Whatever lay between Sidonie and me, it was not to be. It was a foolish infatuation, the lure of the forbidden. Nothing more.

And I wanted more.

So much more.

"Next time," I promised. I stretched out my hands, warming them at the hearth. I thought about Claudia Fulvia, who had driven me half mad with desire in Tiberium. I thought about her brother, too; Lucius, who had kissed me on the eve of battle. And I thought about Emmeline nó Balm who had been my first, and all the girls and women I'd known, and Jeanne de Mereliot, who had welcomed me home with love and healing. "All of them," I said recklessly. "All the Houses of the Night Court. I want to visit them all ere I'm wed.”

Mavros grinned. "All of them?”

"Well." With the weals of my visit to Kushiel's temple still healing, I amended my boast. "All save one.”

Chapter Four

In the weeks that followed, the good news was that Bernadette de Trevalion made an unexpected decision to return to Azzalle for the winter, taking her son Bertran with her. I didn't blame her, though I wondered what she told Bertran and Ghislain. Once they had gone, it seemed easer to breathe at the Palace.The bad news was that I spent less time than I might have wished in the Houses of the Night Court, and a good deal more immersed in foreign cultures.

One, of course, was Alba's.

The matter of succession in Alba had been a point of contention for as long as I could remember. Now, at last, it was settled in a manner pleasing to everyone. In accordance with matrilineal tradition, Drustan mab Necthana had named his nephew Talorcan his heir. I was to wed Dorelei, Talorcan's sister, and our children in turn would be named Talorcan's heirs.

And Alais had consented to wed Talorcan to satisfy the demands of concerned peers that Terre dAnge might wield influence in Alba in every generation. Although she would not rule nor her children inherit, one day she would be a Cruarch's wife.

Since the agreement was made, Alais had been appointed a Cruithne tutor that she might learn more about the country, and we agreed that I would benefit from taking part in her lessons.

The tutor's name was Firdha, and although she was small, she was imposing. When I first encountered her, she cut a fierce and upright figure, standing in the center of the well-lit study that had once served as the royal nursery. Her iron-grey hair was as thick and coarse as a mare's tail, caught at the nape of her neck by an elaborate pin, and her eyes were like polished black stones. In one hand, she held a golden staff in the likeness of an oak branch.

Behind her back, Alais mouthed the word "bow" at me.

"Bannaght, my lady," I said, bowing deeply.

Her black eyes flashed. "Daughter of the Grove.”

I straightened. "Your pardon, my lady?”

"Firdha is an ollamh," Alais informed me. "A bard of the highest rank. That's the proper greeting. Even my father uses it," she added. "An ollamh is the king's equal.”

"And my superior, I take it?" I asked. There was the faintest glint of amusement in the bard's eyes. I bowed a second time. "Bannaght, Daughter of the Grove.”

Firdha inclined her head. "Greetings, Prince.”

So my studies began. There were no books, no scrolls. Alba had no written tradition. Everything worth knowing was committed to memory. Firdha had studied for twelve years to gain her rank, and she knew hundreds upon hundreds of tales—a vast history of Alba and Eire, encompassing all manner of lore and law.

The islands were a strange place. Once, I daresay, our people wouldn't have found them so. We share a distant ancestry in common, or at least some of our people do. There were dozens of tribes in Alba, but they reckoned themselves divided roughly into four folks: The Tarbh Cró, or people of the Red Bull; the Fhalair Ban, the White Horse of Eire; the Eidlach Or, or Golden Hind of the south; and the Cullach Gorrym, or Black Boar.

Those were the true Cruithne—Drustan's folk, and Firdha's, too. Earth's oldest children, they called themselves. They had borrowed many customs from the others, but they had held the islands first.

"Many thousands of years ago, we followed the Black Boar to the west," Firdha said with a certain satisfaction. "Long before you D'Angelines learned to count time on your fingers, the Cullach Gorrym were in Alba. The Tarbh Cró, the Fhalair Ban, the Eidlach Or; they all came later.”

Mayhap it was true, but then had come the Master of the Straits and his curse. For almost a thousand years, there was little exchange between the islands and the mainland. Alba and Eire were sealed, and they had grown strange to us. The curse is broken now. It is a lengthy tale, but Phèdre broke it for all time with the Name of God she found in distant Saba. There is still a Master of the Straits—Hyacinthe, who was her childhood friend—but the Straits themselves are open, and he is an ally.

"What of the others?" Alais asked. "Did they come later, too?”

"Others?" The bard's creased eyelids flickered.

"Somewhat I heard my father say once." Alais frowned. "The Mag …Maghuin—”

"Hush." Firdha raised one hand. "The folk of Alba are divided into four," she said, repeating her lesson. "And the Cullach Gorrym are eldest among them.”

There followed a lengthy tale of how Lug the warrior led his people to follow the mighty Black Boar, and the boar swam the Straits, and the hump of his back was like an island moving toward the setting sun, and Lug and his people built hide boats and covered them with black tar, and followed. And then more, about how Lug stood upon the shore and cast his spear, and where his spear struck, a spring of sweet water bubbled from the earth to form a river, and there Bryn Gorrydum was founded.

It was a fine tale and one of many such as I would hear over the course of the following months, filled with ancient heroes, magical beasts, and sacred springs. I listened to it with pleasure, but with a nagging curiosity at the back of my thoughts, too.

"So who are these others?" I asked Alais afterward, when Firdha had departed. "And why didn't she want to speak of them?”

"I don't know." Alais leaned down to scratch Celeste's ears. The wolfhound was lounging at her feet, content to doze in a patch of sunlight. "I remember the name, though. It was Maghuin Dhonn, Brown Bear. That's why I thought mayhap he was talking about a different people, and not just another tribe among the Four Folk.”

"What did he say?”

Alais shook her head. "I couldn't hear, really. He was talking to Talorcan and they were being quiet. When he saw me, they talked of somewhat else." She regarded Celeste, who thumped her tail obligingly. "There's unrest in Alba, you know.”

"Still?" I asked lightly. "I thought I'd settled all that.”

There was a touch of amused pity in Alais' smile. "Not all of it.”

"So tell me.”

She shrugged. "Talorcan says it's only old clan feuds and that there's always fighting of that sort in Alba. But Dorelei says there are some who feel Father is too beholden to Terre d'Ange.”

"Funny," I said wryly. "That sounds familiar.”

"I know." She smiled again, but sadly this time. "Are other countries truly so different, Imri?”

"Yes," I said. "But people aren't." I kissed the top of her head. "Don't worry, Alais. They'll love you.”

"I hope so," she said softly. "I had a bad dream about a bear, once.”

"A true dream?" I asked.

"No," she said. "A nightmare.”

"We'll protect you," I said. "Won't we, Celeste?" The wolfhound lifted her head, brown eyes clear in the slanting sunlight. Her tail thumped again, stirring gleaming motes of dust.

"I hope so," Alais repeated.

The time I spent among the Sabaeans and the Yeshuites was more pleasurable. Phèdre had indeed been a gracious hostess, opening her house for a series of salons where they might meet and converse.

There were not as many Yeshuites in the City of Elua as there once were. Their numbers have dwindled during my lifetime as hundreds, then thousands, set forth toward the distant northeast in accordance with a prophecy. Far north, farther even than the farthest reaches of Skaldia. It was the one thing above all others that perplexed the Sabaeans.

"North!" Morit exclaimed. "If this Yeshua was the mashiach, why would he send the Children of Yisra-el north? Did Moishe toil for forty years in the desert to win our people a berth of snow and ice? I do not believe it.”

There were nods and murmurs of agreement from the Sabaeans. It was strange to see Phèdre's household filled with so many somber scholars all at once, when she was wont to entertain more colorful gatherings. It pleased her, though. In deference to their ways, she wore an unadorned gown of brown velvet with a modest neckline, her hair caught in a plain black caul. She still shone, though. I do not believe Phèdre could look drab if she tried.

"I did not say I believe it." Seated cross-legged on the floor, Eleazar ben Enokh spread his hands. His thin face was lively with interest. "There are passages in the Brit Khadasha that suggest it, and there are passages that suggest otherwise.”

"Bar Kochba," another of the Yeshuites murmured. " 'And he shall carve out the way before you, and his blades shall shine like a star in his hands.'“

Phèdre and Joscelin exchanged a glance. He touched the hilts of his twin daggers. There was a story there about young Yeshuites he'd taught to fight in the Cassiline manner. Ti-Philippe told me once. He knew, he'd been there.

"But why north?" Morit asked in frustration.

"Yeshua spoke of making a place in cold lands to await his return," Eleazar said to her. "For my part, I believe he spoke in parable, and the place of which he spoke is the wastelands of the human heart. It is there that we must await him.”

"You believe he was the mashiach?" one of the Sabaean men challenged him.

Eleazar was quiet a moment. He was a mystic, and Phèdre had befriended him many years ago in her long quest to break the curse that bound the Master of the Straits. He had heard the Name of God when she spoke it. "I do," he said slowly. "For I have found beauty and goodness in his words, and the promise of salvation. And yet I believe there is much that is hidden to us. What is it, this thing we call salvation? Who are we to discern the will of Adonai?”

"So." Morit smiled. "We are not so different, perhaps.”

"No." He smiled back at her. "Not so different.”

It was true, what I'd said to Alais.

True, and not true.

They debated this and many things. I liked listening to them. It was much like the conversations we had in Tiberium under Master Piero's guidance, seeking to define the nature of salvation, of goodness, of justice. Only they spoke in Habiru, not Caerdicci, and I stayed quiet and listened as best I could.

"What of this Elua?" one of the Sabaeans inquired. "You are silent, Lady Phèdre, and yet you alone among us have come closest to touching the mind of Adonai. Do you believe Elua, then, was the mashiach? Why do you not speak?”

"It is too big for words," Phèdre said simply. "Ask your own un-tongued priests, for I can speak of it no more than they can.”

Some of them were put out by her refusal, but Eleazar nodded. "You were given a gift," he said. "Gifts do not always come with understanding; or not one to which we may give voice. Is it not so?”

"My thanks," she said. "Yes.”

"I'll say it, then." Unexpectedly Joscelin lifted his head. His fair hair gleamed in the lamplight. "Yes," he said firmly. "I believe it. I do not claim it is true for all folk, but for me, at least, Blessed Elua is the mashiach.”

It surprised me a little, and yet it did not. Alone among Elua's Companions, Cassiel followed Blessed Elua out of a belief that the One God had been wrong to turn his back on his misbegotten son. The Yeshuites called Cassiel the Apostate. They believe he will relent one day and return to the One God's throne, and Elua and his Companions will follow. The Cassiline Brothers believe it, too. But Joscelin had passed through damnation and beyond, and he believed otherwise.

I did, too.

We spoke of it after our guests had left, after a fashion. There was somewhat I'd heard that I'd never asked him about, and I was curious.

"Is it true you nearly converted to Yeshuism?" I asked him.

"Where did you hear that?" Joscelin eyed me.

"Gilot," I said. It was true, although I knew he'd gotten it from Ti-Philippe.

"I thought about it," Joscelin said. "It was a long time ago.”

"Why?”

He got up to prod the fire, squatting with effortless grace. His unbound hair curtained his face momentarily. I knew it hid the place on the upper curve of his right ear where a chunk of flesh was missing, taken out by a bandit's arrow by the Great Falls above Saba. "Salvation," he murmured. "What, indeed, does it mean? At the time, I thought I knew. I thought myself in need of it, and the Yeshuites offered it. And all it cost was faith.”

"But you didn't," I said.

Joscelin shook his head. "No," he said. "In the end, the cost was too high. I was unwilling to lay love on the altar of faith. Instead, I found my faith in love.”

We would have spoken further, but there was a commotion at the door. I thought it was one of our guests returning, but it proved to be Mavros calling on me.

"Name of Elua!" He laughed. "I saw your guests leaving. What a dour lot!" He bowed graciously to Joscelin, which he didn't have to do. "Messire Cassiline.”