Kushiel's Dart - Jacqueline Carey [218]
"Our kin in Marsilikos will protect us!" I said defiantly. "You've no right to detain free D'Angelines!"
"Quiet!" Joscelin hissed at me. "Suriah, get out of here!"
He'd followed my lead; I followed his, freeing one of the Camaeline horses, swinging into the saddle and plunging headlong through the woods, trailing the pony on a lead-rope.
To any who've not tried it, I do not recommend a blind flight through the wilds on horseback. We blundered, crashing through the undergrowth, both animals caught by the contagion of my fear. Joscelin caught up with us no more than half a mile out, a dark blurred figure on horseback, and we rode for our lives.
It was a clear night, Blessed Elua be thanked, the stars standing distant and frosty overhead; if not for that, we would surely have been lost, but the Great Plow and the Navigator's Star stood clear in the black skies above us, guiding our way and shedding their faint silvery light over the snowy landscape. Fixing a map in my mind, I headed us grimly south, hoping to intersect one of the great roads of the realm: Eisheth's Way, that the Tiberians call the Via Paullus.
Eisheth's Way leads south, to the coast; Marsilikos is her greatest city-founded long ago by Hellenes, even before Elua's time-and because it is a harbor city, a great many wanderers end there. I hoped the Marquis le Garde's men would take our bait, and follow our trail south.
We reached Eisheth's Way come dawn, our Camaeline mounts staggering with exhaustion, foam-flecked and winded. The pony trotted behind us, sides heaving, still game; half-dead with tiredness as I was, it put me to shame.
There is little trade at this time of year. Now, in the Bitterest Winter, the road stretched open and empty before us, gilded with the pale gold light of dawn.
The Allies of Camlach could not be more than a mile behind us.
"A side road," I said to Joscelin, lifting my voice with an effort. "Any road, leading west. And pray they keep on toward Marsilikos."
He nodded wearily; we pressed the horses, demanding speed they didn't have to give. An hour along Eisheth's Way, we saw it, a nameless road, only the signpost with Elua's sigil indicating that it led to the City.
"There." Joscelin pointed.
I cocked my head and listened. In the distance, I could hear hoofbeats, an erratic multiple beat. A dozen men, riding horses nigh as tired as our own. "Ride!" I gasped, setting heels to my mount.
Once more, we fled.
A mile along the route, we came upon the Yeshuite wagon.
We nearly ran them down, in truth, coming hard around a bend. It was a narrow road. The horses, done in, balked and wheeled; the team of mules set their ears and showed their teeth. Joscelin shouted something, I don't know what, and a young girl poked her head out of the rear of the wagon even as the driver turned round to look at us.
I'd not known, until that moment, that it was a Yeshuite family, but I knew him by his sidelocks, long and dangling, while the rest of his hair was cropped at the neck. I would have said something then, but Joscelin spoke first.
"Barukh hatah Adonai, father," he said, at once breathless and respectful, giving his Cassiline bow from the saddle before I could protest. "Forgive our intrusion."
"Barukh hatah Yeshua a'Mashiach, lo ha'lam." The Yeshuite driver said the words automatically, keen dark eyes gauging us. "You are a follower of the Apostate, I think."
He spoke to Joscelin, who bowed again. A second face peered through the curtains at the back of the wagon, with a markedly girlish giggle. "Yes. I am Joscelin Verreuil of the Cassiline Brotherhood."
"Indeed. And who is chasing you so hard?"
I drew breath to answer, but Joscelin cut me off. "Men who are apostate even from the teachings of Blessed Elua, father, fruit of Yeshua ben Yosef's vine. Stand aside, and we will go. Ya'er Adonai panav-"
"And why do they chase you?"
"To kill us, most like, by the time they catch us," I broke in impatiently. "My lord . . ."
"Your horses, I think, will not go much further."