Kushiel's Mercy - Jacqueline Carey [283]
And so once more the Hall of Audience was packed. This time it was Sidonie and I who stood on the dais alone, gazing out at a sea of faces. It felt strange to stand there and see Drustan and Ysandre’s faces among them, gazing back at us.
“My lords and ladies,” Sidonie said. “Elua’s city awoke from a fearful dream today. We are here to tell you who cast us into this nightmare and how our long sleep was broken.”
They listened, hushed.
She spoke of Carthage and the night of the marvel. Of the memories all of them shared, of waking to believe herself in love with Astegal. Of sailing away with him while crowds cheered. “Not all your memories are a lie,” she said in a low voice. “These things happened. I believed as you did. In Carthage, I wed Astegal of the House of Sarkal.”
A sound somewhere between a hiss and a moan arose.
“But there is one among us whose memories of that night differ,” Sidonie continued, turning to me.
I told the story as I’d told it in Amílcar, leaving out the details of the Unseen Guild. They already knew about my madness. I told them what had preceded it—the needle and the whisper, the stolen ring. This was Terre d’Ange. When I told them the words Sunjata had spoken—You’re lucky your mother loves you—there was a gasp. Still, there was no blame in their eyes. I kept going and spoke of waking from my madness to find the City in the grip of a delusion. I told them how I’d sought Barquiel L’Envers’ aid and fled to Cythera.
My mother.
Ptolemy Solon, the Wise Ape, picking apart the spells that had been wrought, giving me the key to undoing them. Leander Maignard and the spell of disguise that Solon had wrought.
Carthage, and Kratos’ true identity.
And then Sidonie picked up the thread of the tale and continued it. There were no theatrics this time, no shock of revelation as I shed Leander’s guise. Only her voice, steadily recounting the story. The rising suspicion and fear she’d felt, the realization that pieces of her memory were missing. New Carthage. How Astegal had left to beseige Amílcar. The attempt on her life. How I had come to know myself, how she had drugged her guards. How I had shown her the golden ring stolen back from Astegal, how I had told her of the spell, how I had revealed myself to her.
Astegal’s mark etched in her flesh.
Begging me to cut it out of her.
“He did,” she said simply. “And I remembered.” Sidonie fell silent. The hall was so quiet, the only sound was that of Lady Denise Grosmaine’s, the Secretary of the Presence, quill scratching softly against paper, recording our history.
“We made a plan.” I took up the story. “A desperate plan.”
I told them how Sidonie had tricked Bodeshmun. How I’d killed him, how I’d found the talisman on him. Our harrowing escape, our flight on Captain Deimos’ ship. The pursuit. Our fiery entrance into the harbor of Amílcar.
When I grew hoarse, Sidonie resumed the tale. Back and forth we traded it. Our negotiations with the council in Amílcar, our escape from the besieged city. The Euskerri’s ambush of the Amazigh, the bargain on which the Euskerri insisted. The return to Amílcar and the terrible battle outside its walls. The bloody, costly victory.
Astegal’s capture.
Astegal’s death.
Here and there I saw nods. Kratos had told parts of the story in the Square and some had heard bits and pieces of it. We told the whole of it. Sidonie and I wove the story between us, spinning it with our voices. My weariness vanished as I watched all those faces hanging on our words. We gave them the story as a gift. Its origins reached back into the past. A traitoress had given birth to a boy raised to believe himself a goat-herding orphan; two heroes of the realm had rescued a stolen boy and taught him to be good. The rulers of two nations had given birth to two girls and instilled ideals of valor and justice