Kushiel’s Dart

Well, then; if I could not free myself from her sway, I could do that much. I ran one finger under the velvet lead tied about my throat, considering the horizon. Melisande Shahrizai wanted to see how far I would run with her line upon me, how far my rebellion would take me. I do not think she reckoned on it taking me to the green and distant shores of Alba. Elua willing, it might even lead to the unraveling of her subtle and deep-laid plans.

So I prayed, facing the forbidding seas. And if I were to die on these deadly waters, I prayed my last thought wouldn’t be of her.

Though somehow I feared it would.

While I occupied myself with these morbid thoughts, Rousse’s strong oarsmen gained his flagship, scrambling aboard. And then I had no time to dwell on such things, as they lowered rope ladders for us and we had to clamber on board, hands and feet slipping on the salt-slickened rope. I count myself agile, but it was no easy feat, learning to balance on the swaying wooden decks of the great ship.

A pillar of compassion, Quintilius Rousse laughed at our dismay, striding about with a rolling ease he didn’t display on dry land. He shouted orders as he strode, obeyed with alacrity, and we came to see quickly, all of us, why he was the Royal Admiral. He gave us unto the charge of his second-in-command, wiry, sharp-eyed Jean Marchand, who showed us to a cabin with four hammocks slung from the ceiling.

By the time we had stowed such gear as we brought, Quintilius was giving orders to hoist sail.

I freely confess, boats are a great mystery to me. Before yesterday, I’d never even glimpsed the sea, let alone set sail upon it. I cannot begin to fathom the myriad tasks the sailors performed, swarming up and down the masts, lashing and unlashing ropes in bewildering profusion, cranking a chain that raised the anchor, massive and dripping. All I know is that Quintilius Rousse gave commands, and they obeyed. Some thirty men went belowdecks to set to at the oars, and the great flagship turned its prow slowly, swinging away from land and toward the open sea. And then the sails rose, steady and majestic, deep blue with the Courcel swan: three in a row, the greatest at the center, with smaller sails fore and aft. The wind filled them and they bellied out, snapping, setting the silver swan anight.

It happens faster than one imagines. One minute, the ship is turning slowly, inching through its own backwater, oars beating the sea into a seemingly futile roil. And then, suddenly, the waves are slipping past, lapping at the sides with ever-increasing speed.

A cheer arose from the sailors, and Quintilius Rousse breached a keg of wine for toasts all around; it is tradition, I learned later, at the start of each voyage.

In this, we shared. Hyacinthe tossed his down, gazing about him exuberantly. I sipped mine, finding it warming against the chilly wind. Joscelin stared into his mug and looked rather green.

"I don’t think I’m a sailor," he murmured.

Quintilius Rousse, strolling past, clapped him on the shoulder. "Drink it, lad," he said heartily. "If it comes back up, so be it. Just bend over the side, and give your toll to the Lord of the Deeps."

It proved to be prophetic advice. I winced with sympathy as Joscelin clutched the railing and leaned over, retching. Hyacinthe grinned.

"Cassilines aren’t fit for the Long Road," he said. "Not when it extends over sea!"

"He can start a fire with damp tinder in the middle of a blizzard," I said, feeling an obscure need to defend him. "I didn’t see any Tsingani in the heart of the Skaldic wilderness, Prince of Travellers."

"We’re not that stupid." Hyacinthe laughed, and wandered off to watch the sailors at work, already taking on a rolling sea-man’s gait. I watched him sourly, left to tend to the heaving Cassiline. There is something innately pitiful about a man in vambraces spewing up his breakfast.

It was Rousse’s plan to sail due west, running ahead of the wind that blows through the Straits. If we got a good-enough lead, he reckoned, we might outrun Elder Brother’s reach, gaining the open sea and rounding the southern tip of Alba.

It was a good plan, and from what I understood, we took a good run at it. A full half a day we sailed, until we were well and truly betwixt shores, neither visible, not Terre d’Ange that we had left, nor Alba that we sought. The weather held clear, and the wind blew true. As we headed west, nothing lay before us but open sea that made my blood run cold with its endless horizon, and made the sailors sing. Truly, they are a different breed, seafarers. I fixed my inner compass by the points around me, even in direst straits, knowing where I was. It is different for them. The unknown, the empty vastness of the sea, beckons with a lure I can but imagine.