Kushiel’s Dart

Chapter Fifty-Three

Stripping the dead of spoil is a grim business. I have heard that Skaldi women sing as they do it. I tried to imagine kind-hearted Hedwig doing it, and could not; then I remembered how the women of Selig’s steading hated me, and I could. We did not sing, Joscelin and I, working together in numb horror. We did not even speak, but only did what was needful.

One of the Skaldi horses, the one that had fallen, had broken a leg and had to be put down. Joscelin did it with his daggers, cutting the large vein on the neck. I could not watch. We took two of their horses, and left the others to fend for themselves, hoping they would find their way to a steading before the wolves found them; they were nigh as tired as our own mounts. I kept my pony, though, unable to bear leaving him for the wolves. And in truth, he was hardier than the horses, quicker to regain strength. I learned, later, that the breed was native to the Skaldic lands; they’d bred for the larger mounts with strains of Caerdicci and Aragonian horses, better for battle, but not for enduring the cold.

So it was that we set out once more.

It had been my intention, when we reached it, to follow the Danrau River, keeping it in sight until we reached the Camaelines. It was Joscelin’s idea to follow the riverbed for a time, rendering our trail invisible, then cut to the south and throw off any other pursuers. We had no way of knowing whether there were others, or how many or how far behind they might be, but I suspected Selig would send more than one party.

We followed his plan, our horses picking their way cautiously through the cold, fast-flowing water, and he did as he had before, backtracking to erase our trail where it emerged from the river. How he did it, I do not know, for by then the cold and exhaustion were so deep in my bones that I could barely think. It wasn’t until he returned, hollow-eyed, that I realized he was worse off than I. It is a strange thing, human endurance. After the river, I would have said I was done in, but when I saw his condition, I found a bleak pocket of strength that kept me going, taking the lead to forge a trail through the gathering dusk. The wind had picked up again and there was no shelter to be found, only barren rock and thin trees. I knew, by then, how to look for a campsite. There was no place to be found, so I kept going.

I don’t know what all I thought of, trudging through the endless winter, leading my horse while Joscelin followed, hunched in his saddle, the heavily laden pony trailing. A thousand memories of home, of fêtes I had attended, of patrons, of Delaunay and Alcuin. I thought of the marquist’s shop, of the healing springs of Naamah’s sanctuary, of Delaunay’s library, which I had once thought the safest place in the world. I thought of Hyacinthe and the Cockerel, and the offering we had made at Blessed Elua’s temple.

At what point I began to pray, I don’t know, for it was a prayer without words, a remembrance of grace, of Elua’s temple, scarlet anemones in my hands, the earth warm and moist beneath my bare feet, cool marble beneath my lips, and the priest’s kind voice. Love as thou wilt, he had said, and Elua will guide your steps, no matter how long the journey. I clung blindly to the moment, along my endless journey, until I could go no farther and stopped to look about me, realizing in the gloaming and snow that I had walked straight into a wall of stone.

This is the end, I thought, putting out my hands and feeling the stone before me. I can go no further. I dared not look behind me.

My left hand, sliding sideways, met no resistance. Darkness opened in the rock before me. Groping, I felt my way forward, trusting that my mount was too exhausted to run.

It was a cave.

I went into it as far as I dared, sniffing the air for scent of wolf or bear. The sound and force of the wind died inside the stone walls, leaving a strange black stillness. There was no sense of any living thing. I emerged, fighting my way through the snow to Joscelin’s side. He looked blearily at me through frost-rimed lashes.

"There’s a cave," I shouted, cupping my mouth against the wind, then pointing. "Give me one of the torches, and I’ll look."

Moving as though it hurt to do so, he dismounted, and we led the horses into the overhang. With a faint, dim light still filtering through the opening, we unpacked the tinderbox and the branches swathed in pitch soaked rags we’d taken from the fallen Skaldi. I struck a spark and a torch flared into light.

Holding it aloft, I ventured deeper into the cavern.

It went farther than I’d guessed, and was vaster. Alone in a dark arena, I turned about, letting torchlight illuminate the walls. I’d been right, it was empty; but there, in the center, were the remains of an ancient campfire. Glancing up, I saw high above a small rift in the stone ceiling, a hole for smoke to escape.

It would do. It would more than do.

I wedged the torch in a crevice, and went back for Joscelin. This time, it was I who did the lion’s share of the work, tending to the horses, who huddled gratefully out of the gale, gathering scrub branches and laying a fire on the site of ancient ashes. I even found a massive deadfall and devised a crude hitch for the pony, dragging the better part of a small tree into the cavern itself. The wood was dry and burned without much smoke, until the space was suffused with welcome warmth and light.

No pine-bough bed for us tonight, but we’d no need of it for once, the stone floor of the cave warmer than snow. Joscelin had laid out our things, and we’d furs and blankets to spare, with what we’d taken from the Skaldi. We sat together without shivering, and dined on pottage and strips of dried venison, which we also had in plenty now, courtesy of Selig’s stores.

When we had eaten, I cleaned the cook-pot and set it full of snow to melt, stoking up the fire once more. I hauled the one meadskin Joscelin hadn’t emptied over then, and a container of salve one of the Skaldi had carried. With a careful touch, I cleaned the cut on his cheek and the deeper gash on his skull with hot water and a bit of cloth, then washed them with mead.

"I wondered why you kept this," I said, smiling at his grimace. "That was clever."

"It wasn’t that." He winced again as I dabbed at the cut on his cheek. "I thought you might need it. The Skaldi drink it against the cold."

"Do they?" I tried it, squirting a stream into my mouth. It tasted of fermented honey, and burned pleasantly in my belly. Warming indeed, so that it grew almost hot within the cavern. "It’s not bad." I sat back on my heels and gazed at him. "So how bad are the wounds you’re hiding?"

He smiled then, wry in the firelight. "Is it that obvious?"

"Yes. Don’t be an idiot." I softened my voice. "Let me see."

Without speaking, he stripped off his upper garments. I caught my breath. His torso was a mass of bruises, and his jerkin beneath the furs was stiff with dried blood from a gash in his left side, a handspan above his hip. Even now, it was still seeping dark blood. "Joscelin," I said, biting my lip. "That should be sewn."

"Give me that meadskin." Tilting it back, he squeezed a long draught into his mouth and swallowed. "I took a kit from one of Selig’s men. It’s in the pack."

I am neither chirurgeon nor seamstress, and by the time I was done, a good bit of mead had found its way down Joscelin’s throat. When it was over, my black stitch-marks straggled across the flesh of his side, but the wound was closed.

"Here," he said, handing me the meadskin as I stretched out alongside him, exhausted beyond words. "You did a good job," he said softly. "Through all of it. Phèdre…"

"Shh." Propping myself on one arm, I laid my fingers across his lips. "Joscelin, don’t. I don’t want to talk about it." Silent behind my hand, he blinked his blue eyes at me. I took my hand away then, and kissed him instead.

I don’t know what I expected. I hadn’t thought about it. My hair fell loose about us, curtaining our faces. His lips parted under mine, and our tongues touched, only the tips, soft and tentative. I felt his arms slide around me in an embrace, and kissed him harder.

The fire burned untended and the horses murmured and whickered in the forefront of the cavern, their drowsy stirrings and the occasional stamp of a hoof the only backdrop to our lovemaking. I would have thought he would be uncertain-a Cassiline, and celibate-but he came to it with wonder, taking all that I offered with a kind of reverent awe. His hands slid over my skin and I wept at his touch, that had such love in it, tasting the salt of my own tears as I kissed him. I had never, ever, chosen before. When he came into me, I shuddered, and he held off until I drew him back down, fiercely, burying my face against his shoulder and losing myself in him.

At the end, though, I had to look, to see his face, D’Angeline and beloved, above my own. Chosen. He cried out at the end, a sound of wonder and amazement.

Afterward, he rose and walked away, standing alone.

I could only watch, lying in furs beside the fire, that same strange pain twisting at my heart. Joscelin, my Cassiline, my protector, his beautiful body bruised and torn in my service. Somewhere, in the distant part of my mind, I was astonished at it all, not the least that we were here, together, like this; both of us alive, naked in this cavern and not freezing to death.

"We have dreamed this day," I said aloud. "Joscelin, we dream still, and tomorrow will wake from it."

He turned about then, his face grave. "Phèdre…I am Cassiel’s servant. I cannot cling to that vow, no matter how I’ve betrayed it, and be otherwise. And without the strength of it, I’ve not the strength to endure. Do you understand?"

"Yes." Tears stung my eyes, which I ignored. "Do you think I would have survived this long, were I not Naamah’s servant, and Kushiel’s chosen? I understand."

At that, he nodded, and came back to sit with me on our makeshift bed.

"You’re bleeding again." I rummaged in our things for a length of clean cloth, making a pad and binding it over the wound in his side, not meeting his gaze as I did it. It was different, now, touching his flesh.

"I thought…" he began to say, then stopped, and cleared his throat. "It’s not only pain that pleases you, then. I didn’t know."

"No." I glanced up at him, smiling slightly; he looked so earnest and disheveled, naked and battered, his wheat-streaked hair tangled in Skaldic braids. "Did you think that? I answer to Naamah’s arts, and not Kushiel’s rod alone."

He reached out and touched Melisande’s diamond where it hung, still, about my throat. "But the latter calls louder," he said gently.

"Yes." Unable to lie, I whispered the word. My hand rose to clutch the diamond, and I jerked it hard, breaking the knot that bound the lead. "Ah, Elua! I would be free of it if I could!" I said in disgust, hurling it away from me. It fell with a faint chink against the cavern well. Joscelin gazed after it into the darkness beyond the firelight.

"Phèdre," he said presently. "We’ve nothing else of value to our names."

"No." Obstinacy overcame me. "I would rather starve."

"Would you?" He looked soberly at me. "You made me choose life over pride."

I was silent a moment, thinking on it. "All right," I said. "Fetch it back, and I will keep it. I will wear it, and remember. If we need it to buy life, we will use it." My voice rose, ringing. "And if we do not, I will wear it, until the day I throw it on the ground at Melisande Shahrizai’s feet. And then she will have her answer to her question: It is Kushiel’s Dart throws truer than Kushiel’s line!"

Joscelin retrieved the diamond without comment, tying it back around my neck. Better him, I thought, twining my hair forward, than anyone else who’d put it there. When he was done, he brushed the length of my spine with a light touch. "I’m sorry you had to leave your marque unfinished," he murmured. "It’s beautiful, you know. Like you."

I turned round at that to meet his eyes; he gave me his wry smile.

"If I had to fall from Cassiel’s grace," he said softly, "at least I know it took a courtesan worthy of Kings to do it."

"Ah, Joscelin…" I leaned forward and took his head in my hands, kissing his brow. "Go to sleep," I told him. "We’ve a long way to go, yet, and you’ve healing to do. I’ll tell you a story, if you like…do they tell Naamah’s temptation of Cassiel, in the Brotherhood? They tell it in Cereus House…"

I told him the story, then, and he fell asleep smiling before the end; as well he did, I thought, for it is one of those stories that ends without an ending, that the listener may judge for him or herself what happened.

Tales of gods and angels may end that way, for they continue, we know, in the land beyond the end of the world, the true Terre d’Ange. Alas for we who are mortal, and are denied the luxury of dramatic license. We must live, and go onward.

In the morning the fire had burned down to cold ashes and a few buried embers, and we dressed shivering in the chill. Of what had befallen us in the night, we did not speak. What would we have said, if we did? The romances would have it otherwise, but this I will say: There is no point in speaking of love when survival is at issue. I had spoken truly, when I said that we dreamed. It was only the waking that was grim. We went about the business of making ready to leave.

The snows had ended, and the day bid to be overcast, but the lowering clouds held no more in store. A grey light filtered into the cavern from outside. I worked quickly to lash the last of the packs onto my pony, holding my fur mittens between my teeth and working with frozen fingers. Joscelin, much recovered from his wounds, checked the horses' hooves.

"Phèdre!" I heard him gasp as he released the foreleg of one of our Skaldi remounts. The horse stomped, the sound ringing off the stony walls. I looked up to see where he was pointing.

There, etched in rock above the mouth of the cavern, was Blessed Elua’s sigil. Caught by some trick of refracted daylight it gleamed, silvery, in the hard stone. I stared without speaking, then closed my mouth, realizing it gaped. Joscelin and I looked wildly at each other.

"You know what this means?" he asked breathlessly. "They sheltered here, crossing the Skaldic hinterlands! Elua, Cassiel, Naamah…all the Companions!" Approaching the cavern mouth, he laid his hands reverently upon the rock. "They were here."

"They were here," I echoed, gazing at the silvery lines, remembering my wordless, snow-bound prayer. We had dreamed, I thought, in a sacred place. "Joscelin," I said. "Let’s go home."

Tearing himself away from the cavern wall, he glanced at me and nodded, settling the wolf-pelt of the White Brethren in place about his shoulders. "Home," he said firmly, leading the way.

A dream, and the promise of our long-ago celestial begetters, who had not forgotten the distant generations of their children, in whose red blood a thin thread of ichor ran still. Home, a golden memory, from which we were separated by mile upon icy mile.

Outside, the cold of a Skaldic winter awaited us.

Home.