Kushiel's Chosen

while."
    "No." Joscelin spoke without looking up. "Not the Yeshuites."
    "Joscelin." Micah protested, and one or two others. "You risked your safety to aid us, when we had naught to offer in return. It is not for you to say how we will repay it."
    "You've done enough, and more." Joscelin lifted his head to give him a level stare. "No, Micah. This is not like taking the watchtower. The odds are bad, very bad, and there is no avenue of retreat. It is near-certain death."
    "A warrior's death, yes," Kazan added helpfully.
    Micah flushed. "Have you not trained us to be warriors?" he asked Joscelin bitterly. "Then treat us as equals and let us fight."
    "I trained you that you might fulfill your prophecy and lead your people north." Joscelin's tone was gentle. "Not die in La Serenissima defending my Queen.”
    "You'll let the Illyrians fight!" another lad burst out in anger.
    I glanced at Kazan, wondering how he would take it; fortunately, he was amused, eyebrows raised at the notion of a D'Angeline determining where and when he was allowed to do battle. All the Illyrians, even Ushak, who had seemed so young and green to me when I thought of him risking his life, looked like seasoned veterans next to the Yeshuites. I listened while Joscelin overrode their objections, hoping they would hear reason.
    In the midst of it all, the young woman spoke, knitting her brows.
    "Joscelin," she said, a soft trace of a Habiru accent in her voice. "What if it was like the watchtower?"

SEVENTY-ONE
    It is impossible to say when the hands of the gods intervene in the affairs of mortals and to what purpose, but of a surety, there are times when they do. Although the Yeshuites have no tradition of women fighting alongside the men such as one finds among the Albans and the Dalriada, the girl Sarae came of a family of notoriously strong-willed women.
    She had chosen to learn to defend herself, that she might travel at the side of her beloved, Micah ben Ximon, when they followed Yeshua's prophecy and journeyed northward. In so doing, she had broken ties with her equally strong-willed mother, who had arranged a different marriage for her.
    Sarae was not the first woman in her family to have thus defied her parents' wishes.
    "My great-great-aunt Onit," she murmured, suddenly shy at speaking to so many attentive listeners, "ran away rather than marry a fat rag merchant, ran away and joined the Temple of Asherat-of-the-Sea. When she was very old, she came home to die. We children were not allowed to see her lest we be corrupted, but we would sneak into her room, to hear tales of the worship of the terrible goddess Asherat." Glancing around, she cleared her throat. "There is a balcony above the temple where the Oracle stands to give prophecy twice a year to the city entire, facing the altar and the people gathered below. Onit told us how it is staged, with an echo chamber to make her voice mighty and a bronze sheet that is rattled for the sound of thunder. We laughed, to think a goddess would need such tricks. There is a secret passageway, too, so it may seem that the Oracle vanishes without descending, while in truth it leads to a tunnel beneath the canals."
    There was silence as we considered the implications, save for the murmur of Kazan translating her words into Illyrian for the benefit of his men.
    "Where does the tunnel emerge?" Joscelin asked with reluctant interest.
    She pushed her hair back from her face, frowning in thought. "To a warehouse, where some things are stored in winter; oil, dried goods and such. It was only to stay for a little while. When the Temple was empty, the Oracle would come back and descend the stairs. Only the priestesses and the temple eunuchs know about it. It would be lightly guarded, if at all."
    "Joscelin," I said.
    He looked at me. "No. Oh, no."
    "It could work."
    "In a temple," he said slowly, "full to bursting with Benedicte's and Marco Stregazza's supporters, with the likelihood of rioters breaking in the doors."
    I shrugged. "There is an avenue of escape, and a great many folk present who are not their supporters, including Cesare Stregazza, who is still technically the Doge."
    "You don't have any idea how they mean to kill Ysandre, do you?"
    "No." I shook my head, recalling Melisande's words with regret. I had asked. You know enough. "A rioter, like as not. They'll seek to lay it at Ricciardo's doorstep, and get rid of him for good. I'm sure witnesses will be found to testify as much. It doesn't matter,