Kushiel's Chosen - Jacqueline Carey [310]
We had known it would happen; indeed, we encouraged it. Even in the small villages of Camlach, they had heard that the Queen was dead and Percy de Somerville and Barquiel L'Envers strove for mastery of the City. D'Angelínes are not known to sit idle on news of such moment. I am happy to say that word that Ysandre de la Courcel yet lived was received with overwhelming joy.
I had seen it when I rode to Southfort in the spring; Terred'Ange had prospered under Ysandre's rule, and her marriage to Drustan mab Necthana had brought further wealth and trade to the nation. If the nobles bridled at the unprecedented alliance with a foreign power and the mingling of Elua's lineage with barbarian blood—for Prince Benedicte and Percy de Somerville had not been alone in that sentiment—the commonfolk knew that their beautiful Queen had wed for love. They remembered too that her barbarian king was a hero of the realm, and they had known only peace and prosperity under this union.
Here and there, we handed out silver coins along the way, and those who received them marked well the resemblance. There would be no doubt, in Camlach, that the woman styling herself Ysandre de la Courcel was not an imposter.
In L'Agnace, it grew more difficult.
There was no way to prevent the spread of rumor, unless we marched day and night, and both Tarren d'Eltoine and Amaury Trente had reckoned that mere folly. Thus had we chosen to exploit it, letting word race ahead from village to village whenever we paused for an evening's rest. If the citizens of Terre d'Ange awaited us with hope and joy in Camlach, some few leagues into L'Agnace, we encountered rebounding denial.
Word of Ysandre's survival had reached Percy de Somerville's ears, and he had responded in the only manner he could, naming her an imposter.
It hurt her, to see simple farmers and humble folk turned out to jeer, children clutching clods of frozen earth to hurl at her retinue. The Unforgiven formed the vanguard, pike-men marching four abreast, cavalry following behind, their black-painted shields grim and foreboding. They glanced neither to the right nor the left at the jeers, nor did Ysandre, riding between Tarren d'Eltoine and the Captain of Northfort's garrison, with her Cassiline guard a half-pace behind. It fell to those of us who followed after to give the lie to de Somerville's claim, heralding Ysandre as the true-born Queen of Terre d'Ange and naming the Duc de Somerville's actions as lies and treason.
I daresay it was the coins that turned the tide, although Amaury Trente would never admit to it. At first it was the children who shouted and scrambled after them, quarreling in the fallow fields over gleaming bits of silver; the adults would not be bought so easily, reckoning D'Angeline pride at a higher price. But when one or two of the children stood and stared, pointing at Ysandre, they began to take notice.
And we began to acquire a following.
Some of it, doubtless, was due to the mere fact that we were literally throwing money away; not all of it, I think. They looked, and they believed, grasping the truth that here lay a drama unfolding worthy of the poets' songs. And they were D'Angeline. By twos and threes, a trickle swelling to a flood, they came to join their Queen.
How many came, I cannot say. There were farmers and cartwrights and weavers, chandlers, beekeepers and cheese-makers; no town or village but contributed a few. Some were old enough to have lined visages, though hale enough to march; some few were young, not yet out of childhood. Those we sent back, when we could, though more replaced them down the road. I saw the tears that stood in Ysandre's eyes as she set her face determinedly toward the City of Elua.
So did they. And their numbers continued to grow.
It was at the crossroads of Eisheth's Way that a unit of de Somerville's cavalry intercepted us; five hundred soldiers, mounted and armed. I learned later that they had been stationed in Eisande along the road from Milazza, poised to thwart