"Yes," I said, tucking one hand around his arm. We watched the sea together, endless and amazing, moving without cease. "If we’re not still here when de Morhban comes," I added, spotting the unmistakable figure of Quintilius Rousse pacing the shore, pausing and staring out at his fleet.
"No," Hyacinthe said certainly. "He’ll go. He has to. One ship; I saw it." He was silent a moment, then asked drolly, "And how was the dear Duc de Morhban, anyway?"
"You really want to know?" I glanced up at his starlit face.
He laughed. "Why not? I always did."
"Good," I said, looking back at the sea. "The Duc de Morhban was very, very good."
"I thought so. You had that look." Hyacinthe wound a lock of my hair around one finger. "I’m not afraid of it, you know," he said softly. "What you are."
"No?" I touched Melisande’s diamond. "I am."
We went back, then, to Rousse’s encampment, and I left Hyacinthe to go speak with the Admiral, still pacing the shoreline like an angry lion, wisely avoided by his men. A gibbous moon had arisen by that time, standing overhead to set a shining path across the sea, as if to show where the Long Road lay. "My lord," I said, kneeling near him. The sand was cool and damp beneath me. Quintilius Rousse turned on me, glaring.
"Ah, don’t waste your Night Court decorum on me, girl! I’ve a hard choice to make here."
"Yes, my lord," I said, remaining on my knees. "To obey the Crown, or not."
"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.
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.