Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [220]
They were there, standing on deck, Lord Amaury's curling auburn hair unmistakably lit by the slanting early sun. He raised one hand in salute, and we waved from the quai. Imriel was a shrouded figure, huddled in a hooded Akkadian cloak and giving no indication of having seen us. Someone—Vigny, I thought—kept a watchful eye upon him.
"Well," said Joscelin. "That's that."
"Did you—?"
"What?"
"Nothing." I shrugged. "One of the men hauling anchor ... Ithought, mayhap, I saw marks on his face. Like scratches. Healed scratches."
Joscelin stared after the receding galley. "Phèdre ... if you did . . . Lord Amaury knows, yes? You told him about the letters to the Ephesians, about the instructions you gave the others. And he's prepared to make it known to the ship's captain, what repercussions may await if Imriel doesn't make it safe to port in Marsilikos."
"Yes," I said. "Amaury knows."
"Then let it be," he said firmly, tugging my arm. "You're chasing phantoms, now. Valère tried twice; she won't try a third time, and even if she did, there's naught we can do about it. 'Tis Amaury's job, and one to which the Queen appointed him. Let him do it."
Glancing over my shoulder, I went with him. Like as not he was right; even I thought I was imagining things. We returned to the inn and packed our things—vastly reduced from that with which we'd left Nineveh, the bulk of it going westward with Lord Amaury—and went to break our fast and meet with Kaneka and the others.
It was a smallish ship bound for Iskandría; a Menekhetan trader, for which I was glad. It would go unladen, for the Lugal had paid the entire passage, and there were but twelve of us, Jebean, Menekhetan and D'Angeline, with the run of the vessel. When the sun stood high overhead, they cast anchor and in short order we were away, sails hoisting to catch the wind. I stood on deck and watched the gulf of sparkling water widen between us and the coastline of Khebbel-im-Akkad, feeling a giddy lightness as it did.
So, I thought, it is ended. We leave Drujan behind us.
And I prayed the distance would make a difference.
It was a pleasure, after Khebbel-im-Akkad, to go unveiled, to feel the salt spray upon my face. After the zenana, I retained a fondness for open spaces, and there is none so vast as the ocean. We dined together in the mess-hall, attended by sailors glad to have drawn such light duty for full pay, laughing as our plates and cups slid the length of the built-in trestle with the ship's swaying, laughing all the harder when Joscelin, with a peculiar look on his face, excused himself to go above-deck.
"He does not like the sea?" Kaneka asked with a grin.
" 'Tis a long-standing quarrel between them," I replied.
At night, the stars stood bright and close overhead, clustered in diamond swarms against the velvety darkness. Despite the chill, I liked to walk the decks, gazing at them, wondering if such beauty had been created to a purpose. Beauty inspires love; so it is said, in Terre d'Ange.
Was it done that we might find this world worthy of loving? Mayhap it was so. I was no priestess, no philosopher, to find the answers to the world's riddles in the stars. I only know that they were beautiful and stirred my soul.
I was glad I could still be moved by beauty.
By the third day, the heat of noon had grown oppressive as the sun beat down on the wooden decks. Like many of the southerners, I took to my cabin during the worst heat of the day; enclosed or no, 'twas better to be in shade than sun, and our cabin had a portal that admitted a breeze.
I was drowsing on my narrow cot, clad only in a thin linen shift, when the knock came at the door, and I thought it must be Joscelin, unwontedly formal. As always, he had spent a good portion of our first days aft, in the stern of the ship where the clutch and roil of seasickness that