Intrigued, I rested my chin in my hand. The One God had sent his servants to bid Elua to return, too. The first, who came with a sword, Blessed Elua charmed with his sweetness; the second, who came with a plea, Elua answered with his own red blood, piercing his flesh and bleeding onto the rich soil of Terre d'Ange. So are we bound to this earth, we who are D'Angeline; even the followers of Cassiel, for it was he who handed Elua the dagger. But for all of that, I never heard that Elua and His Companions knew a word that could compel the One God's servants. "And?" I prompted.
"And Mikael, the commander-in-chief of the Lord's Host, strove with her and wrested the Sefer Raziel from Lilit, but he was bound by her command, and threw the book into the ocean, returning empty-handed to the Throne of the Lord," the Rebbe finished. "So it was that Adonai bid Rahab, Prince of the Deep, to retrieve the tome. If you say truly, perhaps it is that Rahab obeyed but in part, keeping back some few pages." He shrugged. "These are stories that are told. I do not know."
"What became of Lilit?"
The Rebbe fingered his khai pendant. "She wed Ashmedai, the Prince of Demons, and spawned six thousand children of darkness, who haunt our dreams at night, or so it is said. Until Yeshua ben Yosef was born, and they dared to tempt him, and he changed them into the likeness of black dogs, chaining them beneath Mount Seir, where they fester and howl until the Mashiach shall return, and put an end to their suffering."
"A lot of good that does me," I murmured. "Well, then, what became of the Lost Book of Raziel after Rahab brought it up from the deep?"
"Would you run before you walk?" the Rebbe asked sternly, pointing at the Tanakh scroll. "Next time, you study the Sh'moth. Perhaps then I will tell you more.”
"Yes, Master." I sighed, and made ready to leave. "I will await your summons."
Keeping to the letter of our agreement, I smiled pleasantly at such folk as I saw upon departing the yeshiva, but made no effort to engage them in conversation. I was hard-put to ignore Joscelin's exemption from this charge, as he exchanged smiles and murmured greetings with half a dozen Yeshuite folk. Indeed, the young woman I had seen teaching schoolchildren on our first visit caught him back as we left, whispering something urgent to him and blushing as she reached up to slip a chain about his neck.
I would have asked him about it the moment the door closed behind us, were it not that a disturbance in the courtyard distracted me. Near to where our carriage awaited, a handful of Yeshuites stood arguing in Habiru; young men, all of them, ganging up on the youngest of the lot. I daresay I'd not have paid it much heed, were it not for the fact that all save the youngest were clad in D'Angeline fashion, eschewing their sober attire and sidelocks for such garb as soldiers might wear. Indeed, two of them bore swords at their sides.
" '... giveth snow like wool,' " one of them was saying, face thrust aggressively forward, " 'he scatters hoarfrost like ashes.' How do you take that to mean, Simeon, if it is not northerly? I tell you, we are not meant to sit idle, when Adonai bids us build a kingdom for Yeshua's return! Do you doubt? 'He sendeth forth his word and melts them.' It is the craven fear of old men and mewling women that keeps the Chosen of Terre d'Ange homeless as Tsingani!"
I glanced at Joscelin, who stood frowning thoughtfully at them. "What do they mean?" I asked him; one of the Yeshuites looked over, hearing my voice.
"You should join us, brother apostate!" he called to Joscelin. "We could make good use of a blade such as yours."
Joscelin shook his head politely, smiling, and opened the carriage door to hand me inside. I caught the door and held it ere he could close it. "Will you tell me?" I asked, and caught sight, unexpectedly, of a khai pendant hanging on his doublet, a small silver disc with the Khet-Yod symbol graven in black. "And this?" I added, lifting it from his chest.
"A gift," Joscelin said firmly, plucking it from my hand. "It is not your concern."
Pain, unexpected, lanced through my heart; his face was closed and shuttered to me. "Well, then," I gasped, catching my breath at it. "Will you tell me why they spoke of blades?"
For a moment, he only frowned at me, then answered reluctantly. "There is a prophecy that the Kingdom of Yeshua will be established to the north; further even than the Skaldi territories, and eastward. It is said that Yeshuites in other nations have left already to found a new homeland. Some of the younger ones wish to follow. They believe that they will need carve it out with steel."
"Very well." Regaining such composure as I could, I strove to keep my voice from trembling. "I did not know that. Thank you."
He nodded, expressionless, and made to close the door.
"Joscelin," I said, halting him once more, unable to help the spite that crept into my tone. "My lord Delaunay contracted you because his man Guy was slain by a creature of the Stregazza. Will you allow me to go to this prince of the Stregazza attended by a, a half-trained sailor," I cited his words maliciously, "or do you propose to attend me yourself, O Perfect Companion?"
His face might as well have been a mask as he bowed, the khai medallion swinging forward to clink against his crossed vambraces. "In Cassiel's name," he said coldly, "I protect and serve."
With that, he closed the carriage door firmly, leaving me alone to grit my teeth against the threat of tears. Against all odds, I heard Melisande's voice in my memory, melodic and amused. Oh you protect well enough, but I'd ask better service, were you sworn to attend me, Cassiline. Elua, I thought, stifling a despairing laugh, I wish she were here! No one else could appreciate the perverse anguish of my situation. I wondered if she had known, when she sent the cloak, the havoc it would wreak between Joscelin and me. Most like she had, when I considered it; Melisande had been the first to perceive his feelings, long before I thought it possible. She had laughed out loud, the first time she'd seen him attendant upon me; it was the only time one of Delaunay's ploys truly caught her by surprise. Even at the end, when I stepped forward to reveal myself alive and give the testimony that condemned her, she had betrayed less.
Well, done was done, and I could not go back. In many ways, it was Melisande who united Joscelin and me, selling us together into slavery to the Skaldi. Now her game thrust us apart, the cloak a gambit I could not ignore. And the winding trail by which it had reached me led inevitably back to La Serenissima, and the coiled machinations of the Stregazza. I had a chance, now, to tease out some thread from that tangled coil in the person of the young Prince Severio. If I stood any chance of regaining Joscelin, it was on the far side of that mystery.
I could only hope he would still be here when I found my way clear.
I had come to such resolution as I could, and set the matter behind me. Cassiline guilt and Yeshuite prophecies would wait; I had a patron to attend. But the memory of Melisande's amusement stayed with me as I bathed and made ready, and whether I willed it or no, a slow eagerness heated my flesh as I considered this evening's entertainment. Elua, but it had been a long time! If Severio Stregazza lacked the skill to play me as I deserved, still, his blunt anger would suit my mood.
"Are you ready?" Joscelin asked curtly when I emerged at length, clad in a gown of deep blue velvet that made my skin glow like cream, my dark hair bound low at the nape of my neck with a fillet of gold. Ti-Philippe, who had offered to drive the carriage, stood nervously by. None of my chevaliers liked it when Joscelin and I quarreled; but I had gone well beyond that, in my mind.
"I am," I said softly, settling my sangoire cloak upon my shoulders.
"Let's go, then."
So much the same, and so different, walking with Joscelin through the Palace, en route to an assignation. I did not think I would ever become accustomed to the inclined heads, the murmured greeting, "Comtesse." The whispers, though, after I passed; those were the same. And Joscelin, austere and disapproving-that was the same. It was only the reason that was different. That, and the fact that instead of the ashen-grey garb of his former brethren, he wore sober livery of black and green, the Montrève crest wrought small over his heart, and hung about his neck, a khai pendant on a silver chain.
No one, though, would mistake him for aught but a Cassiline. It was not only the traditional arms he bore-twin daggers low on his waist, the longsword at his back and steel vambraces buckled on his forearms-but the sternness of his mien, the odd combination of rigid dignity and fluid grace that marked members of the Brotherhood. In Montrève, he'd all but lost the habit of stiffness. It had returned, here.
Idiot, I thought, and felt guilty at it.
As the grandson of the Doge, Severio had brought a retinue of Serenissiman servants, and I was ushered into his quarters with respectful greetings and sidelong glances. Ýsandre had granted her cousin fine lodgings indeed, I thought, gazing around. I did not wonder at it, for Severio was the first emissary from her Serenissiman kin to acknowledge her since her coronation; due to the intervention of war or the bad blood between her uncle the Duc L'Envers and her great-uncle Prince Benedicte's descendents, I could not say, although doubtless the latter played some part in it.
"Contessa." A servant in Stregazza livery bowed low to me, speaking in softly accented Caerdicci. All the city-states of Caerdicca Unitas speak the Caerdicci tongue, but it varies from place to place, and in La Serenissima, the faint, fluid accent of the ancient Phoenician seafarers who founded her endures. "Master Severio will receive you presently," he said, taking my cloak and folding it over his arm. "Does your man wish aught while he awaits?"
They did not call him Prince, then; his own servants. I marked that as worth remembering and glanced at Joscelin, who declined the offer courteously. Serenissiman or no, as a direct descendent of Benedicte de la Courcel, Severio was a Prince of the Blood in Terre d'Ange. It seemed his status as the Doge's grandson, while noble enough, meant somewhat less in La Serenissima.
Strange to remember how little I knew, then, of Serenissiman politics.
Another servant, higher-ranking to judge by his chains of office, entered the antechamber and bowed. "Master Severio will see you now, Contessa."
He did not meet my eyes, and I wondered what awaited me. Well, I would know, soon enough. I commended myself to Naamah's grace, and turned to bid Joscelin farewell. "Be at ease," I said softly. "I will return anon."
Joscelin nodded briefly and bowed, vambraces flashing. "I will abide, my lady." His jawline was taut and there was misery in his gaze. "Elua keep you."
Taking a deep breath, I turned back to the servant, "Lead on," I said.
FIFTEEN
What I had expected of Severio Stregazza, I cannot say; in truth, I had too little knowledge of the Serenissiman to hazard a guess. If I had, though, I daresay it would have been wrong.
He wore the guise of an ancient Tiberian magistrate.
It should not have surprised me, when I reflected later, from the benefit of greater knowledge; the structure of governance in La Serenissima dates back to the glory days of Tiberíum, indeed, prior to the empire. It is the pride of La Serenissima even now that she is the sole republic among the monarchic city-states of Caerdicca Unitas. If I had known then what I know now of her, it would not have startled me in the least that this son of hers chose to remind a D'Angeline courtesan that La Serenissima was a civilized nation while we were living in thatched hovels and scratching cheerfully in the dirt. Until Elua and his Companions set foot on D'Angeline soil and called it home, bringing ichor in their veins and arts and sciences ransacked from Heaven, we were no different than the Skaldi.
Well, I did not know, then, the envy that other civilized nations held toward Terre d'Ange, although I had learned well enough the covetousness of barbarian realms. But I am Night Court-raised and trained by Anafiel Delaunay, and I do not need to be told to follow a patron's cue. When I beheld Severio Stregazza seated in an ivory chair, wearing a Tiberian toga and a laurel crown on his dark curls, I bowed my head and knelt.
"Come." His voice was resolute, hiding only a trace of uncertainty as he gestured with the fasces he held, a bundle of birch rods bound with a scarlet thread. I knew it, from my readings, as a symbol of the authority of Tiberium. "Approach the dais and kneel, supplicant."
He had had a length of carpet laid before his chair, dyed a rich crimson. I crossed it obediently, feeling my heart beat faster at laying my welfare in his hands. Truly, there is nothing like the exquisite submission of surrendering one's will to one's patron! I sank down once more to kneel before him, abeyante; a supplicant's pose indeed, that I had learned as a child in the Night Court. It had been a long time indeed since I had knelt to a patron's whim, and the feeling of it was like a homecoming.
"What do you wish of me?" His voice was harsh, striving to overmaster his uncertainty. I raised my head and met his eyes.
"My lord," I whispered, not needing to feign nervousness. I must needs guess at his innermost desire, and if I guessed a-wrong, I would fail in Naamah's Service. "My lord, you have been grievously treated by my countrymen, and they fear they have incurred your displeasure. I am here to make amends."
My words and the tremor in my voice pleased him greatly; like spark to tinder, I saw the eager light of cruelty kindled in his gaze. "You are here, then, to please me?" Severio leaned back in his ivory chair and smiled unkindly, keeping his sandaled feet placed just so, as statues of Tiberian magistrates would have them; one back, one placed afore. "Well, then." He gestured with the fasces bundle. "Rise, then, and let me behold you."