Kushiel's Chosen - Jacqueline Carey [200]
Kazan Atrabiades gave the call to hoist anchor from the shore and Nikanor echoed it aboard the ship, drawing his sword and raising it to flash in the bright sunlight. The sailors set to at the oars, and the ship moved slowly away from the harbor; once in the middle of the bay, they scrambled to raise sail. It luffed and flapped and bellied full, and then they had caught it, angling steadily toward the hidden egress.
And there, I thought, standing on the sun-warmed sands and watching the vessel dwindle in the distance, goes the hope of an entire nation, in the hands of a pack of unlettered Illyrian pirates intent only on booty.
Still and all, 'twas done, and I could do no more. For the first time in days—weeks, mayhap months—the terrible burden of urgency was lifted, leaving me weak with relief. Now, when no one threatened me, I found myself shaking. Tears blurred my vision and I fought to keep from blinking, staring out at Nikanor's receding sails.
"Ah, now, don't fear, my lady," Glaukos said kindly, seeing my distress. "They're good men to a lad, they'll be back before you know it, and 'twill all be resolved, you'll see." He patted my hand awkwardly, and I shook my head, wordless, tears streaming down my face. "Ah, now, now, don't cry, child ... do you want me to take you back to Kazan's house, eh?"
"Yes, please," I whispered; I dared trust my voice no further.
Elua be thanked, he did just that—for once started, my tears flowed unceasing. All that time in La Dolorosa, I had not wept. From the moment Benedicte had ordered the deaths of Remy and Fortun, despair had turned my heart to stone. Not until I saw Joscelin had the stone cracked and I begun to feel. But hope had been snatched away too soon, and despair returned as my familiar companion.
And now hope, frail hope, undid me again, and hard on its heels came the great, rushing wave of grief I'd walledout for so long. Glaukos got me somehow to Kazan's house; I could scarce see by then, putting one foot before the other. I heard his voice murmuring to Marjopí as I lay on my bed, curled in a ball and wracked with silent, shuddering sobs.
It is enough, I think, to say that I lived it all over again that day, the terrible, endless moment in Benedicte's hall, where I watched my chevaliers cut down out of hand, overwhelmed and brutally slain before my eyes. Remy, cursing, holding them all at bay for a few seconds, then going down like a hunted stag. And Fortun, coming so close, his reaching hand leaving a bloody trail on the door. All this and more, every minute of every day I spent in the confines of La Dolorosa; the poor, awful madmen, and ah, Elua! Dumb, kind Tito, who brought me honey, and died protecting me, so nearly taking me with him.
And the look, the dreadful look on Joscelin's face ...
Truly, I have an ill-luck name.
Grief heals, they say in Eisande; unshed tears fester like a canker in the soul. Whether or not it is true, I do not know. I wept until I could weep no more, and then slept as long and as hard as I had that first night in Glaukos' house.
Thus began the long, slow days of waiting, wherein I learned sympathy for sailors' wives, who spend their days scanning the horizon for sight of a sail, betokening the safe return of their loved ones. Glaukos came each day to the house, and we sat in the cypress shade, eating salted melon while he taught me to speak Illyrian. It had taken him nearly three years to learn it, but he'd had no formal structure of teaching, only such skills as he could glean in conversation with Kazan. I made him teach me as I had learned to study language, establishing basic rules of grammar and working outward.
Sometimes Lukin would join us, and others of Kazan's men, the young ones, lounging in the