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And then I took my turn at the oars.

It was hard, as hard as anything I have known. At first the well-worn wood seemed silken to the touch, smooth and harmless. I pushed the handles forward, dipping the oars and bracing my legs, and pulled hard against the resistance of the water. The skiff surged forward. Again, and again, and again, until I began to feel the muscles of my shoulders burn with the effort. “Left,” Joscelin corrected me, “Left … too far! Right, Phèdre, pull right,” until I felt the grain of that silken-smooth wood, rubbing and rubbing my sweat-damp palms. It stung like fury. I thought as I rowed about all that Joscelin had done on my behalf-
to protect and serve
-and the sheer physical effort of it, the toll I had never reckoned.

If it were only pain … if it were only that, I could endure it. I rowed through the pain, feeling blisters rise and break, the pain so acute it brought on Kushiel’s crimson haze. It set my nerves to sing on edge and, for a time, gave me strength. Yet even that waned, and my muscles grew dull with fatigue.

Swish, dip, pull.

The blades of the oars skittered over the surface of the water. The Lake of Tears, they named it; Isis’ grief. Why was it always the goddesses who mourned?
Dip
. I willed the oars deeper, pulling hard. My arms trembled.
Pull
. The water seemed as thick as honey, the skiff moving in slow staggers.

“Phèdre. Phèdre!”

I leaned on the oars and stared blearily at Joscelin’s face, only exhaustion altering my vision. His expression was fraught with concern.

“Enough,” he said softly. “Let me.”

“I can row.” Imriel turned around in the prow, his face gleaming in the starlight. “For a while, anyway. Let me try.”

And so we traded places again, and I resumed mine in the stern, Joscelin going to the prow. Water sloshed along the sides of the rocking skiff. Imriel settled himself in the oarsman’s seat, his face grave and unchildish as he took up the cue of my pointing arm. I thought he would spend his strength in a rush, but he started slow and steady, getting the feel of the oars, more patient than any boy his age had a right to be. In the prow, Joscelin tore strips of fabric from the hem of his shirt, binding his raw hands.

Swish, dip, pull; swish, dip, pull.

He did well, did Imriel de la Courcel. He husbanded his strength, rowing at an even pace for longer than I would have reckoned. But the skiff was ideal for carrying two men, no more, and it was heavy work.

I cannot say how long he lasted, before his strength gave out. Between the two of us, I reckon we covered two hours.

Joscelin took over.

Less than an hour to go, by Nemuel’s account; but we had not travelled so swiftly. Joscelin resumed his seat, and set to steadily, hauling on the oars. “Left,” I murmured as his right arm outdrew its mate, “Left!” He gritted his teeth and adjusted, pulling ever harder. The improvised bandages around his hands darkened with blood. I thought about Kapporeth and wondered if we would reach it in time, and what would happen if we did. Who was I to seek the Name of God? Make of the self a vessel where there is no self, Eleazar had said, in perfect love. Love, I had known; but what is perfection? My lord Delaunay I had loved with a grateful heart, and Hyacinthe with youthful joy and adult sorrow. I had loved Joscelin and loved him still, with a depth and passion that words could not compass. Elua help me, I had loved Melisande Shahrizai, and there was a part of me which ever would.

And in all of these, there was
myself
, bound inextricably into the coils of love-by gratitude, by friendship, by guilt, by passion, by the fatal flaw of Kushiel’s Dart. How could one put such a thing as the self aside? I knew only one path, the path I had found in the darkest hours in Daršanga. I did not think it led to the Name of God, and in my heart, I was afraid.

“Phèdre,” Imriel called from the prow, pointing. “Dawn is coming.”

So it was, the western horizon turning a leaden grey, the spokes of the Wheel paling against it. And in the rising light, I saw a hummock of land to the north of us.

“Look,” I murmured. “Do you think?”

Joscelin rested the oars and stared. “Kapporeth?” he said dully. “It could be. It means we’re off course. But with my arm …”

“It could be.” I shuddered. “I don’t know. I don’t know! Morit was guessing, at best. Let’s make for it.”

We did, Joscelin rowing with grim determination, the small isle emerging lush and green with the rising sun, exuberant with birdlife; fish eagles and kites and horn-billed ibis. The shores were thick with waving ferns, tall fronds untrodden by human foot. Our skiff edged along them, Imriel standing balanced in the prow, looking for signs of inhabitation.

“Nothing,” he reported, gazing inland. “No path, no landing sign …” He looked back at me and turned pale. “Name of Elua!”

I turned to look.

It was a ship, of course; what else would it be? Looming in the distance, becoming visible in the dawn. I could barely make out twin banks of oars, four sets rising and falling. Someone had betrayed us, someone’s faith had faltered, Hanoch ben Hadad’s suspicions had been upheld … who knew? It didn’t matter. It only mattered that they were coming for us.

“We can hide!” Imriel said, wild-eyed. “Go ashore, and hide! It’s all overgrown, they won’t find us!”

“No,” I muttered. “It’s not Kapporeth.” Joscelin put up the oars with his bloodstained hands and watched me quietly, waiting. “Elua!” I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, thinking and praying. “It’s not Kapporeth,” I repeated, dropping my hands. “I was wrong, I shouldn’t have doubted. We were on course, only slow. Joscelin, can you row?”

“Yes.” The red stains spread on his bandages as he regarded me. “Phèdre, the stars have faded.”

I stared at the brightening sky. It was true; the stars we had followed all night were paling, lost in the light of the rising sun. The Wheel was fading, its spokes already lost; Moishe’s Rod grew invisible. I closed my eyes again, feeling for the direction we had faced. My near-brother Alcuin had been good with maps. I never had, not like him. But Anafìel Delaunay had trained both our memories.

Mine would have to do.

“That way,” I said, pointing, not daring to open my eyes.

Swish, dip, pull.

We had to round the nameless island. I felt our course shifting, the skiff moving, and adjusted my arm accordingly. I dared not look, dared not lose the lodestone of my memory; not until I felt the open breezes blow, and our course align with my pointing arm. Then, I opened my eyes.

We were in open water and the skiff leapt forward with each pull of Joscelin’s arms, drawing toward an unseen destination, a blur on the horizon. Swish, dip, pull. The rags tied round his hands were crimson with blood, blood smeared on the oar-handles.

It was a blur on the horizon. It was land.

“Go!” I shouted. “Go, go,
go
!”

Joscelin’s face was blind and unseeing with concentration, his arms moving with relentless precision. I saw the muscles in his shoulders surge, his legs bracing and flexing. The skiff flew over the waters like a swallow on the wing. In the prow, Imriel knelt and looked backward, past Joscelin, past me, charting the progress of our pursuers. I saw the alarm reflected in his face. I did not turn to see why.

Ahead of us, the blur resolved into land; an island, small and unprepossessing, easily missed in the vast Lake of Tears. And it too was green and verdant, but it was marked, stamped by the footprint of mankind. I saw the shallow beach where the underbrush had been cleared, with a fishing boat on the shore and the structure on the hill above it; round, like the temple in Tisaar. I saw the path that cut like a blaze through the green, and evidence of a garden, a sown field, shapes too regular for nature.

“Kapporeth,” I whispered. “We have found it.”

Seventy-Six

WE SCARCELY beat our pursuers ashore.

Imriel leapt out of the skiff the instant our prow touched land, hauling on it. I scrambled to grab Joscelin’s weapons, ignoring the rocking of the vessel as he disembarked. By the time I followed, tossing him the oilskin bundle, the Sabaean craft had landed.

It was a footrace, after that.

I caught a glimpse, as we raced for the path, of the soldiers who emerged from the Sabaean craft. To be sure, their armor and their weapons were ancient, of bronze and not steel, but the edges were no less keen for it, and there were at least twenty of them.

We had steel, yes. We had Joscelin.

He shoved his daggers into the empty sheaths on his belt as he ran, disentangling his baldric and slinging it over his shoulders, his sword jouncing in its scabbard. The oilskin cloth fell by the wayside as he tucked one vambrace under his arm, struggling to force his bleeding left hand into the mesh gauntlet of the other. Leather straps flopped with every stride, impossible to buckle on the run.

And then we were there, in the clearing atop the hill, with the round temple shut tight and slumberous in the early morning light, while twenty Sabaean soldiers fanned out to surround us, their bronze blades drawn and gleaming in the sun.

“I knew it,” said Hanoch ben Hadad, jutting his black beard. “I
knew
it! There were too many women paying visits to my sister. I told the Sanhedrin as much.”

“How is it, my lord captain?” I asked him softly, watching Joscelin fasten his vambraces out of the corner of my eye. “Is your sister not worthy of company? I found her a gracious hostess.”

“Woman’s folly,” Hanoch said in a hard voice. “Prey to a gentlemanner and a sad tale. She is aging, and lonely. It is fortunate for you my niece Ardath thought better of her folly and made confession to her husband Japhet in time for us to pursue. It would go worse if you had succeeded in profaning the temple.”

Ardath. Yevuneh’s daughter, with the nursing babe in her arms. I felt sick at it, the blood beating hard in my ears. To have come this far! “Ardath knows not what she does,” I said, my voice sounding distant and strange. “It is fear that speaks.”

“Fear, aye.” He nodded. “She fears for her children’s future, do we risk Adonai’s wrath. Such is wisdom, the truth of women’s wisdom; a mother’s fear. A pity you did not think to do the same. Your son will suffer for your folly. Give thanks to Adonai that we have halted you in time. If the Sanhedrin is merciful, it may be that you will not be put to death, but only enslaved.”

“And how shall you be rewarded, Hanoch ben Hadad, for finding Kapporeth, where Nemuel’s shame is hidden?” I asked him, anger flaring. “I tell you this, it is Blessed Elua’s will that has led us here, over deserts and mountains and rivers, through dangers that would render you faint to hear told! It is no matter for you to decide, no, nor the Sanhedrin of Elders. It is for Adonai Himself, and it is the wisdom of the women of Tisaar to know it, and hide no longer from the Will of God, who has forgotten you these long centuries!”

It gave Hanoch pause. His dark eyelids flickered, and his men glanced uneasily at one another. “Nonetheless,” he said, then, resolve firming. He pointed with the tip of his sword toward the closed door of the temple at our backs. “Therein lies the Holiest of Holies, and the way is barred to you. I am content. Adonai’s silence speaks. You will return with us to Tisaar, and face judgement.”

Joscelin crossed his forearms and bowed, steel flashing in the rising sun. His daggers rode at his hips, his sword-hilt over his shoulder. Cassiline discipline held immaculate. No one watching would guess the ragged state of his hands, his bone-deep exhaustion. “My lord captain,” he said in Habiru. “Do not do this thing. I am loathe to shed blood in this place. Let my lady Phèdre at least seek audience with the priest of Aaron’s line.”

Hanoch ben Hadad hesitated again, then shook his head. “No,” he said, gesturing with his sword, and the line of Sabaean soldiery advanced a step, raising hide shields studded with ancient bronze. “I am sorry, D’Angeline. You are a valiant warrior, if your battle with the Shamsun tells any tale. But the way is barred to you. Adonai’s will is clear.”

I stole a glance over my shoulder. The temple doors remained adamantly closed.

“As you say,” Joscelin said gently, and his daggers sang free of their sheaths, crossed before him and shining like a star, blood trickling down the insides of his wrists. “Nonetheless. I have sworn a vow.”

“Not to Adonai,” replied the Sabaean captain. “Not to the Lord of Hosts, my friend.”

“No.” Joscelin smiled, and in the rising light of dawn, his eyes were the blue of summer skies over the fields of Terre d’Ange. “To his once-faithful servant Cassiel, whose memory is more true than God’s. And I … I protect and serve.”

Hanoch ben Hadad shook his bronze-helmed head. “It will be your death, D’Angeline.”

“So be it.” At the sealed mouth of the temple, birds sang, the sun-warmed foliage released its green scent, and Joscelin Verreuil settled into a defensive stance, sounding almost careless. “It is the death I have spent a lifetime earning.”

Something like regret crossed Hanoch ben Hadad’s face before he raised his shield and set his sword, its worn bronze honed to a killing edge. “Take them!”

Spreading their line to flank Joscelin, the Sabaeans advanced at his command.

So close; so
close
! I felt the presence of a great mystery hovering near, almost within the grasp of my reaching fingers. Almost. I turned, flinging myself recklessly against the temple door, pounding with my blistered hands to no avail. “Please,” I begged; in Habiru, in D’Angeline, in what tongue I could not say. “Name of mercy, let me but
ask
!” But the door remained closed and locked, and no answer was forthcoming. In the background, I heard the terrible clash of battle as Joscelin engaged ben Hadad’s men. I had no more gambits to play. It hurt, to come so near and fail. Elua, but it hurt! I sank to my knees, disbelieving my own failure.

“Lady.” A hand closed on my shoulder and a Sabaean soldier showed me the sword held loose in his grip. “This is sacred ground and no place for violence. It is over. You will come with us.”

“No,” I whispered. “Please, no.”