Kushiel's Chosen - Jacqueline Carey [301]
It was done in record speed, supply wagons loaded, trainordered and formed. One of the Master of Horse's assistants found mounts for Joscelin, Ti-Philippe and me; there were riderless horses aplenty, since the guardsmen remaining in La Serenissima would have little use for them. There were carriages for some few members of the party, but most rode astride, as Ysandre preferred to do on the road.
We were assigned a position in the ranks of peers behind the Queen, surrounded by a cordon of her Guard. No one had bothered to tell us the plan of action; the chain of command had slipped by us, having never included us in the first place. Ti-Philippe tolerated this for all of a half-hour's march before he began querying the guards and learned that we were headed to inland Pavento, two days away. The Queen's emissaries had already ridden ahead to alert the Principe of the city.
It was Ysandre's intention to leave the nonessential members of the entourage quartered safely in Pavento, and acquire stores to proceed with all speed to Terre d'Ange by way of Milazza. Lord Trente's quarrel was not with this, it seemed. According to the rumors Ti-Philippe garnered, the Queen was refusing to consider his adamant advice that she raise a Caerdicci army to accompany us into Terre d'Ange.
In truth, I didn't know what to think; I was glad enough, for a change, to have no decisions on my head. We travelled briskly along the well-built Tiberian road, wrapped in cloaks against the autumn chill. Despite everything, I could not help but feel a certain joy. I was young and alive, and I had Joscelin and Ti-Philippe at my side. As much as we had lost—and I grieved anew every time I thought of Remy and Fortun—none of us had thought to set out on this homeward journey. Whatever lay at the end, every step of it was a blessing.
For Ysandre de la Courcel, it was another matter.
"It will be a risk just crossing the border," Jocelin murmured to me that night, as we lay together in the small soldiers' tent allotted to us; there was a sufficiency of those, too. "With four hundred men? It wouldn't take much for de Somerville to lay a trap.”
"De Somerville doesn't know she's alive," I reminded him. "Though I wouldn't put it past Melisande to have thought of it anyway."
"No." He propped himself up on one elbow, regarding me in the faint light our campfires cast through the oiled silk of the tent. "Would you truly have gone with her, if she had asked it?"
I heard the change in his voice; we hadn't talked about it since that fruitless meeting in the Temple of Asherat. There had been little privacy and less time. I laid my hand on his warm chest, feeling his strong heart beat beneath it. "I don't know," I said truthfully. "Joscelin, it would have made an end to it and laid the foundation for peace. For that... mayhap, yes."
There was more to it, for it had to with what happened on Kriti; I had seen the darkness of my own soul, and I could never close my eyes to it. And I am an anguissette, when all is said and done. For these things, I lacked words. One cannot speak of mysteries. Still, Joscelin had been a priest in his own right—and he knew me.
He was silent for a moment, winding a lock of my hair about his fingers. "The Yeshuites promise it," he said at length. "Complete absolution. I thought about it. In the end..." He smiled wryly. "In the end, I chose as I will always choose. It frightens me to think that one day she will ask, and you do not know what you'll choose."
"When you threatened her, Melisande named a price you would not pay," I said. "I set one that she will not. She would play the game of thrones with Kushiel himself; she was willing to risk sacrificing all her plans to do it. Not her son. The child is a double-edged weapon, Joscelin. It is knowledge, and worth having."
"Phèdre nó Delaunay," he whispered, drawing me closer, "does your mind never cease?"
"Sometimes," I admitted. "If you—"
I didn't need to tell him that, either, for although it too is a mystery in