Kushiel's Chosen Read Online Free PDF

third at the postern gate.
    "So if the corridor was here ..." Kneeling beside the low table in my sitting room, Fortun plucked a long-stemmed iris from a vase and laid it lengthways atop the table. "How far from the stairs?"
    I counted on my fingers, remembering. "Three doors. No, four. Her chamber was the first door past the corner."
    "Here, then." He broke the flower's stem, bending it at an angle, then setting an empty cordial glass at one end. "And the stairs, here.”
    "Yes." Leaning over the table, I studied it. "Near enough."
    Across the room, Joscelin shoved himself to his feet. "Phèdre."
    "Yes?" I glanced up from the table.
    "Leave them out of it." His expression was unreadable. "If you insist on playing dangerous games, so be it. Don't drag these poor, besotted boys into your intrigues. I can't protect the lot of you."
    "Did I ask you to?" I felt my ire rise. "If it disturbs you so greatly, then leave. Throw yourself at the feet of the Prefect and beg forgiveness. Or go tell Ysandre I release you from my service, and beg leave to attend her. She's used to having Cassilines around."
    Joscelin gave a short laugh. "And let you go hurtling into peril with three half-trained sailors to ward you? At least allow me to keep from dishonoring the last vow I've kept, Phèdre."
    I opened my mouth to reply, but Fortun cleared his throat, intervening. "Quintilius Rousse does not pick half-trained soldiers for his flagship, brother."
    "It's not the same." Steel glinted from Joscelin's vam braces as he shifted in frustration. "You're trained to battle, not to protect and serve. It's not the same at all."
    "I am learning." Fortun's voice held steady.
    Their gazes locked, and I held my tongue. What would it profit, to come between them? Joscelin had to choose freely, or not at all. After a moment, he threw up his hands with a sound of disgust.
    "I wish you me joy of them," he said harshly to me, and left the room.
    I hadn't thought he would go. I stared after him.
    "He'll be back," Fortun said calmly. "He cares too much to leave you, my lady."
    "I'm not sure," I whispered. "I didn't think he'd go at all."
    "Here." Without looking at me, Fortun bent back to the table, his broad hands moving objects. "If this is the lower level and the postern gate is here..." he placed a vase at one corner, "... and this the passage ..." he moved a lacquered coffer, "... there would have been guards here and here." He marked the spots with his finger. "Whoever led Melisande to the postern gate had to pass these points. So did others, no doubt, but still..."
    I rubbed my aching temples, trying to concentrate, trying not to think about Joscelin. "They were questioned. We were all questioned, Fortun. If there were anything there, believe me, Ysandre would have seized on it."
    "What if they weren't the right questions?" he asked.
    "What do you mean?" I frowned at the table, remember ing. As one of the last people to see Melisande alive, I'd been questioned at length. In the end, I was exonerated, if only because it was my testimony that had condemned her. Ysandre was looking for treachery, or evidence of treachery. No one questioned admitted to seeing anything of the kind. But what had they seen? "You're right. There was a guard at the foot of the stair, too. And someone had to pass them all, to get to her chamber. Melisande couldn't have killed those guards herself. One, mayhap. Surely not two." I began rearranging the pieces on the table. "If we had a list of who passed them, that night, to compare to the other..."
    "We would have a shortlist of suspects." Fortun's eyes glowed. "My lady, this is somewhat that we can do for you. For you to question the Queen's Guard, it would seem amiss. Even my lord Joscelin is not on ... easy terms, if I may say it, with the rank and file. But three ex-sailors, for mer soldiers of Admiral Rousse ... we could ask. Drinking, dicing; these are things we know, things that loosen men's tongues. He is trained to