Kushiel's Mercy - Jacqueline Carey [229]
Separately, they might not have known us, not for a surety. None of them had seen us before. But I bore the unmistakable stamp of House Shahrizai on my face, and Sidonie looked enough like her mother that they’d seen the like of her profile on a thousand coins.
And we were together.
The war-ship drew alongside and men scrambled to secure the ships—ours heedless of the stares, theirs wondering.
“Who’s in command?” I called.
A brown-haired man in the tattered jacket of the Royal Navy approached the railing. “Captain Henri Voisin,” he said hesitantly. “Your highness?”
“Imriel de la Courcel,” I said in confirmation. “We come bringing her highness Sidonie de la Courcel, the Dauphine of Terre d’Ange, home.”
“So I see.” Henri Voisin’s gaze slid toward Sidonie. “Is she . . . ?”
“Sane?” Sidonie inquired. “Mercifully, yes. What passes here, my lord?”
His expression was torn between hope and doubt. “A great deal. We thought you were a ship out of Aragonia. You’re flying Aragonian flags. We hoped you’d have news.”
“We do,” Sidonie said. “Come aboard and we’ll share it in exchange for yours.”
With some difficulty, Voisin made the crossing. He was breathing hard as he clambered over the railing onto our ship. The realization that our crew was not Aragonian did nothing to alleviate his trepidation. I couldn’t blame him. Insofar as I was aware, the last he knew of either of us, Sidonie had gone off to wed Astegal, and I’d vanished after screaming my throat raw in a month-long fit of madness. Still, he gathered himself and made a careful bow. “Well met, your highnesses.”
“And you, my lord,” Sidonie said. “Tell me, who do you serve?” He didn’t answer. “Is Terre d’Ange at war?”
“No,” Henri Voisin said. “Not yet.”
“But it’s divided? And growing worse?” She read the answer in his face. “Who do you serve? My mother or my sister?”
His throat worked. The fact that the question could put a man in fear made my blood run cold. “Your sister.”
“So the City of Elua remains under a foul enchantment?” she asked. “No key to undoing the madness was found?”
The D’Angeline captain licked his lips, glancing from one to the other of us. “No. There was some talk, some wild rumors of magic, after . . .” He nodded at me. “After you vanished, your highness. But it came to naught.”
“Let me be swift,” Sidonie said. “There was a spell cast, a dire spell. I was bound by it myself. It was Imriel who freed me from it.” I started, struck by an awful realization. Sidonie continued. “Since then, we have been working to undo what was done. Carthage’s forces were dealt a grievous defeat at Amílcar. General Astegal is dead.” Her face hardened. “Even now, his head adorns a pike in the Plaza del Rey. And Imriel and I possess the key to undoing the spell that binds the City of Elua and all who were in it that fateful night.”
“Sidonie.” I touched her arm. “You can’t go ashore.”
She stared at me. “What?”
I felt sick. “I’m a fool. In all that’s happened, I forgot. You’re free of the spell that had you believing yourself in love with Astegal. The one that was worked on you alone. Not the other, not the ghafrid-gebla. The demon-stone.” I could see Henri Voisin’s expression out of the corner of my eye and I realized I sounded mad, but it couldn’t be helped. “Ptolemy Solon said it would reassert itself if you—or anyone—returned to D’Angeline soil.”
Sidonie closed her eyes. “Ah, gods!”
Sixty-Eight
If it hadn’t been for what had befallen Drustan mab Necthana earlier in the year, I daresay Henri Voisin would never have given full credence to our tale.
It wasn’t swift. In the end, all of us talked ourselves dry. Sidonie and I related the entire tale of what we had endured. In turn, Voisin told us what had happened in our absence.
Some of it, we knew. Barquiel L’Envers had raised