Kushiel's Mercy - Jacqueline Carey [169]
Bodeshmun glared, his chest heaving impotently.
I stooped over him, rummaging in his robes. I found it. It. The talisman, hidden in an inner pocket of his robes. A stiff piece of lacquered leather, wrought with an image. A whirlwind sprouting horns and claws. A word inscribed beneath it in Punic script.
A word I couldn’t read.
Bodeshmun saw it; Bodeshmun knew. I read the bitter satisfaction in his dying face. I leaned down close to him.
“Don’t worry,” I whispered. “As it happens, Sidonie’s been studying Punic. You’ve only yourself to thank for it. And in case you wonder as you die, she was the architect of your downfall, not me.” I settled onto my knees, my Amazigh robes puddling around me. “If you take no other thought into your next life, my lord, take this. It is not wise to meddle with D’Angelines in matters of love.”
Bodeshmun’s eyes rolled into his head.
Bodeshmun’s heels drummed.
Bodeshmun died.
Fourty-Nine
The sleeping draught was a problem.
“Wake up, love.” I patted Sidonie’s cheek gently, then not so gently. Nothing. I called her name sharply, as loudly as I dared, but she didn’t respond. When I grabbed her shoulders and shook her roughly, her head only lolled in an alarming manner.
Her breathing was even and her heart beat steadily. Girom had said his draughts were potent. Elua willing, she would awaken; that I had to believe. But for the moment, she slept like the dead, and I was fearful that if I rolled her in Bodeshmun’s carpet and hauled her all the way to the harbor, I was like to smother her in the process. Even if I didn’t, I wasn’t sure how Captain Deimos would react to the fact that I’d abducted the Dauphine of Terre d’Ange, drugged insensible.
And if she didn’t awaken by dawn . . .
Well, we had a few hours’ grace. I’d sooner have left the palace immediately, but no one was likely to notice aught amiss until the second shift of Sidonie’s guards came to relieve their fellows.
I resolved to wait as long as I dared. I stowed Bodeshmun’s talisman safely in my purse. I propped a chair under the door with the broken latch, lest anyone attempt to enter. I dragged the bodies of Bodeshmun and the guard into the far bedchamber. I cleaned and whetted my dagger a second time.
I waited.
Although it didn’t seem to trouble her in the least, Sidonie’s position in the chair looked uncomfortable. I eased her down to the carpeted floor, then cleared the carpet in preparation. I sat cross-legged, settling her head on my lap.
She looked younger sleeping, scarce older than the girl I’d fallen in love with. We’d known one another since we were children. I stroked the soft curve of her cheek, remembering. She’d been a reserved child, unnervingly composed from an early age, regarding me with cool distrust. How not? She’d grown up with the weight of the kingdom hovering over her, aware of the schisms that threatened to divide it.
And I . . . I’d been damaged and brooding, filled with fierce passions and loyalties. How not? By the time I was eleven years old, I’d seen and endured things no one should ever suffer.
Neither of us could possibly have understood the other.
It seemed so very long ago.
Ysandre used to force us to spend time together, the scions of House Courcel, hoping we would further our acquaintance. It made me smile now to think on it. Alais and I used to play cards together under the watchful eye of the Queen’s Guard, while Sidonie ignored us and read a book.
I wished I could travel backward through time to address those childhood selves. To tell Sidonie that one day she would defy her mother and half the nation for the sake of this proud, wounded boy whom she regarded with such misgivings, that he would grow into a man she trusted beyond all reason. To tell my young self that this cool, haughty girl who galled him so would one day be the most precious thing in the world to him, that she would become a woman for whom he would willingly lay down his life.
I wished Sidonie would awaken.
An hour passed, then another. For a mercy, no one came to call on Bodeshmun.