Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [89]
These things I thought, and gazed at Ti-Philippe in the torchlight until his face wavered, and I saw him pale and dead, his throat gaping in a scarlet grin.
"No." The word came out harsher than I had intended. I shuddered, blinking, "No." I said it again, with gentle firmness. "This road is not for you, Chevalier."
What he heard in my voice, I cannot say, but it was enough. Ti-Philippe bowed his head, unruly hair shadowing his brow. His hand closed hard around the wineglass, white at the knuckles. "So be it," he said roughly. "My lady, I will keep your hearth until you return. But know that in my heart, I ride at your side."
On the marble bench where he played his flute, Hugues burst into tears.
So it was decided.
That night I slept, and dreamed again—the nightmare, the same I'd had before. It was the same to nearly every detail. Once again I stood in the prow of a ship, one of the swift Illyrian ships with its canted sail, my heart breaking as the stony shore of the island receded and Hyacinthe's boyish voice cried out across the widening gulf, "Phèdre, Phèdre!" It was his voice, alive in memory, the same that had greeted me in merriment, that had dared me to steal sweets in the crowded marketplace of Night's Doorstep, that had shouted warning when the Dowayne's men came to fetch me back to Cereus House, tinged now with terror and loneliness.
But the boy, the boy who wept on the shore and stretched out his arms in a futile plea, had skin the hue of new ivory and hair that fell in a blue-black shimmer, and his features were not those of Hyacinthe.
"I am coming," I murmured in desperate petition, thick-tongued and half awake at the greying of dawn, "I am coming." And then I woke and knew myself in my own bed, with Joscelin asleep beside me, peaceful in repose. While I am safe, no dreams trouble his sleep. I give him nightmares enough waking. I lay awake and stared at the ceiling, wondering to which boy I had spoken—the Hyacinthe-that-was of my memory, or Imriel de la Courcel, whom I had never met. The pattern of fate, like the Name of God, was too vast to hold.
Wondering, I slept and dreamed myself awake and wondering still, and knew no more until Joscelin shook me gently awake, and I opened my eyes to bright sunlight.
It was time to go.
TWENTY-SEVEN
WERE attacked by bandits on the northern route through Caerdicca Unitas.
It bears telling, for it served me a grave reminder of the limits of my own wisdom. I was so confidant in my own dire destiny, so sure I had done the right thing in forbidding Ti-Philippe to accompany us, that I paid scant heed to the normal dangers the road posed to a lone pair of travellers.
The new riding attire I'd commissioned from Favrielle nó Eglantine was all she had promised; fluid and comfortable, with an elegance of line and richness of fabric that fair shouted D'Angeline nobility. Of a surety, it did so to those who attacked us, reckoning a D'Angeline noblewoman and her single man-at-arms easy prey.
We were a day's ride west of Pavento when it happened. An irony, that; it is where Ysandre's couriers were slain, attempting to outrace Melisande's messengers many years ago. I daresay we had been more vigilant on our first journey. Still, it happened nigh too fast for thought, in a deserted stretch of road.
One moment, Joscelin and I were riding quietly side by side, trailing our newly acquired packhorses behind us; the next, some eight men had swarmed out of the hills.
They were Caerdicci, by the look of them, although some few may have had Skaldic blood. Poor and hungry, to a man; outcasts and brigands, with no armor and shoddy weapons. Two of them ran behind us, severing the lead-lines to our packhorses and claiming them. One was at my side before I'd scarce blinked, a grubby hand clutching my riding skirts while the other shoved the point of a dagger at my waist. Another held my mare's bridle. Joscelin's gelding reared, having once been battle-trained; he swore, getting it under control. Three men rangedaround him with knives and makeshift