Kushiel's Mercy - Jacqueline Carey [262]
Emmenghanom.
Beholden.
And, ah, gods! I was beholden. Every day, rising under Phèdre and Joscelin’s roof, I was reminded of it. I owed them my life. Almost everything I was, I owed to them. The thought of abandoning them, of being unable to save them, hurt more than I could say.
Kratos came regularly to the townhouse. When we could snatch a private moment, he reported on Sidonie’s condition, his homely face grave, dark circles under his eyes. He was giving up his own sleep to safeguard hers, catching naps during the day.
At first it helped.
And then it didn’t.
“We’re losing her, my lord,” Kratos said simply. “Bit by bit.”
I fought down a welling surge of helplessness. “Does she still trust you?”
“Aye. Sometimes she forgets for a moment and addresses me as though I truly were Astegal’s man. Either way, she trusts me.” He withdrew a flask from the inner pocket of his doublet—new livery in Courcel blue, freshly tailored to fit his broad frame. “She’s stubborn. She’s fighting it as best she can. This is a sleeping draught she had the Palace chirurgeon prepare.” Kratos smiled ruefully. “She bade me use it on her if need be. Use her own tactics against her. She reckons she won’t remember them by the time it’s needful.”
“Sidonie.” I sighed. “Kratos, do me a kindness. Have you run of the City unheeded?”
He nodded. “As far as anyone’s concerned, I’m General Astegal’s right-hand man. No one tells me what to do but her highness.”
I handed him a letter. “Deliver this to Lieutenant Faucon. He and his men are lodging at the Jolly Whistler near the wharf. Tell him to get it to Alais as quickly as possible.”
“What’s in it?” Kratos asked.
“Everything we know,” I said grimly. “Our failure to find the gem, all the places that I know for a surety have been thoroughly searched. The fact that Sidonie’s bindings are failing. The fact that Queen Ysandre has pledged herself to a death-pact if Alais and L’Envers take the City. Is there aught I’ve forgotten?”
Kratos shook his head. “Do you reckon any of it will help?”
“I don’t know.” I raked a hand through my hair. “If they know about the death-pact, they can hold off on entering the City. But what then? Do they remain camped outside its walls while day by day, week by week, month by month, the madness grows? You saw the way the violence has escalated. How long until those trapped within the City begin to turn on one another?”
He didn’t answer.
I shrugged. “We do what we can, my friend, and pray.”
Kratos delivered the letter and reported back to me to say it was safely done, and that Marc Faucon believed he could get it to Alais without trouble. Their guise as barge-hands had proved effective; indeed, the men who’d ferried Sidonie up the Aviline were reckoned heroes by the City Guard. Captain Gilbert would carry Faucon and his men to Yvens, from whence they would make haste to Turnone.
I wished to Blessed Elua I could think of a way to get Sidonie back aboard that barge. I couldn’t. All vessels, incoming or outgoing, were being searched with ruthless thoroughness. I thought Marc Faucon stood a good chance of getting away with hiding a letter on his person. I didn’t think there was a chance of hiding the Dauphine of Terre d’Ange on an outgoing barge.
Long ago, Phèdre had been smuggled into the city of La Serenissima aboard a ship, hidden in a chest with a false bottom large enough to conceal her. I’d mulled over the possibility. But fate hadn’t seen fit to place such an item at my disposal, and I could only imagine the suspicion it would provoke if mad Prince Imriel sought to commission a carpenter to build him one.
Of course, if I was wrong about Faucon’s chances, it was all moot. That letter would damn me for a traitor if it was found.
The following day,