Kushiel's Mercy (61 page)

“What passes?” I asked Paskal in a low tone.

“They’re marshaling the village,” he replied.

“Yes.” Janpier Iturralde overheard us. He pointed a finger at Sidonie. “Euskerria’s hand will not be forced. We are not children to be bought by a simple bribe. We will defend ourselves and slaughter these men of Carthage. Only
then
will we decide.”

“Fairly said,
etxekojaun
,” Sidonie agreed. “I’m sorry. It was not my wish to imperil Euskerria. But Carthage would have come for you sooner or later. And if Amílcar falls, it will not be three hundred horse. It will be ten thousand on foot. Can you stand against them?”

He ignored the question. “Go with Laida and the girls. They will take you to a safe place.” He pointed to Paskal and me. “You and you will fight with us.”

“My lord!” I protested. “It is imperative that her highness Sidonie and I continue on to Terre d’Ange. Will you not grant us passage?”

“Oh no.” Janpier shook his head. There was a spark of righteous fury in his gaze. “You have led this army to our doorstep. Either you stand beside us to fight them, or we will give them what they want. You.”

“I’ll fight beside you!” Paskal sounded eager.

Sidonie and I exchanged a glance. “’Tis a fair request,” I murmured.

“Imriel . . .” Her eyes glistened. “I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

Janpier Iturralde overheard that, too. “What makes you think I could bear to lose a single Euskerri life?” he asked in a cold tone. “Do you imagine you love your kinsman more than I love my own sons? My own flesh and blood?”

She closed her eyes briefly. “Of course not.”

“Then he stands with us,” Janpier said.

Sixty

T
here was a point north of the village where the pass narrowed so that the Amazigh would be forced to ride no more than three or four abreast, their line strung out and attenuated. It was there that we waited, hidden in the pine forests that flanked the pass on both sides.

Unorganized, Lady Nicola had called the Euskerri. Elua knows, that was true. There was little in the way of a command structure or a battle plan. A few of the younger lads were posted on lookout, perched high on the pines. When the Amazigh arrived, they’d whistle sharply. We were to rush out with slings and javelins and slaughter Astegal’s men.

That was the plan.

The women and children of Roncal had been evacuated to a campsite high in the hills above us where they would be safe, Sidonie among them. We’d parted an hour before sundown. I could still feel her anguished farewell kiss lingering on my lips.

We waited.

The Amazigh didn’t come that night. The sentries in the treetops kept their vigil. Those of us on the ground dozed, spread throughout the forest. I reckoned there were less than three hundred men of fighting age in the village, but the Euskerri seemed unconcerned about numbers.

“Prince Imriel?” Paskal’s voice reached out to me in the darkness, sounding young and uncertain. “What’s it like?”

“Battle?” I tilted my head in his direction. “Much like escaping from Amílcar.”

He rustled. “No. Love.”

“Ah.” I remembered Leander Maignard asking me the same question outside a temple in Cythera. I leaned back against the trunk of the pine tree beneath which I was sitting, the rough bark snagging my hair. “It’s a force to make a man yearn for a lifetime of peace, Paskal.”

His reply sounded bewildered. “I don’t understand.”

“Pray you have the chance to do so,” I said.

It wasn’t long after dawn when the lookouts’ sharp whistles roused us. I bounded to my feet, snatching my dagger from its scabbard and holding it by the tip. Since I didn’t have a javelin or a sling, it was the best I could do. Ululating cries burst through the forest, men racing forward. I ran, too.

Astegal’s Amazigh.

They were strung out in a long line throughout the pass. Nowhere to go, nowhere to maneuver. The Euskerri fell on them, hurtling javelins and stones from the high embankments. I threw my dagger as Joscelin had taught me and one of the Amazigh rocked back in the saddle, slumping. I leapt down and darted between horses, yanking at the reins of a second opponent whose panicked mount had him half-unseated. He cursed and chopped at me with his sword, trying at the same time to regain his balance. I parried with my arms raised above my head, vambraces crossed. Dorelei’s gift. His blade skittered off their surface.

I caught his robes and jerked.

He fell.

I had my sword out before he hit the ground. I plunged it into his heart. His riderless horse reared above me, hooves flailing. I ducked under it, catching a glancing blow to the helm I’d borrowed from Amíl-car’s armory. Before me, another man clutched at the javelin sprouting from his ribcage and toppled from the saddle, falling hard and bearing me down in a swirl of indigo robes. I scrambled out from underneath him, a little dizzy, and dealt him the mercy-blow.

Another figure sought to ride me down, sword swinging. I stepped sideways and parried in the Cassiline manner, my sword angled over my head. An unexpected maneuver, meant to defend against a foe on higher ground. His momentum carried him onward until a flung stone from an unseen enemy knocked him insensible.

Javelins and stones.

Ululating cries.

After that it was over very quickly. Janpier Iturralde hadn’t been boasting. The Euskerri won that day, and they won handily. This was their territory and they knew every inch of it. There was no mercy. They swarmed the narrow pass with brutal efficiency, dispatching any who lived. They gathered the horses, herding them back toward the village. They tended their own dead and injured with care. They dragged the Amazigh dead into mounds.

“So.” Janpier studied me, blood-spattered. “You kept your word.”

I jerked my chin at the piled dead. “You might want to strip the corpses. If you’ve any thought of accepting Aragonia’s offer, believe me, those robes make an almighty disguise.”

He regarded me inscrutably, then issued an order in Euskerri and strode away.

They stripped the dead.

So many men! Faces laid bare, tawny limbs flopping. Some of them were a good deal younger than one would have reckoned behind the veils and robes. It was such a vulnerable thing, mortal flesh. I thought about Ghanim, the Amazigh slave who had extended such fierce loyalty to me when I’d promised him his freedom. I wondered what bribe it was that Astegal had given these tribesmen in exchange for their loyalty, and I wondered if they’d reckoned it worth the cost as they died.

The women emerged from their secret encampment. Wails of mourning for the Euskerri dead arose. Their losses had been light—I’d not counted more than a dozen—but dead was dead. It was a small village. Every man slain was someone’s brother or son, husband or father. In the midst of it Sidonie and I found one another.

“You’re alive,” she whispered with profound relief. “Are you hurt?”

I shook my head. “A few bruises.” I wanted to hold her, but I didn’t dare. I was covered in blood and filth.

“Paskal?” she asked.

“He’s fine,” I assured her. “Helping with the wounded.”

“Your highness!” Janpier hailed her, picking his way back toward us through the dead. “You should be proud. Your kinsman fought well.”

“He’s skilled with a blade.” Sidonie’s tone was neutral. “I congratulate you on your victory,
etxekojaun
, and I grieve for your losses. What passes now?”

Janpier Iturralde fixed her with a hard gaze. “Today we celebrate and mourn. Tomorrow we send word of our victory and your offer throughout Euskerria. The day after, the debate begins. You will remain here until the matter is decided, of course. Laida will show you to the guest-house.”

To the north, the empty pass beckoned. I had an overwhelming urge to snatch a pair of horses yet milling around us, grab Sidonie, and flee. I couldn’t, of course. Sidonie had come to them as an emissary of Terre d’Ange and Aragonia. She had to play the role in good faith on behalf of all the parties involved. Still, I yearned to move onward.

All together, we made the long trek back to the village amid mixed jubilation and despair. There was more of the former than the latter. The women were somber, but the young, untried men among the Eus-kerri were filled with excitement, reliving the battle, while the older ones smiled with dour pride. The Amazigh horses were reckoned a serious prize.

And beneath it all, everyone was buzzing at the prospect of a free and sovereign Euskerria. Even without understanding the language, I could feel it. I prayed they would reach a swift decision in the days to come.

For a mercy, there actually
was
a guest-house in Roncal. Paskal explained to us that it was used during times of celebration when Euskerri from neighboring communities would come to stay and mingle. A good many marriages were arranged that way. But for now, its lodging-rooms were at our disposal. Through Paskal, Janpier’s wife, Laida, introduced us to the
etxekoandere
, or mistress of the house, a dignified woman named Bixenta. And through Paskal, Bixenta assured us that we would be cared for in a manner befitting our stature.

“Is it possible to have a bath?” I asked with longing.

Bixenta unbent enough to smile a little when Paskal translated the question. “This will be arranged,” Paskal told us. “She recommends that I do the same once you have finished.”

True to her word, Bixenta took good care of us. The hospitality was homely, but it was warm and unstinted. Sidonie and I took turns bathing in the wooden washtub in a tiny room off the guest-house’s kitchen. Sidonie insisted on letting me go first.

“I didn’t fight a battle today,” she murmured, undoing the buckles of my vambraces. “I want to see for myself that you’re all right.”

I was.

I had myriad bruises blossoming and a knot on my skull where a horse’s hoof had dented my helmet, but my skin was whole. I let Sidonie examine me to her satisfaction before I clambered into the tub and scrubbed myself thoroughly. Elua, it felt good. Afterward, the water was so filthy it had to be changed. While fresh water heated, Bixenta took my dirty things to be laundered and brought clean, simple clothing in the Euskerri style: black breeches and vest and a white shirt with loose sleeves. There was a shadow of sorrow in her dark eyes, and I wondered who the clothes had belonged to.

And then it was Sidonie’s turn.

“Let me see your back, love,” I said gently to her, unwinding bandages that hadn’t been changed for two days.

“Elua,” she muttered, leaning forward in the bath and wrapping her arms around her knees. “Imriel, I look forward to the day when neither of us has to examine the other’s wounds.”

It looked good. The disk of scabbed flesh between her shoulder blades was beginning to crack and peel, revealing pink new skin underneath. I soaped it carefully, kneeling beside the tub, watching water and suds run down her spine. “So do I.”

Bixenta had brought clean attire for Sidonie, too. The dress had a fitted black bodice embroidered with elaborate needlework and a two-tiered skirt of white and crimson below. After I’d applied fresh salve and clean bandages that Rachel had given us, I helped Sidonie don the dress. It smelled of cedar, as though it had been carefully preserved in a clothes-press.

We ventured out of the bathing-room to find Bixenta waiting. She pressed her hands together, raising them to her lips when we emerged. Her large dark eyes were bright with tears.

“Etxekoandere.”
Sidonie hesitated, then framed a halting question in the Euskerri tongue, augmented with many gestures. It seemed she’d put her time in the library of Amílcar to better use than I’d reckoned. Bixenta replied in a torrent of Euskerri, her hands flying and gesticulating.

They communicated as women do, better than men. Bixenta pointed between the two of us, raising her brows and clasping her hands.

“I think it was her wedding dress,” Sidonie said to me in a soft voice. “She reckoned it was the only finery that would suit the occasion. I’m not sure whether those are her husband’s clothes or her son’s that you’re wearing. If I understand rightly, she’s lost both.”

“Will you tell her I’m grateful?” I asked.

She nodded and did. Bixenta merely shook her head and urged us into the kitchen, where she fed us an ample meal of stewed red beans and spicy sausage.

That evening there was a celebration in the town square. As in the City of Elua, the square was dominated by a large oak tree. Paskal explained to us that the Euskerri reckoned any agreements made beneath the oak tree to be sacred and binding.

Tonight, though, there were no politics or debate, only music, song, and dance, fierce in expressing joy and sorrow alike. We watched while our hosts pressed cup after cup of strong cider on us. Some of the instruments seemed ancient and strange: high-pitched horns made from the horns of oxen, thick staves used to beat out a complex rhythm that echoed from the sides of the valley. One could well imagine that the Euskerri had been here from time out of mind, honing their arts long before Blessed Elua wandered the earth.

As the sun was beginning to set, a group of Euskerri men performed the final dance of the evening: a sword dance accompanied by flute and drum. The men faced one another in a double line, moving in deliberate, complex steps. Their blades glinted as they maneuvered them, periodically bringing them together with a loud, metallic clash. The lowering sun stained their white shirts with ruddy light.

The dance ended with a final flourish, clash, and shout at the precise moment the sun’s lower rim touched the western edge of the mountains lining the valley. The drums and flutes fell silent. Everyone turned as one toward the west, touching their brows and breasts in a salute to the dying sun.

It gave me a shiver, even as Sidonie and I followed suit. There were traditions in Terre d’Ange older than Blessed Elua, such as the arrival of the Sun Prince on the Longest Night.

This was a living embodiment of a very, very ancient faith.

And then the celebration was over. Along with Paskal, Sidonie and I returned to the guest-house where Bixenta had laid the beds in our chambers with linens smelling of soap and a hot iron’s touch. It had been an arduous journey, a long night, and a fierce battle, and it was a blessed relief to lie in a warm, clean bed, feeling the silken warmth of Sidonie’s bare skin against mine.