Kushiel's Mercy (72 page)

I forced myself to speak calmly. “I think we should discuss the possibility of your staying out of the City. You could go to Amílcar or Alba. Anywhere far, far from that cursed demon-stone.”

“And how is mad Prince Imriel going to convince everyone in the City to search for that cursed demon-stone?” Sidonie looked back at me. “You need me. We have to take the chance.” She paused, frowning. “Imriel, if anyone should stay outside the City, it’s you.”

“Me?” I stared at her.

“What happens if the spell
does
reassert itself?” She searched my face. “Will it wipe away my memories of these past months? Or will it merely twist them? Will it have me believing that you ensorceled me against my will? That you conspired with your mother and Ptolemy Solon to work some dark charm to seduce me, to abduct me, to persuade me to help you kill my own beloved husband? What happens to you if I denounce you before the entire City?”

I closed my eyes. “Ah, gods. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“You worry about me, and I worry about you,” Sidonie said softly. “And between the two of us, you’ll be in worse danger, mad Prince Imriel. Can I persuade you to stay safely away?”

I opened my eyes. “No.”

“I didn’t think so.” She touched my cheek. “I’ll tell you if there are further changes in the bindings. And of a surety, I’ll warn you if I feel my wits are about to crumble.”

“If you have the chance,” I said.

“And I pray I do,” Sidonie said. “In the meanwhile, let me bear the pain without fretting over what it might betoken, because there’s naught either of us can do about it. Not if we stand a chance of averting this war. And you know damnably well both of us will take any risk to make that happen, no matter how long the odds.” Unexpectedly, she summoned a hint of a smile. “I’m trying to imagine that it’s a pain associated with somewhat far more pleasant. Somewhat involving you and tightly knotted ropes. It helps, actually.”

I raised my brows. “Oh, indeed?”

Her eyes glimmered. “Mm-hmm.”

Gods, I wished there was
time
. I wished we could halt the world for a day and banish all that surrounded us. The looming war. The jolting carriage, the jogging guards surrounding it, Kratos sitting alongside the driver, singing tunelessly in Hellene.

A day, one day . . .

We didn’t have a day. Not even an hour. Only duty and hope and the desperate prayers of a nation. There on the stiff horsehide cushions, I settled for pulling Sidonie against me, kissing her until I felt her soft lips part, her body yielding sweetly, arms around my neck.

“We
will
prove it,” I whispered. “There is no magic so dire.”

Sidonie kissed me again. “None.”

I found myself thinking about the day when everything had changed between us: the day of the hunt when a boar had gored Alais’ dog and Sidonie’s horse had bolted and thrown her. I’d flung myself atop Sidonie, thinking to protect her. As it happened, my effort was unnecessary; but in that moment, a spark had been ignited. I could still remember the thrilling shock of it. The feeling of her body beneath mine, the sight of realization dawning in her dark eyes.

“Do you remember the hunt?” I asked, not bothering to explain.

She smiled. “Oh, yes. You know I do. Gods, I thought about it for days and days. ’Tis no wonder that when Leander Maignard saved my life in the garden, I felt so strongly for him. For you.” She was silent a moment. “It’s so very peculiar the way the events in our lives cast reflections.”

“I know,” I said. “I’ve thought it since Cythera. Phèdre and Joscelin went on a quest to find the Name of God and bind an angel. You and I seek to free a demon with a word.”

“And if we succeed, Terre d’Ange will be indebted to Melisande Shahrizai,” Sidonie added. “It feels as though we’ve been on a long, strange journey to bring the circle around to a full close.”

“My mother persuaded Ptolemy Solon to aid me for her own reasons,” I reminded her. “It doesn’t erase the past.”

“No, but it changes the future,” Sidonie said. “If we
do
come out this whole, I don’t think anyone will ever ever dare question your integrity again.” Her voice softened. “And our horde won’t have to grow up knowing their father was responsible for having his own mother executed. Elua help me, but I’m glad of that.”

I thought about my last glimpse of Melisande: standing at Ptolemy Solon’s side on the docks of Paphos as she watched me sail away into danger, believing myself to be Leander Maignard. About her parting words.
Be safe. Just be safe
. Almost the same words Alais had spoken. There had been genuine love in them. Whatever else was true of her, I didn’t doubt that my mother loved me.

“So am I,” I murmured.

Sidonie cocked her head. “I’d like to meet her someday.”

I tried to envision it and couldn’t. My cool, regal beloved with her startling streak of hidden fire; my damnable mother and the deep, ineffable spell she cast. “I suppose anything is possible.”

The doubt in my voice made her laugh. “We’ll see.”

At night we made camp in isolated areas as we’d done on the journey to Turnone. We talked strategy with Kratos, explaining the situation in the City of Elua to him in detail. Kratos listened and nodded sagely.

“So all in the City believe you mad, my lord?” he asked.

I stared at the campfire. “Yes.”

Until we’d caught sight of the shores of Terre d’Ange, I’d avoided thinking about it; but the nearer we drew to the City, the more it preyed on my mind. I still bore traces of scarring on my wrists and ankles where I’d chafed my flesh raw against my restraints, screaming horrible threats at those I loved and plotting their deaths. Scars. An echo of the bindings I’d once worn to protect me against Morwen’s talisman, an echo of the increasingly painful bindings that protected Sidonie against Bodeshmun’s spell. And that in itself was an echo of the ropes I’d knotted around Sidonie’s willing wrists more than once, the memory of pleasure that helped her endure the pain.

The bright mirror and the dark.

The things I’d said in my madness . . . ah, Elua!

“Kratos.” Sidonie touched his thick forearm. “No one in the City knows you. ’Tis my thought to tell them that you were my lord Astegal’s most loyal bodyguard, the cherished comrade of his boyhood. That he trusted you with my safety, and that you have repaid it a thousandfold. That I now trust you with my poor deluded kinsman’s care. Are you up to the task of playing this role?”

Kratos bent his head toward her. The firelight danced over his blunt features, his bristling hair. “I will arise to any challenge her highness sets me.”

“We don’t deserve you, Kratos,” I murmured.

He turned his hard, shrewd gaze on me. “Don’t say that, my lord. I was plucked from a slave-market by a foppish young D’Angeline to serve as his bearer. I saw something in him worthy of serving. When I spoke, he listened.
You
listened.”

“Leander listened,” I said. “By the time I knew myself, I’d already seen the measure of your worth.”

“Ah, well.” Kratos glanced back at Sidonie. “I suspect there was a fair bit of you in there all along, my lord.”

On the third day, we reached the outskirts of Yvens, an unassuming little village on the Aviline known for its olives. As before, Sidonie and I waited while Marc Faucon and a couple of his men rode ahead to secure the way.

It was a lovely spring day, clear and almost balmy. We waited alongside an olive grove. They were venerable old trees with gnarled trunks. The afternoon sun slanted through their leaves, through the clusters of delicate white flowers blooming on their branches. Sidonie and I walked in the grove while Kratos and Faucon’s men kept watch.

“It seems impossible to think of war on such a day,” Sidonie said wistfully.

“I know.” I laid my hand on a sun-warmed trunk, thinking about the night years ago when I’d stood atop the walls of Lucca with Deccus Fulvius, watching the ancient olive groves outside the city go up in flames. “But even without magic’s urging, men will make war despite all the beauty in the world.”

“As a child, one of my favorite stories was hearing how my mother averted a civil war in Terre d’Ange.” She glanced unerringly toward the north. “How she refused when Lord Amaury begged her to raise an army in Caerdicca Unitas and rode toward the City with only a small escort, throwing coins to the folk along the way that they might know her face, that they might know their Queen had returned, alive and well.”

“And a throng of people trailed after her,” I said softly. “Farmers and weavers, beekeepers and chandlers.”

“And children.” Sidonie’s voice broke on the word.

“And children,” I echoed. “And when they reached the City of Elua, they never halted. Arrows rained down upon them, and they answered with showers of coin. Ysandre de la Courcel rode forward, flanked only by the ranks of the Unforgiven. The rebel soldiers gazed at the coins in their hands and wept, knowing they’d been fed a lie. They laid down their arms and knelt.”

“Yes.” Sidonie wiped her eyes.

I was quiet. I knew the tale well; indeed, the coins had been Phèdre’s idea. But it was different for Sidonie. Ysandre was her mother as well as the Queen. If Terre d’Ange went to war, it would be on her order. To have that great legacy of courage and valor lost forever was an ache too deep for words.

And Phèdre and Joscelin . . .

That, I couldn’t bear to think.

“They averted a war and restored peace,” I said. “We will do the same. We’ll bring the circle around to a full close. We won’t fail them, Sidonie.”

She didn’t answer, only nodded.

Shortly thereafter, Marc Faucon returned with word. Gilbert Dumel had received L’Envers’ message and he was prepared to ferry us into the City, but he advised that we wait until nightfall to enter Yvens. And so once more, we waited. Faucon’s men had brought savory meat pies, fresh bread, and goat cheese back with them from the village, but the thought of food made my stomach churn.

Come nightfall, we entered the village.

It had the same eerie quietude as Turnone and every other town we’d passed through on our journey. Through a gap in the curtains, I could see that lamplight glowed in the windows of the houses, but the streets were empty. We passed Yvens’ single inn and it appeared almost empty. On a pleasant spring evening like this, the village should have been alive with music, young lovers turning out in droves to court one another.

“Elua!” Sidonie whispered. “It’s like the realm’s already in mourning.”

“I fear it is,” I said soberly.

The barge was waiting at the wharf. I remembered its captain, Gilbert: a taciturn fellow who’d given me a wide berth when he’d brought me to Marsilikos, the tales of my raving madness fresh in his mind. I must have looked godawful, worn to bone and sinew from a month of deprivation, my wrists scabbed. Now he gazed at our hooded figures in wonderment as we boarded the barge. Once he’d escorted us to a cabin, he asked the question it seemed nearly everyone did. “Is it true?”

Gods, there was so much pain in the question. He didn’t gasp when we shed our hoods, but tears glittered in his eyes.

“It’s true,” Sidonie said to him. “We’re here to try to undo the madness.”

Gilbert Dumel was a man of few words; he went to one knee and bowed his head, then left us.

My injured leg was aching. I sat on the narrow bunk. Sidonie stood in the cabin. Both of us listened to the sounds of the barge making ready to depart. Kratos’ heavy tread, other footsteps. Faucon and six of his men would accompany us to the City of Elua, posing as barge-hands. If there was any news to impart, good or ill, they would serve as couriers. We listened to the soft calls of the real barge-hands, Gilbert’s terse orders.

And then there was the sound of oars dipping. The barge slid slowly into the darkened river.

“How long do you suppose?” Sidonie murmured.

“About a day and a half,” I said. “We’re like to reach the City on the morning after tomorrow.”

A single lantern hung from a hook in the cabin’s ceiling, swaying gently. “Imriel.” Sidonie gazed at me. “Will you forgive me in advance for all that I might have to say or do to convince them of our tale?”

“Need you ask?” I said.

She smiled sadly. “For my sake, yes. I fear Alais and my uncle are right. This is going to be harder than either of us imagine. And I fear . . .” She laughed, but it was a tired, broken sound. “I fear I’ll have to find a new way of thinking about the pain of these damned bindings. Once we’re in the City, I don’t think I can allow myself the risk of thinking about you as I do.”

“Not while playing the grieving widow,” I said.

Sidonie nodded. “I’ll need to pull away from you. Elua knows, I don’t want to. I need you beside me now more than I ever did. But I’m afraid I can’t do this if I don’t.”

“I understand.” I reached out and she came over to take my hand. “And yes, I forgive you in advance for aught you might have to say or do.”

“Thank you.”

“Always.” I squeezed her hand. “Do you need me to leave you alone tonight? I can sleep in the bunks below.”

“No, not yet, please.” Sidonie shivered. “If you don’t mind, tonight I’d like you to hold me and tell me for the hundredth time that we
will
succeed, because the closer we get, the more frightened I am.”

“Then I will,” I said.

And so I did, over and over, while the barge glided through darkness, bearing us toward the City of Elua and our fears. I spun a tale of gladness and joy and made promises there was no way I could possibly keep. It didn’t matter. If we failed, no one in the world would care that for once I hadn’t kept my promise. And Sidonie knew my promises for lies, but the words comforted her nonetheless.

At length, she slept.

I lay awake and prayed to Blessed Elua and his Companions to grant mercy to their children and turn my lies to truth.

Seventy-Three

T
he next day, Sidonie withdrew from everyone, spending long hours in the prow of the barge, cloaked and hooded, kneeling in a private vigil.

“Is her highness wroth?” Marc Faucon asked me with concern.