TEN
Eglantine House.
It sat midway upon the slope of Mont Nuit, where the Thirteen Houses of the Court of Night-Blooming Flowers, commonly known as the Night Court, was situated. I had only ever visited one of them before—Cereus House, oldest of the thirteen, renowned for celebrating the ephemeral nature of beauty.
It was where Jehanne had been born and raised, trained to become the foremost courtesan of her age—and also where she had first seduced me. It was an elegant, gracious place.
Eglantine House was different, very different. There they celebrated artistic genius in all its forms, and even the architecture itself reflected the nature of the House. It was an exuberant mixture of styles, with soaring arches and cunningly wrought turrets, built with stone of subtly contrasting hues that somehow managed to achieve a pleasing and harmonious whole.
A handsome young adept with red-gold hair and a dancer’s slim muscles opened the door. The sound of music spilled out, and somewhere a lone woman’s voice rose above it in an exquisite cadence.
The adept took one look at us, and grinned. “Lady Moirin mac Fainche, and Messire… Bao, is it?”
I smiled at the welcome. “It is.”
“Come in, come in!” He gave us both the kiss of greeting, ushering us inside. “Welcome to Eglantine House! How may we delight you today? Song? Poetry? Tumbling?”
“Tumbling?” Bao looked interested.
“Oh, yes!” The adept nodded enthusiastically. “The finest acrobats in Terre d’Ange are trained here. Are you an afficionado?”
“Ah…”
“Are you fond of it,” I clarified for Bao’s sake, adding to the young fellow, “Bao was trained as an acrobat.”
“In Ch’in?” The adept widened his hazel eyes.
“It was a long time ago,” Bao said in an offhand manner. “But we are not here to see tumbling. We are here to see the lady poetess.”
“Oh.” He seemed disappointed. “I will send for Mademoiselle Tremaine, of course.” He beckoned, and two charming attendants who couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen hurried over. “Wine for our guests, and a summons to Mademoiselle Tremaine.”
“I would not mind seeing the tumblers,” Bao said to me. “Later, of course.”
I shrugged. “Why not?”
“I can arrange a performance,” the adept said eagerly. “Or, or… Messire Bao, if you are interested, mayhap we could learn from one another. No one has ever seen a tumbler from Ch’in.” He sketched an apologetic bow. “I do not mean to presume, but it would be a pleasure. By the way, I am Antoine nó Eglantine, the Dowayne’s second. And if there is anything I may offer you to enhance your visit, please do not hesitate to inquire.”
“My thanks,” I said to him.
Antoine bowed again, more extravagantly. “Of course, my lady!”
One of the little attendants returned with two glasses of wine on a silver tray, offering them with a pretty curtsy.
“Terre d’Ange is more pleasant than I remembered it,” Bao remarked, sipping his wine.
“You are more pleasant, my magpie,” I informed him. “It took me weeks to coax a smile from you. All it took Balthasar Shahrizai was one flirtatious comment.”
Bao gave me a serene look. “Jealous?”
“A little,” I admitted.
He laughed.
We sat on a cushioned bench in the foyer, drinking our wine and listening to the lovely songs coming from a nearby salon. It wasn’t long before Lianne Tremaine appeared.
I stood without thinking.
She halted a few paces away, regarding me uncertainly. The last time we had seen each other, a woman had died—poor Claire Fourcay, enamored of Raphael de Mereliot. Focalor, Grand Duke of the Fallen, had inhaled her life’s essence and breathed it into my lungs, forcing me to remain alive to keep the doorway between our world and the spirit world open.
And then he had very nearly taken possession of Raphael, before Bao and Master Lo swept into the chamber, holding the fallen spirit at bay with a whirling staff, fire-powder, and mirrors, allowing me to thrust Focalor back into his world and close the door I had opened.
Lianne Tremaine looked as I remembered her, with light brown hair, topaz eyes, and sharp, intelligent features that put me in mind of a fox. But the uncertainty in her gaze was new.
“I wasn’t sure you’d see me,” she said in a low voice.
“Neither was I.”
She took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling. “May we speak in private?”
I nodded. “I think it’s best.”
After being formally introduced to Bao, she escorted us to her chamber, a generous room at the top of one of the turrets. It had windows that looked out over the whole of Mont Nuit, autumn sunlight streaming in to illuminate the space. The walls were lined with shelves and cubbyholes, holding a small fortune in books and scrolls.
“Please, sit,” Lianne said. With a nervous gesture, she indicated a cozy arrangement of four upholstered chairs around a low table. “Shall I send for wine? Tea and pastries?”
I remembered that she had been the first formal visitor I had entertained in Terre d’Ange, when I had been a guest in Raphael’s home. Raphael’s maid had had to prompt me to offer the niceties of hospitality.
It seemed like a long, long time ago.
“Thank you, no,” I said politely.
The former King’s Poet twined her hands together before her. “Lady Moirin… words are my métier. I use them to puncture the inflated sensibilities of pompous souls who hold themselves in high regard. I use them to soothe the tender spirits of offended lovers. I use them to build edifices to raise up and celebrate the achievements of worthy heroes, past and present. I use them to charm, to cajole, to sway. But I confess, I do not know how to use my words to frame the apology you deserve.”
“Maybe you should stop trying so hard to make it sound pretty and just say it,” Bao suggested
A brief flare of irritation came and went in her eyes. “You’re right. I should.” Lianne Tremaine met my gaze. “I did wrong by you, Moirin, and I am sorry for it. Can you forgive me?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I said honestly.
She sighed, and took her seat. “I cannot fault you for it. Those of us in the Circle of Shalomon, we knew what we were doing was dangerous. We knew Raphael was putting undue pressure on you to aid us. We saw the terrible toll that the summonings took on you. And yet we persisted.”
“You were stupid,” Bao said bluntly.
Lianne spread her hands. “I do not argue the point, Messire Bao. But to come so close to succeeding in our long quest… it was more heady and intoxicating than joie on the Longest Night. Compulsion gripped us like madness, ever driving us to make just one more attempt, just one more.” She shook her head. “I do not seek to justify it, only to explain.”
Bao was silent.
Having tended him through the ravages of opium-sickness, I suspected that he understood her explanation better than he wished. “You’ve made no further attempts?” I inquired.
“No.” Her tone was adamant. “None. I swear it.”
“Good.”
She looked steadily at me. “Moirin, I confess it; I resented you. All of us did. It seemed unfair that we, who had studied for so long and worked so hard, were dependent on a backwoods Alban half-breed blessed with a gift of undeserved magic for our success.”
I raised my brows at her.
“But I was wrong to do so,” Lianne admitted. “I have a poet’s trained memory. I have lived and relived those moments over a thousand times, and I have come to realize that the voice of protest you raised was a wise one. And to conclude that mayhap there are forms of wisdom that owe nothing to diligence, ambition, and intellect; and that mayhap the gods in their own wisdom bestow their gifts accordingly.”
Her expression was sincere, and as close to humble as I suspected it ever came. I toyed with the bangles on one wrist, thinking. “I asked you why you did it, once. Do you remember what you told me?”
Lianne tilted her head, the sunlight making her golden-brown eyes glow. “Of course.”
“You told me that there are always further thresholds to cross,” I said slowly. “That despite the skills you already possessed, you sought words of such surpassing beauty that they would melt the hardest heart of stone.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
I looked northward. “I thought of those words in a country far, far away. In Vralia, where I was held captive in chains that bound my magic, by a man whose beliefs were as rigid as stone. I tried and tried to tell him truths his faith would not allow him to hear. I would have paid any price to succeed.”
It piqued her poet’s ear. “I would hear that story.”
“It’s a terrible story,” Bao muttered. “I hate that story.”
I ignored him. “I will tell it to you if you like; that, and others, too. And I will grant you my forgiveness… for a price.”
Lianne Tremaine smiled wryly. “You’re not exactly the naïve backwoods soul you were, are you?”
“His majesty Daniel de la Courcel means to appoint me his daughter Desirée’s oath-sworn protector,” I informed her.
Her lips parted. “That’s… awkward.”
“It is,” I agreed. “It will be unpopular in certain circles. But I have accepted the offer for the child’s sake.”
There was a shrewd look on her face. “You want my aid.”
“I do.”
“It’s a good story.” Lianne drummed her fingertips against the arms of her chair. “A story that gets to the heart of all that Terre d’Ange holds sacred. A love-match, an unlikely love-match… no, not one. Two, three… ah, Elua! You’re a descendant of Ysandre de la Courcel and Drustan mab Necthana. Alais the Wise and her Dalriadan harper-boy. Then there is your mother’s liaison with a Priest of Naamah. It may not have been a love-match, but it was certainly unprecedented.” There was compassion in her gaze as it settled on me. “And you and Jehanne de la Courcel—the courtesan queen and her unlikely companion.” She paused. “You did love her, didn’t you?”
My throat tightened. “Stone and sea! Aye, I did.”
She met my gaze evenly. “I can work with this.”
“Will you?” I asked.
“Yes.” Lianne’s expression was candid. “Have I not made myself clear, Moirin? I crossed the will of the gods, and I have paid a price for it. I do but seek to regain their favor.”
“This is not only a means of redemption,” Bao warned her. “A child’s happiness is at stake. She should not suffer for the cause of politics.”
She gave him a brisk nod. “That is exactly what I shall seek to ensure.”