Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [94]
We were travelling without attendants, without many luxuries, having reckoned the burden of added baggage and personnel would outweigh the benefits. It hadn't surprised Eamonn that Dorelei found it no hardship; Alban royalty don't live pampered lives. Phèdre surprised him, though.
He said as much one afternoon when the drizzle had turned to a steady rain, heavy enough that we'd all donned our cloaks.
I laughed at him. "You've no idea, do you?”
Eamonn blinked, rain dripping from the hood of his cloak. "What do you mean?”
"In Jebe-Barkal during the rainy season," I said, "the rain falls so hard it's like standing under a bucket. The mire is so deep, betimes our pack-donkeys sank to their hocks. Everything rots. The horses get saddle-sores. And when it doesn't rain, there are blood-flies. They lay eggs in the open sores. You have to pick them out, or the wounds will grow and fester." I raised one hand, wriggling my fingers. "That was our job, Phèdre's and mine. We were the best at it because we had the smallest fingers.”
"Truly?" Eamonn glanced dubiously at Phèdre, riding ahead of us.
"Truly," I assured him.
Other than rain, mist, and the occasional benign sighting of other travellers, our journey was uneventful. I had no more dreams of bears that woke me in the middle of the night and sent me plunging out of our tent, half naked, sword in hand. I had no dreams at all, not that I remembered. But betimes when I hovered on the verge of sleep, I thought I heard the other thing: pipes, and a woman's laughter.
And yet when I wrenched myself back to wakefulness, there was nothing.
Only silence.
When I asked Dorelei if she'd heard anything peculiar in the night, she only gave me a worried, puzzled look and shook her head. And so I concluded it had to be my mind playing tricks on me. It made sense, I suppose. I'd been playing Hugues' flute, remembering the goat-pipes of my childhood. And a woman's laughter …ah, well. There was no mystery there, only another painful memory to bury.
Except that I'd never heard the tune the piper played before in my life.
And the laughter wasn't Sidonie's.
Well, and so. The human mind is a strange place, filled with endless vagaries. I was Elua's scion as well as Kushiel's, and I had transgressed against his sacred precept. I had turned my back on love, at least for the time. Somewhere deep inside in my heart, I felt guilt at it. Small wonder my mind was concocting phantoms. Since there was naught to be done about it, I endured it and hoped it would pass.
Still, it made my skin prickle.
On the tenth day of our journey, we reached the outskirts of the Dalriada's holdings. After the low mountains, the land was once more green and lush. Eamonn breathed deeply of the air, filling his lungs.
"Do you smell it?" he exulted. "Home!”
It smelled much the same to me as anywhere else in Alba, but I made no comment. I knew too well what it was like to return home after long absence and great travail.
We made camp that day in a meadow alongside a beech forest; earlier than was our wont, at Eamonn's insistence. He chose the site himself with great care, acting mysterious. When I asked him why, he laughed and went to speak with Urist without answering. I saw the dour Cruithne grin unexpectedly and nod, and Eamonn returned.
"Come and see," he said. "All of you.”
Holding Brigitta's hand, he led us into the forest. The sun was still some distance above the horizon and the slanting light filtered greenly through the trees. It was an old, old wood with a high canopy, and little grew beneath it save dense moss covering