"It was too soon to be sure, then," I said diplomatically. There is a dreadful Eiran tale about an ancient Queen running a footrace great with child; I spared her that, and was glad I’d not told her about Eamonn’s head, preserved in quicklime.
"Will Quintilius Rousse wed her?" Ysandre inquired.
I translated for Grainne, who laughed.
"I do not think it matters to her, my lady," I replied.
"That’s fine," Ysandre said to the Royal Tailor, waving one hand dismissively. "Make the adjustments." She looked consideringly at me. "What of you, near-cousin? Will you wed your Cassiline?"
One does not refuse to answer a direct question from one’s sovereign, but glancing at her face, I saw that she was genuinely interested. "No, my lady," I said simply. "Anathema or no, Cassiline vows bind for a lifetime. Joscelin betrays them every day he is with me, and that is his choice. To wed would be a mockery, and that he cannot do, nor I ask."
Ysandre, I think, understood; her ever-present Cassiline guards stared straight ahead, and what they thought, I cannot guess, nor did I care.
"Will you return to Naamah’s Service?" she asked then.
"I don’t know." I busied myself with assisting Grainne as she divested herself and dressed in her own garb, handing her kirtle over the tailor’s folding modesty-screen. It was one of those questions that lay between Joscelin and I, and one we had avoided. I faced it now, in part, meeting Ysandre’s gaze. "You have been kind, your majesty, and I have assurances of hospitality from good friends." It was true; Gaspar Trevalion had promised I should never want for aught, and Cecilie and Thelesis as well. "But if I am rich in friends, I am penniless in pocket."
This, too, was true; and a considerable fortune awaited me as a Servant of Naamah. There were other reasons, too, but those were harder to voice. Poverty, everyone understood.
"Oh, that!" Ysandre laughed, beckoning to a page. "Summon the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Tell him it’s regarding Lord Delaunay’s estate."
He came with alacrity, a lean and grizzled man, clutching sheaves of paper. Ysandre had dismissed the Royal Tailor by then, and given Grainne leave to go, which she took, bending one last look of quiet amusement my way.
"Go on," Ysandre bid the Chancellor, reclining on a couch and sipping at a glass of wine. I sat in a chair and gazed with perplexity as he cleared his throat and shuffled through his papers.
"Yes, your majesty…regarding Anafiel Delaunay’s estate, the town-house in the City, and all its holdings…it seems these were purchased from the judiciary by one…" he peered at a parchment, "…Lord Sandriel Voscagne, who deeded it to…well, it doesn’t matter, we can begin proceedings for its reclamation at your insistence, my lady Phèdre, or the Exchequer will recompense you the full amount of the sale…"
"Why?" I interrupted out of pure bewilderment.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer looked at me over his papers, startled. "Oh, you didn’t…your majesty…well, of course, my lady, his lordship Anafiel Delaunay filed the papers some time ago, naming you his heir, you and one…" he consulted a sheet, "…Alcuin nó Delaunay, deceased. By her majesty’s proclamation of your innocence, our seizure is now unlawful, and we must by rights recompense you."
I opened my mouth and closed it, in my shock picturing the house as I’d last seen it, a dreadful abattoir, Delaunay dead and Alcuin dying. "I don’t want it," I said, shuddering. "Not the house. Let Lord Sandriel or whomever keep it. If I am owed…" It was hard to credit. "If I am owed, well, then, fine."
"Yes, of course, quite," the Chancellor said absently, shuffling through his papers. "Recompense in full." Ysandre sipped her wine and smiled. "And then there is Montrève, of course," he added.
"Montrève?" I echoed the word like a simpleton.
"Montrève, in Siovale, yes." His gaze came into focus as he found the document for which he was searching, tapping it smartly. "With his disinheritance, upon his father’s death, it passed to his mother, and thence to Lord Delaunay’s cousin, Rufaille, who is, sadly, listed among the dead of Troyes-le-Mont." The Chancellor cleared his throat again. "A codicil in the will of the Comtesse de Montrève specifies that if he should die without issue, the estate would revert to her son Anafiel Delaunay or his heirs. And that, it seems, is the case, my lady."
Although his words clearly formed sentences, I could make no sense of them. He might as well have been speaking Akkadian, for all I understood.
"What he is saying, Phèdre," Ysandre said succinctly, "is that you have inherited the title and estate of Comtesse de Montrève."
I stared blankly at her. "My lady will have her jest."
"Her majesty does not jest," the Chancellor of the Exchequer said reproachfully to me, and rattled his sheaf of papers. "It’s all very clear, and documented in the archives of the Royal Treasury."
"Thank you, my lord Brenois," Ysandre said graciously to the Chancellor. "Will you draw up the papers of investiture?"
"Your majesty." He bowed deeply, hugging his sheaves to him, and hurried out of the royal presence.
"You knew," I said to Ysandre, my voice sounding strange to my ears. She took a sip of wine and shook her head.
"Not about Montrève, no. That only came to light after the lists were published, and Lord Brenois determined that Rufaille de Montrève had designated no heir. You may refuse, of course. But it was Delaunay’s mother’s wish that the estate return to her son, or his line. And he chose you, you and the boy Alcuin."
"Delaunay," I whispered. He had never told me. I wondered if Alcuin had known. "No. I’ll…I accept."
"Good," Ysandre said simply.
Afterward the matter was concluded in her mind, and Ysandre consulted with me on some small choices of jewelry and hairstyle for her wedding-day; what I said, I have no idea. My mind was reeling, dumbstruck. She was Queen of Terre d’Ange, Montrève was naught to her. A tiny, mountainous Siovalese holding with nothing to offer but a score of men-at-arms and a decent library, it was interesting only in that it had begotten Anafiel Delaunay, whom her father had loved.
So it was, to her. To me, named by the ancient Dowayne of Cereus House for what I was, a whore’s unwanted get, it was somewhat else indeed.
When she was done with me, I went in search of Joscelin.
"What’s wrong?" he asked in alarm, looking at my flushed face, my eyes bright as with fever. "Are you all right?"
"No." I swallowed. "I’m a peer of the realm."
Chapter Ninety-Five
Thus did it come to pass that I attended the wedding of Ysandre de la Courcel and Drustan mab Necthana, Queen of Terre d’Ange and Cruarch of Alba, as the Comtesse Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève.
I kept Delaunay’s name, out of pride. What I had, he had given me; much of what I was, he had made me, under the name he had chosen, and not that to which he was born. I never forgot, never, that it had been he who, with two words, turned my deadliest flaw to a treasure beyond price.
Ysandre rescinded her grandfather’s old edict against Delaunay’s poetry and, after twenty-odd years, his verses were once again spoken openly, charged with all the passion and brilliance of his youth.
At the wedding-feast Thelesis de Mornay would debut her epic verses, in praise of bride and groom alike. But at the ceremony itself, she recited one of Delaunay’s poems.
I daresay the whole world knows it now; it was a rage of fashion for months afterward in the City, for lovers to quote the verse of Anafiel Delaunay to one another. Then, no one had heard it, and I wept at the final words.
I,and thou; our hands meet and a world engendered.