Kushiel's Mercy - Jacqueline Carey [279]
Claude gathered himself. “Yes, your highness.”
We rode through the City to the royal dungeon. Despite Sidonie’s orders, there were a good many folk wandering the streets, looking dazed and lost. One might have imagined that some great disaster had struck, that a vast earthquake had leveled the City, leaving its inhabitants to question the will of the gods. Most of them were ordinary citizens who had been too far away to hear Sidonie speak in the Square. On seeing us, they pressed close around our escort, begging for answers, halting our progress. Claude and his men had to push them away with their shields.
“Hold,” Sidonie said to him. She raised her voice. “My people, you will have your answers by the day’s end. That, I promise. But I beg you now to let us pass. We must send word to let the rest of Terre d’Ange know that the City of Elua is no longer under the sway of Carthage’s spell.”
They fell back slowly, some still shouting pleas. I looked at Sidonie. Her face was drawn with sorrow and weariness. “How are you holding, Princess?”
“Holding.” She glanced back at me. “And you?”
“The same,” I said.
Everything was in disarray everywhere. We reached the royal dungeon and found ourselves besieged by bewildered guards, asking the same questions. Sidonie was forced to repeat a variant of the same speech before ordering the release of Isabel de Bretel and the men who had travelled with her.
As a rule, Terre d’Ange is not cruel to prisoners. But when I saw the elderly Baronesse de Bretel and her men blinking at the spring sunlight in the dungeon’s courtyard, I knew that at the least they had been confined in darkness since yesterday’s audience. The baronesse stopped short, squinting at Sidonie and me. Her men cringed a little.
“Ah, gods,” Sidonie whispered in pain.
“It’s all right,” I said to Isabel de Bretel. “We did it, my lady. We succeeded after all. The spell is broken. Sidonie serves as regent at her majesty’s bidding. There will be no war.”
Her head rose, her formerly neat coif of white hair lank and disheveled. The baronesse glanced slowly around at the shocked guards, their sudden attitude of humble respect. Her voice broke. “Truly?”
“Truly,” Sidonie said. “My lady, I had thought to ask you to bear this message to my sister and uncle, but given your travail, it was thoughtless—”
“No!” Isabel de Bretel flushed, her skin as fine as wrinkled parchment. She gave a short, wondering laugh. She clasped her hands together. “No, your highness. Please, I beg you. Nothing would please me more.”
“Are you certain?” Sidonie asked gravely.
“Yes.” The baronesse nodded. “Oh, yes. May I . . .” She hesitated. “Forgive me, your highnesses, but may I touch you? May I be certain this is real and not some fevered dream born out of fear and confinement?”
I answered for both of us. “Yes.”
With slow, tentative steps, Isabel de Bretel came forward. Her men followed, strides gradually lengthening as they realized their shackles had been stricken for good, that they were no longer prisoners and there would be no war. Isabel de Bretel cupped Sidonie’s face in her gnarled hands, then mine. Feeling and believing, her old eyes filled with hope and awe. After all the stricken faces I’d seen, it gladdened my heart to see hers. I remembered the touch of her soft, wrinkled palms against my skin. Then it had felt like redemption. Today it felt like a benediction.
We had given them hope.
And we had not failed them.
Eighty-Four
We escorted the Baronesse Isabel de Bretel and her men to the Palace to prepare for their journey and found a new dilemma awaiting us.
“You’re not allowed entrance, your highness,” the nervous guard at the gates informed us. “Captain Duval’s orders.”
Sidonie stared at him. “What?”
The guard licked his lips. “I don’t . . . I don’t know. He came riding hell-for-leather from the Square. He said you wrought a terrible spell that’s driven everyone mad and we had to trust him and keep you from claiming the throne at all costs.” He looked ill. “I don’t . . . I don’t know