Kushiel’s Dart

"Will you take it all upon your shoulders, Phèdre?" Joscelin asked me quietly one day, jogging his mount alongside mine. How he knew my thoughts, I don’t know; I must have been wearing them on my face. "Can you slow time, or shorten the road we travel? I was reminded, not long ago, not to take upon myself that which is not mine to carry."

"I know," I said, sighing. "I can’t help but worry. And the Skaldi…ah, Elua, you’ve seen them! If the Cruithne are riding toward death, they’re doing it at my word, Joscelin."

He shook his head. "Not yours; Ysandre’s. You but carried it for her. And 'twas their choice, made freely."

"It may have been the Queen’s word, but I spoke it, and did all in my power to persuade their choice." I shivered. "The Dalriada wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t. None of them would."

"True." To his credit, Joscelin said it without his usual wry twist. "But Drustan rides for love, and a pledge. Love as thou wilt. You cannot gainsay it."

"I’m afraid of this war." I whispered it. "What we witnessed in Alba…Joscelin, I never want to see the like again, and it will be as nothing to what awaits us in Terre d’Ange. I don’t have the strength to face that much death."

He didn’t answer right away, gazing forward, his profile in clear relief against the green fields. "I know," he said finally. "It scares me, too. There’d be somewhat wrong with us if it didn’t, Phèdre."

"Do you remember waking up in that cart, after Melisande betrayed us?" I asked him. He nodded. "I could have died, then. I wouldn’t have cared. Hating her was the only reason I had to live, for a while." I touched the diamond at my throat. "I don’t feel the same, now. I’m afraid of dying."

"You remember Gunter’s kennels?" He gave me the wry look. "Hating you kept me alive, then, when I thought you’d betrayed me. If you’d asked me before, I’d have sworn I’d kill myself before I endured such humiliation. And Selig’s steading? You shamed me into living."

I remembered shouting at him, shoving him where he knelt, wounded and chained, and flushed. "I was desperate. Are you going to do the same to me?"

"No," Joscelin said, though he grinned as if the prospect weren’t entirely displeasing to him, which gave me a strange sensation, a fact I kept to myself. "They are," he said, twisting in the saddle and nodding to the rear. "That’s what I came to tell you, actually."

I turned to look.

Rousse’s men were marching behind us; there weren’t enough horses to mount them, they’d fought on foot. They marched in formation, four columns six deep. The Admiral, his leg still healing, rode alongside them. As I watched, the foremost row grinned, and one man-Remy, who’d taught Hyacinthe to fish-stepped out in front, carrying a tight-wound standard. The others in his row shifted, so they formed a wedge.

Phèdre’s Boys, he’d called them. Atop a wide-barreled chestnut gelding, Quintilius Rousse chuckled.

Remy unfurled the standard and held it aloft with a clear D’Angeline shout, letting the banner snap in the breeze. They’d made it themselves; sailors are great tailors. Where they begged the cloth, I don’t know; I heard later the gold thread cost them dear.

It was a sable banner, bearing a ragged circle of scarlet at its center; crossing the scarlet, a golden dart, barbed and fletched. It took me a moment before I realized.

Kushiel’s Dart.

"Oh, Blessed Elua!" I stared, then remembered to close my mouth. Grinning like a monkey, Remy pounded the foot of the standard on the road, and began their marching-chant; all of them took it up, even Quintilius Rousse roaring along with the refrain, half-unintellible with laughter.

"Whip us till we’re on the floor, we’ll turn around and ask for more, we’re Phèdre’s Boys!"

"Oh, no!" I laughed helplessly, numb with shock and hilarity, and infinitely thankful that the Cruithne, who regarded the proceedings with good-natured bewilderment, didn’t understand D’Angeline. "Elua! Joscelin, did you know about this?"

"I might have," he admitted, an amused glint in his blue eyes. "They need to believe, Phèdre, to fight for something. A name, a face they know. Rousse told me as much, and I’ve seen it, too, in the Brotherhood. We can’t become Companions, not truly, until we’re pledged to a ward. These men have never seen Ysandre de la Courcel. You, they know."

"We like to hurt, we like to bleed, daily floggings do we need, we’re Phèdre’s Boys!"

"But…" I asked, still laughing, "…like that?"

Joscelin shrugged, grinning. "You sang the seas calm, and you drove the Dalriada to war, whatever it took. They know that. That’s why they adore you. But everyone needs to laugh in the face of death. They’re following an anguissette into battle. Give them credit for seeing the absurdity of it. You’ve been dwelling on it long enough."