her small face serious. "Truly? She agrees, although she's not willing to say it publicly, not yet. She wants Father to name me his heir."
"Do you think he will?" I asked.
Alais shook her head. "No," she said somberly. "I don't think he can." She paused, furrowing her dark brows. "They're not like us, are they, Imri? Their women don't light candles to Eisheth."
"No," I agreed. "They don't."
We were silent a moment, both of us pondering the mysteries of procreation, of which we had no firsthand knowledge. It was one of Eisheth's gifts to the women of Terre d'Ange—they did not conceive ere they chose, lighting