Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [318]
"Gallus! Gallus!"
Eamonn caught my eye. "We should be there."
I nodded. "Tell them."
He rose. "Listen, lads!" he called, and they fell silent. "Barbarus squadron will pay homage to the man who led us to victory. When the time comes, follow my lead, eh?"
They agreed, chanting Gallus Tadius' name with cheerful oblivion. We spilled onto the portico. The streets were still thronged, though mostly with the living and victorious now. Lucius was in the thick of it, soldiers surging around him, the red horsehair crest bobbing.
"Gallus! Gallus!"
I leaned against a column. Somehow, amidst the turmoil, Lucius glanced toward me. Beneath the shadow of his gilded helmet, I saw his wide mouth quirk in a smile. I thought about his kiss and smiled in reply.
"Lucca!" he called, his voice clear and carrying; his voice, Lucius' voice, Master Piero's prize student, capable of arguing black into white and night into day. "Know this! In your hour of need, Gallus Tadius served you well. He taught you, he trained you, and he laid his plans. He loved Lucca so well, he returned from the underworld to serve it; he loved Lucca so well, he returned to the underworld to save it! It is only thusly that the flood was dispelled, and Gallus Tadius banished. And I have done my best to lead you in accordance with his wishes."
There were cheers, but there was a note of bewilderment amidst them.
Lucius raised his hand. "And for that, I, Lucius Tadius da Lucca, honor the spirit of my great-grandfather, and give thanks for your courage!"
A confused silence settled.
Eamonn drew a deep breath, his broad chest swelling, and loosed his booming voice. "Lu-cius! Lu-cius! Lu-cius!"
To their credit, Barbarus squadron scarce hesitated. For the space of a heartbeat, my voice was the only one echoing Eamonn's; and then the others arose. As though we had set spark to tinder, it spread, until his name resonated throughout the city.
"Lu-cius! Lu-cius!"
There were tears on Lucius' face, which was etched with lines I suspected would never be gone; not wholly. He had worn the mask of Gallus Tadius too long. I shouted for him, rejoiced for him, grieved for him; for myself, for Helena, for Gilot, for Lucca's dead and all those things that might have been had intrigue and warfare and humanity's incalculable cruelty not intervened.
He belonged to Lucca now.
As I belonged to Terre d'Ange.
After the cheering ran its course, Lucius met with Quentin LeClerc and Marcus Cornelius, the commander of the Tiberian legion. It was a smaller force than I'd reckoned; only seven hundred strong, plus a delegation of thirty mounted D'Angelines. Tiberium no longer fields a mighty army as it did in the days of empire. I wondered what they would have done if they hadn't found the city in chaos, Valpetra's men already dispersed. Lucius must have wondered, too, for he asked them.
Marcus Cornelius shrugged. He was a stolid veteran in his late forties, with plain, pragmatic features. "The Senate reckoned Valpetra would back down."
I didn't think he would have, but I supposed it didn't matter now. The Duke of Valpetra was dead. His body lay where it had fallen, untouched. By all accounts, Silvanus and his men were eager to quit the city and put the debacle of the siege behind them. Arms, armor, horses; all their goods would be forfeited.
"You mean to simply let them go?" I asked.
"What would you have us do?" Lucius asked reasonably. "Feed and shelter them? No, they'll go, and they'll take their dead with them."
The Tiberian commander agreed to lend his company to the task of overseeing the exodus, giving the exhausted men of the Red Scourge a chance to rest, and Lucius dismissed us with a gracious word of thanks. Many left; others stayed, Eamonn and I among them, watching as the long file of soldiers began winding their way out of the city, the living carrying the dead, heads bowed beneath the cold drizzling rain, defeated and dispirited.
"Such a waste," I murmured.
"Aye." Eamonn shivered. The white bandage Matius had tied around his head was soaked through with bright crimson