"Cadmar was scared!" Ti-Michel slid down from Joscelin's knee, forgetting his distress, chin raised in challenge.

"So were you!" the older boy retorted. "You ran for Beryl!"

"Cad-mar was sea-red!" Honore sang, bouncing, then added, "Imri wasn't scared of anything."

"Is that true?" I addressed my question to Beryl.

"No." She gave me a cool look of appraisal. "Of course not. Nobody's afraid of nothing. But he was brave, for a boy." Her lip curled. "Braver than Cadmar. Imri liked to take risks, to see what would happen. And when he got hurt, he never complained. He was afraid, though. He was afraid of anyone seeing him cry."

"One time," Ti-Michel said, "one time I fell in the river, and Imri-"

"Oh, shut up," Cadmar said in disgust. "You could have walked out, if you'd stood up and stopped flailing around. It wasn't so deep."

"Imri taught us how to swim." Honore climbed down from Joscelin's knee and came over to stare into my face, clutching my skirts absentmindedly. "We took all our clothes off. I like to swim. How come you have a red spot in your eye?"

"Because," I said, touching her nose. "I was born with it. Why do you have freckles?"

The child looked cross-eyed at her own visage and giggled.

The words that followed were spoken in a half-whisper. "Mighty Kushiel, of rod and weal, late of the brazen portals, with blood-tipp'd dart a wound unhealed, pricks the eyen of chosen mortals."

I raised my head, looking at Beryl, who had gone pale and defiant.

"I know who you are," she said. "Brother Selbert thinks I'm too young to know, but I'm not. I hear themwhisper. They are always whispering, since Imri disappeared. I see the books they study when they think we're not paying attention, the scrolls they hide. I know who you are. Why are you here? Why do you want to know about Imri?"

Joscelin and I exchanged a glance. "Beryl," I said gently. "What I have told you is true. I am the Queen's friend, and she does care about Imriel. If harm had befallen any of Blessed Elua's children, her majesty would want to know how and why. If there is more to it..." I shook my head. "It is not my place to tell you what Brother Selbert will not. You must ask him yourself. But if there is any knowledge you have that would help me to find Imri, I pray you tell me. I promise you, I seek only to aid him."

"No." Her shoulders slumped. "He's just gone! And Elua, Elua did nothing to protect him." A spasm of bitter grief contorted her features. "Brother Selbert says we are all in Elua's hand! Where was Elua when Imri needed him?"

In the silence that followed, Honore began to sob methodically, more upset by Beryl's anger than any true sense of divine injustice. Ti-Michel's lower lip quivered, and Cadmar set his jaw and looked sullen. I had done a poor job of heeding the priest's wishes. Joscelin moved to sit cross-legged on the floor, drawing Honore onto his lap where she soon quieted.

"Beryl," I said. "Elua cannot prevent ill things from happening. He can only give us the courage to face it with love."

"It's not enough!" she cried.

"It is," I said. "It's all we have."

Who was I, to teach theology to the wards of Elua's priesthood? And yet Joscelin had been right. It is a hard truth that lies at the center of faith. I watched Beryl measure that truth against the half-lies and omissions that had surrounded the disappearance of Imriel de la Courcel, and brace herself against it, drawing strength from its acceptance. Slowly, her shoulders squared and she sat a little straighter, fixing me with a direct regard. "And if I pray for him? Do you believe still that Elua will hear my prayers?"

"I do." I said it firmly, as if I had never doubted myself. Whether or not it would aid the missing Imriel, I did believe it would help Beryl.

"Then I will," she said.

Thus, for better or ill, was our encounter with the children of Elua's sanctuary. They were subdued when we took our leave, and I did not think Brother Selbert would be pleased, but there was a spark of new resolve in Beryl's green eyes, and I did not think it was entirely ill-done.

It was not until Joscelin and I were alone in our humble guest-chamber that I gave vent to my own frustrations.

"Name of Elua!" I hurled a down-stuffed pillow at the stone wall. "Brother Selbert, the priesthood, the acolytes, the children . . . they're telling the truth, aren't they?"

"Mm-hrnm." Joscelin prudently moved the oil lamp on the bedside table out of reach of my swirling skirts. I paced the chamber in disregard.

"They're telling the truth," I said, ticking them off on my fingers, "L'Envers is telling the truth, Melisande'sspies . . . Melisande, for love of Kushiel! Melisande is telling the truth. What am I missing, Joscelin? I cannot see the pattern here! Where's the lie? Who are we overlooking?"

"La Serenissima?" He fetched the rolled map from our travel-bags, spreading it on the narrow bed.

"Selbert took the boy to see Melisande. Someone could have guessed."

"Severio would have told me if he'd gotten wind of it." I pondered the map, tracing a semicircle north of Landras. "If they'd made for Marsilikos, someone would have seen them along the way."

"Mayhap they didn't." Joscelin traced a ragged route southward. "Mayhap they stuck to the mountains."

"And crossed into Aragonia? L'Envers searched there." I thought about it and shrugged. "We could ride south, and inquire. We'd pass near to Verreuil, Joscelin. We could visit your family."

His eyes shone briefly in the lamplight, then dimmed. "I'd not want to take time from our errand. If we stop anywhere, it ought to be Montreve."

"It's no time to speak of. We'd need to take lodging somewhere." I got up and retrieved the pillow I'd thrown. "And Montreve's not on the way. Verreuil is."

"As you wish." He smiled with unalloyed pleasure, rolling the map.

I was glad I could make someone happy.

SEVENTEEN.

WE SAID our farewells to Brother Selbert in the morning, standing in the courtyard.

"I am sorry," he said, "that we could not give you the answers you sought."

"You have given us what you had, my lord priest." I inclined my head to him. "For that, I am grateful. It may be that the Queen will summon you to discuss your role in ImriePs disappearance from La Serenissima. I will speak on behalf of your intentions."

Brother Selbert swallowed, his throat moving visibly. "I never meant for the boy to come to harm. I thought... I thought he could grow up freely in Elua's grace, his spirit untrammeled by the machinations of politics."

"I know," I said.

"Tell them who he was." Joscelin adjusted the buckles on his vambraces, checking and settling his weapons. "It will help them make sense of it, Brother Selbert. And they should know that not even Elua's grace renders them invulnerable to the ill in men's hearts." He looked up at the priest. "Or the follies of pride."

"I will tell them." Brother Selbert returned his gaze unflinching. "Do not be quick to judge me, Cassiline.

Can you claim to know the whole of Elua's will?"

"No," Joscelin said quietly. At the far end of the courtyard, the young acolyte Liliane emerged from thearch of the stableway, craning her head to smile at the morning sun, our mounts and pack-mules trailing after her like ducklings following their mother. "There are mysteries no one can fathom."

"Even so." The priest nodded. "And there are purposes too deep for us to grasp."

I could have sworn, from the sleek condition of their coats, their renewed reserves of vigor, that our animals had spent a month rather than a day basking in the sunlit paddocks of Elua's sanctuary. My mare frisked like a filly crossing the bridge, dancing and shying at the hollow echo of her hoofbeats on the wooden planks.

"Did you know Liliane was my mother's name?" I asked Joscelin.

"Really?" He looked surprised. "You never told me."

"It was."

So began our wanderings through the mountains of Siovale. We gained the lower pastures, where Beryl and Ti-Michel pointed us toward the rockfall of which they had spoken, a narrow ledge along a chasm, dangerous with overhanging crags. After making our precarious way past the cleared rockfall, we ascended to the further pastures, flat areas where the tall grass grew, perfect for spring grazing and fall harvest. There was nothing to see, but it gave us our starting-point.

We had marked the towns and villages searched on our map, and Brother Othon had left markers of his own along the mountain trails, scratching Elua's sigil onto rocks and trees in areas already combed. He was right; the search had been thorough. For two days, Joscelin and I rode in broadening arcs, keeping a keen eye out for Othon's signs. It reminded me of travelling along the Tsingani routes, searching for chaidrov, the secret markers with which they indicated their passing. We met a few folk along the way, shepherds mostly, who shook their heads, able to tell us nothing.

After two days, we ceased to find Othon's scratchings and I had begun to suspect that our search was fruitless. Still, we continued, until I was heartily sick of making camp in mountain meadows and bathing in icy streams.

"There's a village . . . here." Joscelin glanced up from the map, watching as I struggled to draw a comb through my hopelessly tangled tresses. "We could make it by nightfall, and be in Verreuil by midday tomorrow."

"Let's do it." The comb stuck. I drew it out with a muttered curse. "I'm not going to see your family looking like I've been sleeping in a bird's nest."

He grinned at me. "You look like a maiden out of legend, fresh-tumbled by Elua."

"I feel like I've tumbled fresh out of a hedgerow," I retorted.

Joscelin laughed. "You still look beautiful. Come on, then. The village by nightfall, and we'll beg lodgings if they don't have an inn. I wouldn't mind a hot bath, either."

We made good time in the morning, reaching the deep divide that led southward to Aragonia-and then lost time in conversation with the merchants of a trade caravan, who had no news of any errant children matching Imriel's description, but a bitter tale of being cheated by Tsingani horse-traders. I held my tongue at their ire, though it galled me. It is true that the Tsingani take great joy in getting the better of thegadje, but it is equally true that most of the gadje bring it on themselves, seeking to do the same and making a virtue of it.

Afterward, we pushed too hard to make up for the delay, and one of the mules slipped on loose scree, straining a foreleg. Our pace slowed to a limping gait, and it grew obvious that we weren't going to make the village before dark. Joscelin rode ahead to scout out a campsite as dusk grew night, returning in good spirits.

"We're closer than we thought," he said. "There's a dairy-crofter's in the next valley. They make cheese to sell at market. I spoke to the husband; he said they'd give us lodging and fare for coin. And a hot bath." He grinned. "I asked."

"Elua be thanked!" I said fervently.

Darkness was falling by the time we made our halting way to the valley, and the crofter met us with a lantern, leading us to an unused paddock by the cow-byre where we could turn our mounts and the mules loose for the night, piling our saddles and packs under the shelter of a lean-to. He introduced himself as Jacques Ecot and said little more, taciturn and withdrawn. I was surprised at his wife, Agnes, a petite woman with features that should have been vivacious, but for the sorrow that haunted her eyes.

It was only the two of them, alone in their croft. Agnes bustled about, heating water for the bath and laying out her best linens at the table, showing us to a neat bedchamber with whitewashed walls, a child's chest-of-drawers and a bed with a lovingly hand-sewn quilt atop it. I brushed my hand over the counterpane, wondering, but asked no questions.

We had our baths, Joscelin and I alike, and he lent a hand hauling water and emptying the tub. I watched the muscles bunch and gather in his forearms, remembering the first time I'd seen him perform simple menial chores. We had been slaves together, he and I, sold into bondage in a Skaldi steading. It seemed a long time ago.

Afterward we dined with Jacques and Agnes Ecot, seated at the table in their cozy, rustic kitchen.

Lamplight glowed warm on dishes of broad beans and ham, a puree of turnips, a pitcher of water drawn cold from the well. It should have been homely and charming, and yet a pall of sadness hung over that home, and I was oddly uneasy.

"It's no business of mine," Agnes murmured, pushing the food on her plate without eating. "But it is passing strange to find a fine lord and lady in the back hills of Siovale."

"Not so strange." Joscelin smiled at her. "My father is the Chevalier Millard Verreuil. Do you know of him? Our estates are near."

"Oh, yes!" Her face lit up. "He came to market once in town . . . more than once! He praised our cheeses. You have a look of him, now that I see it. He and those tall sons of his. What are their names?"

"Luc," Joscelin said. "Luc and Mahieu. My brothers."

"Luc and Mahieu," Agnes echoed wistfully. "They must be men grown now, with wives and children of their own."

"They are." Jacques ecot's harsh voice broke the moment of reverie. "You're coming from the wrong way, if you're coming from the City of Elua." He looked me up and down. "And from your finery, I'd say you are."

"Messire ecot." I inclined my head to him, determined to take no offense. "You have the right of it. But more recently, we come from Elua's sanctuary at Landras, searching for a boy, some ten or eleven years of age, fair-skinned, with black hair and blue eyes. Have you seen anyone matching his description, alone or in the company of others? He has been missing for some three months now."

Agnes' fork fell with a clatter and the blood drained from her face. "Jacques," she whispered.

"Is this some jest?" The dairy-crofter was on his feet, hands balled into fists, sinews knotting, his mouth working with rage. "Do you seek to mock our loss?"

I sat very straight against the back of my chair.

"My lord crofter," Joscelin said smoothly, easing himself between us, putting his hands on ecot's shoulders and guiding him gently back into his seat. "I pray you, we meant no offense. My lady Phedre speaks the truth, we do but seek a missing boy. Will you not sit, and tell us of your troubles?"

The dairy-crofter sat, obedient and dazed, passing one hand before his eyes. "Agnette," he murmured.

"Agnette!"

I looked at his wife. "Your daughter."

She nodded her head like a puppet, face still white. "Our daughter.

Eleven years, going on twelve." She swallowed. "She went missing, my lady, some three months ago."

"Ah, no." I felt a wave of sorrow, gathering and breaking, too immense to be comprehended. "No." A sense of dread hung over me like thunder, and red haze clouded my vision. My ears were buzzing with a sound like a hornet's nest. I saw, at last, in the forming pattern, the thing I had been missing, the hand I had forgotten, awesome and implacable.

Kushiel.

It was Joscelin who drew the story of their daughter's vanishing from the dairy-crofter and his wife, though I daresay it was a familiar enough tale. The spring rains had been meager and she had gone with a portion of the herd seeking pasturage in the next valley. Sweet, pretty Agnette, with her mother's vivacious face, had never returned. Her father Jacques had sought her that evening, with the help of a lad they hired during the days, pushing his way among the lowing cattle with a lamp held high.

She had vanished without a trace.

Elua is not so cruel as to use a child to lesson his priests . . .

So Brother Selbert had said, and he had believed it; but it was not Elua who was once named the Punisher of God. It was Kushiel. And I knew too well his cruel justice to dismiss this as mere coincidence. A pattern too vast for me to compass. So Hyacinthe had said, reading the dromonde for me. Truly, it was. I had expected anything-anything- but this. I sat dumb as a post and listened as Jacques ecot warmed to his topic, his stoic demeanor forgotten in the passion of his grief. A bear, they had thought, or wolves-but surely creatures of the wild would have left traces, signs of passage, printsand struggle, bloodstains. No, he concluded grimly; it must have been human, whatever took Agnette.

Tsingani, most like. Everyone knew the Tsingani were not to be trusted, that they would steal D'Angeline babies from their cradles and raise them as their own, given half a chance.

"They wouldn't," I murmured, but my voice went unheard, buried beneath the flood of anguish our inquiry had unleashed.

Somehow, Joscelin managed everything that night, hearing out their terrible story, making amends and apologies, pleading the travails of our journey and spiriting me away to our simple bedchamber. Agnette's chamber, I knew now, the counterpane stitched by a loving mother for the only child of her blood. I sat upon it, turning my dumbstruck gaze to his.

"Oh, Joscelin! What if it's . . . it's nothing to do with politics, with the Queen's kin, with Melisande.

What if it's just. ..." I searched futilely for words. "A bad thing that happened?"

"We will find out." He knelt beside the bed, eyes fierce, gripping my hands in his. "Phedre, if someone is abducting D'Angeline children from their homes, we'll find out about it. We'll go in the morning to Verreuil. My father won't stand for this lightly, I promise you that! He'll give us every aid, put his men-at-arms at our disposal, rouse the countryside. We will find them."

I was shivering, to the marrow of my bones. I dared not think to what purpose the children had been taken, not yet. The rawness of the ecots' grief was unbearable. I do not know, if it had been my child, if I could have endured it. What did I know of a parent's suffering? It was that very fear had kept me from motherhood, and this bereavement was worse, far worse, than aught I had imagined. "These poor people .".