Naamah's Blessing - Jacqueline Carey [235]
“Bao…” I whispered. “You needn’t do it.”
He gave me a look, his dark eyes glinting. “One should not lie to poets, Moirin,” he said. “After all, that’s their job.”
And despite everything, I had to laugh.
EIGHTY-THREE
Matters in Terre d’Ange proceeded apace.
A date was set for Prince Thierry’s official coronation, but before it was to take place, Parliament decreed that the issue of House Barthelme’s perfidy should be addressed in the court of law.
I attended the trial and testified to what I knew, although I took no pleasure in it.
For my father’s sake, I was grateful that Rogier Courcel, the Duc de Barthelme, was found innocent of any legal wrongdoing, guilty only of the naked opportunism of which Thierry had accused him.
For Desirée’s sake, I was grateful that his younger son Aristide was found innocent and blameless in the whole affair. She seemed fond of the lad, and he of her.
Claudine de Barthelme and her eldest son Tristan were another matter.
They were found guilty of the charge of suborning treason. Influenced by a heartfelt plea from the young Dauphine, who harbored conflicted feelings for what had been her foster-family for a good two years, the court did not accord them the sentence of death they deserved, or even the lesser sentence of exile, but merely sentenced them to a stay of ten years in imprisonment and stripped them of their titles and holdings.
The Duchese de Barthelme heard her sentence read aloud with unbowed pride, her chin held high.
Her pretty young son Tristan looked stricken throughout, and I could not help but pity him a little.
Only a little.
I had not forgotten how skillfully he manipulated Desirée’s affections, nor how cunning he was in seeking to exploit the poor chambermaid when I had spied upon him. He had done his mother’s bidding, abetting her in her schemes. He may have been too young to fully grasp the magnitude of his treason at the time, but he was old enough to know better now—and he had kept his mother’s secrets.
Thanks to Prince Thierry’s inclination toward clemency, the sailor Edouard Durel, who had confessed to treason, was not sentenced to death, either. He, too, was given a prison sentence, and barred from ever sailing again under a royal charter. True to his word, Balthasar Shahrizai discreetly saw to it that his wife and daughter would be cared for, with Thierry’s tacit approval.
It was a relief to have it done.
I kept the candle that Sister Gemma had given me, but I did not light it. After all his years of unsubtle hints, it was Bao who now proved reluctant, suggesting that we wait until journeying to Alba.
“Are you reconsidering?” I asked him.
He gave me a puzzled look. “Reconsidering what?”
“Us,” I said softly. With the city buzzing with gossip over the annulment of the betrothal between Desirée and Tristan, and the Duc de Barthelme initiating proceedings to annul his own marriage, I couldn’t help but think of it. “Me. The entire notion of building a family together.”
“No!” Bao’s puzzled look turned to shock. “Gods, no, Moirin! It’s just…” He groped for words. “I’ve been dreaming of it again. Of the stone doorway, and… and bears. Or a bear. A very, very large one. And I think…” He took a deep breath. “I think I would like to know that your bear-goddess accepts me before we do this.”
“What happens if She doesn’t?” I asked.
Bao was quiet a moment. “I don’t know,” he said at length. “But I think…” He pressed one hand to his chest. “I think her spark inside me would die. That’s what would have happened to you, isn’t it?”
“Aye.” I hadn’t thought it through before, and I felt a little sick. “And if it did…”
“I would die, too,” Bao said quietly. “So I would rather wait, and be sure that if I must leave you a widow, it is not a pregnant one.”
My eyes stung. “At least it would leave me a part of you!”
“One I’m not sure I could bear to lose.” He brushed