Kratos hesitated, not entirely understanding the command. Sidonie repeated it for him in Hellene, her voice toneless. He bowed to her. “As my lady bids.”

I rose. “Take me to the townhouse, Kratos. I will place myself in Phèdre and Joscelin’s care and free you to return to Sidonie’s service. It’s her that Astegal bade you to protect, not me.” I glanced at Ysandre and Drustan. “I trust that will suffice?”

“It will,” Ysandre said curtly.

Gods, it had happened so quickly! After all our care, they’d turned on me for one ill-chosen suggestion. I left the dining hall feeling the weight of their hard stares, and Sidonie’s silent despair tugging at my heart.

I gathered a few things from my quarters at the Palace and sent for a carriage. We were on our way in short order, the carriage jolting over the torn-up streets of the City.

“What now, my lord?” Kratos asked soberly.

“Do your best to protect her.” I rested my aching head against the cushions. “The charm I wrought . . . it’s beginning to fail. And it hurts. She’s afraid to sleep for fear she’ll tear the bindings loose. You can watch over her, at least give her the solace of sleep. Her guard trusts you; they’ll not quibble at it. It might help.”

Kratos nodded. “I’ll tell her.”

“I think . . .” I rubbed my temples. “I think we have to begin to prepare for failure.”

“There’s a tight lock on the city,” he observed. “No one’s allowed to come or go without a thorough inspection.” Kratos met my gaze and shrugged. “I’ve been checking. It won’t be easy to get her out, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I don’t know what I’m thinking,” I said slowly. The image of Joscelin performing the terminus leapt unbidden into my mind. I’d never seen it done, but I’d heard it described. The graceful turn, the steady hands. One dagger hurled, the other slashing his own throat. I closed my eyes, willing it to be gone. Joscelin would do his duty and Phèdre would follow him into death. I knew that as surely as I knew the sun rose in the east. “It’s not just Sidonie.”

I wasn’t sure I could abandon them.

I wasn’t sure of anything.

“We can’t save them all, my lord,” Kratos said gently. “And mayhap none of them. I’m sorry. But we’re only mortal. You have to choose.”

“I know.” I buried my face in my hands and took a deep, shuddering breath. “Sidonie, then. The City’s defenses will be stretched thin once the army departs. If she can hold on long enough, at least there may be enough of her left to aid us. And mayhap . . . mayhap we can think of some way to help the others.”

“Mayhap,” Kratos said. “Mayhap, my lord.”

The kindness in his voice nearly undid me. “I’m not giving up, Kratos,” I said. “Not while there’s breath in my body.”

He smiled with sorrow. “I never thought you would, my lord. If it comes to it, I’d be proud to die trying beside you. ’Tis a far nobler death than I’d ever thought to earn these many years.”

We rode the rest of the way in silence.

Seventy-Eight

Once the Queen declared an official end to the search for Bodeshmun’s gem, a strange mood settled over the City: proud, defiant, hostile, despairing. All of these things at once.

War was coming.

The full moon was a week away.

Companies of the Royal Army patrolled the streets, keeping order. They drilled in the City gardens, trampling the new spring growth. Drustan mab Necthana and Ghislain nó Trevalion would be sharing command—the Cruarch of Alba and the Royal Commander of Terre d’Ange. Wherever they went, they were hailed with fierce shouts.

On an unofficial level, the search did continue. I took part in it, hoping against hope, desperate for the distraction. On the heels of Phèdre’s latest inspiration, I searched the river wharf with a company of Montrève’s retainers. Alas, to no avail. I prowled the City, muttering the word under my breath in the hopes that it might unexpectedly release a demon. Ptolemy Solon had said it was needful to take possession of the gem to break the spell, but mayhap he was wrong. Over and over, I whispered the word of unbinding.

Emmenghanom.

Beholden.

And, ah, gods! I was beholden. Every day, rising under Phèdre and Joscelin’s roof, I was reminded of it. I owed them my life. Almost everything I was, I owed to them. The thought of abandoning them, of being unable to save them, hurt more than I could say.

Kratos came regularly to the townhouse. When we could snatch a private moment, he reported on Sidonie’s condition, his homely face grave, dark circles under his eyes. He was giving up his own sleep to safeguard hers, catching naps during the day.

At first it helped.

And then it didn’t.

“We’re losing her, my lord,” Kratos said simply. “Bit by bit.”

I fought down a welling surge of helplessness. “Does she still trust you?”

“Aye. Sometimes she forgets for a moment and addresses me as though I truly were Astegal’s man. Either way, she trusts me.” He withdrew a flask from the inner pocket of his doublet—new livery in Courcel blue, freshly tailored to fit his broad frame. “She’s stubborn. She’s fighting it as best she can. This is a sleeping draught she had the Palace chirurgeon prepare.” Kratos smiled ruefully. “She bade me use it on her if need be. Use her own tactics against her. She reckons she won’t remember them by the time it’s needful.”

“Sidonie.” I sighed. “Kratos, do me a kindness. Have you run of the City unheeded?”

He nodded. “As far as anyone’s concerned, I’m General Astegal’s right-hand man. No one tells me what to do but her highness.”

I handed him a letter. “Deliver this to Lieutenant Faucon. He and his men are lodging at the Jolly Whistler near the wharf. Tell him to get it to Alais as quickly as possible.”

“What’s in it?” Kratos asked.

“Everything we know,” I said grimly. “Our failure to find the gem, all the places that I know for a surety have been thoroughly searched. The fact that Sidonie’s bindings are failing. The fact that Queen Ysandre has pledged herself to a death-pact if Alais and L’Envers take the City. Is there aught I’ve forgotten?”

Kratos shook his head. “Do you reckon any of it will help?”

“I don’t know.” I raked a hand through my hair. “If they know about the death-pact, they can hold off on entering the City. But what then? Do they remain camped outside its walls while day by day, week by week, month by month, the madness grows? You saw the way the violence has escalated. How long until those trapped within the City begin to turn on one another?”

He didn’t answer.

I shrugged. “We do what we can, my friend, and pray.”

Kratos delivered the letter and reported back to me to say it was safely done, and that Marc Faucon believed he could get it to Alais without trouble. Their guise as barge-hands had proved effective; indeed, the men who’d ferried Sidonie up the Aviline were reckoned heroes by the City Guard. Captain Gilbert would carry Faucon and his men to Yvens, from whence they would make haste to Turnone.

I wished to Blessed Elua I could think of a way to get Sidonie back aboard that barge. I couldn’t. All vessels, incoming or outgoing, were being searched with ruthless thoroughness. I thought Marc Faucon stood a good chance of getting away with hiding a letter on his person. I didn’t think there was a chance of hiding the Dauphine of Terre d’Ange on an outgoing barge.

Long ago, Phèdre had been smuggled into the city of La Serenissima aboard a ship, hidden in a chest with a false bottom large enough to conceal her. I’d mulled over the possibility. But fate hadn’t seen fit to place such an item at my disposal, and I could only imagine the suspicion it would provoke if mad Prince Imriel sought to commission a carpenter to build him one.

Of course, if I was wrong about Faucon’s chances, it was all moot. That letter would damn me for a traitor if it was found.

The following day, Kratos strolled the wharf and came to report that to all appearances, the barge had departed without incident. I breathed an inward sigh of relief. For the moment, at least, I was safe, safe in the knowledge that I’d done all I could think of to do, and safe from the accusation of treason.

Then the Caerdicci idiot came.

His name was Antonio Peruggi, a name that became etched in my memory for its eternal association with sheer stupidity. The details of his story, I learned later; he was a merchant-captain trapped by the blockade in Amílcar with a cargo of silk he was unable to sell during war-time. When the blockade lifted, he decided his cargo would fetch better prices in Terre d’Ange.

And so he sailed to Marsilikos carrying silk and news out of Amílcar.

Barquiel L’Envers had been right; he and Alais had done an outstanding job of keeping the news from the City of Elua. They held the river and they held the roads, and no one they deemed unworthy of absolute trust had been allowed to pass. Unfortunately, Peruggi had heard the rumors in Marsilikos and gotten it into his head that Ysandre would surely reward him for being the first to deliver the news. He’d purchased a horse and hired a guide to lead him to the City of Elua across the countryside, avoiding all of L’Envers’ checkpoints.

Stupidity, cunning, and greed.

The first we heard of it was a summons from a Queen’s courier bidding me to Court. I thought mayhap I’d rejoiced too quickly at Marc Faucon’s successful escape and felt the blood drain from my face.

“Why do you look so pale?” Phèdre asked. “Mayhap the news is good.”

I forced myself to smile. “Mayhap.”

“Not likely,” Joscelin observed.

We arrived at the Hall of Audience to find Ysandre pacing in a fury, her color high and hectic. I glanced at Sidonie. She returned my gaze, but I couldn’t read her expression. Beside her, Kratos grimaced in warning.

“Imriel.” Ysandre fetched up before me, pointing toward a trembling figure. “Do you know this man?”

I looked at him. He was of average height and middle years, muscle running to fat. Brown hair, a forgettable face. He sported several ostentatious rings, and his chin was quivering. “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

“His name is Antonio Peruggi,” Ysandre said in a taut voice. “He claims to have news from Amílcar. He claims that you and Sidonie conspired to bring the Euskerri to defeat Astegal. He claims you killed Astegal with your own hand, and that my daughter aided you. And he seems to think I will reward him for this knowledge.”

I went ice-cold.

“Who paid you to say that?” The words were out of my mouth before I knew I’d thought them. Fear and rage drove my body and wits; I found myself standing before Peruggi without realizing I’d moved. He gaped at me, uncomprehending. I struck his face hard enough to wrench his head sideways. “Who?”

“No one!” Peruggi cried in broken D’Angeline. “It’s true! Everyone knows!”

I struck him again. “Who?”

“No one!” he cried again.

“Do you know me?” I demanded. “Have you ever seen me before?”

“No!” Peruggi said raggedly. “But I heard the tales—”

I backhanded him across the face. “Was it Alais? Barquiel L’Envers?”

“Enough.” It was Sidonie who spoke, her voice cool and commanding. “He speaks sedition,” she said to her mother. “I told you as much. I sense L’Envers’ hand behind it. It reeks of his tactics. This is some scheme to drive a wedge between us.”

Ysandre considered her daughter’s words. “Is that so?” she asked the Caerdicci merchant. She sounded eminently reasonable. “Will you hold to your story or shall I have you tortured until you divulge the truth?”

Antonio Peruggi shook his head. There was a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth where I’d struck him. “No,” he whispered. “Please, your majesty.”

“So it was L’Envers,” Ysandre pressed.

“Yes.” He gazed at me, eyes damp. “Yes, the Duc L’Envers.”

“Sedition.” Ysandre lingered over the word. “You have sacrificed your rights here, Messire Peruggi, and I would be within mine to have you executed.” He flinched. She glanced at Sidonie. “What do you say?”

“Let him be flogged.” Sidonie fixed the Caerdicci merchant with an implacable gaze. “Let him be put in stocks and given a public flogging, then turned loose to leave the City, his back bloody and bare, that all across the realm might know the price of speaking sedition in the matter of my husband.”

Ysandre nodded. “So be it.”

Ah, gods! I was torn between relief and horror. Elua knows, the man had spoken the truth, even if it was driven by greed and idiocy. My rage had been unfeigned, although no one would have guessed at its cause.

But Sidonie . . .

I wasn’t sure.

Later that day, Antonio Peruggi was flogged in Elua’s Square, kneeling on sifted dirt denuded of its paving-stones, his bent head and helpless hands held in stocks, his thick, fleshy torso bare. I watched the Queen’s chastiser’s arm rise and fall, wielding the metal-tipped flogger. I watched it shred Peruggi’s skin as he jerked and moaned in the stocks, blood running freely down his back. I watched Sidonie’s calm, appraising gaze.

My heart ached.

When it was done, a watching crowd roared their approval. Members of the Queen’s Guard helped a stumbling Peruggi from the stocks, helped him to mount. Slapped his horse’s haunches and sent him toward the southern gates. I made my way unobtrusively to Sidonie’s side.