Kushiel's Dart - Jacqueline Carey [324]
"I thought I'd have a chance to see them," he said. "Before . . . well, before the end. At twenty-five, they let us visit home, in the Brotherhood, if we've served well . . ." He shivered. "Or . . . they would have. I'm anathema, now. Does my family know, do you think? Or do they know only that I'm a condemned murderer, convicted of killing Anafiel Delaunay?"
"No one who knew you would believe it, Joscelin."
"What do they know?" There was a hard note in his tone. "I was ten years old, Phedre! How do they know what I became?" He turned his forearms, starlight glinting on his steel vambraces. "I hardly even know myself, anymore," he whispered. "Ah, Elua! Did we come all this way for nothing more than this?"
"I don't know," I murmured, gazing past the campfires, across the darkened land. I had known the number of the Skaldi, had seen them, but even so ... thirty thousand. Somewhere out there in the darkness, they camped around a fortress and made ready to rend the very fabric of all I held dear.
Joscelin drew a long breath, gathering himself. "Whatever may come in the morning, we'll make ready to ride to Trevalion. It's well-garrisoned and Ghislain's promised his hospitality. Rousse will spare a guard for you, too. His men wouldn't let him do aught else."
I looked at him and said nothing.
"No." His jaw set stubbornly; even by starlight, I could see the white lines forming alongside his nose. "Oh, no. Don't even think it."
"They came at my word."
"They came at the Queen's word! You did but carry it!"
"Ysandre de la Courcel did not play on the Twins' jealousy to spur the Dalriada to war," I said. "Or leave her oldest friend in the world bound to a lonely rock to win passage toward a doomed battle. I can't run from this, Joscelin."
"What in Rousse's seven hells do you think you can do?" he shouted at me. "It's a war!"
I shrugged. "Put a face on what they're fighting and dying for. That's what you told me, isn't it?"
He had no answer for that. "And if they vote to retreat?" he asked, looking away.
"I'll go to Caerdicca Unitas and offer my services to Prince Benedicte," I said. Joscelin glanced back at me, surprised. "What other course is there? Drustan will stay, no matter what. Mayhap if the Caerdicci hear of the Cruarch of Alba's sacrifice, it will sway some few of them."
"The Caerdicci won't fight for Terre d'Ange," Joscelin said softly. "The city-states are more fractious than the Skaldi, and more jealous than the Twins. Not even Naamah's wiles can bind them together, Phedre."
"I know," I said. "But it's better than waiting to fall into Selig's hands." Rising, I stooped and kissed his cheek. "I'm sorry about your family. I'll pray for them, Joscelin."
"Pray for us all," he whispered.
I did, too. It had been a long time since I'd truly offered prayer to Blessed Elua, and not just the desperate pleas one gasps out in terror. I prayed to Elua and all his Companions, not only those who had marked me, for wisdom, for guidance, for some glimmer of hope to hold against our despair. I prayed for the safety of Joscelin's father and brother, for Ysandre de la Courcel and all immured in Troyes-le-Mont, for Drustan and the Twins and all of their folk, Rousse, Phedre's Boys, Ghislain and Trevalion and all the Azzallese, and Hyacinthe, alone at sea. For the Night Court and all her Houses, for the poets and players of Night's Doorstep, for Thelesis de Mornay and Cecilie Laveau-Perrin, for the kind seneschal of Perrinwolde, and all his family.
In the end, I think I prayed for everyone I'd ever known, and everyone I'd never met, heart and soul of Terre d'Ange. Whether it did any good, I cannot say, but if my heart was no more at ease, it drove me at least to the sleep of exhaustion.
And in the morning, Drustan gave the answer of his people.
"We will stay and fight."
He gave it in Caerdicci, that all might understand. Ghislain de Somerville looked hard, not sure he'd heard him aright. "All of you?"
Drustan gave a short nod. "If you will swear us this," he said, switching to Cruithne; longer speeches were still difficult