Head hanging, I opened my eyes and the wash of red receded, fading from my right eye and dwindling to a mote in my left. Seeing my lashes lift, Childric d’Essoms gave a cry of relief, undoing my bonds and easing my limp body down as it slipped loose of the whipping cross. Cradling me in his arms in the middle of his trophy room, he shouted for his physician.
I knew then that he was mine.
As I had guessed, Delaunay was not so pleased, though he withheld comment upon my return. He ordered me confined to bed and brought in a Yeshuite doctor to attend me. Although they are shunned in many nations, they are made welcome in Terre d’Ange, for Blessed Elua was fathered by the blood of Yeshua, which we do not forget. The doctor cut a solemn figure with his grave face and the long, curling sidelocks of his people, but his touch was gentle and I rested more comfortably when he had applied a poultice to draw the poisons and re-bandaged my thigh. It discomforted him to touch me in so intimate a fashion, which made me smile. "I will come in two days to examine her," he said to Delaunay in his formal, accented D’Angeline. "But I bid you inspect the wound on the morrow, and if there is an odor of mortification, send for me without delay."
Delaunay nodded and thanked him, waiting courteously until the doctor was ushered from my room. Then he turned his dry look on me and raised his eyebrows.
"I hope it was worth it," he said curtly.
I did not take offense, for I knew it was only that he cared for me. "You may be the judge, my lord." I squirmed in my bed, rearranging pillows to sit propped until Delaunay swore softly and aided me, his careful movements at odds with his tone.
"All right," he said, unable to prevent a gleam of amusement from lighting his eye at my dissembling. "There is a pile of love-gifts from Childric d’Essoms amassing in the hallway in atonement for this injury, and if he doesn’t stop soon, next it will be a brace of oxen or a copy of the Lost Book of Raziel itself. Now what information do you have that is so valuable it is worth turning yourself into a braised rack of lamb?"
Content to have his full regard, free of judgment, I relaxed against my cushions and gave it straight out. "Childric d’Essoms answers to Barquiel L’Envers."
To watch Delaunay’s face at such a time was like watching a storm cross the horizon. Duc Barquiel L’Envers was full brother to the long-dead Isabel.
"So d’Essoms is the conduit for House Envers' ambitions," he mused aloud. "I wondered who kept the torch alight. He must be behind L’Envers' posting to the Khalifate. You told him nothing?"
His glance was swift and cutting. "My lord!" I protested, sitting upright and wincing at the pain.
"Phèdre, I’m sorry." Delaunay’s face changed as he knelt at my bedside and grasped my hand. "This information you give me is a pearl of great price, truly, but it is not worth the pain you have suffered for it. Promise me that next time you will give the signale."
"My lord, I am what I am, and it is for that you bought my marque," I said reasonably. "But I did not think he would use the poker, truly." Seeing him take ease from my words, I pressed the moment’s advantage. "My lord, who was Isabel L’Envers to you, that her enmity should pursue you beyond the grave?"
If I thought to catch him in a weak moment, I was mistaken; his features took on their stern look, which I loved. "Phèdre, we have spoken of this, and it is best you do not know why I do as I do. Mark my words, if Childric d’Essoms truly thought you knew aught you were not telling, he would not be so gentle with you; and his gentleness leaves little to commend it."
And with that, he kissed my brow and took his leave, bidding me to sleep and be healed.
Happily, I have good-healing flesh, legacy of Kushiel’s Dart. When the Yeshuite doctor returned, he pronounced the ugly burn clean of any trace of festering and gave Delaunay a salve to spread on it that would aid the growth of new skin and help to prevent scarring. I saw adepts in Valerian House whose skin was thick with welted scars, but that was never the case with me. Delaunay always kept in stock a supply of unguents and balms to spread on such weals as I received; though I may say that none ever worked so well as the Yeshuite’s salve.
Since I could not practice my art, I spent time with Hyacinthe.
Even as my station had changed, so had his. He had at long last convinced his mother to part with some of her hard-won gold to augment his own, and they now owned the building on Rue Coupole. It was no less small and squalid than before, but it was theirs. They lived as they always had on the lower floor, and let rooms to an interminable stream of Tsingani families who passed through the City with every horse fair and circus that followed the trade routes.
His mother had grown older and dwindled in size, but the fierce glare of her deep-set eyes had not diminished. I marked how the itinerant Tsingani paid her respect; and I marked how they avoided Hyacinthe, though I never spoke of it to him. Among the Tsingani, he was half-D’Angeline and shunned, but among D’Angelines, he was the Prince of Travellers and the denizens of Mont Nuit continued to pay good coin to have him read their palms.
For his part, Hyacinthe had not given up his dream of finding his mother’s people and claiming his birthright as her son; but these were not such Tsingani as passed the City’s boundaries and came to dwell for a time within it. They had done so once and once only, he told me-for so his mother had told him-and lost their fairest daughter to the wiles of D’Angeline seduction. Now only the poorest of companies entered the City gates, while the flower of Tsingani nobility wandered the earth, following the Lungo Drom, the long road.
So Hyacinthe believed, and it was not for me to disabuse him of this notion; perhaps, indeed, it was true. For now he seemed well-enough satisfied to remain the undisputed Prince of Travellers in Mont Nuit, and I was glad of it, for he was my friend. I never told him, though, that I had chosen his name as my signale. I loved Hyacinthe dearly, but he would have crowed like a cock to hear it, and I could not abide that much of his vanity all of a piece.
"So Childric d’Essoms is in the L’Envers' pocket," he said when I told him my news, and whistled through his teeth. "That is news, Phèdre. What does your Delaunay make of it?"
"Nothing." I made a sour face. "He gets closer-lipped with age, and would feign protect us with ignorance. Though I think sometimes he tells Alcuin things he would not have me hear."
We sat at the kitchen table, and I had thrown off my sangoire cloak, which I wore everywhere those days, for the air was stifling and smelled of cooking cabbage. His mother poked and muttered at the stove, ignoring us. It was a reassuring constant in my life. Hyacinthe grinned at me and tossed a silver coin in the air, catching it in one hand and making it walk across his knuckles, then disappear. He had learned the trick from a street-corner illusionist in exchange for two weeks' lodging. "You are jealous."
"No," I said, then; "Yes, perhaps."
"Has he bedded the boy?"
"No!" I exclaimed, offended at both the notion and his use of the word "boy," when Alcuin was no younger than he himself. "Delaunay would not do that!"