Kushiel's Dart

When Ghislain was done, he rose to pace slowly, hands clasped behind his back. "You know the odds of your survival?" he asked somberly.
    "I know. We all do."
    Marc de Trevalion nodded. "Then you must try," he said quietly. "I'll coordinate with your captain-at-arms. Never fear, we'll hold the Rhenus, for as long as Troyes-le-Mont stands."
    "Thank you, Marc," Ghislain said simply.
    So are such things decided. I left them to the debate of maps and strategies, begging paper and ink of de Trevalion and setting to composing a letter.
    "What are you doing?" Joscelin asked, straining to see over my shoulder. I sanded the wet ink and shook it off.
    "Thelesis de Mornay," I said, showing him. "If. . . if neither of us live through these next weeks, she'll be able to carry word to Alba. The Master of the Straits has allowed her passage before, and Hyacinthe knows her." I smiled wryly at his expression. "Did you think I was counting on doing it myself? I know the risk my choice entails."
    Joscelin shook his head. "I'm not sure whether to be glad or frightened that you grasp it," he said softly.
    I blew on the still-damp ink. "Be glad," I said, "for the sake of Alba."
    I was glad in turn, then, that Phedre's Boys were with us. With Joscelin at my side, I found Remy and held up the scrolled letter, in a leather carrying-case.
    "I've a mission," I said to him, calculating, "for the boldest and shrewdest among you. I've need of seeing this letter carried across hostile terrain to the City of Elua, and delivered into the hands of the Queen's Poet. Have you men who will serve, Chevalier?"
    "Have I?" he exclaimed, holding out his hand and grinning. "Give it here, my lady, and they'll see it reaches safe berth, sure as any ship that ever sailed!"
    I gave it to him with a good will, watching as four riders set out with alacrity, armed with de Trevalion's latest intelligence, on a course that would take them wide of battle. Better odds than we would have, at least, and it would ensure my promise to Drustan would be kept. I would have sent them all, if I could.
    "You're not quite as foolhardy as you seem," Joscelin said thoughtfully, watching them go.
    "Not quite," I agreed. "Only just almost. I wish you'd go with them, Joscelin."
    He gave me his dryly amused look. "Will you never be done testing my vow?"
    "No." I swallowed against an unexpected pain in my heart. "Not if I have my choice in the matter, Cassiline."
    It was as close as either of us had ever come to a declaration of feeling; moreover, it was a flag of defiance waved in the face of despair. Joscelin did not smile, but bowed, with the deep-bred Cassiline reflex. "Elua grant you the chance," he murmured. "I'm willing to live with it, if it means your survival."
    Another time, we might have spoken more, but this was war. I was soon called back, to serve as translator for Drustan mab Necthana and our D'Angeline commanders, as we plotted our dangerous course.
    "Would that I could tell you aught of d'Aiglemort," Marc de Trevalion said, shaking his head. "But he's sealed his forces up within the foothills of the Camaelines, and no one knows where. As well beard a badger in his den as track him there." He pointed to the map. "There's your likeliest retreat. I've one piece of advice for you," he added, glancing at Ghislain. "Take out Selig. If their information is good," he continued, nodding at Joscelin and me, "and I've no reason to believe it isn't, Waldemar Selig is the key. If he falls, the Skaldi are leaderless."
    The Skaldi believed Selig was proof against arms. I wished I could believe otherwise; but I remembered that night, when I would have killed him, and was unsure.
    "We'll try," Ghislain de Somerville murmured. "You may be sure of that."
    "My lord de Trevalion," I asked, "what befell Melisande Shahrizai?"
    Marc de Trevalion's face hardened; he'd issues of his own with Melisande, whose machinations had brought his House down. But he shook his head again. "The last I knew, the Cassiline Brotherhood was looking for the Shahrizai, to bring them in for questioning. But I never heard they found them."
    Nor likely to, I thought; Melisande would see a Cassiline coming at five hundred paces. Well, no mind. I touched the diamond at my throat. Wherever she was, it was not on the battlefield.
    In the morning, we rode to war.
    I will not detail the provisioning of the army, the considerable difficulties entailed in transmitting a plan of such scale to a vast force, with language ever a