Cursing, he released his grip on my hair, thrusting me away. He turned to look thoughtfully at the fortress. "You claim to find pleasure in pain," he said. "Then let Ysandre de la Courcel see how well Waldemar Selig pleases her spies."
I have said, too, that Selig was a clever man. He knew well the merits of controlling the minds of one’s enemies. He had a vast space cleared in front of the fortress, just beyond the range of the archers, and had it ringed round with torch-bearers. The barbican over the gate of Troyes-le-Mont was full-lit by then, and no doubt the defenders were watching: I knew it; Selig knew it too. Two of his thanes walked me out into the middle of the space, forcing me to my knees. White Brethren, their pelts tied loosely around their necks in the warmth of summer, woolens exchanged for steel and leather.
Selig wore white wolf-hide too, snowy by moonlight, trimming the tunic beneath his armor. He stepped into the circle of torchlight and wrenched at the neck of my gown, tearing it open. I felt the night air moving upon the bare skin of my back.
"Ysandre de la Courcel!" he shouted, his voice carrying. "See what becomes of spies and traitors!"
I heard the sound of his belt-dagger rasping clear of its sheath, felt the point of it placed against the skin of my left shoulder blade. The White Brethren held my arms as he began to cut.
Waldemar Selig was known to be a mighty hunter. Unlike D’Angeline nobles, Skaldic lords do not have servants to perform distasteful chores. They skin and gut their own kills. When Selig scored a strip of flesh from my back and began slowly to pull it down, I knew what he intended.
He was going to skin me alive.
I have known pain; Elua knows, I have known it. But nothing had ever prepared me for this. I gasped aloud as he cut, and when he took the strip of flesh, slippery with blood, in a pincerlike grip and began to draw it down, I screamed.
And it would go on for a long time.
Pain burst red across my vision, staggering me. I knew where I was, and did not. Kushiel, I thought, and my blood roared in my ears, beating like wings. I have done all I could. It was a relief, to surrender at last, at long last. I could hear my voice still, whimpering, ragged with pain, and Selig’s whisper in my ear, tell me, tell me. These things happened, I know. And yet it all seemed distant and far beyond me, minor tempests on the outskirts of the maelstrom of agony I inhabited. The world lurched sideways through a bloodred haze, and hands dragged me upright. Pain blossomed all through me, finding a home at the base of my spine, radiating outward. Pain obliterates everything else. In pain, there is only the eternal present. I fell into it as if into a dark, bottomless well, seeing the bronze mask of Kushiel hanging before me, stern and compassionate, bronze lips moving, speaking words I felt in my bones. Pain redeems all. It is the awareness of life, a reminder of death. I saw faces, other faces, mortal and beloved: Delaunay, Alcuin, Cecilie, Thelesis, Hyacinthe, Joscelin…and more, flickering too fast to number, Ysandre, Quintilius Rousse, Drustan, the Twins, Phèdre’s Boys, Master Tielhard, Guy…some I didn’t expect, Hedwig, Knud, Childric d’Essoms, the old Dowayne, Lodur One-Eye…even, at the end, my mother and father, dimly remembered, and the Skaldi mercenary who had tossed me in the air and laughed through his mustaches…
Melisande.
Ah, Elua! I did love her once…
It was the cessation of pain that brought me back. Selig’s knife had halted in the course of parting my skin from my flesh, paused in an incredulous moment. A voice was speaking, one I knew, clear words ringing on the night air in heavily accented Skaldic.
"Waldemar Selig, I challenge you to the holmgang!"
They let me go, then, and I fell over, my cheek cradled on the dusty, trampled field. I bled into the dirt and blinked unbelieving at the figure that had parted the Skaldi ranks.
Stolen armor and a stolen horse for disguise-he had done it before-and Cassiline arms, summer-blue eyes behind the wild, desperate dare.
"Elua, no," I murmured against D’Angeline soil.
Waldemar Selig stood staring, then laughed; laughed and laughed. "It would have been too much to ask!" he declared joyfully, spreading his arms. "Ah, All-Father Odhinn, you are generous! Yes, Josslin Verai, let us dance upon the hides, and then…" He turned, roaring his words toward Troyes-le-Mont. "Then let Terre d’Ange see how Waldemar Selig deals with her champions!"
These are the things the Skaldi love, the stuff of legend. Twenty spears pointed at Joscelin as he dismounted and his stolen mount was seized. They stripped away his stolen armor, too, while a ripple ran through camp as they searched for a suitable hide to stake out for the holmgang. Hauled to my knees and held in place by the two White Brethren, I saw it all. Selig’s hazel eyes gleamed keen and bright as he tested the heft of his shield.
No one would lend one to Joscelin. He stood at ease in the Cassiline manner, only the steel vambraces on his forearms to protect him. I knelt bleeding, rife with pain, and cursed him in my soul. Whether Selig defeated him or no, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t fool enough to throw victory away on a game of honor. He would break Joscelin; or worse, use me to do it.
Joscelin, Joscelin, I thought, tears running unheeded down my face, You’ve done it, you’ve truly done it, and killed us all with your damnable vow.
They took their places at opposite ends of the hide. Joscelin crossed his arms and bowed. Waldemar Selig thrust his sword into the air, and the Skaldi shouted; one voice, thirty thousand throats. They began to pound their weapons upon their shields, a measured beat. Selig turned to the dark watching fortress and swept a mocking bow. I knelt, awash in pain.
And the holmgang began.
I would like to tell it in poets' words, this deadly dance they enacted on a few square feet of hide, before the whole of the Skaldi army and the silent defenders of Troyes-le-Mont. I would that I could. But they were fast, so fast, and I had come back a long way from Kushiel’s realm. I saw swords flickering in the torchlight, streaks of steel awash in ruddy light, the sound of clashing metal lost in the beating surge of spear-butts against Skaldic shields. I saw Joscelin’s hair, wheat-gold against the darkness, fan out in a tangle of Skaldi braids as he spun, evading Selig’s biting blade. Fast; not fast enough. I saw his sleeve darken with spreading blood as the edge of Selig’s sword slashed his arm above the vambrace.
The beating rhythm hesitated, waiting to see if blood would spatter the hide. Selig tossed aside his cracked shield and reached for another, knowing without looking that a loyal thane was at hand. Joscelin loosed the buckles of his vambrace one-handed, sliding it up and tightening it in place over the wound, using his teeth.
Laughing, Waldemar Selig attacked, and the beat resumed.
And I saw Joscelin deflect his blow with one sweeping gesture, ready for the attack, his other hand coming up to resume the two-handed grip on his sword-hilt, and his sword slid high across the darkness as Selig raised his shield to parry, the point scoring a line across Selig’s jaw.
It bled red rivulets into his tawny-brown beard with its gold-wrapped fork; bled red rivulets, that dropped fat red drops of blood onto the hide.
The Skaldi ceased their pounding.
In silence, Joscelin bowed and sheathed his sword.
Waldemar Selig wiped one palm along his jaw and shook it contemptuously, spattering blood. "For that," he said softly, raising his sword to point it at Joscelin’s heart, "I will let you live long enough to see what is left of her when I am done, and have given what remains to my men."