Kushiel’s Dart

Chapter Sixty-Three

In the morning, we went to see Manoj.

The horse-fair at the Hippochamp lasts for three days, and this was officially the first. The first day is for looking, the Tsingani say; the second for talking; the third for trading. While this is true, it is also true that by the third day, a handful of canny gadje nobles would have gotten word that the horse-fair was ongoing and come to buy, so the greater part of the trading would be all but concluded by the third day.

Hence, the deceptively casual undertone to the browsing and conversation, which was in fact deadly earnest. To see Manoj, we had to take part in it, for Hyacinthe was not so naive as to present himself and expect a welcome.

Instead, we strolled around the paddock surveying the horses. Joscelin, who had been entrusted with our funds-Mendicant or no, anyone wearing Cassiline daggers was the least likely target among us-had brought out the necklace Hyacinthe had provided. I knew it well, for it had been his mother’s, an elaborate affair of gold coins strung together.

It provoked not a few whispers, that a Didikani woman would dare sport a Tsingano gall-I understood those words quickly enough, for "half-breed" and for coin-wrought jewelry-but it achieved its purpose. One of Manoj’s many nephews spotted us in short order, and came over to lean on the woven saplings of the paddock fencing to talk with Hyacinthe. When he learned of our desire to contract horses and men alike to travel west for a lucrative trade, he brought us to meet with Manoj.

We met with the King of the Tsingani in his tent, which was brightly striped and well appointed. I’d been expecting another ancient, like Ganelon de la Courcel, I suppose, but I had forgotten how young the Tsingani wed. It was hard to gauge his age-they weather quickly, on the Long Road-but I think him not much over sixty. He had fierce, staring dark eyes, iron-grey hair and a resplendent mustache.

"You want to take my people and my horses west?" he demanded. "Who are you to ask such a thing? What is your kumpania?"

Those are not, of course, the words he used; like the rest, Manoj spoke in the Tsingani dialect. Some of it, I could follow. Some I gathered from the general nature of the exchange. Some I did not understand, and Hyacinthe translated later. What I recount now is as I recall it, woven out of whole cloth like a Mendicant’s fable, only closer to the spirit of memory.

"I seek a handful of brave men and good horses to make a great bargain, Kralis" Hyacinthe said smoothly.

Manoj beckoned one of his nephews near and whispered in his ear, then shooed him away. "Tell me of this trade."

Hyacinthe bowed. "The Queen’s Admiral and his fleet are docked at the Pointe d’Oeste. I have knowledge that they will be in need of horses."

It was true, actually; if Quintilius Rousse was going to take a single ship across the Straits, he would need to have a handful of men well armed and mounted to ward the remainder of the fleet and secure their beachhead. Kusheth was neutral territory at best. But none of us would divulge these details.

"I have not heard this," Manoj said dismissively. "Who are you to come by this knowledge? You have not given me your name or your kumpania."

"I come from the City of Elua, and I know many people there and hear many things." Hyacinthe held the patriarch’s gaze. "I am Hyacinthe son of Anasztaizia. I am born to your kumpania, Grandfather."

A middle-aged Tsingano woman dropped an earthenware cup in the corner of the tent. It fell with a dull thud, unbroken. Otherwise there was no sound. Manoj blinked wrinkled eyelids under ferocious brows.

"Anasztaizia’s son?" he said slowly, wondering. "Anasztaizia had a boy? A son?"

"I am her son," Hyacinthe said simply.

After that, pandemonium broke loose. It began with Manoj shouting for one of his nephews, a nervous man of around forty, who ran into the tent and threw himself upon his knees before the Tsingani patriarch. It ended with cries and embraces and Manoj weeping openly as he drew Hyacinthe up to kiss him on both cheeks.

I pieced the story together later, for it was at this point that I lost the ability to follow what was being said. It seemed that the nephew Manoj had summoned-Csavin, his name was-had run afoul of a Bryony House adept the one and only time the kumpania of Manoj had entered the City of Elua.

Bryony is the wealthiest of the Thirteen Houses, for wealth is their specialty, in all its forms, and there are those to whom nothing is more titillating than money. If one stripped the staff of the Royal Treasury, one would find a full half of them bear Bryony’s marque, for her adepts' acumen is legend.

Bryony is also the only House whose adepts are willing to wager for their favors.

And they almost never lose. Not even to Tsingani.

I had believed-as Hyacinthe had-that his mother had fallen enamoured of a D’Angeline, for that was the story she had told him. It was out of love, to protect him from a more sordid truth; she had lost her virtue, her laxta, because her cousin Csavin had laid it as a wager upon the table with a Bryony adept, believing he could not lose. Tsingani know a thousand ways to cheat the gadje.

He had lost.

Not only had he lost, but in the face of the Dowayne’s Guard of Bryony House, he had paid his debt with coin that was not his, deceiving his cousin-Manoj’s daughter, who was young and desiring of adventure-into meeting with a patron who paid good coin to Bryony House for the pleasure of seducing a Tsingani virgin.

It appalled me as much as almost anything I have ever heard, for it hit close to home for me. If she had been D’Angeline and not Tsingani, it would have been a violation of Guild-laws; but the Guild covers only D’Angelines, leaving Tsingani and other noncitizens to their own law. It was a violation of Tsingani law, and Csavin had forfeited all his possessions and rights to Manoj, living as a pariah among them. Still, I think Bryony House is liable for heresy, for what was done to Hyacinthe’s mother violates the precept of Blessed Elua, which applies to everyone, D’Angeline or no. Naamah’s service is entered willingly, or not at all.

As for Hyacinthe’s mother, she was Tsingani, and bound by their law. She was vrajna and outcast, in sorrow and tears, never to be redeemed.

But now there was a son, Hyacinthe, and even if he was a Didihani half-breed, he had been raised as a true Tsingano, and he was the son of Anasztaizia, whose loss Manoj had never ceased to mourn, his only daughter, his only child, his precious pearl in the swarming mass of children his brothers and sisters had begotten, whose mulo had beseeched him on the winds since her death a month gone and more.

Prince of the Tsingani. Prince of Travellers.

The remainder of the day passed in a whirlwind as our campsite was struck and our things brought to join with Manoj’s kumpania, where trade and celebration blurred into one. Joscelin and I trailed in its wake, bewildered and half-forgotten as Hyacinthe was drawn into an extended reunion with cousins and great-aunts and uncles he’d never known existed.

Manoj kept Hyacinthe close by him, drawing out the tale of his childhood and youth in Night’s Doorstep, eking out the details of his mother’s life. He was proud to hear of her fame as a fortuneteller, pounding his chest, proclaiming that no one had ever had the gift of the dromonde as Anasztaizia had had it, among all the women of her line.

I understood enough of this to raise my eyebrows at Hyacinthe, who shot me a fierce warning glance, shaking his head. It was true, what Delaunay had said: The dromonde was the province of women only. For a man to practice it was vrajna, forbidden.

When night fell, the fires blazed, and the Tsingani drank and played, their music rising in wild skirling abandonment. Hyacinthe joined them, playing his timbales, dancing with the unwed women; there must have been a dozen of them vying for his attention. I sat on the outskirts and watched his white grin flash in the firelight.

So I sat, when an old crone hobbled over to me, wizened as one of last winter’s apples, bent under the weight of the gold-bedecked galbi she wore.

"Good evening, old mother," I said politely.

She looked at me and cackled. "Not for you, is it, cftavi? For all you’ve the evil eye to give, with that red mote you bear. Know you who I am?" I shook my head, bemused. She pointed to her chest with a gnarled forefinger.

"Abhirati am I, and I was Anasztaizia’s granddam. Her gift comes through my blood." She turned her pointing finger on me, taking me back to Hyacinthe’s mother in her kitchen. "You’ve no drop of Tsingani in your veins, chavi, for all the lad may claim it. Don’t you know the dromonde can look backward as well as forward?"

"What do you see, then?"

"Enough." The old woman laughed wickedly. "Pleasure-houses, indeed. The lad spoke that true, didn’t he? Your mother was a whore, sure enough. But you’re no by-blow, no, not you."

I watched Hyacinthe surrounded by his newfound family. "Better if I had been, mayhap. My father had a name, but he didn’t give it to me. My mother sold me into servitude and never looked back."

"Backward, forward, your mother had no gift to look either way."

Abhirati said dismissively. "His mother did." She nodded at Hyacinthe. "What do you suppose she saw, eh? The Lungo Drom and the kumpania, eh, or somewhat else, a reflection in a blood-pricked eye?" She gave another cackle. "Oh, what did my granddaughter see, for this son of hers? Think about that, chavi."

With that, she tottered off, bony shoulders hunching with laughter. I frowned after her.

"Trouble?" Joscelin asked, materializing at my side.

"Who knows?" I said, shrugging. "I think I’m fated to be targeted by Tsingani fortunetellers. I’ll be glad when we’re on our way. Do you think Manoj will give Hyacinthe the horses and escort he asked for?"

"I think Manoj would give him just about anything," Joscelin said wryly. "Including Csavin’s head on a platter, if Hyacinthe hadn’t granted him forgiveness." That scene, with many drunken tears, had taken place earlier. "I just hope he remembers why we’re here."

"I’m not sure we’re all here for the same reasons," I said softly, watching the Tsingani revel, Hyacinthe among them. "Not anymore."

The second day is for talking.

Manoj had a half-dozen likely young horses, three- and four-year-olds, hunters for the most part, glossy coats polished to a high gleam, that would do nicely for patrolling rough borders. And he had too a half-dozen young men in his kumpania eager for adventure, willing to ride across the wilds of outer Kusheth on the promise of great trade, returning by slow wagon.

It was important that Hyacinthe appear astute; the haggling went round in circles, until I thought I would die of tedium. Then the horses were examined one by one. We rode each one of them around the Hippochamp, like hundreds of others, tearing about in spring madness, shouting and laughing, hooves pounding, a race without victors or losers, while the smiths glancing up from the dozen small forges that had sprung up on the outskirts of the field and grinned through soot-stained faces.

"Pulls up a little lame, this one does," Hyacinthe said breathlessly, slowing to a trot under a stand of willows along the river, greenish-yellow buds emerging on their long trailing branches. We had lost Joscelin somewhere in the aimless race. "I think Grandpa-ji’s testing me."

"Maybe so," I murmured. The exertion of the ride had brought out a touch of color on his face. "Hyacinthe…you know you’re not bound to go to Alba. If you can help us get to Quintilius Rousse…that’s all you pledged to Ysandre, after all."

"I know." My words had sobered him. Hyacinthe gazed across the Hippochamp, the field bright and gay with his people. "I didn’t…Phèdre, I didn’t know they’d accept me like this. I just wasn’t sure. I didn’t know it would be like this."

"No." I looked at him with pain in my heart. "But it is. And you are free to choose, Prince of Travellers."

There was no need to spell out the fact that choosing the Tsingani meant losing me; our friendship, what it was, what it might grow into. Or not. The promise of one kiss exchanged in a busy tavern. We both knew it. And knowing, we rode silent back to Manoj’s campsite, where the old patriarch delighted to hear that Hyacinthe was clever enough to have spotted the game-legged horse in the lot.

On the third day, they trade. But our trade was done, or as good as; our journey was set, with a half-dozen of Manoj’s great-nephews ready to go forth with us on the morrow. I do not recall their names, but they were eager and bold, with dark flashing eyes that looked sidelong at me, elbowing each other in the ribs at the thought of being on the Long Road with a whore’s daughter who had no laxta to lose, only the fear of the evil eye keeping open expression of it at bay. That, and Joscelin’s hands straying toward his dagger-hilts when he caught them at it.

And true enough, on the third day, a handful of Kusheline nobles arrived, strolling the new grass of the Hippochamp, looking smug at having the cleverness to steal a march on their compatriots and skim the cream of the early Tsingani horse-crop.

We watched them with amusement, sitting on folding stools outside the tents of Manoj’s kumpania. Some of the women had warmed to me enough to share with me the secrets of the Hokkano, the myriad ways the Tsingani had devised to part D’Angeline nobles from their precious coin. It was something to see, the way the proud, defiant Tsingani turned obsequious; helpful and unctuous, palms extended, silver lies flowing from their tongues. Out of kindness, I will not mention the name of the Kusheline Marquise-though I know it, make no mistake-who gave over a bundle of jewels and coin to one of Hyacinthe’s female cousins, who swore that burying it under the birthing-spot of an all-white foal would remove the curse it surely held. Suffice to say that when the Marquise returned to the spot-neatly marked by a stake and a snow-white ribbon-three days hence, she and her escort would unearth an empty packet in an empty field.

"It is a kindness to liberate such things from the possession of a fool," Hyacinthe’s cousin said complacently upon her return, drawing the bundle from her bodice and fingering its contents. "Of course," she added, "even among the gadje, there are those it is unwise to attempt." She pointed with her chin, Tsingani-style, across the field.

I followed her gaze, and that was when time stood still.

Four or five of them, no more, and a handful of the House Guard; riding slowly and gazing about, talking and laughing among themselves beneath the pale-blue sky. Fine mounts, as ever, and the devices that set them apart, long robes of night-black overlaid with ornate gold patterns, intricate and Eastern, always different, the Shahrizai, with long, rippling blue-black hair, faces as pale as carven ivory, set with sapphire eyes.

There were three men, buying war-horses. And two women.

One of them was Melisande.

I had forgotten-how could I?-how beautiful she was. Damnably and deadly, her flawless face, like a star among diamonds. Small and insignificant, a Didikani outcast girl among Tsingani, I stared across the Hippochamp at her, hot and cold shivers running across my skin, turning me to stone, hatred, and ah! Blessed Elua help me, yearning. No one else, not even Delaunay, knew me as she did, knew what it was to be what I was. What I am, and ever would be.

Every movement, every shift in the saddle, every slight change of pressure on the reins; I felt it, on my skin, in my flesh and bones.

And on the heels of it came terror, for I was here not as a Tsingani half-breed nor a Servant of Naamah nor victim of Kushiel’s Dart, but as Phèdre nó Delaunay, ambassador of Ysandre de la Courcel, the Queen of Terre d’Ange, and Melisande Shahrizai was the most dangerous traitor the realm had ever known.

I saw brightness and darkness, while my breath came in sharp white flashes and my heart beat like a frightened rabbit’s, thumping fast and terrified in my breast. Voices surrounded me, speaking D’Angeline and Tsingani, none of it making sense, none able to penetrate the sound that beat at my eardrums like the ocean, low and vast and thralling, Melisande’s careless laughter, that I could hear no matter how great the distance between us. Faces swam in my ken, none distinct. I was aware, somehow, sometime, of hands shaking my shoulders and Joscelin’s presence, fearful and urgent, his hair streaming across the rising red tide of my vision as he shook me, sun-streaked wheat lashing a bloody haze.

But it fell away, and there was only her, Melisande’s face poised in a three-quarter turn, careless and beautiful, waiting to finish the gesture at any second, turning to look full upon me, fifty yards away or more, and see, completing the connection between us. Her diamond a millstone around my neck, the velvet cord merely awaiting the touch of her hand on its lead.

I was lost.

"She will pass, and see nothing."

It was a voice, hollow and insistent, penetrating my terror, anchoring itself in my soul and drawing me back. The veil lessened; I blinked, seeing Hyacinthe’s face swim into focus before me, his dark, beautiful eyes. His hands held mine, gentle and firm. In the background, the Shahrizai rode onward, small, ornate figures on prancing horses.

"She will pass, and see nothing," he said, repeating it.

Sorrow, in his voice.

The Prince of Travellers had chosen.