Kushiel's Chosen - Jacqueline Carey [287]
It was hard, Elua knows, harder than many things I have done, to turn away from that fight and gaze out over the Temple. Several hundred people with less invested in that battle could not do it.
I knew who could.
With their strength united under Cesare Stregazza's command, the Serenissiman contingent had surrounded Benedicte's retinue. Most of those had surrendered by now, vastly outnumbered, and I saw a gathered knot around Prince Benedicte himself, fallen and bleeding from many wounds, his chest rising and falling slowly as he labored for breath. I saw the mercenaries who had attacked Ysandre's party slinking backward along the Temple walls, making for the exit. I heard the shouts and curses of the Serenissiman Guard outside the doors, now trying in earnest to keep outthe pressing citizenry and tradesfolk. I heard a rising murmur from the Temple and had to look back.
On the floor, David de Rocaille mounted a furious defense, regaining ground, transforming his despair into wild energy, going on the attack; he was smiling, now, with clenched teeth, the way a man will smile facing his death. Step by step, he forced Joscelin backward....
This, I saw, and all of La Serenissima watching it. It hurt to look away again, but I did.
And I saw Melisande Shahrizai in her blue gown and shimmering veil, calmly walking toward the antechamber, and no one at all watching her do it.
Whatever happened, she would walk away free.
On the floor, Joscelin retreated warily, alert and aware, the glinting line of his blade deflecting de Rocaille's blows out and away, away from his body. He moved with care, placing his feet with precision, his body coiled and waiting as David de Rocaille spent his last, furious strength. He would live; he had to live. He had love at stake. I watched him with my heart in my throat. Surely, surely, that was victory writ in his gaze, biding and watchful.
I closed my eyes and chose.
"There is a thing I must do," I murmured unsteadily to Ti-Philippe, who had joined me in the balcony when Joscelin went after de Rocaille. "For Fortun, for Remy ... for all of us. Will you come with me?"
He nodded once, grim as death, my merry chevalier. "My lady, I have sworn it."
"Then come."
Trailing him in my wake, I hurried down the staircase, past Stajeo and Tormos, who had fought side by side at last, past Oltukh, who asked in a startled voice where I went, and plunged into the crowd, threading my way through the throng. There is an art to it, as in many things; 'tis one of the first things we are taught, in the Night Court, wending our way amid patrons at the grand fetes. I took an indirect route, following the openings between tight-pressed bodies, ignoring exclamations as I passed. Once, I stumbled oversomething, and glancing down, saw 'twas Joscelin's fallen dagger, kicked and forgotten by the spectators. Under cover of the sound of clashing steel, I stooped quickly and snatched it up, hurrying onward.
I had lost Ti-Philippe somewhere in the crowd, though I could hear him, by the fervid curses and explanations as the Serenissimans sought to detain him. If Melisande had taken a less leisurely pace, the Dogal Guard might have taken notice, and stopped her... or she might have reached the antechamber before me. She did not.
I got there first.
Alone save for a cluster of bewildered acolytes, I put my back to the Temple doors and set myself in Melisande's path, raising Joscelin's dagger between us, low and pointed upward as I had seen him do. Outside the door stood the Serenissiman Guard, keeping back the crowds of the Campo Grande. They would let her through, I thought; like as not, they had orders to do so.
Melisande stopped and regarded me through her veil.
"My lady Melisande," I said, trying to keep my voice level. It seemed impossible that I had spoken with a goddess' echoing tones only minutes ago. "You will not leave this place."
"Phèdre." There was a world of meaning in that one simple word, my name, the