Kushiel's Dart - Jacqueline Carey [274]
His black eyes gleamed wickedly in the sunlight, and he grasped the largest of the fish, offering it to me with both hands. "For you, O Star of the Evening, anything. Are you sure you don't want to ask your Cassiline? He may be jealous of such bounty."
I laughed, despite myself. "I'll risk it."
For a day and another night, then, we made our way up the coast of Alba, tacking against the slow winds. Our third day broke misty and strange, becalming us, until even the Courcel pennant hung limp from the tallest mast. Rousse set his men to oars, then, cursing them, and we moved torturously slow, the green coast appearing and receding out of the mists.
"Now, if ever," Quintilius Rousse said grimly, calling me on deck. "Bring on the Tsingano lad, Phedre no Delaunay. Let him point the way."
There was no mockery in Hyacinthe now. He walked slowly to the prow of the ship, his face raised to the mists that held us thick-clasped. His head turned from side to side, like a hunting dog casting about for a scent, sight-blinded, all his senses elsewhere. The sailors watched him closely, having decided he was lucky-no few had had the ill fortune of dicing with him, I learned later-and Quintilius Rousse, in all his doubt, held his breath.
"I cannot see it," Hyacinthe whispered, arms blundering outward in the thick mists. "Phedre, I cannot see our road."
I went to him, then; they left us alone, muttering. Joscelin watched silently, offering no comment.
"You can, Hyacinthe. I know you can," I said, taking his arm. "It's only mist! What's that to the veils of what-might-be?"
"It is vrajna." He shivered, cold beneath my grasp. "They were right, Manoj was right, this is no business for men."
Waves lapped at the sides of our ship, little waves, moving us nowhere. We were becalmed. The rowers had paused.
"Prince of Travellers," I said. "The Long Road will lead us home. Let it show the way."
Hyacinthe shivered again, his black gaze blurred and fearful. "No. You don't understand. The Long Road goes on and on. There is no home for us, only the journey."
"You are half D'Angeline!" I raised my voice unintending, shaking him. "Hyacinthe! Elua's blood in your veins, to ground you home, and Tsingani, to show the way. You can see it, you have to! Where is the Cullach Gorrym?"
His head turned, this way and that, dampness beading on his black ringlets. "I cannot see it," he repeated, shuddering. "It is vrajnal They were right. I should never have looked, never. Men were not meant to part the veils. Now this mist is sent to veil us all, for my sin."
I stood there, my fingers digging into his arm, and cast my gaze about. Up, upward, where the sun rode faint above the mists, a white disk. The ship's three masts rose, bobbing, to disappear in greyness. "If you cannot see through it," I said fiercely, "then see over it!"
Hyacinthe looked at me slowly, then up at the tallest mast, the crow's nest lost in the mists. "Up there?" he asked, his voice full of fear. "You want me to look from up there?"
"Your great-grandmother," I said deliberately, "gave me a riddle. What did Anasztaizia see, through the veils of time, to teach her son the dromonde? A horse-drawn wagon and a seat by the kumpania's fire, or a mist-locked ship carrying a ring for a Queen's betrothed? It is yours to answer."
He looked for a long time without speaking.
And then he began to climb.
For uncountable minutes we were all bound in mist-wreathed silence, staring into the greyness where Hyacinthe had disappeared, far overhead. The ship rocked gently, muffled waves lapping. Then his voice came, faint and disembodied, a single lonely cry. "There!"
It might have been the depths of the ocean he pointed to for all any of us could see. Quintilius Rousse cursed, fumbling his way back toward the helm. "Get a relay!" he roared, setting his sailors to jumping. "You! And you!" He pointed. "Move! Get up that rigging! Marchand, call the beat, get the oarsmen to put