"My lady," Delaunay said, in that same gentle tone, "it is not safe for you to be here, nor for us to speak of…this matter."
She laughed, a trifle bitterly. "It is the best I could manage. I have the Queen’s quarters, you know, since my mother died. There was a Queen, once, some hundred years gone, who was enamored of a player. Josephine de la Courcel. She had this passage built." She crossed to the mirror-door, and pressed the hidden catch to open it. I could see Delaunay’s brows rise a fraction. "My lord Delaunay, I am alone in this, with no friends to aid me and no way of knowing who I can trust. If you honor your vow, will you not give me counsel?"
Delaunay bowed, as he had not done when she’d drawn back her hood. Straightening, he returned the ring to her. "My lady, I am at your bidding," he said softly.
"Come with me, then." She stepped behind the mirror, and I could see her no more. Without hesitation, Delaunay followed. The mirror closed behind them, once more blending seamlessly into the wall.
Cramped and uncomfortable, I remained crouching beneath the chair for some minutes, until I was certain they had gone. Then, pushing the pasteboard shield out of the way, I crawled out of my hiding place and glanced in the mirror to see if I looked as dumbstruck as I felt. I did.
Taking a deep breath, I gathered my composure and steeled myself to find the western doors and deal with the next confrontation.
This one came in the form of a very irate Cassiline Brother. I had seen Joscelin white with rage; this time, waiting with Rogier Clavel’s coach, he was apoplectic.
"I will not" he began in a tight voice, "have my vows compromised because you-"
"Joscelin." Weary with the exhaustion that prolonged tension can bring, I cut him off. "Is not your order vowed to protect the scions of Elua?"
"You know it is," he said uncertainly, unable to guess my intent in asking.
I was beyond caring. "Then hold your tongue and ask me nothing, because what I have seen this day might endanger House Courcel itself. And if you’re fool enough to mention it to Delaunay, he’ll have both our heads for it." With that, I climbed into the coach, settling myself for the homeward journey.
After a moment, Joscelin gave the coachman the order and joined me. His glare was no less furious, but it held something new besides: curiosity.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Delaunay returned some time in the small hours of the night, and was quiet and pensive the next morning. I more than half thought Joscelin would betray my disappearance to him, but I was wrong. He performed his exercises with a particularly single-minded focus, heedless of the cold air, the twin blades of his daggers weaving elaborate steel patterns.
I stood bundled in my warmest garments and shivered on the terrace, watching him. When he was done, he sheathed his blades and came to speak with me.
"Do you swear to me that what you ask in no way dishonors my vows?" he asked in a quiet voice. All of that, and he wasn’t even winded; I was hard put to catch my breath just standing in the cold.
I nodded. "I swear it," I said, trying to keep my teeth from chattering.
"Then I will say nothing." He raised his mail-backed hand, one finger extended. "This once. If you will swear not to deceive me again while you’re in my protection. Whatever I may think of it, I’d not keep you from honoring your pledge to Naamah, Phèdre. I’m pledged to Cassiel to protect and serve, and I ask only that you respect my vows as I do yours."
"I swear it," I repeated. I hugged myself against the cold. "Shall we go in now?"
There was a blazing fire laid in the hearth in the library, which was always one of the warmest rooms in the house, so it was there that we gathered. There was no sign of Delaunay, but Alcuin was reading at the long table, tomes and scrolls strewn across its surface. He gave a brief smile as we entered. I sat down opposite him and peered at his research, seeing references in several different languages and by as many names to the Master of the Straits.
"You think to solve the riddle of him?" I raised my eyebrows. Alcuin shrugged and grinned at me.
"Why not? No one else has."
"You mean Delaunay?" Joscelin asked, surveying the shelves. He took a volume out and pondered it, shaking his head. "One thing’s certain, this is a Siovalese lord’s library. He’s got everything in here but the Lost Book of Raziel. Can Delaunay actually read Yeshuite script?"
"Probably," I said. "Do all Siovalese treasure learning?"
"There was an old Aragonian philosopher who would cross the mountains every spring to visit our manor," Joscelin said, putting the book back and smiling at the memory. "While the cherry trees were in blossom, he and my father would spend seven days solid arguing whether or not man’s destiny is irrevocable. Then he would turn around and go back to Aragonia. I wonder if they ever settled it."
"How long since you’ve been home?" Alcuin asked curiously.
As if he’d been caught out at something, Joscelin’s formal manner returned. "My home is where duty bids me."
"Oh, don’t be such a damned Cassiline," I grumbled. "So are we to take it you didn’t succeed, as a fellow countryman, in prying any further information out of Delaunay?"
Joscelin paused, then shook his head. "No," he admitted ruefully. "My eldest sister would know. She once charted every one of Shemhazai’s lines, every House, Major and Minor, in Siovale. She could tell you in three minutes whose line ends in a mystery." He sat down and scratched absently beneath the buckles of his left vambrace. "Eleven years," he added softly. "Since I’ve seen my family. We swear our vows at twenty. I’m allowed a visit at twenty-five, if the Prefect gauges I’ve served well my first five years."
Alcuin whistled.
"I told you it was a harsh service," I said to him. "And what about you? What can you add to the mystery of Anafiel Delaunay these days?"
I had tried to be mindful of Thelesis de Mornay’s advice, but that had pertained to Delaunay, not Alcuin, and the banked jealousy smouldered beneath my words. If I’d not had enough questions before, I had a score more after what I’d seen yesterday. What was Delaunay to House Courcel, that Ganelon would use him; and how? What did Ysandre de la Courcel want of him, and what was the "certain matter" she wished to discuss? What oath had he sworn, and upon whose ring?
If Alcuin had no way of knowing what questions roiled around my mind, he knew well enough from whence my hostility came. But he merely sat and regarded me with his grave, dark eyes.
"You do know," I said in sudden comprehension. "He told you." My anger flared, and I shoved at the books nearest me. "Damn you, Alcuin! We always, always promised we would share with the other what we learned!"
"That was before I knew." Quietly, he moved the most brittle of the scrolls out of my reach. "Phèdre, I swear to you, I don’t know the whole of it. Only what I need to aid him in this research. And I promised only not to tell you until your marque was made. You’re near to it, aren’t you?"
"Will you see?" I asked him coldly.
They were the words he had asked Delaunay. I saw him remember, and flush, the color as visible as wine in an alabaster cup. He’d known I knew; he hadn’t known I’d seen. But it wasn’t in Alcuin to evade the truth, and blushing or no, there was no guile in his eyes as he held my gaze. "You were the one who told him, Phèdre. He might never have let it happen, if you hadn’t put it in his thoughts."
"I know. I know." My anger died, and I held my head in my hands and sighed. Joscelin stared at us, blinking and perplexed. It was no easy thing, to follow a quarrel between students of Anafiel Delaunay’s. "I saw too well how you loved him, and for all his cleverness, Delaunay was as simple as a pig-herder where you were concerned. He’d have let you starve your heart out in his shadow before he saw. But I didn’t think it would hurt so much."