So I mulled over the problem, until it came together in my mind. All knowledge is worth having. "Hyacinthe," I said. "Mayhap he can help. He can speak the dromonde, and tell us where to land."
"You believe it?" Quintilius Rousse glanced at me sidelong, profound doubt in his blue gaze. "It’s enough that we come in a single ship, I think. Even Delaunay wasn’t so credible, lass, and he could ferret out truth in the strangest of places."
Resting my chin in my hands, I watched the waves pass. "I know. But my lord Admiral…when I was but thirteen, his mother spoke the dromonde for me, unbidden. While I was trying to get at the truth of Delaunay’s history. She told me I would rue the day I learned it."
"And you did, I suppose," Rousse said gruffly, when I ventured no more.
"There were two days." It was hypnotic, watching the sliding waves, unchanging, never the same. "I learned half of it the day Melisande Shahrizai contracted me for the Longest Night, and used me to flush out your messenger, my lord, whose liege led d’Aiglemort’s men to Delaunay. I learned that he had been beloved of Prince Rolande. And I learned the balance of it the day he was killed, and all of the household with him, including Alcuin, who was like a brother to me. That was the day I learned that he was oath-sworn to protect Ysandre de la Courcel, which Alcuin told us, dying. Yes, my lord, I rue those days."
Quintilius Rousse was silent for a moment, tending to the wheel. "Anyone could say as much," he said finally. " 'Tis dangerous, to chase after buried secrets."
"It is," I agreed. "But she spoke the dromonde twice. The second time, she said, ‘Do not discount the Cullach Gorrym.’ Do you know what that means, my lord?"
Rousse paused, then shook his head, ruddy locks fraying in the wind.
"Neither did she," I said. "It means the Black Boar, in Cruithne. And there is no reason, no reason at all, my lord, why she should have known those words, or linked them to me." I rose, stretching out my joints. "When we are in sight of the kingdom of Dalriada, then, will you let Hyacinthe speak?"
"Those were his mother’s words." Quintilius Rousse’s voice was rough, though I could see he believed, a little. No one could pass the Master of the Straits and not come to believe in things unseen. "Did the lad ever speak you true?"
"Not me," I answered truthfully. "He fears it, to speak for friends. But he spoke it for Melisande, once."
"What did he tell her?" The Admiral’s hands lay slack on the wheel, caught up despite himself. All sailors love a good tale, I have learned. He looked at me with sharp curiosity.
"That which yields," I said, feeling a chill despite the mild wind and hugging my elbows, "is not always weak."
I walked away, then, close-wrapped in my velvet cloak, salt-stained now, a gift of the Duc de Morhban, feeling Rousse’s sharp gaze still at my back. An easy enough prophecy, a skeptic might say; but not if one is that which yields. I made my way across the wooden decks, polished to a high gleam-Quintilius Rousse abided no idle hands on his ship-to find Hyacinthe trying his luck at fishing. He glanced up at me, boasting.
"Phèdre, look! Three to one, I’ve caught." He dangled a string offish at me, bright silvery bodies jerking and twisting, drowning in dry air. "We had a wager, Remy and I," he added, nodding toward the sailor beside him, who looked more amused than not.
"Very nice." I inspected his fish cursorily. "Hyacinthe…If I asked you to see where the Long Road we travel touches land once more, could you do it?"
His black eyes gleamed wickedly in the sunlight, and he grasped the largest of the fish, offering it to me with both hands. "For you, O Star of the Evening, anything. Are you sure you don’t want to ask your Cassiline? He may be jealous of such bounty."
I laughed, despite myself. "I’ll risk it."
For a day and another night, then, we made our way up the coast of Alba, tacking against the slow winds. Our third day broke misty and strange, becalming us, until even the Courcel pennant hung limp from the tallest mast. Rousse set his men to oars, then, cursing them, and we moved torturously slow, the green coast appearing and receding out of the mists.
"Now, if ever," Quintilius Rousse said grimly, calling me on deck. "Bring on the Tsingano lad, Phèdre nó Delaunay. Let him point the way."
There was no mockery in Hyacinthe now. He walked slowly to the prow of the ship, his face raised to the mists that held us thick-clasped. His head turned from side to side, like a hunting dog casting about for a scent, sight-blinded, all his senses elsewhere. The sailors watched him closely, having decided he was lucky-no few had had the ill fortune of dicing with him, I learned later-and Quintilius Rousse, in all his doubt, held his breath.
"I cannot see it," Hyacinthe whispered, arms blundering outward in the thick mists. "Phèdre, I cannot see our road."
I went to him, then; they left us alone, muttering. Joscelin watched silently, offering no comment.
"You can, Hyacinthe. I know you can," I said, taking his arm. "It’s only mist! What’s that to the veils of what-might-be?"
"It is vrajna." He shivered, cold beneath my grasp. "They were right, Manoj was right, this is no business for men."
Waves lapped at the sides of our ship, little waves, moving us nowhere. We were becalmed. The rowers had paused.
"Prince of Travellers," I said. "The Long Road will lead us home. Let it show the way."
Hyacinthe shivered again, his black gaze blurred and fearful. "No. You don’t understand. The Long Road goes on and on. There is no home for us, only the journey."
"You are half D’Angeline!" I raised my voice unintending, shaking him. "Hyacinthe! Elua’s blood in your veins, to ground you home, and Tsingani, to show the way. You can see it, you have to! Where is the Cullach Gorrym?"
His head turned, this way and that, dampness beading on his black ringlets. "I cannot see it," he repeated, shuddering. "It is vrajna! They were right. I should never have looked, never. Men were not meant to part the veils. Now this mist is sent to veil us all, for my sin."
I stood there, my fingers digging into his arm, and cast my gaze about. Up, upward, where the sun rode faint above the mists, a white disk. The ship’s three masts rose, bobbing, to disappear in greyness. "If you cannot see through it," I said fiercely, "then see over it!"
Hyacinthe looked at me slowly, then up at the tallest mast, the crow’s nest lost in the mists. "Up there?" he asked, his voice full of fear. "You want me to look from up there?"
"Your great-grandmother," I said deliberately, "gave me a riddle. What did Anasztaizia see, through the veils of time, to teach her son the dromonde? A horse-drawn wagon and a seat by the kumpania’s fire, or a mist-locked ship carrying a ring for a Queen’s betrothed? It is yours to answer."
He looked for a long time without speaking.
And then he began to climb.
For uncountable minutes we were all bound in mist-wreathed silence, staring into the greyness where Hyacinthe had disappeared, far overhead. The ship rocked gently, muffled waves lapping. Then his voice came, faint and disembodied, a single lonely cry. "There!"