I sat back on my heels and breathed a prayer of thanks.
By the time Lord Amaury and the others arrived, Imriel's wracking coughing and spitting had subsided and he was alert, albeit dazed. Be neath the inky tendrils of hair plastered to his brow was a crescent- shaped bruise where a horse's hoof had caught his temple, a deep blue against his bloodless pallor.
"He's all right?" Amaury asked, dismounting and offering his cloak to Kaneka, who'd stripped off her garment before diving.
"I think so." I smoothed the damp hair back from Imriel's brow, shading his eyes to see if his pupils contracted, knowing somewhat of what a blow to the head could do. Elua be praised, they did. "Are you all right, Imri?"
Sodden and shivering, as much with shock as the chill, he nodded. "Kaneka?"
"Here, little one." She answered him herself in zenyan, wrapping herself in Amaury's cloak and laying a hand on the boy's shoulder. "You gave me a fine chase."
"Elua!" Amaury said fervidly, eyeing her. "She swims like a fish. Phèdre, will you convey my thanks and compliments?"
I did, translating them into Jeb'ez. Kaneka laughed, water sparkling like diamonds in her woolly hair. "They call this a Great River?" she said contemptuously. "Let them try the Nahar in flood season, where it passes the cataracts and the crocodiles wait. Now that is a river!"
Someone caught the horse I'd borrowed, which had wandered some distance away, and Imriel was bundled in another cloak. By the time we returned to our party, Imriel had stopped shivering and grown ex cited by the adventure, displaying the bruise on his temple to Joscelin with a boy's pride.
"Very nice," Joscelin said to him, raising his brows. "Phèdre, may we speak?"
The drowned body of the guilty soldier had washed ashore on the far side. Captain Nurad-Sin made profound apologies, swearing up and down that the man was a new conscript, and he'd had no knowledge of his actions, any more than his innocent comrade had had. I heard him out, gauging his words sincere. In the end, I had no choice but to accept them. We were too far outnumbered to do anything else.
"Thank you for your concern, my lord Captain," I said politely. "Her majesty Queen Ysandre de la Courcel is eagerly awaiting the return of her young kinsman, Prince Imriel. She would be most wroth if ill befell him now, after such trials, and I daresay his highness the Lugal would be displeased as well. I pray you ensure your men know this."
He gave a grim nod. "You may be sure of it, my lady."
Mayhap he did, for the next leg of our journey passed without event. I spent the time scavenging paper and ink as unobtrusively as I might, working on various missives by the light of our campfires at night, and during the day, riding among the women of the zenana and conversing with the Ephesians.
They were the first to leave our company, departing with an honor guard of Akkadians and a wagon-load of royal gifts to make their way over land to Ephesium. We made our farewells, and I watched them go, filled with a dour satisfaction.
"Do you care to tell me what that expression betokens?" Joscelin asked.
"Wait till we've crossed the Yehordan," I said.
Once we had, I told him. Joscelin laughed aloud, and went to fetch Nurad-Sin himself. Veiled and proper, seated within my tent while he stood outside it, I addressed the Akkadian captain again.
"My lord Captain," I said to him. "You are aware I have . . . con cerns . . . for Prince Imriel's safety."
Nurad-Sin bowed. "My lady, I am. Before Shamash, I pledge you, I have taken every precaution to ensure that no further incidents occur."
"So," I said, "have I. Each of the Ephesian women with whom we parted company a few days past bears with her a missive, addressed in my name to her majesty Ysandre de la Courcel, Queen of Terre d'Ange. These I have instructed to be given to the D'Angeline ambassador in Ephesium city, and thanks to the Lugal's generosity, the women of the zenana shall have the means to accomplish this. In these letters, I have chronicled such events as have befallen us thus far, and laid forth my suspicions as to their cause."
The Akkadian captain went pale. "My lady, the Lugal esteems you above gold. Surely you do not suspect. . . ?”
"No." I said it with a blandness that would have done Valère L'Envers credit. "Not in the least. While Prince Imriel lives, my sus picions will go unspoken. Should any accident befall him ..." I shrugged. "It is my instruction that the letters be sent. Mayhap, my lord Captain, you might see to it that every man among you—every conscript, every veteran, every hostler and cook and water-porter, for I do not expect you to vouch for every one—is aware of this."
He gave a deep bow. "My lady, it shall be done."
"Well," said Joscelin when he had gone. "You've done what you could."
It didn't feel like enough.
SIXTY-THREE
" WHY CAN'T you come home with me?"It was inevitable, I suppose; the only wonder was that Imriel had waited until we were a day's ride from Tyre to broach the subject. I sighed, trying to find the words."Imri ... I made a promise, a long time ago. It's not one I can break."
He lifted guileless blue eyes to mine. "If he loves you, wouldn't he understand?"
"He might," I said, thinking of Hyacinthe, who had never dreamed that the dark road I would travel would prove so very dark indeed, with so many branching forks. "It doesn't matter. That's not the point."
Imriel rode for a while in silence, then, "Do you love him more than Joscelin?"
"No. Imriel, listen. If someone had taken your place in Daršanga, if. . . if Beryl had gone in your stead," I said, recalling the name of the eldest girl in the Sanctuary of Elua, the one who had recited the verses about Kushiel's Dart. "If Beryl had taken your place, and you had the chance to free her, could you go home instead?"
His black brows, straighter than his mother's, knit in thought. "No," he said finally, reluctant. "But ..."
"But what?"
"Why do you have to love him so much?"
I smiled. "Why? I don't know. I've known him since I was, oh, younger than you. Whenever I was upset, or scared, or angry... it was always to Hyacinthe that I ran. There was a time, Imri, when he was my only true friend; a long time."
"Was he like me?" he asked. "When he was a boy?"
I considered him. "No. Not much.”
"I want to go with you." The words were so soft I could scarce hear them. "With you and Joscelin, to Jebe-Barkal."
"You can't," I said. "Imri, we've talked about this. You've a life awaiting you in Terre d'Ange, and the Queen herself anxious to meet you, to make you a member of her family; of House Courcel, into which you were born."
"And people who want me dead." His mouth was set in a hard, unchildish line.
"Yes," I said. "And that. But Lord Amaury won't let that happen, and neither will Queen Ysandre. And when it comes to it, they're a great deal more qualified for the job than I."
Imriel gave me a look that went clear to the bone. "But you are the only one who is my friend, my true friend."
We made camp that night a few miles outside Tyre, and it was Joscelin who broached the subject while Imriel slept, sitting cross-legged on his blankets before the opening of our tent and massaging his arm with the Eisandine chirurgeon's balm. The bindings and splint had at last come off, and despite his best efforts squeezing rocks and the like, his left arm was pallid and puny, his grip on his dagger feeble at best.
"It's a long way," he said quietly. "And we've been a long time from home. Phèdre . . . I'm not saying we shouldn't go, eventually. But. . . look at me. I'll not be much use, if there's trouble. And you . . . Elua, love! If ever there was a time you needed to heal, it's now."
"I'm fine," I said.
Joscelin merely looked at me.
"All right," I said. "I'm not fine. But I'm well enough to travel, and so are you. Joscelin . . . there's a part of me, a big part, that would like nothing better than to see Imriel restored safely, to deliver a warning in person to Ysandre, to go home. But if we do?" I shuddered. "I'm not sure I can face leaving it again. And I can't live knowing that there's somewhat I might do to win Hyacinthe's freedom. Mayhap ..." I swallowed. "Mayhap it would be best if you went with Imriel."
He flinched. "You don't mean it."
"I don't know." I put my head in my hands. "It's—it's like you said, it's what you trained all your life to do. Not trail around after luckless whores on half-mad quests."
"Phèdre." There was a sound in his voice almost like laughter, although with no levity in it. "If you can't go home while Hyacinthe remains cursed, how can you possibly imagine I could endure letting you go to Jebe-Barkal alone?”
"So you'll go?"
"I swore it to damnation and beyond." He flexed his left hand, testing the muscles. "This would be the beyond."
Our arrival in Tyre was auspicious. The skies were a bright, hard blue above and a good steady wind blew southwesterly. The Lugal's couriers had been there ahead of us, arranging for our varied transports. 'Twas no difficulty for those of us bound for Menekhet, as trade ships travelled regularly, but the longer journeys—Hellas, Illyria, Caerdicca Unitas, Carthage, Aragonia, Terre d'Ange—required special commissions.
His highness Sinaddan-Shamabarsin had been the soul of generosity. The ships were ready and waiting, the finest money could buy, captains and crew hailing the women of the Mahrkagir's zenana as noble-born passengers.
It was a considerable shock, albeit a pleasant one, to some, especially those who had been slave-born. By some means they did not fully comprehend, the horrible dross of their lives, the degradations of Dar-śanga, had been converted to status. I was glad, for they deserved it. I hoped it would enable some of them to find happiness, or at least con tentment. There are many things wealth cannot buy, and most of those are enumerated by philosophers who have never woken wondering if this day would be their last. It pleased me to know that the survivors of Daršanga would, at the least, not have to worry about buying bread.