"I resolved to succeed or die, but the nobleman disarmed me. I waited for the killing blow, but he asked me instead, ‘My friend, you fight like one trained by the Cassiline Brotherhood; how is it then that you come to be engaged in this least fraternal of acts?’ And upon his query, I began to weep."
I waited for more, but Guy fell silent a long while. There was no sound but the clopping hooves of the horses and the coachman’s tuneless whistle.
"We do not choose our debts," he said at length. "But indebted we are, both of us, to Anafiel Delaunay. Do not seek to betray him. Your debt may be discharged one day, but mine is unto the death, Phèdre."
The night was chilly and his words struck cold into my bones. I shivered in my thick cloak and thought about what he had said, wondering at the power in Delaunay to reach even a heart hardened by crime and despair.
But if Guy was Delaunay’s man unto death, he was not what I was: his pupil. The words of his speech-the most he’d ever spoken in my presence-fell into place in the vast puzzle in my mind, forming one important question.
"Who wanted Delaunay dead?"
In the darkness of the coach, I could feel him glance at me. "Isabel de la Courcel," came the flat reply. "The Princess Consort."
The incident remained in my mind for it was the first of its kind, and the last, for that matter. In all the time I knew him, Guy never spoke again of his history nor our mutual debt to Delaunay. And yet his words had the effect he desired, for never did I attempt to betray my bond-debt.
Delaunay’s past and his long-standing enmity with the Princess Consort remained the central enigma in my life. For all that she was some seven years in the grave, as I well knew, their feud lived on where it touched on the strands of intelligence Delaunay gathered. To what end, I knew not, and spent long hours in fruitless speculation with Hyacinthe and Alcuin alike; for Alcuin was as fascinated as I with the mystery of Anafiel Delaunay, if not more so.
Indeed, as Alcuin grew from boy to youth, steeped in the teaching of Cecilie Laveau-Perrin, I witnessed the nature of his regard for Delaunay change. The spontaneous affection that had been so charming in him as a child gave way to a different kind of adoration, at once tender and cunning.
I envied him the luxury of this slow epiphany, and knew alarm at Delaunay’s response,
It was some few weeks prior to Alcuin’s sixteenth birthday that the Allies of Camlach won a great victory over Skaldic raiders. Led by the young Duc Isidore d’Aiglemort, the peerage of Camlach joined forces and succeeded in pushing the Skaldi clear back from the mountains and well into their own territory.
And at their side rode Prince Baudoin de Trevalion and his Glory-Seekers.
The Duc d’Aiglemort, it seemed, had received intelligence that the Skaldi were prepared to launch a concerted attack on the three Great Passes of the Camaeline Range. No one denied his wisdom in calling Camlach to arms under his banner…but at Delaunay’s gatherings and in the dark corners of Night’s Doorstep, I heard whispers about the happy coincidence that had Baudoin de Trevalion and the wild brigade of his personal guard visiting Aiglemort at the time.
Still, it was a great victory, the greatest gain of territory since the Battle of the Three Princes, and the King would have been a fool to have denied Camlach a royal triumph…or to have failed to acknowledge Prince Baudoin’s part in the battle. One thing Ganelon de la Courcel was not was a fool.
As it happened, the triumph fell upon the eve of Alcuin’s birthday and the processional route fell along the way of Cecilie’s townhouse. Taking the convergence for an omen, she threw a fête and threw her house open, almost as in days of old.
Only this time, we were all invited.
I have never known Delaunay to fuss over his appearance-though he always looked the height of elegance-but the day of the triumph, he stewed over his attire like an adept with a prospective lover, settling at length upon a doublet and hosen of sober black velvet against which his braided hair lay like a twist of auburn flame.
"Why is it so important, my lord?" I asked, adjusting the pomander that hung from his belt. Delaunay had his own valet, of course, but on special occasions he allowed me to oversee the details. One did not grow up in Cereus House without acquiring a keen eye and nimble fingers for such niceties.
"For Cecilie, of course." He gave me his broad grin, always unexpected and thrilling. "She’s not held a gathering such as this since before Antoine died. I’ve no wish to embarrass her."
