Kushiel's Chosen

that day and talked little, making good time. Once or twice Fortun glanced at me, thinking to speculate on what we had learned from the L'Agnacites, but whatever he saw writ on my face kept him silent. Time enough, on a long sea journey, to discuss it. He had the maps, and he would not forget.
    A great deal occupied my mind as we rode. It is a startling thing, to find one has been made a legend unaware, even in a small way. It is a burdensome thing. A whore's unwanted get. So the ancient Dowayne of Cereus House named me, long ago; my earliest memory of identity. 'Twas bitter, indeed, but simple, too. Delaunay changed all that, putting a name to Kushiel's Dart, making me somewhat other. Then, I reveled in it. Now ... I thought of the Unforgiven soldier kneeling beneath the Yeshuite's sword with his bowed head, neck muscles quivering, willing to die for an anguissette's desperate plea.
    Now, I was not so sure. And there was Joscelin.
    The weather held fair and balmy, and we made camp in a pleasant site surrounded by great cedars. A spring burbled from a cleft in the mossy rocks, dark and cold, tasting faintly loamy. Remy, who had begun his service with Admiral Quintilius Rousse as apprentice to the ship's cook, made a passing good stew of salt beef and dried carrots, seasoning it with red wine and a generous handful of thyme. The Unforgiven had made certain our stores were well stocked ere we departed.
    Afterward, as dusk fell, coming swift beneath the canopy of boughs, Joscelin volunteered quietly to take the first watch, and my chevaliers wrapped themselves in their bedrolls and slept. For some time, I lay awake on my fine-combed woolen blankets, watching the stars emerge one by one in patches of black sky visible through the trees. At length, I gathered up my blankets and went to sit beside him near the fire, which had burnt low.
    "Phèdre." He looked sidelong at me, poking a long branch into the core of embers.
    "Joscelin." It was enough, for now, to say his name. I sat gazing at our campfire, watching a thin line of flame lick at the underside of the branch. He fed it carefully, twig by twig, branch by branch, until it blazed merrily and sent sparks into the night air. So we had done in Skaldia, the two of us, with numb fingers and prayers on our half-frozen lips. 'Twas all so different, now. "Do you remember-"
    Joscelin cut me off with a mute glance, and I held my tongue until he spoke, fiddling with a bit of tinder. "You know, I didn't want to believe it," he mused, throwing the debris into the fire. "You think it's true. There is a Cassiline Brother involved."
    "I don't know." I wrapped my arms around my knees. "I found nothing to suspect in the list Thelesis gathered, but I think it is likely, yes, based on what we heard today." I stole a look at his brooding profile. "Even if there is, Joscelin ... too many strings have been pulled, by someone with influence. A Cassiline could not have arranged for so many guardsmen to go missing. It cannot be only that."
    "But it's part of it." He tipped his head back, gazing at the stars; I saw his throat move as he swallowed. "Despite it all, the training and the oaths, one of my own Brethren. We are human, Phèdre. Elua knows, we are that. But to break that faith, that training?" Joscelin drew a shaky breath and let it out slowly. "I never even went home. I promised my father, at Troyes-le-Mont, do you remember? And Luc. We were going to go to Verreuil."
    "I remember." Sorrow rose, inexorable as the tide, and mingled with it, guilt. It was my fault. I had dragged him with me to the City instead, compelled by the strength of his vow. The Perfect Companion. "We were going to go this spring, you and I."
    "Yes." He rubbed his eyes absently, his voice rough. "Almost fifteen years, it's been. My mother must be like to kill me."
    I remembered his father, a stern Siovalese lordling, with the same austere beauty as his son, one arm bound in a stump after that terrible battle. I remembered his elder brother Luc, with those same summer-blue eyes, wide and merry. What must his mother and sisters and younger brother be like? I could not even guess. "Joscelin." I waited until he looked at me. "For Elua's sake, go home! Go see your mother, raise sheep in Siovale or lead the Yeshuites across Skaldia, I don't know. It doesn't matter. You were ten years old, when the Brotherhood claimed you. You don't owe them a debt of service to me! Even if you did, that bond was dissolved, by the