Kushiel's Chosen - Jacqueline Carey [98]
"Ghislain's lads." Tarren d'Eltoine surprised me with a fierce, bleak grin. "You're hunting traitors. I knew you would be about Kushiel's business, my lady. Yes, I've two under my command, and there are some few others, I think—three or four—scattered among the garrisons of Camlach. Would you speak with those here at Southfort?"
"Yes, my lord Captain. Please." After so long, I nearly felt dizzy with relief at tracking down at least two of the missing guardsmen. Barquiel L'Envers, I thought, I owe you for this tip. Pray that I use it better than you used my information regarding Marmion Shahrizai.
"They're loyal lads, to the bone, and I'm willing to swear as much, but mayhap they'll point your trail for you. I'llarrange for it first thing in the morning." The Captain stood and bowed. "Is there aught else?"
"No," I said automatically, then, "Yes. Do you promise me that no one of your men will seek vengeance against Josceíin Verreuil for his actions?"
"Do you jest?" His eyes gleamed; he did have a sense of humor after all. It was simply a uniquely Camaeline humor. "If I am not mistaken, they are badgering him even now to show how he managed to hold off half a dozen of the Black Shields."
"Seven," I said, meeting his amused gaze. "It was seven, at least."
Tarren d'Eltoine laughed. "He should have been born Camaeline."
High praise, indeed. I mulled over in my mind whether or not to tell Josceíin.
That night, I slept in the Captain's own quarters, listening to the wind out of Skaldia blow through the pines. It made me shiver in my marrow, and wish I were not alone beneath the fur-trimmed covers. I think, sometimes, I will never shake the cold of that Bitterest Winter. Though the lash-marks of my final assignation had faded, my shoulder ached; the old wound, where Waldemar Selig's blade had begun to carve my skin from my flesh. 'Twas but a memory, but even so, I felt it. I heard the sounds of a nightbound garrison, the call and response of guards, the occasional staccato beat of hooves, and saw light streaking against the darkness as a torch was handed off. I didn't guess what they were about, then. There was a watch set on the Yeshuite encampment, an uneasy truce.
I had gone to speak with them, along with Josceíin, and explained the nature of the misunderstanding. They were holding funeral rites for the slain, and though I spoke in their own tongue, most would not even look my way.
At length, one of the men came to address me, a barely contained rage in his face. I knew this man. He was the one who would have slain the kneeling guard "Yes, we hear what you say, D'Angeline," he said, making a term of contempt of it, not deigning to address me in Habiru. "Do you not see that we sit in grief for the dead?"
"You could have told them!" I listened to the keening of women and children, and a cold anger filled me. "You sought to cross a hostile border into enemy land—an enemy who well-nigh conquered us not two years past! They had a right to question you. Is it Yeshua' s way to answer questions with steel?"
The man's eyes shone in the firelight, and he spat at my feet. "When the Mashiach returns, he will come bearing a sword, and He will separate out the goats from the sheep, D'Angeline! It is the faithful who lay His path. Are we prisoners here? Must we suffer for your pride, your wars?"
Those Unforgiven maintaining a watch stirred uneasily, and Joscelin twitched at my side, torn. I held up a hand, stalling them. "No," I murmured. "Will you make your people suffer for yours?"
The Yeshuite looked at me, uncertain. I thought with grief of the needless death I had witnessed, the lives thrown away on the battlefield. What stakes are worth that cost? I did not know then; I do not know now. What prize he sought, I could not even fathom. A promise gleaned from a dead prophet's words. In the end, all I could do was sigh.
"I have secured you safe passage through the mountains," I told him. "Captain d'Eltoine's men will see you to the pass on the morrow, and your weapons will be returned to you. Beyond that, I