I sipped my cordial. “I can reach Sidonie. He can’t.”

“She won’t know you,” Melisande observed.

“It doesn’t matter.” I shook my head. “We’ll find one another.” I gazed toward the west, where Carthage lay. “Alais told me once that she thought Sidonie would need me very badly one day. And Sidonie . . . when she met with the combined priesthood of Elua and his Companions, she told them that Blessed Elua doesn’t join hearts without a purpose. I believe it’s true.”

“Will I ever see you again?” my mother asked.

I looked back at her, at her grave, beautiful face illuminated by lamplight. A mortal goddess who carried her sins lightly, her sorrow heavily. What emotions I felt, I couldn’t name.

“I don’t know,” I said quietly. “I’ll not make any false promises.”

Melisande nodded. “If you find it in your heart to see me again one day, I would like it. I would like it very much.”

Against all expectations, I slept soundly that night, beneath my mother’s roof in a pleasant guest-chamber on sheets of the finest Menekhetan linen. I slept without dreaming and woke feeling oddly lighthearted.

Today I would surrender everything.

Everything I had, everything I was. I would let go of all of it, placing myself and all my trust in the hands of my mother’s lover, the dangerously clever and unfathomable Wise Ape of Cythera. Laying it all on the altar of love. In the end, that was truly where my trust lay. Not in Ptolemy Solon’s spells and arcane knowledge, but in love. In the precept of Blessed Elua. In Sidonie’s pledge.

Always and always.

She was the one who had taught me to trust. To trust her. To trust myself.

I did.

The mood stayed with me as we rode to the palace after breaking our fast; Melisande, Leander, and I. His presence was necessary for the spell. I breathed deep of the warm, salt-tinged air, filling my lungs. Reveling in the knowledge of myself, soon to be relinquished. I patted the Bastard’s spotted neck with bittersweet affection.

“You’ll have to stay here,” I said to him, watching his ears swivel. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you. I wasn’t thinking. But I can’t take you to Carthage. Bodeshmun’s seen you.”

The Bastard snorted in disgust.

“You’ll take care of him for me?” I asked Leander.

He nodded, sunlight winking on his ruby eardrops. “Of course.”

My mother said nothing.

At the palace, Ptolemy Solon was awaiting us in the chamber overlooking the sea. All of Leander’s clothing was there, clean and pressed with a hot iron, neatly folded. Solon looked unspeakably weary, his eyes bloodshot.

“This,” he said, “is a damnably difficult spell.” He flexed his cramped hands. “One thing must always be bound to another. I have been sewing all night, which is not an activity to which I am accustomed. You need not know the details, but suffice it to say that this enchantment has been bound into every fiber of these garments.”

“I’m to wear Leander’s attire?” I asked.

“Indeed.” Solon stifled a yawn. “For therein lies the spell, bound to it stitch by stitch. Do you expose yourself to anyone in your full nakedness, that person will see you for your true self, then and thereafter.”

“What if he beholds himself thusly?” Melisande asked in a low voice.

“He would see himself truly,” Solon admitted. “But only were he to regard himself naked in a mirror. I do not recommend it, Imriel. For you would perceive yourself to be Leander trapped in Imriel’s form, and it would tax your wits.”

I shrugged. “I’m not given to looking in mirrors.”

“I am,” Leander murmured.

“Well, I recommend against it.” Solon gathered himself. “Strip and don his clothing.”

I stripped.

It felt odd. I heard my mother catch her breath as I tugged the shirt over my head, baring my scarred torso.

“Oh, gods,” she breathed. “Imriel.”

“A souvenir of Alba,” I said with a lightness I didn’t feel. The gravity of what we did here was settling into my bones. I slid my arms into one of Leander’s vests, tugging it into place. “As I said, a great deal of what I’ve suffered is no fault of yours.”

“It’s just . . .” Melisande shook her head. “Elua have mercy.”

I unlaced my breeches. “I pray he does.”

Once I was fully attired in Leander’s clothing, Solon bade me sit cross-legged on the floor, strewn with cushions. I did, and he sat opposite me. “You must go now,” he said to Leander and my mother. “Leander, you I will send for in some time, for you must recount your memories for Imriel once he is entranced. Melisande . . .” He paused, sorrow etched in his homely face. “Bid your son farewell.”

My mother sank to her knees before me, cradling my face in her hands. “Come back, Imriel,” she whispered. Her touch was warm and soothing, and there were tears in her glorious eyes. “If not to me, at least to the world.”

“I will,” I said. “I promise.”

She kissed my brow. “Blessed Elua pray you keep it.”

She went.

Leander went.

Ptolemy Solon and I faced one another. “Breathe deep,” he advised me. “Breathe deep and listen. Close your eyes. Take my words into you. Listen.”

I obeyed.

“Close your thoughts and quiet your mind,” Solon said in a low, calm voice. “Hear nothing but the sound of my voice. Think of nothing but my words. My voice is a warm sea of light, soft and mild. You are drifting atop it, safe and warm. Let yourself go. Let yourself drift . . .”

It was warm in the room and I could feel the sunlight flooding through the window. Solon’s voice continued to speak, low and pleasant, almost droning. I listened. I began to feel drowsy and a little bored. I began to wonder how long it would take, then forced myself to stop wondering. I listened, floating atop the sea of Solon’s voice. Elua, if nothing else, the man had the patience of a stone. To spend the entire night sewing, of all things, and then this endless talking . . .

Listen.

I made myself listen.

On and on he went. I passed beyond boredom and relaxed. My body felt heavy and inert, but inside, I felt light. Lighthearted. Floating on a sea of light. There had been enough darkness in my life. Too much. This was nice.

“. . . and now it is time to put Imriel away,” Solon’s voice told me. “Time to make him small. Small like a grain of sand, like a tiny, tiny seed. Make him very small, a tiny seed.”

I agreed. I made Imriel into a tiny seed.

“Tuck him into the farthest crack of your mind,” Solon’s voice continued. “Hide him where no one will see him. A tiny seed, safe and hidden.”

I hid Imriel away.

“Forget he is there,” Solon instructed me. “Until the moment your lips touch Sidonie’s, you will forget Imriel is there. When you kiss her, you will remember. Until that moment, you will forget. Forget.”

I forgot about Imriel.

“Sit quietly in peace,” the man talking to me said. I obeyed, hearing his joints creak as he rose, the sound of a door opening. “Come in,” he said to someone. “You may begin. Tell him the story of your life. I will speak over your words. Pay it no heed.”

“Where do I begin?” the new voice said.

“Begin at the beginning,” the first one said.

“All right.” The newcomer took a deep breath. “I was born in Kusheth about a year after the Skaldi War ended, and . . . hells, my lord Solon, I don’t remember all that much about the first five or six years of my life.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the man he’d called Solon said. “Say what you do know.”

“The first thing . . . the first thing I remember is when my little sister Darielle was born. She was a red-faced, wrinkled, squalling thing, and everyone doted on her because Mother had given up on getting with child again after so long . . .”

The newcomer’s voice went on and on, joined by the man called Solon’s.

“Hear and remember,” Solon said. “This is your story. You are Leander Maignard. When you awake you will know this to be true. Each word is a stitch in the garment of your life. Hear and remember. This is your story. You are Leander Maignard. Each word is a stitch in the garment of your life. When you awake you will know this to be true.”

“. . . really, life didn’t get interesting until her ladyship sent for us to make a household in Cythera, when I was ten or so. All these years, she’d provided for the Maignard clan, but I’d begun to think it would never amount to more than that . . .”

“This is your story. You are Leander Maignard. Each word is a stitch in the garment of your life . . .”

“. . . the day we stepped off the ship, my father said, ‘We’re never leaving.’ He serves as her ladyship’s master of vineyards, but then, I was always more ambitious . . .”

“. . . word is a stitch in the garment of your life. When you awake you will know this to be true. Hear and remember. This is your story. You are Leander Maignard.”

It should have been irritating, listening to both of their voices at once, but it wasn’t. One wound around the other. I listened to the newcomer’s endless narrative unspooling, while Solon’s calm voice continued, stitching in and out, fashioning it into the garment of self I would wear when I awoke.

It went on for a long time, but I didn’t mind. Solon had told me to sit quietly in peace, so I did, listening to the story of my life unwind until at last the spool was almost wholly bare.

“Halt,” Solon said to the newcomer. “Do not recount these last days.”

“Glad to oblige,” the other said wearily.

“I’m forgetting . . . ah. Eardrops.”

“Must you?”

“Yes.” Solon’s voice had grown hoarse, but he sounded amused. “I’ve never seen you without them. Surely they will serve as a last line of defense against the perils of nudity. Where did I put that needle?” And then, to me, “You will feel no pain.” He pinched my earlobes lightly, one after another. Afterward, they felt heavier.

“Am I finished, my lord?” the other asked.

“You may go,” Solon agreed. “Remember, keep out of sight.”

“I know. I know.”

I heard him leave and heard the door close. I sat quietly in peace.

“Open your eyes,” Solon said to me. I did. The room was filled with late-afternoon sunlight. “You are Leander Maignard. You are departing on the morrow for Carthage to attempt to seduce General Astegal’s wife and break the spell that binds her, and to find the key to the ghafrid-gebla that Bodeshmun possesses.” He went on to explain this to me in considerable detail. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, my lord,” I said politely.

Solon gave me a tired smile. “In the morning, you will awake and know this to be true. You will forget this day. Sleep.”

I slept.

Twenty-Four

The crow of that damnable rooster that the cook insisted on keeping around woke me with a start. I’d slept long and hard. For a moment, I felt strange to myself, my heart racing. Then I remembered why.

Today I sailed for Carthage.

By the Goddess, it was about sodding well time her ladyship gave me somewhat meaningful to do! As much as I loved Cythera, it ate at my pride to cool my heels while others were given more interesting assignments.

And this was a big one.

I’d never have admitted it to her ladyship’s son, not if I valued my life, but in my heart of hearts, I was a little bit glad that Carthage had ensorceled the Dauphine and half of Terre d’Ange. It was horrible, of course. But it was exciting, too. And there had been precious few opportunities for her ladyship to deploy D’Angeline spies without rousing suspicion.

This . . . this was perfect.

And now that her sentence had been commuted to exile, there was no fear of exposure. At last we could play the game as it was meant to be played; and I would be at the very heart of it, a veritable lynch-pin in the scheme. I had the opportunity to seduce a Princess of the Blood and bring down a budding empire.

It was a delicious thought. It was so delicious that I permitted myself to lay a-bed a few minutes, contemplating it and stroking my phallus. I wondered what the half-breed Cruithne princess looked like, although it didn’t really matter. I could rise to any challenge.

The household was stirring.

Duty beckoned.

One couldn’t have luxury and adventure alike. With a sigh, I left off my musings and my pleasure. I rose, braided my hair, donned my clothing, and went to face the day.

“Leander.” Shabaq intercepted me on my way to the kitchen. “Her ladyship wishes you to break your fast with her in the arbor.”

“Truly?” I said in delight.

He smiled. “Truly.”

It was true. I found her ladyship awaiting me in the latticed arbor, sipping a cup of hot bitter kavah. I bowed deeply to her, holding my bow. “My lady, you honor me. I pray I prove worthy of your trust in this matter.”

Her gaze, so terrible and beautiful and sad, rested on me. “As do I.”

I marked, as she had taught me, how her hand trembled a bit returning her thin porcelain cup to its saucer. “Do you doubt me?”

“No,” she said softly. “Sit and dine with me, Leander.”

I did.

There was fresh, crusty bread still warm from the oven, honey and preserves, and heartier fare, too. Sausage flavored with coriander, eggs cooked with goat cheese and herbs. I ate with a good will, mindful that I’d be dining on salt pork and beans during the voyage to Carthage. Her ladyship watched me, scarce touching her food.