Kushiel's Dart (52 page)

"Shield," Evrard whispered, groping blindly.

I do not know what Joscelin was thinking, but I saw his face as he swung, and it was empty of everything but a calm at once serene and blazing. He turned beneath that bright sky, moving his head only slightly to avoid Evrard's blow, and the two-handed stroke he dealt held all of his momentum. The blade flashed like a star, crashing through the third and final shield, and splinters flew like rain.

"No." Evrard's voice trembled; he put up one hand, and took a step backward off the hide, setting one foot in the hazel-rod aisle. I might have pitied him, were it not for the thought of D'Angelines dying under his spear. "Please." Joscelin held the raised sword-blade angled high, and sunlight glinted off it to cast an edge of brightness across his face.

"I will not be foresworn, Skaldi," he said softly, taking care with the words in a strange tongue. "Step off the hide or die."

If it had only been the two of them, I think Evrard the Sharptongued would have retreated. But he was among Skaldi, warriors with whom he'd ridden cheek to jowl, and all were watching; and not only them, but the women. If he feared to lose face by fighting a slave, how much more did he stand to lose by running from one?

I did not like the man, but I will say this for him; he met his death bravely. Forced to choose between the watching Skaldi and the waiting Cassiline, Evrard summoned his courage and loosed it in a final roar, charging, swinging his sword like a berserker. Joscelin parried the blow, pivoting, following through on his own swing, the edge of his blade catching Evrard full across the midriff, angling upward.

It was a death-blow, and no mistake. Evrard crumpled to the hide and lay unmoving, a pool of blood spreading slowly beneath him. For a moment, there was silence; then Gunter pumped one fist skyward and shouted his approval, and his thanes echoed it. It had been a fair fight, and a good one, by their standards. Joscelin stood watching blood seep from Evrard's corpse, his face pale. I remembered then that he had never killed a man before, and I liked him better for taking it hard. He knelt then, laying down his sword and folding his arms, murmuring a Cassiline prayer beneath his breath.

When he was done, he rose and cleaned his blade, walking over to present it hilt-first to Gunter, who took it back with a shrewd look.

"Thank you, my lord, for allowing me to defend my honor," Joscelin said carefully, and bowed. "I am sorry for the death of your thane."

"Sharptongue brought it on himself, eh?" Gunter said cannily, putting a meaty arm about Joscelin's shoulders and giving him a shake. "I tell you, wolf-cub; how is it if you take his place?"

"My lord?" Joscelin shot him an incredulous look.

Gunter grinned. "I'm minded to take a risk on you, D'Angeline! They seem to pay off, hm? If I give you your irons back, does your oath still bind you? Are you still minded to protect and serve; my life with your own, if need be?"

Joscelin swallowed hard; it would be harder, a harder chore and temp tation than he'd been given before. He met my eye, and resolve hardened his features. "I have sworn it," he said. "Do you keep my lady Phedre no Delaunay safe."

"Good." Gunter gave his shoulders another squeeze and shake. "Give him a cheer, eh?" he cried to his thanes. "The boy's proved himself a man this day!"

They cheered then, and came around, clapping him on the back and boasting or bemoaning the bets they'd laid on the holmgang, while Evrard lay dead and cooling nearby. Someone began to pass around a skin of mead, and the singing began, one of the wits beginning to make a story of it: The epic battle of Evrard the Sharptongued and the D'Angeline slave-boy.

I watched a while longer, still shivering, then went inside with Hedwig and the women to prepare for the boisterous carousing to follow. Whether things had just gotten better or worse, I could not have said.

FORTY-FIVE

It was passing strange to see Joscelin attendant on Gunter in full Cassiline regalia; his mended grey garments, the vambraces on his forearms, daggers at his belt and sword at his back. Allowed a measure of freedom, he resumed the practice of his morning exercises, flowing through the intricate series of movements that formed the basis of the Brotherhood's righting style.

The Skaldi beheld this oddity with a mix of awe and scorn. Their own combat skills were straightforward and efficient, reliant on might-of-arms, sheer ferocity and the fact that most Skaldi warriors are taught to wield a blade from the time they can lift one.

Their attitude toward Joscelin's discipline was consistent with their feelings toward Terre d'Ange as a whole, and I will admit, it is something I never quite fathomed. It was a strange commingling of derision and yearning, contempt and envy, and I mused upon these things while the steading began to prepare for its journey to the Allthing, for my survival depended largely on my ability to comprehend the Skaldi nature.

Would that I'd had a map in those days, to mark our place in the steading, and the meeting-place decreed by Waldemar Selig. Delaunay had taught me to read maps, of course, and I daresay I could do so as well as any general, but I had no skill to chart my way by the stars, as navigators do. I knew only that we were close to one of the Great Passes through the Camaeline Range, and that we would ride east to the Allthing; seven days' ride, Gunter said, or perhaps eight.

That I would accompany them, he took as a matter of course, although he had still said nothing to me of being a gift for Waldemar Selig. Twenty thanes would go with him to represent the steading, and Hedwig and three others, to speak for the women. They had not the say of the men, but there was an old tale—there is always an old tale, among the Skaldi—of how Brunhild the Doughty wrestled Hobart Longspear and took him two falls out of three, to win the right for women to speak at the Allthing. I suspected Gunter was minded to travel without them, but even he was wary of Hedwig's wrath. I do not know if she wrestled, but of a surety she wielded a mean ladle, and had no compunctions about raising knots on the skull of any man to oppose her.

As for Joscelin, it was simply assumed that he, too, would make the journey, as Gunter's body-servant. Gunter Arnlaugson had a fondness for the trappings of power, and it made him strut not a little to have the Cassiline attendant, with his deft bow and D'Angeline elegance.

So we made ready to go, and I had my first taste of Skaldic augury. An old man, the priest of Odhinn, was fetched to the great hall, and led the steading in procession to a stand of winter-barren oak, their sacred grove. He spread a cloak of stainless white wool upon the snow, and mumbled over bits of rune-carved rods, casting them upon the garment. Three times he did this, then proclaimed in a loud voice that the omens were favorable.

Gunter's thanes cheered at the announcement, banging their short spears on their shields. I, shivering as always in the Skaldic cold, prayed silently to Blessed Elua for protection, and to Naamah, and Kushiel, whose sign I bore. A raven lighted near me on one of the leafless branches, ruffling its feathers and cocking one round, black eye at me. At first it gave me fear, then I remembered that when Elua wandered through the Skaldic hinterlands, the ravens and wolves were his friends, and it heartened me somewhat.

A false spring thaw had broken the ice upon the stream, and we would take our leave in the morning. Much of the remaining day was spent in final preparations, in which I had little part, save to watch the bustle and bundle of it all. Gunter, a seasoned campaigner, had the prudence to retire early, taking me with him. I thought he would leave me be that night, to be all the fresher in the morning, but he tumbled me instead with a soldier's vigorous efficiency, spending himself with a heroic shout and rolling off me to snore within minutes.

I'd taught him better than that, of course, but he had determined in his naively crafty way that it didn't matter with a slave when he was minded to have his simple pleasures; and of a surety, it mattered naught with me, dart-stricken and cursed. I lay awake in the darkness, throbbing with the aftermath of a pleasure I despised, and wondered what the coming fortnight would bring.

We arose with the dawn and made ready to leave. He came beaming into the bed-room with a bundle of woolen undergarments and fur wrappings, a gift for me against the cold. To my surprise, he even knelt to wrap the leggings on himself, showing me how to lace the leather thongs to keep them secure. When he was done, he did not rise immediately, but lifted my skirts and thrust his head beneath them, parting my thighs to bestow a kiss upon my pearl of Naamah, as I had taught him.

"I will not ever forget you," he said gruffly, smoothing my skirts in place and looking upward. "Maybe your gods have cursed you, but Gunter Arnlaugson counts it a blessing, eh?"

The last thing I ever expected of him was tenderness; but lest it undo me, Melisande's diamond glinted at his throat, reminding me of things I had rather forget. I put my hands on his head and kissed him, thanking him for the gift of clothing.

It seemed it was enough. He rose, pleased, and went about his business, seeing to the equipage of the horses.

Well, that is that, I thought. He means to do it.

The journey to the Allthing took a full eight days, and if it was not the hardest thing I have ever endured, I thought it was at the time. I had a horse of my own to ride, for Gunter was mindful of our mounts, and I spent interminable hours hunched in the saddle in my woolens and furs, the reins slack, trusting to my sturdy mount to follow the others. A cold snap followed the false spring, and the snow, softened by warmth, hardened with a brittle crust that made riding slow and bit at the horses' legs. When we made camp at night, the Skaldi tended their mounts first, rubbing their legs down with a salve made of bear-grease.

Our camp was made with rude tents of cured hide that afforded some protection against the cold. Although he made no move to touch me, Gunter kept me with him, and I am not ashamed to say that I huddled against him at night for warmth. We survived on a fare of pottage and dried strips of meat, of which I grew heartily tired.

The lands through which we rode were splendid, though I was hardly minded to appreciate them. The Skaldi seemed not to mind the cold as I did, singing as they rode, breath frosty on the chill air. Hedwig's cheeks were rosy with cold, her eyes sparkling like a girl's.

Even Joscelin fared better than I did; I should have guessed it, for Siovale is mountainous, and he was born to it. Like most men, he was happier in action than stillness. Someone had given him a bearskin cloak and he seemed warm enough in it, riding with high-spirited elan. They say there is Bodhistani blood in the torrid lineage of Jasmine House, and I thought of my mother for the first time in many years, wondering as I shivered if this aversion to the cold came through her.

On the eighth day, we reached the meeting-place. It was set in a great bowl of a valley, ringed about with forested mountains, with a lake at the bottom, around which the camp was arrayed.

This, I understood, was Waldemar Selig's steading, which he had inherited through birth and right of arms, and built into greatness. Indeed, though still crude by our standards, the great hall was thrice the size of Gunter's, and there were two outbuildings near as big. And all around the lake, throughout the whole of the basin, were pitched encampments, bustling with the activity of varying Skaldi tribemen.

We had been seen before we came within a mile of the steading. The forest had seemed virgin and silent to me; but for the occasional snap of a twig bursting in the cold, but Knud, who had much skill at woodcraft, laid a finger alongside his nose and nodded wisely at Gunter. Still, I think even he was taken by surprise when three Skaldi rose from the snow in front of us, cloaked and hooded in white wolfskin, spears at the ready.

In a flash, Joscelin turned his horse sideways to the Skaldi, making a rolling dismount and fetching up before them on his feet, vambraces crossed, daggers at the ready. It startled them as much as they had us, and they blinked at him, looking momentarily silly beneath the empty white wolf-masks that draped their brows.

Gunter laughed uproariously at the sight, waving his thanes and the rest of us to bide behind him. "So you would defend me, eh, wolf-cub?" he asked. "Well and good, but don't do it at the cost of the Blessed's hospitality!" He nodded cheerfully to the blinking Skaldi. "Hail and well met, brothers. I am Gunter Arnlaugson of the Marsi, summoned to the Allthing."

"What is this fighting thing you have brought to our midst, Gunter Arnlaugson?" their leader asked sourly, annoyed at being caught out. "Surely he is no Marsi, unless the maids of your steading have been straying over the border."

Hedwig sniffed loudly, and one of Waldemar's Skaldi glanced in her direction. Catching sight of me, he dropped his jaw and stared, tugging at his comrade's sleeve.

"What I have brought, I reveal only to Waldemar Selig himself," Gunter said shrewdly. "But they are loyal to me, eh, wolf-cub?"

Joscelin gave him a bland look, bowing and sheathing his daggers. "I protect and serve, my lord."

"You will answer for them, then," the leader said, and shrugged. "We will lead you down."

"Lead on," Gunter said magnanimously.

So it was that we descended to the meeting-place with our escort, who picked their way carefully while our horses plunged through the snow, sinking chest-deep at times.

If the mass of encampments seemed vast from above, on the valley's floor they sprawled endlessly. A veritable city of tents had sprung up to host the Allthing, clamoring with innumerable Skaldi. They do not practice heraldry as we do, but I saw subtle differences marking the tribes in their manner of dress; the cut of their garments, the colors of their woolens, how they laced their furs. This tribe wore bronze disks for adornment, that one bears' teeth rattling on bared chests, and so on.