Songs of Love & Death (33 page)

Dying is an ugly business.

I am dying; Anafiel Delaunay, born Anafiel de Montrève. When I am dead, they will call me the Whoremaster of Spies.

This I know.

And I deserve it.

There is blood, too much blood. I cannot count my wounds. I only know it flows without ceasing, and the world grows dark before my eyes. Pain is everywhere. I failed, and we have been betrayed, attacked in my own home. Gods, there were so
many
of them! While I honored my oath, honored the request the Dauphine Ysandre made of me and turned my attention to intrigue beyond the shores of Terre d’Ange so that she might wed her beloved Alban prince, I missed a dire threat closer to home.

My beautiful boy Alcuin is dead or dying; I cannot tell. My vision is fading, and I cannot hear him. I told myself I was honoring my oath when I raised him and made him a member of my own household, but I lied to myself. I trained him and used him for my own ends, he and Phèdre both. Like a fool, I failed to see that the work didn’t suit him as it did her, that Alcuin took no pleasure in Naamah’s Service, in being an object of desire for the nobles of Terre d’Ange.

And yet he forgave me and loved me anyway—a love far greater than I deserved. I had forgotten that life could hold such sweetness.

Even so, I will fail him one last time here at the end. As the darkness grows thicker, there is only one man toward whom my thoughts turn—one man loved, lost, and eternally mourned.

My lips shape his name, and a faint whisper escapes me. “Rolande.”

I remember.

A
DAY BEFORE I
was to depart to begin my studies at the University of Tiberium, my foster-sister Edmée was nowhere to be found in the manor of Rocaille, but I knew her habits well enough to guess where she had gone, and I rode out in search of her.

Sure enough, a half hour’s ride from the manor, I spotted her mare tethered outside a lavender field, idly cropping grass. I tethered my own mount nearby
and plunged into the field on foot.

The sun was high overhead, hot enough that sweat began to trickle down the back of my neck. I plaited my hair into a braid and persevered, trudging past fragrant rows of lavender humming with honeybees until I came upon Edmée lying on her back in the dusty soil, arms folded behind her head, eyes closed, her face turned to the sun.

“Good day, near-brother,” she murmured without opening her eyes.

I sat beside her. “How did you know it was me?”

She shaded her brow with one hand and peered at me. “No one else would have thought to look for me here. You pay attention to things no one else does.”

I studied her lovely face, trying to gauge her mood. “Are you angry with me?”

“For leaving me here?” she inquired. “Or for agreeing to serve as my panderer to Prince Rolande?”

A sharp comment from Edmée was a rarity, and I felt myself flush with anger. “If you don’t want—”

“No, no!” She sat up with alacrity, reaching out to take my hand. “I’m sorry, Anafiel. You’re doing a service to the family, and I’m grateful for it. It’s just… I don’t know how I feel about being used to advance my father’s ambition.” She squeezed my hand, searching my eyes. “I need you to be
my
advocate, too. I trust you. If you think Rolande de la Courcel is someone I could come to love, I will believe you. But if you don’t…” She shook her head. “I cannot wed a man I could never love, heir to the throne or no.”

“Never,” I assured her, all traces of resentment fled. I had known Edmée de Rocaille since we were children. Even as a girl, she had a sweetness of spirit I had quickly learned to cherish, and she was truly as dear as a sister to me; dearer, mayhap, since I had no blood siblings of my own. “I promise, if I don’t find the Dauphin to be kind, generous, wise, warm-hearted, and perfect in every way, not a word of pandering shall escape my lips.”

Edmée laughed. “Well. You might allow him a minor flaw or two. He
is
allowed to be human.”

“Oh, no,” I said seriously. “Perfect in every way. For you, I insist on it.”

She eyed me fondly. “I’ll miss you.”

I leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I’ll miss you, too.”

Edmée tugged my hand. “Lie with me here a moment and look at the sky. When we’re apart and missing one another, we can look at the sky and remember that the same sun shines on us both.”

I obeyed.

The sky was an intense, vivid blue. The scent of lavender hung all around
us, so strong it was almost intoxicating, mingling with the scent of sun-warmed earth. The buzzing of the industrious honeybees was hypnotic, making me drowsy. Closing my eyes, I reveled in the feel of the sun on my skin, thinking how much I would miss Terre d’Ange. Between my childhood at Montrève and the seven years I’d been fostered at Rocaille, I’d lived all my life here in Siovale province. I couldn’t imagine calling anyplace else home.

The beginnings of a poem, a classic Siovalese ode to the landscape, teased at my thoughts.

“Do you think you’ll like him?” Edmée murmured. “Prince Rolande?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “They say he’s high-spirited.” I cracked open one eye and peered at her. “And handsome.”

Edmée smiled. “I hope he likes poetry.”

“I hope so, too.”

W
AS I TRULY
that innocent and carefree in those days?

Yes, I suppose I was.

Remembering hurts.

P
RINCE
R
OLANDE
DE
la Courcel, the Dauphin of Terre d’Ange, did not like poetry.

I discovered this in a Tiberian bathhouse, approximately one hour before the recital that was meant to be my introduction to the Dauphin.

My journey to the city of Tiberium in the allied nation-states of Caerdicca Unitas had been long, but uneventful. I was accompanied by my tutor, Leon Degrasse, a gifted poet in his own right and a skilled diplomat who had long served the Comte de Rocaille. Once we arrived in Tiberium, he quickly secured appropriate lodgings, hired a small staff to see to our needs, enrolled me in the University’s curriculum, and arranged the aforementioned recital, down to choosing the verses I was to recite and the elegant poet’s robe I was to wear.

I’d developed an affinity for poetry early, and was reckoned something of a prodigy, even by D’Angeline standards. My youthful body of work spanned a dozen styles, many in the classic Siovalese mode, many others aping the work of poets before me, and a few seeking to find my own voice. Messire Degrasse gauged it best if I stuck to the classical forms, and so it was that an hour before the event, I luxuriated in the ministrations of the most skilled barber in Tiberium’s most prestigious bathhouse, a warm, damp linen towel draped
over my face, running through verses in my mind while the barber combed and trimmed my hair, oiled my skin, and buffed my nails with a pumice-stone.

There I heard them enter, but I paid no heed until one spoke. Folk were always coming and going in the bathhouse.

“Oh, damn my luck!” a man’s voice said in Caerdicci, then switched to D’Angeline. “Can’t you pull rank for once, Rolande? I’d my heart set on a rubdown and a trim before this damned recital.”

Beneath the towel, I startled.

“Isn’t the point of this whole Tiberian experience to teach me to understand the common man’s concerns?” a good-natured voice replied in D’Angeline. “Behold, the suffering of an ordinary citizen, forced to wait his turn!”

Others laughed. The first man grumbled. “There’s no time to wait, your highness. Are you quite sure we must attend?”

“Sadly, yes.” The prince’s good-natured voice turned dry.

“Politics,” someone else said.

“Politics,” the prince agreed. “Tonight’s prodigy is a foster-son of House Rocaille, hand-picked by the Comte, father of the allegedly fair Edmée, possessor of strong ties to the royal line of Aragonia. And if I must suffer through this tedium, so must my loyal companions.”

“You
know
what it’s going to be!” the other complained. “Elua have mercy, how often have you suffered through the like at Court, Rolande? Some calf-eyed Siovalese lordling swanning around in fine silk robes, his hair strewn about his shoulders, droning on about spring-fed mountain lakes, dreaming of meadows and tall, nodding flowers, oh yes, fulsome heads bent tenderly on their slender stalks…”

Laughter rang in the bathhouse.

I gritted my teeth, fighting a rising tide of humiliation and anger.

“I know, I know.” The prince’s voice was sympathetic, and there was the sound of a hand clapping on a shoulder. “Courage, Gaspar! We shall endure.”

As soon as their footsteps receded, I sat upright, flinging the damp towel away from me and scrambling for my clothes. “For your trouble,” I said to the barber, fumbling for my purse and pressing coins into his hand. He stared after me as I fled the bathhouse, pelting through the streets of Tiberium and arriving at our rented villa, sweating and furious.

“Messire de Montrève!” Leon stared at me wide-eyed as I tore through my clothes press, ignoring the fine robe of green silk laid out on my bed. “What in the world is wrong?”

“A change of plans,” I said grimly, hauling out a plain cambric shirt and my
hunting leathers. They would have to do. I donned them in haste, leaving the laces of the vest undone, yanking at the fine fabric of the shirt to rend it. I slung my sword belt with its gentleman’s blade around my hips, fastening the buckle.

“Anafiel, no!” My tutor sounded horrified. “The Senator—”

“May be appalled,” I finished, twining my long hair into a plait and knotting it at the nape of my neck in a rough soldier’s club. “But he is merely our host, Messire Degrasse. It is the Dauphin I seek to impress… or at the least, not to bore senseless.” I glanced in the mirror. “Trust me?”

After a reluctant moment, he nodded.

“Good.”

A
H, GODS
!

You were so ready to dismiss me out of hand, Rolande. And I was so unwilling to be dismissed. Mayhap it would have been better if I’d let it happen, if I hadn’t been so fierce and stubborn and insistent.

Better for you, better for me. Better for Edmée, to be sure. I loved her as a sister, and I will never cease to regret what befell her.

And yet…

I loved you. I loved you so very, very much. And does not Blessed Elua himself bid us, “Love as thou wilt?”

I did. Gods help me, I did.

I
N THE STUDY
next to the dining salon, I paced and ran through lines of the piece I’d chosen in lieu of Messire Degrasse’s selections, aware of the murmur of voices exchanging pleasantries in the background, of the sound of wine being poured as the prince and his guests fortified themselves against the tedium to come.

The thought fed my righteous indignation, and I channeled my ire into the performance. When Senator Vitulus introduced me, I stepped forth to a polite smattering of applause.

It died quickly as they took in my unlikely appearance.

I identified Prince Rolande by the choice couch accorded to him and the description I’d been given. His black hair hung loose save for two slender braids at either side caught back in a silver clasp. Strong brows were arched over dark blue eyes. He had a generous mouth made for smiling, but at the moment his well-shaped lips were parted in surprise.

I locked gazes with him.

“Shame, my lord!” I uttered the opening words of the poem in a low, agonized tone. The Dauphin’s high cheekbones flushed with unexpected anger, and a shocked whisper ran around the room. “Oh, shame, shame, a thousandfold shame that you should dishonor your father’s name thusly!”

One of the prince’s companions half rose from his couch; the prince stilled him with a gesture, his gaze not shifting from mine. His mouth had closed and the line of his jaw was taut. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Messire Degrasse wince.

Ignoring everyone but the prince, I took a deep breath and continued. “Ah, my lord! Will you dishonor even my death? For I say to you, there is no honor in this vengeance you have taken this day, in the battered and torn flesh of one who was a Prince of Troy; bold and shining Hector slain and dragged behind your victorious chariot, rendered fodder for scavengers by your ignoble deed—”

The hard line of the prince’s jaw eased. On his couch, he leaned forward, his eyes lit with interest and curiosity.

I recited the piece in its entirety without ever breaking our locked gazes. The others took it for a conceit, a part of the performance; a story out of an ancient Hellene tale, the ghost of Patroclus rebuking his beloved Achilles, with me casting the Dauphin in the latter role. Indeed, I’d meant it to be nothing more.

And yet it was.

I’d had my work admired and praised, but I had never known the sheer exhilaration of captivating a reluctant listener. I’d chosen this piece for Prince Rolande, and Prince Rolande alone. I was reciting it to him, and him alone. It forged a bond between us. As his face broke into a delighted grin, my heart soared. I let my voice take on a fiercer edge, and I reveled in the sparkling approval I saw in his eyes.

When I finished, the prince was the first to applaud, taking to his feet. His companions followed, shouting praise. I bowed deeply, feeling as though I’d run a long race.

Prince Rolande came toward me. “Well done, Anafiel de Montrève. I’d no idea poetry could be so stirring.”

I bowed again. “My thanks, your highness.”

“Call me Rolande.” His mouth quirked. “I am meant to be but a humble student here.”

I gazed at his face, the proud, high-boned features. “Call me Anafiel. And at the risk of seeming importunate, I daresay
humble
is a word seldom applied
to you, my lord Rolande.”

He laughed, extending one hand. “Ah, mayhap! Any mind, well done and well met.”

I clasped his hand, and felt his grip harden in the subtle way that men do when taking one another’s measure. His hand was firm and callused, clearly more familiar with a sword hilt than a scholar’s stylus. I narrowed my eyes at him ever so slightly, and tightened my own grip, shifting my feet unobtrusively to settle into a Siovalese wrestling stance.