Kushiel's Mercy - Jacqueline Carey [191]
He sat to mixed applause.
Serafin nodded at Sidonie. “You may speak.”
She rose and inclined her head toward the council, then walked to the corner of the table, turning so she could address council and crowd alike. “What is more likely, my lords and ladies?” she asked. “That I am a fickle bride, or that half of Terre d’Ange was plunged overnight into madness and betrayal for no reason whatsoever?”
There was a tense, waiting silence. Sidonie let it stretch until I could feel my heart thudding in my chest.
“I have spoken to the council of the spell that bound us,” she said at last. “Hear now of my first suspicion that somewhat dire was amiss. I had ventured out to make an offering at the temple of Tanit. As I returned through the streets of Carthage, I overheard my guards directing my bearers to turn aside lest our route take us through the slave-market. At that moment, I began to know fear.”
She swept her gaze over them, letting it rest last on Jimeno de Ferrer.
“Prince Imriel told me later what I would have seen there,” Sidonie continued. “What he saw. Aragonian folk taken as spoils of war at the sack of New Carthage, sold into slavery. A ten-year-old boy. There was a noblewoman looking for a pretty child to adorn her household. She declined to purchase him because he didn’t speak Hellene. There was no way to determine whether or not he was sufficiently biddable.”
There were hisses, but they were meant for Carthage, not her.
“That is the war you are fighting, my lords and ladies,” she said steadily. “That is the opponent you face. Amílcar has resisted Astegal. The siege has only just begun and your spirits are high. But there is no help coming from any quarter. None. And if none comes, week after week, month after month, your spirits will gutter. You will face the slow loss of which General Liberio spoke. Amílcar will be forced to surrender. When it does, Astegal will not be merciful.”
“What if we surrender now?” Jimeno challenged her. “Others have accepted his terms.” He smiled, thin-lipped. “And we’ve something to offer in exchange. You and your paramour.”
A gabble of comment arose. Sidonie waited it out until they fell silent once more, awaiting her reply.
“Yes,” she said mildly. “You could do that, my lord. It may even be that Astegal would be merciful for that price. And Aragonia as you know it would cease to be. You would become a Carthaginian vassal state, subject to Carthage’s laws, Carthage’s customs, Carthage’s demands for tribute. Astegal’s rule and whims. Is that your desire?”
There was a roar of protest.
“It’s no one’s wish,” Serafin assured her.
“Then what cost are you willing to bear for freedom?” Sidonie asked, raising her voice, clear and carrying. “Is the cost of a sovereign Euskerria too high? It is a minor territory that the Euskerri have inhabited time out of mind and will continue to do. Will Aragonia truly be destroyed if a small chunk of land is gouged out of its holdings?” She faced the council directly and let the silk shawl slip from her shoulders onto the floor. “I did not think so when I paid the price for my freedom.”
The crowd broke into pandemonium, stamping and shouting. Sidonie turned to acknowledge them, and I saw Serafin catch his breath. I twisted in my seat to see that she’d had the back of her gown cut low enough to reveal the still-raw wound, proof of her tale.
It was a long time before order was restored. Sidonie took her seat quietly. I retrieved her shawl, settling it over her shoulders.
“Enough!” Serafin finally succeeded in shouting the crowd silent. “Has anyone aught else to say?” he asked the council. No one moved. If any of the others yet opposed it, they weren’t willing to follow Sidonie’s performance. “Shall we vote?”
Another outburst erupted.
“We want a voice!” someone shouted.
“Give us a voice!”
Ramiro leaned over and whispered