Perversely, I found myself arguing against it, willing it for Joscelin's sake not to be. "Still, it would be suicide on his part."
He gave a short laugh, raking his hands through his hair. "Yes," he said simply. "If David de Rocaille no Rinforte is considering killing the Queen of Terre d'Ange, he is pre paring to die." I had no words left, and merely knelt, wrap ping my arms around him. After a moment, Joscelin shuddered, hands rising to grip mine. "And if that is the case," he whispered, "I will oblige him. All right. Let me go, and I'll see if Teppo has pen and ink to spare."
In a short time, he brought the young Yeshuite, a fine- featured lad whose hands bore calluses and inkstains alike. Teppo stammered out a greeting, laying before me a wealth of scholar's supplies; inkpot and quill, and some good pieces of foolscap. I penned a swift note to Allegra Stregazza. "My lady, you aided me once in kindness with an introduction to your mother's friend. I tell you in turn that Marco Stregazza conspires with Benedicte de la Courcel against your lord, his brother Ricciardo, rousing the Scholae to blacken his name. Let him order those guildsmen who are loyal to keep the peace in the Campo Grande during the investiture ceremony; for if he does not, he will be named a conspirator in the death of a Queen. This I swear is true."
I didn't sign it; Allegra Stregazza would know well enough who I was, and if the letter was intercepted, she could yet deny it, for all the good it did her. And Teppo, who rolled the letter carefully between two scrolls, rever ence in his inkstained fingers, he would go himself; he in sisted on it.
Another frail barque, I thought, watching him go, wending his way through the underbrush; another ship of hope, bearing my words. I wondered if the letters I had sent to the Lady of Marsilikos and the Duc L'Envers had arrived, and if they had acted upon them.
There was little time for contemplation, for a commotion had erupted in the encampment. Blades clashed and shouts rang out, a mix of Illyrian, Caerdicci and Habiru.
"Name of Elua," Joscelin muttered. "What now?"
I should have guessed, if I'd thought on it. Kazan's men were putting Joscelin's Yeshuites to the test. We arrived at the center of the camp to find Stajeo and Micah circling one another. Such will happen, when men who are strangers to one another hone their weapons together. The Illyrian had his buckler and short sword, his guard a trifle high and a broad smile on his face. Micah ben Ximon held two daggers in the Cassiline fashion, watchful and wary, his steps tracing the forms Joscelin had drilled into him with no small mea sure of competency.
"Kazan," I sighed. "This is foolishness."
He came over to stand beside Joscelin and me, shrugging carelessly. "So you say, you, but my men, they will not like it, to fight beside untrained boys with knives in their hands, no. If he is worthy, let him prove it, eh, and we will all fight better for it."
"Joscelin." I turned to him in appeal.
"Micah can handle himself," he said absently, watching. "He's very good, for coming to it so late. See?"
As we watched, Micah feinted with the left-hand dagger; with a cunning move, Stajeo made to bring the edge of his buckler down hard on his arm. The Yeshuite whirled swiftly, somehow moving beneath the blow to end with the tip of his right-hand dagger pointed at the Illyrian's belly.
Kazan whistled through his teeth. The other Illyrians laughed and applauded, and Stajeo stepped back with a sour look on his face, putting up his sword in acknowledgement of surrender. Micah gave a quick Cassiline bow and sheathed his daggers.
"They will fight," Kazan said, satisfied. He eyed Joscelin. "You taught him that?"
"Yes." Joscelin nodded his approval to Micah, who flushed with pleasure.
"Why without swords, eh? It is clever, this fighting, but on a battlefield ..." Kazan drew his hand across his throat. "Pfft!"
"Because Yeshuites are forbidden to bear weapons in La Serenissima," Joscelin said in a hard tone. "As elsewhere. And a dagger, a pair of daggers, may be concealed, where a sword may not. It is what I was taught, my lord Atrabiades, because I am trained first and foremost not to take life on the battlefield, but to defend in close quarters, where a sword may be hampered by innocent flesh."
"But you carry a sword, you," Kazan said casually. "Do you know how to use it, eh?"
"Yes," Joscelin said.
I held my tongue at the understatement. "Kazan," I said. "Cassilines draw their swords only to kill. He does. Trust me in this matter."
Kazan Atrabiades looked at me sidelong, and the whole of our history was in that glance. When all was said and done, it was a considerable one. He grinned and made me a sweeping bow. "As you wish. My men will fight beside his, eh, and that is enough. But I am interested, I, to see what happens when this D'Angeline draws his sword!"
He left us, laughing, to join the others in commiserating with Stajeo on his defeat. Joscelin watched him a moment, then turned to me with raised brows.
"You do find interesting companions, Phèdre," was all he said.
"Yes." I looked evenly at him. "A score of his men died who might not have, had they not fought the Serenissimans on my behalf. All who are with him, and Kazan himself, are willing to die at our sides. Do you have a quarrel with that?"
"No." Putting his hands on my shoulders, Joscelin drew me close. "Should I?"
I rather liked this new side of him. It would be nice, I thought wistfully, if we both lived to enjoy it.
SEVENTY-TWO
Ti-Philippe and Sarae returned in the early evening hours, excited and full of talk. It seemed the warehouse was un guarded from the outside, and largely unwatched by Ser enissiman guards to boot. If any of us had had doubts, that sealed it. Our plan was set. In the small hours before dawn, we would take the warehouse by stealth, and gain our access to the Temple of Asherat-of-the-Sea.
The young Yeshuite scholar Teppo returned too, albeit with less information. Marco Stregazza's guards set to en force his brother's house arrest had allowed him to deliver his scrolls without much interest, but they had been taken by a maidservant; whether or not they had found their way into Allegra's hands—and what her reaction—he could not say.
Well and so, I had expected no more, and was glad that all had returned alive.
Pooling our stores of food in common, we put together a tolerable meal of small game—rabbit, and a brace of ducks—dressed with autumn berries, wild greens and a dish of pulses. The Illyrians shared around several skins of wine and there was fresh water in plenty from a spring-fed creek on the isle. Afterward, the hours of the night watch were divided among our company, with considerable arguing over who would take the vital duties.
Dark was falling as the Yeshuites huddled together, quar reling among themselves softly in Habiru. Kazan watched idly, and I knew him well enough to guess that the Illyrians would maintain a separate watch of their own.
"I will take the first watch," Joscelin announced, looking to put an end to it. "And Philippe the last. Settle the middle among yourselves. Will that suffice?"
"But... Joscelin." One of the young men—Elazar, his name was—looked flustered. "We thought... you are D'Angeline, after all, and you risked your life to rescue her...."
Joscelin looked uncomprehendingly at him.
"Your tent," Elazar said lamely. "We... well, you will see."
And see we did, how they had set a pair of lighted oil lamps within his humble tent, strewing the bedroll and rough ground with late-blooming wood roses, small and fragrant, painstakingly gathered from the dense undergrowth. I caught my breath and let it out in a gasping laugh. Ti-Philippe grinned with a trace of his old mischief, the Yeshuites shuffled in embarrassment and Oltukh, peering over their shoulders, called back a comment in Illyrian that roused laughter from several of Kazan's men.
"Phèdre ..." Joscelin said, his voice trailing off and he glanced at me. "This need not..."
"No?" I raised my brows at him. "We are D'Angeline, after all."
After a second's pause, Joscelin laughed, a free and un fettered sound I hadn't heard since Montrève. With one easy motion, he scooped me into his arms. "Micah," he said over his shoulder, ducking to step through the tent flap, "take the first watch. Philippe, wake me when it's time."
And with that, he closed the flap behind us.
Naamah's gift is manifold, and I have known it in many forms; still, I think, none have I cherished so much as that night with Joscelin on an unnamed isle of La Serenissima. After so much had passed, we were nearly strangers to one another, and yet at once so achingly familiar. I had forgotten the sheer, breathtaking beauty of him, gleaming like sculpted marble in the lamplight. Without artistry, without aught but love and simple desire, I relearned his flesh inch by inch. And Joscelin ... ah, Elua! Whatever had broken in him, it loosed the passion he held in rigid check so much, too much, of the time; his hands and mouth moved on me until I pleaded for release and he took me with a tender fury, autumn roses trapped beneath my body, sharp, cunning thorns pricking my naked skin. It was a goad to my pleasure and he knew it and did not care, a secret smile curving my lips as he lowered his head to kiss me.
Afterward, we lay entangled together without speaking for a long while.
"I've missed you," I murmured at length against the hard curve of his shoulder. "Awfully. For a long time, Joscelin."
"So have I." He ran his fingers through my hair where it lay across his chest. "Is that pirate of yours going to chal lenge me for this, do you think?"
"No." I kissed his shoulder. "Not likely."
"Good," he said drowsily. "I'd hate to kill him, since you seem rather fond of him."
I thought of all I had not told him yet—the
kríavbhog,
the Kore and the
thetalos,
my bargain with Kazan and his brother's death—all of that, and more. And I laughed softly, because it did not matter; right now, none of it mattered. If there was time, if we lived, Elua willing, I would tell it all to him, yes, and hear his stories too, all that he had left unsaid, including whether or not he had indeed hacked off his hair with a dagger, which is rather what it looked like.
And if there was not ... we had had this night, and Naamah's gift.
I have been her Servant a long time, I thought. This, I have earned.
So thinking, I fell asleep, and for all the restless nights I had passed, for all the myriad worries that plagued my brain, with Joscelin's arms around me and his breathing steady beneath my ear, I slept dreamless as a babe until Ti-Philippe scratching discreetly at the tent awoke us.
'Tis only my opinion, but I daresay I have seen my share and more of those chill, dank hours before dawn, when the resentful moon begins its descent and the stars grow distant and sullen. I scrambled into my clothing—a Kritian gown, an Illyrian cloak, no trace of my homeland to comfort me— while Joscelin, swift to don his attire, was already out and about in the encampment.
By the time I emerged, our company was mustered, and an ill-assembled lot we were. The Yeshuites looked painfully young, fingering their weapons and doing their best to summon expressions of stern resolve.
"My friends," I said to them. "We go forth this day into certain danger. Pray, if any one of you here is not fully resolved in your heart to do this thing, stand down now, for it is no quarrel of yours and there is no shame in quitting it. For the aid you have given us, I will ever be grateful." I waited in the crepuscular silence. No one moved. "So be it. Then let us be comrades-in-arms, few though we may be, and set ourselves against the forces of greed and ambition that seek to claim by stealth and treachery what is not rightfully theirs. Let us show the world that honor is not forgotten, and that the gods themselves—the gods of Illyria, of Terre d'Ange, of the Yeshuites, of La Serenissima itself— will lend their aid when men and women seek with utmost courage to do that which is right."
And with that, I told them my plan. The girl Sarae's eyes widened and she ducked her head, fidgeting with the crossbow she held; whether or not she thought it blasphemous, I could not say. The Yeshuites murmured. Ti-Philippe swore admiringly. Kazan Atrabiades laughed so hard he had dif ficulty translating for his men. Some of the Illyrians grinned, when they heard it; some made superstitious gestures to avert evil.
Joscelin looked at me for a long time without comment. "Have you lost your mind?" he said at length. "No."
"What else would you have us do? If we make it inside, we won't have the option of stealth." I watched the thoughts flicker behind his eyes. "Joscelin, we're outnumbered.
Ysandre
is outnumbered. Even if we succeed in gaining access to the warehouse, to reaching the Temple—what if it's not enough to warn her? Melisande and Marco have too much to lose, and too many allies at hand. We need to turn some of them, or at least confuse them. I can't think of another way. Can you?"
He closed his eyes. "No."
"I have sworn a vow," I said softly, "and this is how I mean to keep it.”
He opened his eyes and looked at me. "And if it goes awry?"
I shrugged. "We run like hell, and pray they haven't sur rounded the warehouse." I looked around at their watching faces. "Does anyone have a better plan?" No one did. "All right," I said. "Shall we go?"
