Kushiel's Mercy - Jacqueline Carey [227]
At that Sidonie turned away and hid her face against my chest. I held her gently. Astegal would have been a tyrant, but she’d believed herself in love with him for long months. In the beginning she had seen glimmers of nobility in him about which she still wondered.
I understood.
The executioner mounted Astegal’s head on a long pike. I found myself thinking once more of Berlik. He’d looked peaceful in death. Astegal didn’t. He looked sad and foolish, his face fixed in a grimace. His mouth hung open, his narrow crimson beard looking like blood drooling over his chin. His heavy-lidded eyes were half-open, showing the whites.
“Behold!” Serafin L’Envers y Aragon shouted. “This is the fate of those who would seek to conquer Aragonia!”
The crowd roared their approval. Sidonie shivered and raised her head.
“Are you—” I began.
“I’m all right,” she said. “Or I will be.” She searched my face. “You could have killed him cleanly, couldn’t you?”
“Yes.” I didn’t elaborate.
“You keep your promises,” Sidonie murmured. “Thank you.”
“Shall we go home?” I asked.
She nodded. “Please.”
It was a few hours before we were able to depart. Captain Deimos didn’t have his new ship in full readiness. Lady Nicola insisted that her chirurgeon tend to the cut Astegal had inflicted on Sidonie’s throat. It wasn’t serious, but it was deep enough to warrant bandaging.
“I am so perishing sick of blood,” Sidonie said as I washed the dried residue from her throat and chest while we waited for Rachel.
“So am I, love,” I said. “So am I.”
It was a bit before noon when Kratos came from the harbor to report that Deimos’ ship was ready to sail. I greeted him with pleasure. His blunt, homely face was filled with awe.
“I wasn’t able to get close enough to see,” Kratos said. “But I heard how you killed that bastard.”
“It’s done,” Sidonie said.
“Done, and done well.” He pointed a thick finger at her. “You and my lord here did exactly what was needful. Don’t you ever be ashamed of it, your highness. Not for one instant of one day.”
It made her smile, which gladdened me. “Thank you, Kratos. I’m not. I just want to go home and see my own country safe.”
A sizable party assembled to escort us to the harbor. We said our farewells there on the docks. Another leavetaking, but at least this one wasn’t fraught with deadly peril. Elua willing, we would live to see one another again in times of peace.
“We will pray that the news be swift and joyous,” Lady Nicola said. “For all our sakes. It will be much easier to effect a diplomatic resolution with Carthage if Terre d’Ange stands behind us once more.”
“We will do our best to make it so,” Sidonie promised.
In the end there was little left to say that hadn’t already been said. We boarded the ship and Captain Deimos gave the order to raise the anchor. The rowers leaned their backs over the banks of oars. Within a few minutes, we were under way, leaving the harbor we’d entered in flames. Sidonie and Kratos and I stood on the deck and watched the figures on shore dwindle.
“Terre d’Ange!” Kratos marveled. “Not a sight I ever thought to see.”
Sidonie looked worried. “Pray we find her whole.”
It was a slow journey. The sea was far more calm than when we’d essayed it before and the winds less forbidding, but it was still rough going. Deimos kept us in sight of land and we crawled up the coast of Aragonia. During the days, Sidonie and I passed the time by beginning to teach Kratos the rudiments of D’Angeline.
The nights, we had to ourselves.
On the first night, she was quiet and withdrawn. I let her be and waited for her to speak. She’d learned what it was like to feel a man die by her hand that day. No matter how much Astegal had deserved his death, it was a grave thing. And I had a good idea that it wasn’t the only thing troubling her.
“I keep thinking on it,” Sidonie said at length. “Watching him die. Betimes it sickens me. And then I think about what he said to you today . . .” Her jaw tightened. “And I wish I could kill him all over again.”
“He said it only to goad me,” I said.