Kushiel's Mercy - Jacqueline Carey [228]
Her shoulders moved in a slight shrug. “It was true, though.”
“I know.” I ran a lock of her hair through my fingers. “I know, love. And I’m so very sorry for it. I swear, while there is breath in my body, I will never suffer anyone to hurt you again in word or deed.”
She sighed. “Do you suppose that when we tell our brooding, haughty horde the glorious tale of their parents’ exploits, we might leave that part out of it?”
I smiled in the dim light of the cabin. “I think we might.”
The following day dawned as fair as the previous one. I hobbled through my Cassiline exercises on the deck, reckoning it was better to keep the muscles of my leg from stiffening. Sidonie commented on the likely folly of such a notion, but she didn’t try to dissuade me. Instead she watched. As I told the hours, I caught glimpses of her standing against the railing, the sea breeze tugging at her honey-gold hair and the pretty blue scarf Lady Nicola had given her to hide the bandage around her throat. When I finished, I limped over to join her.
“You look pained,” she observed.
“It hurts,” I admitted.
Sidonie cocked her head. “How badly?”
I felt the blood quicken in my veins. “If you’re asking what I think, not that badly, Sun Princess.”
“You promised me a hundred thousand nights if Blessed Elua spared you.” She took my right hand in hers and raised it to her lips, kissing my knuckles. “Imriel, Astegal is dead. Whatever he said, whatever he did, whatever I did . . . it doesn’t matter. It’s over. And I mean to begin putting it behind me.”
“With my help?” I inquired.
She nodded gravely, but there was a wicked spark of humor and passion lurking deep in her black eyes—still there, wondrously unextinguished. “Oh, yes. A great deal of it.”
The days passed slowly.
The nights fled.
It was a strange time, suspended between one thing and another. Both of us were grateful to be alive. Both of us were fearful of what we would find in Terre d’Ange. We were both haunted by our memories. Some of them, like our flight from New Carthage and the terrible carnage outside the walls of Amílcar, were shared. Some weren’t. Sidonie bore the stigma of her time as Astegal’s willing bride. And the nearer we drew to Terre d’Ange, the more I remembered my time of madness there, the awful things I’d said to those I loved.
But we were able to lose ourselves in each other.
It was a gift of Blessed Elua, and of Naamah, whose blessing I’d sought before our first liaison. I felt their presence attendant on our love-making, which was by turns tender and violent. Once nights had been my bane, the province of bloody nightmares that woke me screaming.
Now they were my joy.
It lasted all the way up the coast of Aragonia and well after we’d passed the mountains and caught sight of Terre d’Ange’s coastline, a sight that made my heart swell. It lasted until the morning we drew near the mouth of the Aviline River and saw a fleet of dozens of war-ships clustered there, anchored offshore outside the harbor of Pellasus. The town was smaller than Marsilikos, but it did a lively trade with ships bound up the Aviline. These weren’t trade-ships and the pennants flying from their masts were not the silver swan of House Courcel, but solely the lily-and-stars of Terre d’Ange itself.
“What does that mean?” I asked Sidonie.
She wore her troubled look. “I’d say it’s an indication that they’re not in the service of the Crown. It’s not an auspicious sign. Do you think Nuno failed to deliver the key?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
One of them raised its sails and hailed us, heading out in our direction. “Your highness?” Captain Deimos inquired. “What will you?”
Sidonie and I exchanged a glance. “If the country’s still torn apart, we’re better off dealing with those not in the Crown’s service,” I said. “And it’s not as though we could outrun an entire fleet.”
“Wait for them,” she said to Deimos.
We lowered our sails and waited as the D’Angeline war-ship made its way alongside us. I felt ungodly tense, and although Sidonie’s face was composed, I knew she felt the same way.
“Hey!”