"You owe me a boon, Ysandre," I said softly. "Anything within your power and right to grant. This is both."

"No." Ysandre's chin set with the exact stubbornness of Imriel's. "No," she repeated. "It is a matter of state and crown. Prince Imriel stands third in line for the throne, and I do not have the right, as ruler of Terre d'Ange, to place his life in jeopardy. By your own admission, he has enemies who seek his life.

How can you possibly claim he would be protected in your household as he would in mine?"

"Will he have a Cassiline Brother vowed to protect him in your household, one you trust unto the death?" I asked. "He will in mine; and defrocked or no, you once awarded him the laurels of the Queen's Champion. I can swear to the loyalty of every man, woman and child under my roof, my lady. Can you do the same?" I let my gaze linger on Barquiel L'Envers, who saluted me with a wry nod.

"Nonetheless," Ysandre said, deliberately ignoring the implication. "It is a small household, and might be easily overwhelmed."

"Not that easily." I smiled. "What Montreve lacks in holdings, my lady, it makes up for in friends and allies. How many of the Great Houses of Terre d'Ange can claim a childhood bond with the Master of the Straits?"

It was a telling blow, and I did not deal it lightly, not in front of that audience. I stood unmoving before the Queen, holding the Companions' Star on the palm of my outstretched hand, willing it not to tremble.

Ysandre searched my eyes. "Phedre, why?'

I thought about Imriel in Daranga, and the night he had wept for the first time. I remembered him floundering on the sandbar, wrestling the immense fish while Joscelin shouted instructions, and how hehad beamed when Bizan gave him his fire-striker. I remembered, most of all, how he had flung himself to my defense on the isle of Kapporeth.

"Not all families are born of blood and seed, my lady. You ought to know that much. If Anafiel Delaunay had not loved your father, you would be dead."

Her face stiffened. "You hold that against me at last?"

"No." I shook my head, feeling sad. "I merely claim the price of it."

"And you, Cassiline?" Ysandre turned to address Joscelin, who had come up behind me. "Are you party to this madness?"

He bowed with immaculate Cassiline grace. "Forgive me, majesty, but I am."

"So be it." She took the Companions' Star from my hand, clenching her fist on it as she addressed the dumb-struck watchers. "An offer of two-fold honor has been made," she said grimly, "and a boon requested, which we are sworn to honor by our own word." She turned to Imriel. "Is it your wish to accept this offer?"

"Yes." He quivered with excitement, eyes shining. "Yes, your majesty!"

Ysandre sighed. "Let the registers reflect that this member of our household shall henceforth be known as Imriel no Montreve de la Courcel, and he shall be fostered at House Montreve until such time as all parties conclude otherwise, presuming we do not cast his purported foster-mother, the Comtesse de Montreve, and her esteemed consort Joscelin Verreuil, in chains in the next proceedings. Comtesse, we have a letter in your own hand, in which you freely confess that you and your consort countermanded my wishes in the matter of Prince Imriel's return. Do you deny it?"

"No, your majesty," I said.

"You pledged to return with all possible speed to Comte Raife Laniol, Ambassador de Penfars, in Iskandria, and yet you did not. Why?"

I cleared my throat. "Because it occurred to me instead to return by way of La Serenissima and strike a bargain with Melisande Shahrizai."

Ysandre's expression was cold. "And what is the nature of this bargain?"

It was hard to hold her eyes, but I made myself do it. "That I will raise her son, and not you. And in exchange, her oath that she will not raise her hand, nor any other's, against you or your daughters."

Whatever Ysandre had expected, that was not it. She looked away. "Hence the offer of two-fold honor."

"No," I said. "I would have made it anyway. What I said before holds true. But this was the only time I could use it as a bargaining chip. I'm sorry, my lady, truly."

"You actually think she will abide by this oath, anguissette?" It was Barquiel L'Envers who asked, leaning idly against Ysandre's empty throne, as dangerous as a basking leopard. "What an amusing notion! You are still a touch besotted, my dear." I didn't answer him, but only watched Ysandre. She had called me mad, once, for what I had believed of Melisande. And after La Serenissima, she had promised never to doubt me again. I knew I was right. I didn't know if Ysandre knew it, or cared.

She eyed me. "Do you have aught else to say?"

"Yes, your majesty." I knelt and proffered the coffer I'd held tucked under my left arm, opening the lid.

"Her majesty Queen Zanadakhete of Meroe, who is likewise ruler of Jebe-Barkal, sends her greetings, and wishes you to know that she would welcome a D'Angeline embassy in Meroe, did you wish to send one."

Ysandre removed the necklace from the coffer and held it up for inspection. The necklace dangled from her hand, gleaming gold, the massive emerald betwixt the horns of Isis refracting glints of green light on the walls of the throne-room.

It was worth a king's ransom.

"Queen Zanadakhete of Meroe," Ysandre echoed.

"Yes, your majesty." I'd bowed my head after I gave it to her; I kept it that way.

"Phedre." Her tone startled me into looking up. Ysandre's face was unreadable. "Did you find the object of your quest?"

We might have been alone in the throne-room, she and I. When all was said and done, we had been through a good deal together, Ysandre de la Courcel and I. My lord Delaunay had pledged his life to protect her, for love of her father. Most of the battles I have fought have been her battles, and if I have regretted any, it was only the means, not the cause.

Our lives too were intertwined.

And that too was the Name of God.

"Yes, your majesty," I said, gazing up at her and feeling unbidden tears prick my eyes. "I found what I sought."

Ysandre nodded slowly and looked about the throne-room, the Companions' Star in one hand, the necklace of Queen Zanadakhete of Meroe in the other. No one spoke; even Barquiel L'Envers did not crack a smile. "In your missive, wherein you admitted your guilt, you cited the rainy season in Jebe-Barkal as a reason you chose not to delay and return Prince Imriel into the custody of Lord Amaury Trente. Is it not so?"

"Yes, my lady," I murmured. "It is so."

"Well and good." Ysandre dropped the necklace into the coffer I held still in my outstretched hands, closing the lid and nodding to a bowing attendant to take it. "Since your guilt is admitted freely, this, then, is my sentence. For the duration of a season, this season you were unwilling to squander for my kinsman's safe return, you and your household will abide in the City of Elua."

Hyacinthe.

"Enough!" Ysandre's eyes flashed. "How much indulgence will you beg of me, Phedre no Delaunay?

You were quick to boast of the Master of the Straits' friendship; is it such a slight thing that three more months will jeopardize it? You will abide in the City for the duration of winter, and do you set foot outside the walls, you will be charged with treason. Is that understood?"

"Hyacinthe gave his life for you, my lady," I said. "For you, and for Terre d'Ange, that Drustan mab Necthana might ride to your aid and your side."

"No." Something softened in Ysandre's face. "He gave it for you, Phedre. And I am not unmindful of the sacrifice he usurped. Nonetheless, you knowingly defied my will, and your transgression carries a price. I regret that Hyacinthe son of Anasztaizia must bear the cost- but it is on your head, and not mine. Will you abide by my judgement?"

I bowed my head, feeling the cold marble beneath my knees. It was bitter-and it was fair. "Yes," I whispered. "I will abide."

NINETY-TWO.

WHEN POETS sing of the Bitterest Winter in Terre d'Ange, they mean the winter before the Skaldic invasion, when sickness ravaged the land, when Melisande Shahrizai and Isidore d'Aiglemort betrayed it, when Ganelon de la Courcel, the old King, died.

For me, it was this one.

It began with Ysandre's dismissal, and the long walk back through the throne-room, through the Palace halls. I had been too quick to boast of my composure under the stares of my peers. These cut hard and deep, and the whispers had turned cruel.

"Phedre. Phedre."

No wonder I had been unable to find Hyacinthe in my dream. The way back was longer than I had imagined, and there were more steps to retrace. For ImriePs sake, I kept my shoulders squared and my head high, and blessed for the thousandth time the presence of Joscelin. The whispers ran off him like rain, and he met eyes contemptuous of his downfall with a cool disinterest. He had already lived through his own personal hell. There was nothing with which the peerage of Terre d'Ange could threaten him.

I could have said no.

Ysandre could have clapped me in chains; she would not have done so. I knew that as surely as I knew that Melisande would abide by her oath. If I had gone to Hyacinthe then and there, Ysandre would have allowed it.

Afterward, I would have paid.

And I could not blame her for it. I had defied her, behind her back and to her face, forcing her hand in a state forum. She was the Queen of Terre d'Ange. Such actions could not go unpunished, not withoutbreeding repercussions that would plague her reign for years to come.

In the eyes of the realm, the punishment was a light one. If I had refused to submit, if I had defied her once more, it would have been more grave.

I might have been stripped of my rank and holdings.

I would surely have lost the fosterage of Imri.

It was bitter, and fair. I made my choice knowing it. I wondered if she knew that nothing would grieve me more than knowing Hyacinthe's suffering endured unnecessarily, and I myself the cause of it. Mayhap she did; there is Kusheline blood in House L'Envers, and along with it comes the keen awareness of pain.

Mayhap it was Kushiel's will in the end, that I myself might know what it was to have an innocent suffer for my own transgressions, for even Kushiel's Chosen is not immune from his justice.

I do not know.

It was a long and bitter winter to endure.

There were points of brightness in it, and chiefest among them was Imriel. He flourished in our home in the City of Elua. Eugenie doted upon him, as did all the servants in my employ. He studied the Cassiline disciplines with Joscelin in the frozen garden, mimicking his every move; not to be outdone, Ti-Philippe taught him conventional swordsmanship. To the amusement of us all, young Hugues appointed himself Imriel's personal guardian. He was not especially skilled with blades, but he wielded a shepherd's cudgel to wicked effect, and I once saw him give Joscelin a bout that pressed him surprisingly hard. Hugues taught Imri to play the flute, too, finding he already knew the rudiments of it.

My goat-herd prince.

Other things, I taught him-much as Anafiel Delaunay had once taught Alcuin and I. He read well in D'Angeline and Caerdicci, and I gave him histories and philosophies to read, borrowing what I did not possess from the archives of the Academy. I taught him Cruithne, which he had begun to learn in the Sanctuary of Elua. Once upon a time, it was a tongue no one studied, spoken only by blue-painted barbarians on the far side of the divide held by the Master of the Straits. I myself had rebelled at learning it. Now, it is the mother-tongue of the Cruarch of Alba, husband of Queen Ysandre de la Courcel, and D'Angeline schoolchildren study it as a matter of course.

Why? Because of Hyacinthe, who made it possible.

Only they do not say that.

I introduced Imriel to Emile in Night's Doorstep, and through him to the Tsingani population in Terre d'Ange. They did not care whose son he was, but only that he had played a role in procuring the key that would free Anasztaizia's son, the Tsingan Kralis, the Prince of Travellers.

Like me, the Tsingani were waiting for spring.

And I introduced him too to Eleazar ben Enokh, the Yeshuite mystic. It grieved me to be unable to share the Name of God with Eleazar, who had sought it for so long-and yet I could not. When I thought upon it, my throat swelled near to closing, and I knew the Sacred Name had been entrusted to me for one purpose, and one purpose only. "Adonai does as He wills, and none of us may grasp the whole of His thought." Eleazar's words were gentle. "My heart is glad on your behalf, Phedre no Delaunay."

If I could not share the Name of God with him, I could tell him of the Tribe of Dan, and that I did, at length-of the union of Shalomon and Makeda and the Covenant of Wisdom, of Khemosh's folly and the flight to Tisaar and the Lake of Tears, of the Ark of Broken Tablets on the island of Kapporeth. These things he recorded eagerly, and his wife Adara looked on with indulgence and interest.

In such ways did my Bitterest Winter pass.

I spent long hours composing letters, replying to a year's worth of correspondence. Although my letters would not go overseas until spring, I wrote to Nicola L'Envers y Aragon in Amilcar, to Kazan Atrabiades in Epidauro, who had written to tell me of his new appointment, to Pasiphae Asterius, who is the Kore of the Tenemos. I studied, obsessively, everything in my library on the angel Rahab, which I had spent ten years compiling, and learned nothing new. I thought about the confrontation to come. Few guests called upon my home and few invited me to theirs during this time. I received several offers of assignations from such people as would never have dared inquire in the past- disreputable merchants, a petty lordling suspected of molesting his household servants. These I burned without deigning to reply.

The City of Elua was waiting to see if Ysandre would forgive me.

Every week, a representative of the Queen came to the house to ensure that Imriel was in good health and good spirits-Guillen Baphinol, a young Eisandine nobleman who had studied medicine at one of Eisheth's sanctuaries. I treated him with unfailing politeness. At first, he made a show of inspecting the house and assessing its fortitude, testing the bars on the doors with a grave demeanor. Joscelin watched with amusement; Imriel with simmering resentment. Although it is small, my house is as secure as any manse within the City. I have always taken care with such things, ever since my lord Delaunay and my foster-brother Alcuin were slain within their own home. In time, Guillen warmed to us and I consulted him on such small bits of herb-lore as I have garnered in my travels.

But he never gave any indication of Ysandre's mind.

Not everyone I had known turned their back upon me. Once the gossip reached her ears, I had regular letters from Cecilie Laveau-Perrin, my old mentor in Naamah's arts. Some years ago she had closed her salon for good and retired to her country estate of Perrinwolde, which, alas, lay a day's ride outside the City walls. Nonetheless, it cheered me to receive her letters, and we resumed a lively correspondence.

I received an invitation, too, for all of us to call upon Thelesis de Mornay, the Queen's Poet, and that I accepted, for she was in seclusion at the Palace and I might visit her without breaking my pledge.

It had been mayhap three years since I had seen her last, and I was shocked at her condition. Touched by the fever of that first Bitterest Winter, Thelesis had never recovered completely. Her quarters has always been maintained at a nigh-uncomfortable warmth; now there was a fireplace in every room and multiple braziers and pots of boiling water suspended over the flames added moisture to the air, rendering it as hot and steamy as the plains of Jebe-Barkal in the rainy season. A servant in Courcel livery tended them with quiet diligence.

Thelesis looked older than her years, her hair streaked with grey, her skin grown sallow and loose on her small frame. But if her dark eyes were sunken, they still glowed, and her voice held a ghost of its rich musicality. "Phedre no Delaunay," she whispered, giving me the kiss of greeting. "It is good to see youonce more."

I leaned my cheek against hers, feeling the frailty of her. "You are kind to do so, Thelesis. Pray, don't let us overtax you."

"Nonsense." She held me off, smiling. "And you, Joscelin Verreuil! Come here and let me feel your strength, Queen's Champion."

"No longer," he said, returning her kiss. "But it is good to see you, Queen's Poet. I hope you are keeping yourself as well as may be."

"As you see." Thelesis waved a hand, indicating the boiling pot, the braziers, the eternal disarray of her quarters, which were strewn haphazardly with books and scrolls and fragments of half-finished writing.

At the farthest worktable, a young girl in a drab smock sat perched on a stool, grinding oak-galls in a mortar, shards of husks strewn about the floor. In all the time I have known Thelesis de Mornay-which is a good many years, now-she has never been able to work surrounded by order. With her dark poet's eyes, she watched Imriel take it in. "A proper mess, isn't it?" she asked him.

"Phedre makes a mess of her study when she's trying to find something." He offered the words warily, watching her reaction. "She doesn't think so, but she does."

"Does she?" Thelesis smiled. "I wouldn't have imagined it. I am Thelesis de Mornay. You must be Imriel."

He made a half-bow. "Imriel no Montreve."

"I know." She touched his cheek lightly. "A fine name you bear, and a noble one. Anafiel Delaunay de Montreve was a friend of mine, and I mourn him still. He would be proud of what Phedre has made of his name, and as proud again to know you bear it. He never did, you know, not in his adult lifetime. Have you heard that story?"

"Yes." Imriel relaxed, smiling back at her. "We have a bust of him, you know."

"I know." It had been her gift to me. "I'd like to hear your story, Imriel, if you wouldn't mind telling it to me. Yours, and Phedre's and Joscelin's, too."

So we told our story to the Queen's Poet from beginning to end, and it was a long time in the telling.

The quiet servant brought tea sweetened with honey and a plate of small cakes, a warm blanket of fine-combed wool which he settled carefully about his mistress' shoulders as Thelesis sat and listened without interrupting, sipping tea to suppress her cough. From time to time, her dark eyes filled with tears.

We told the story in turns, and the only sound save for one voice speaking was the soft noise of oak-galls being ground to powder for ink. In time, even that fell silent as Thelesis' young apprentice ceased her labors to listen, perched on her stool, chin in her hands.

"Oh, my," Thelesis murmured when we had finished. "Oh, children."

There wasn't much more she could say. At the distant worktable, her apprentice picked up her bowl and resumed grinding.