“I LIKE HIM, Anafiel.” Her fingers curled into mine as we strolled. “I do. I like him very much.”
I smiled at her. “I’m glad, near-sister.”
We were heroes in those days, in those long winter nights in the City of Elua. The Dauphin and his band of Protectors, guardians of the border. After a year of hard-fought skirmishes, we had pushed the Skaldi back.
Rolande courted Edmee; she accepted his suit. Together, the three of us accepted the arrangement.
A betrothal was announced, a spring marriage planned. Shunned, Barquiel’s sister Isabel L’Envers glowered impotently.
I didn’t care.
I was happy.
FASTER AND FASTER, memory comes.
Edmee.
SPRING IN TERRE d’Ange, a green haze of leaves on the trees. There was a royal fete; a hunt. A prelude to a wedding.
She rode beautifully, Edmee did. She always had.
I was behind her.
I saw the saddle lurch sideways as her mount leaped the hedgerow; I heard her startled sound of dismay.
I saw her fall.
I do not remember jumping the hedge, I do not remember dismounting. I remember hearing the sound, the
Just like that.
Others had gathered. I looked at their faces; fast, so fast. I saw a mingled expression of guilt and furtive triumph cross Isabel L’Envers’, swiftly giving way to solemn grief. Then and there, I knew.
But I could never prove it.
WOULD IT HAVE made a difference if I had been able to prove it, Rolande? Ah, gods! Why couldn’t you just
You were angry, I know. Furious with grief at Edmee’s death; and beneath it, still angry at me for concealing the truth from you. For lying to you. You didn’t want to hear my suspicions.
I was right, though.
THE GIRTH ON Edmee’s saddle was frayed to the point of snapping. It might have been tampered with, but it might merely have been worn, too. Several stable hands were dismissed for carelessness. When I hunted them down to query them, one had vanished—gone from the City of Elua, gone home to Namarre, according to rumor.
I tried to locate him, and failed.
“Leave it be, Anafiel!” Rolande said in disgust when I returned. “Like as not, the lad’s sick at heart over what his carelessness has wrought.”
I shook my head. “Someone put him up to it. You didn’t see Isabel’s face.”
“I’ve known Isabel L’Envers for most of her life, and she’s as heartsick as all of us at Edmee’s death,” he said in an even tone. “She’s been a considerable comfort to me while you’ve been haring around the countryside, chasing after shadows.”
I was unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. “Of that, I haven’t the slightest doubt.”
Grief-racked and angry, we quarreled; quarreled and hurt one another in intimate ways that only two people who know each other’s every weakness and vulnerability can do.
I had a sharp tongue; I should have held it.
I didn’t.
Instead, I pushed Rolande away, pushed him into Isabel’s consoling arms. I couldn’t stop myself from lashing out at him. Amidst our quarrels, we parted. She played him skillfully, while I and my aching heart, my lost heritage, my unproven suspicions, and my forlorn oath were relegated to the outskirts of D’Angeline society.
Come autumn, he wed her.
It was a somber ceremony, overshadowed by the memory of recent tragedy. I was not invited to attend, but I heard about it. By all accounts, it was lovely and appropriately solemn. If I had done nothing, mayhap their poignant tale of romance found in the wreckage of sorrow would have charmed the nation.
But I wrote a poem.
A satire; a tale of a noblewoman who seduced a stable lad and convinced him to do a dire deed with terrible consequences.
I HAD TO, Rolande. My voice was all that was left to me. Here at the end, I will admit that I don’t believe Isabel intended Edmee’s death; that she intended petty vengeance, nothing more.
But Edmee died, and Isabel was responsible for it.
So I had to.
FOLK IN THE City of Elua were delighted by my allegations, ever ready to be appalled and titillated by scandal.
Isabel de la Courcel was furious.
So was Rolande, so was his father the king, Ganelon de la Courcel. But they could no more disprove the rumor that the Dauphin’s new bride was a murderess than I could prove it.
I was summoned to Court.
I denied authorship of the poem, but I was not believed. I was declared anathema, and all existing copies of my known poetry were destroyed. With banked fury in her gaze, Isabel argued for banishment.
Not looking at me, Rolande spoke against it. His father concurred, content with the punishment.
I was not banished, only made miserable.
There are always those who relish beating against the currents, and so I was able to eke out an existence in the City of Elua as a former prodigy, once beloved of the Dauphin and sure to be named the King’s Poet, now living in disgrace, reduced to writing bawdy poems and satires on commission.
It was a bad year—a very, very bad year.
It changed when Ysandre was born.
Rolande’s daughter.
HOW IS IT that love always catches us unaware?
I see a lot of
Only you.
STANDING ON MY doorstep, surrounded by guards, Rolande swallowed hard, the knot of his throat rising and falling. “You heard?”
I stared at him, wondering why in the world he was here. “Yes, of course. Congratulations.”
“Anafiel…” He caught my hand, and I let him. “I have no right to ask you anything, but I am asking nonetheless. My daughter, Ysandre…” The knot of his throat rose, fell. “I begin to fear that you may have been right about certain matters. I begin to fear that a good deal of intrigue may surround her.”
I was silent.
Rolande’s eyes were so blue, so earnest. “I have no right—”
“You have every right,” I said softly. “What’s changed?”
He smiled a little, sadly. “Mayhap you’ve heard, my uncle Benedicte is planning a visit. He has grown children he wishes to introduce to the court. Isabel grows fearful and speaks of intrigues against me, against our daughter.
