#kl graphics

“The last living anguissette I know of was Iriel de Fiscarde of Azzalle, who went willingly into a marriage of servitude to the Kusheline Duc de Bonnel to avert war between their Houses. A matter of D’Angeline politics.”

“Ysandre questioned the Shahrizai. There was talk about that, at least; they were under a lot of suspicion. Didn’t one visit Melisande that night? After... after I did?” He tore off a hunk of bread, frowning. “Yes. But it was Persia, not Marmion. She needed to beg Melisande’s forgiveness, she said.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s true. But she did leave, and well before daybreak. The guard at the stairs backed her story, or Ysandre would never have let it go. He saw her coming and going.” Joscelin paused, then added, “Ghislain de Somerville said he saw her leave the audience hall in tears, after Ysandre was done questioning her. He said it was the only time he’d ever seen one of House Shahrizai cry.” “But not Marmion.” Deep in thought, I rapped my spoon against my empty stew bowl. “Well. Even if he did visit Melisande, the guard at the postern gate would have challenged him…”

It was the death of Edmée de Rocaille that had caused a rift between them, after the University, after Delaunay had been castigated by his father and formally taken his mother’s name. Hyacinthe and I had not been too far wrong; there was a longstanding bond between the Houses Rocaille and Montrève—strange, still, to think of Delaunay as aught but Delaunay—and Edmée had been a childhood friend to Delaunay in Siovale, betrothed to Rolande out of goodwill and because her family had ties to the royal House of Aragon. A good arrangement, it seemed; there was fondness between all of them, and Edmée understood that she was trading passion to be the eventual Queen of Terre d’Ange, mother of heirs. Then came her hunting accident. It was obvious that Rolande genuinely grieved for her, and obvious too that he was blind to the possibility that Isabel L’Envers had been involved, attributing Delaunay’s vehemence to a mix of grief and jealousy. It is a human failing, to attribute the best of motives to those we know the least, and the worst to those we love best; he loved too well, Rolande did, and feared to be lenient in his judgment and favor Delaunay because of it. He heeded Isabel, who flattered and bewitched him. And they were betrothed, for House L’Envers was powerful; betrothed, and wed.

Lest anyone should suppose that I am a cuckoo’s child, got on the wrong side of the blanket by lusty peasant stock and sold into indenture in a shortfallen season, I may say that I am House-born and reared in the Night Court proper, for all the good it did me. It is hard for me to resent my parents, although I envy them their naïvete. No one even told them, when I was born, that they gifted me with an ill-luck name. Phèdre, they called me, neither one knowing that it is a Hellene name, and cursed. When I was born, I daresay they still had reason for hope. My eyes, scarce open, were yet of indeterminate color, and the appearance of a newborn babe is a fluid thing, changing from week to week. Blonde wisps may give way to curls of jet, the pallor of birth deepen to a richness like amber, and so on. But when my series of amniotic sea-changes were done, the thing was obvious. I was flawed.

At his side rode Ysandre de la Courcel, his granddaughter, Dauphine and heir to the throne of Terre d’Ange. If this were an allegory play, they might have represented the Old Winter and New Spring, for Ysandre de la Courcel was as fresh and beautiful as the first day of spring. She rode sidesaddle on her dappled courser, clad in a gown the color of the first shoots of the crocus to poke through the cold earth, with a cloak of royal purple over it. A simple gold fillet bound her flowing hair, which was of the palest blonde, and her face was youthful and fair. On the street, D’Angelines hailed her with affectionate cries, but on the balcony, I detected a murmurous undertone. Ysandre de la Courcel was young, beloved and beautiful, heir to a kingdom; and notably unwed, neither betrothed nor promised. Though her face betrayed nothing, she had to be aware of the undertone, I thought, watching from above. Surely it must follow her everywhere she went. The emblem of de la Courcel, the House Royal, flew beside them; lower than the flag of Terre d’Ange, but preceding all others, as was custom. A silver swan on a field of midnight blue, the small party gathered beneath it made it look somehow forlorn. Ganelon de la Courcel’s line ended with Ysandre. His only son was dead, and his only brother, Prince Benedicte, had wed into the ruling Caerdicci family in La Serenissima to a woman who gave him only daughters. All these things, of course, I knew; yet somehow seeing it made it so. On that balcony, surrounded by murmurs, I watched the elderly King and the young Dauphine—no older than I myself-and I felt around me the eddies of hunger centered on a precariously held throne.

To describe Melisande Shahrizai is, as the poets say, to paint a nightingale’s song; it is a thing which cannot be done. She was three-and-twenty years of age at that time, though time never seemed to touch her, either way it flowed. If I say her skin was like alabaster, her hair a black so true it gleamed blue where the light touched it and her eyes a sapphire that gemstones might envy, I speak only the truth; but she was a D’Angeline, and this only hints at the beginning of beauty. “Melisande,” Delaunay said, pride and amusement in his voice. “This is Phèdre.” As I am D’Angeline and Night Court-born, you may be sure, I am not easily awed by beauty; but I am what I am, and there are other things that awe me. The Shahrizai are an ancient house of courtiers, and many, knowing little of the nomenclature of Terre d’Ange, suppose they are of Shemhazai’s lineage. It is not so. The namesakes among the descendants of Elua’s Companions are intertwined in such a way that only a D’Angeline scholar can comprehend them. I, who had studied such things, had no need of history to tell me House Shahrizai’s lineage. When I glanced up politely to meet the blue eyes of Melisande Shahrizai, her look went through me like a spear, my knees turned to water, and I knew that she was a scion of Kushiel.