Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [266]
"No." Joscelin smiled, and in the rising light of dawn, his eyes were the blue of summer skies over the fields of Terre d'Ange. "To his once-faithful servant Cassiel, whose memory is more true than God's. And I ... I protect and serve."
Hanoch ben Hadad shook his bronze-helmed head. "It will be your death, D'Angeline."
"So be it." At the sealed mouth of the temple, birds sang, the sun-warmed foliage released its green scent, and Joscelin Verreuil settled into a defensive stance, sounding almost careless. "It is the death I have spent a lifetime earning."
Something like regret crossed Hanoch ben Hadad's face before he raised his shield and set his sword, its worn bronze honed to a killing edge. "Take them!"
Spreading their line to flank Joscelin, the Sabaeans advanced at his command.
So close; so close! I felt the presence of a great mystery hovering near, almost within the grasp of my reaching fingers. Almost. I turned, flinging myself recklessly against the temple door, pounding with my blistered hands to no avail. "Please," I begged; in Habiru, in D'Angeline, in what tongue I could not say. "Name of mercy, let me but ask!" But the door remained closed and locked, and no answer was forthcoming. In the background, I heard the terrible clash of battle as Joscelin engaged ben Hadad's men. I had no more gambits to play. It hurt, to come so near and fail. Elua, but it hurt! I sank to my knees, disbelieving my own failure.
"Lady." A hand closed on my shoulder and a Sabaean soldier showed me the sword held loose in his grip. "This is sacred ground and no place for violence. It is over. You will come with us."
"No," I whispered. "Please, no."
And Imriel de la Courcel screamed.
It was the sound that had rent the night in the zenana, in the plains of Drujan, in Yevuneh's house; the sound of terror, pure and unadulterated, shrill and piercing and unbearable to the ear, bone-chilling andawful. His face was white as bleached linen, his pupils black and dilated. Moving with unexpected speed, he put himself between us, wrenched the sword from the startled soldier's grasp and slashed fiercely at him with a two-handed grip. "Leave her alone!"
"Adonai!" The soldier took a step back, clutching his thigh where the tip of Imriel's blade had grazed it. Others paused and stared, exchanging glances. Joscelin stood motionless, frozen in the ring of space his sword had cleared, his face a study in horror.
Hanoch ben Hadad grimaced. "Hold him at bay," he ordered the men surrounding Joscelin. He strode toward us, sunlight glinting off the worn, deadly edge of his bronze sword, and anger was like a storm on his face. "Boy," he said grimly, pointing his blade at a defiant Imriel, "the price for the blood you have spilled on the temple's doorstep is death."
It was like a dream, a terrible dream.
As in a dream, I felt here and not here, myself and not myself. Unthinking, I rose from my knees and pushed Imriel behind me, gazing up at the Sabaean captain. "I brought him here," I said, and it sounded to my ears as if a stranger had spoken. "I am responsible." I could hear the din of Joscelin's renewed efforts to break free of the soldiers who surrounded him. It seemed very far away. In all my musings on love, there was one I had not numbered. I had not reckoned on Imriel. There was no god's prompting here; only love, simple and unadorned. I understood, too late, what it meant to put the self aside. Still, there was one way left, and it was a way that ever stands open. It would not gain me the Name of God, but it would gain Imriel's life. "If the price is death, I will pay it."
For a moment, he bowed his head, then straightened and raised his sword. "You are the author of this blasphemy, and it is a dire transgression you have committed here. Better you should die and be shriven of it. I will accept the bargain."
I watched sunlight glint along the blade. "And you will spare the boy?"
Hanoch ben Hadad paused, then nodded. "In Adonai's mercy, I will."
So, I thought, this is how it ends. Hyacinthe, forgive