Kushiel’s Dart

"It’s not that!" His voice rose above the sound of the waves, then he lowered it, squatting in front of me. "Listen, child. Ysandre de la Courcel’s loyal to the land, and she’s the making of a good Queen. I know it, and Delaunay knew it, and Gaspar Trevalion, too. That’s why we aided her. And it would be a grand thing, this alliance…if it stood a chance of happening. But the chance is precious slim, and the reality is, if you tell me true, that we face civil war and Skaldi invasion, all at once. So I must ask myself, you see, where can I do the most good? On a hare-brained mission nigh-doomed to fail, or fighting for my country? I’ve over forty ships and nigh a thousand men here, hand-picked, who can fight at sea or on land. Elua’s Balls, they whipped the Akkadians, who fight like their ten thousand devils! Ysandre de la Courcel is young and untried, and knows little yet of statecraft, and nothing of war. How am I best to aid her? By obeying, or defying?"

Kneeling, abeyante, as I had been taught since earliest childhood, I lifted my face and gazed at him. "You have nothing," I said softly. Quintilius Rousse stared at me. "Do you think your ships will make a difference in a land battle? Do you think your men will count for aught? My lord Admiral, I have seen the Skaldi, and they number more than the grains of sand on this beach. A few hundred men…" I scooped up a handful of sand and let it trickle through my fingers. "How do you wish to die, Admiral? We are D’Angeline. At the hands of numbers, or dreams?"

With a sound of disgust, Quintilius Rousse rose and turned his back on me, standing at the verge of the gently breaking waves. "You’re as bad as your master," he muttered, scarce audible amid the sea-sounds. "Worse. At least he didn’t ply his words from a courtesan’s lips." I remained silent. Quintilius Rousse sighed. "Elder Brother have mercy on us. We’ll sail at dawn."

Chapter Sixty-Seven

And so we did.

It was somewhat later than dawn, truth be told, when we set out in the oar-boat for Rousse’s flagship. Once he’d made up his mind, the Admiral was nothing but efficiency, but there were a great many orders to be delegated before we left.

These I tried to follow as best I could, but Quintilius Rousse was in no mind to be tailed by Delaunay’s anguissette, so all I caught was a confused impression. He would leave his lieutenant in charge, with orders to implement a shore brigade, guarding their borders. A quarter of the ships would sail upcoast to Azzalle and find berth at Trevalion, held loyal by Ghislain de Somerville, and send word to Ysandre. If royal couriers could not make it through Morhban, they could send word through Trevalion.

As for the rest, they would do their best to hold off de Morhban’s inquiry, and sound out his loyalty. For de Morbhan had a fleet of his own-I’d not known that-and if he turned traitor, he could use it to sail north and harry the whole of the Azzallese coast, forcing them to turn their attention away from the flatlands and guarding the Rhenus.

It was a fair bewilderment of possibilities and strategies. I had never appreciated, until his death, the narrow and dangerous path Delaunay trod among his allies and enemies. Then again, I thought, nor had he, not entirely. Melisande had played a deeper game, and blinded him to d’Aiglemort’s betrayal. It was only my ill-luck to have stumbled upon it.

And now I was playing an even deeper game that she had not yet guessed. Thinking on it, I shuddered. Kushiel’s Dart, cast against the blood of his line. Whatever befell us on the waters, at least it took me further away from her. I did not trust myself, after seeing her at the Hippochamp. I had withheld the signale, it was true, the last time…but I would not trust it a third time. I had come closer than I liked to think, with de Morhban. It was shock and the numbness of grief that had buffered me that terrible night with Melisande, the night of Delaunay and Alcuin’s death. And even then, it had been so close.

Another time…I trailed my fingers in the water, as the oarsmen set to and the shore grew distant behind us. Another time, it would be different. And Elua help me, I longed for it. I could not help it, even as I despised her.

The edge between love and hate is honed finer than the keenest flechette. She told me something like that, once, but I dared not think on such things, with her name so close to my tongue. She told me too that it was not my acquiescence that interested her, but my rebellion. That was the thing that set her apart from the others, who failed to see where it lay.

That was the thing that terrified me.