Kushiel's Chosen

tent. "Would you truly have gone with her, if she had asked it?"
    I heard the change in his voice; we hadn't talked about it since that fruitless meeting in the Temple of Asherat. There had been little privacy and less time. I laid my hand on his warm chest, feeling his strong heart beat beneath it. "I don't know," I said truthfully. "Joscelin, it would have made an end to it and laid the foundation for peace. For that... mayhap, yes."
    There was more to it, for it had to with what happened on Kriti; I had seen the darkness of my own soul, and I could never close my eyes to it. And I am an anguissette, when all is said and done. For these things, I lacked words. One cannot speak of mysteries. Still, Joscelin had been a priest in his own right-and he knew me.
    He was silent for a moment, winding a lock of my hair about his fingers. "The Yeshuites promise it," he said at length. "Complete absolution. I thought about it. In the end..." He smiled wryly. "In the end, I chose as I will always choose. It frightens me to think that one day she will ask, and you do not know what you'll choose."
    "When you threatened her, Melisande named a price you would not pay," I said. "I set one that she will not. She would play the game of thrones with Kushiel himself; she was willing to risk sacrificing all her plans to do it. Not her son. The child is a double-edged weapon, Joscelin. It is knowledge, and worth having."
    "Phèdre nó Delaunay," he whispered, drawing me closer, "does your mind never cease?"
    "Sometimes," I admitted. "If you-"
    I didn't need to tell him that, either, for although it too is a mystery in its own right, it is Naamah's mystery and its knowledge is vouchsafed to all lovers if they will but accept it. In the old days, we would have quarrelled bitterly over what had happened in the Temple. Now, Joscelin heeded Naamah's wisdom rather than Cassiel's logic, and silenced me with a kiss, setting about doing those things which caused my mind to cease working altogether.
    On the second day, we reached Pavento and were met outside the city walls by an honor guard sent by the Principe, Gregorio Livinius. While an encampment was set up in the fertile fields surrounding the city, Ysandre and a hand-picked company of nobles-which included me-were escorted inside.
    It is a pleasant city, Pavento, although I saw little enough of it. We rode straightaway to the palace of the Principe, wrought of grey stone quarried from the mountains to the north, but softened by brightly-woven tapestries; they are famous, in Pavento, for their dyes.
    Gregorio Livinius was a robust, energetic man in his mid-forties. He had been eager to secure ties with Ysandre, hoping to better his city's fortunes through increased trade with Terre d'Ange. It had fallen off in the years of Skaldic raiding threatening the overland routes, but since the defeat of Waldemar Selig, the Skaldi had withdrawn their aggressions.
    It was to our fortune that Principe Gregorio remained eager to support this fresh alliance, although he bargained hard for the price of his aid. Most of what he demanded, Ysandre gave unhesitatingly. In exchange, he would provide stores for our journey and open the city to her entourage, giving safe haven to nigh onto two hundred folk-"Anyone who cannot hold a sword," Ysandre said grimly.
    There were exceptions, of course; as the Secretary of the Presence, the Lady Denise Grosmaine was bound to accompany the Queen, and some few of the grooms, attendants and cooks were reckoned vital, as was the chirurgeon.
    And there was me, although I was not reckoned vital.
    In the end, it was sheer pleading that swayed her; two others among her ladies-in-waiting accompanied her, too, for she could scarce refuse their pleas having heeded mine.
    Ysandre would fain have left us all. Fewer to endanger; fewer to protect.
    "My lady," I begged, kneeling before her. "I have been deceived, imprisoned, bludgeoned, near-drowned, abducted, storm-lost, driven nigh out of my wits and held at knifepoint. If you grant me nothing else, let me go home!"
    "Phèdre," Ysandre sighed. "The more I try to set you out of harm's way, the deeper in it I find you. All right. Like as not, you'd only turn up with an army of brigands at your back if I tried to leave you. You may come." She cast an acerbic eye at the high-spirited Baronesse Marie de Flairs, already moving to add her plea to mine, and the Lady Vivienne Neldor a step behind her. "Elua, enough! My lord Cassiline, will you