Kushiel's Dart

the Skaldi shoved me as my feet touched ground and I stumbled, falling to my knees before the captain of the watch on patrol. He cuffed me once, then glowered.
    "What were you doing, eh?" he asked in Skaldic, cursing me. "Did you think to gain the castle? Your place lies that way, slave!" He pointed toward the prison camp. "Do you know the punishment for flight?"
    "She can't understand you, Egil," one of my captors laughed, twisting a hand in my hair. I would have laughed too, if I hadn't feared hysteria. They thought I was a runaway slave. Steel and flame and Skaldi faces streaked across my vision, and the rank smell of a battlefield filled my senses. Somewhere, a rider approached.
    "Oh, I think she understands." It was a different voice, deep and commanding, and rich with irony. I knew it. I knew it well, better than I cared to remember. My Skaldi captor wrenched at my hair, tilting my head back, forcing me to meet the speaker's eyes. He was tall, taller even than I recalled, the breadth of his shoulders looming against the fortress behind him. His hazel eyes, meeting mine, narrowed, and his lips curved in a smile. "Don't you, Faydra?" Waldemar Selig asked softly.

EIGHTY-SEVEN
    "Yes my lord Selig." I forced the words out.
    Dismounting and handing his reins to a waiting thane, Waldemar Selig stepped forward and struck me twice across the face. My head reeled. "That," he said calmly, "I owed you." Grabbing my forelock in his fist, he yanked my head up and stared at me. "What were you doing on the tower?"
    I stared back at him and kept silent.
    Twice more he struck me, hard and fast. "What were you doing?"
    Touching my tongue to my lower lip, I tasted blood.
    "She shouted somewhat," one of my captors said helpfully.
    "What was it?" Selig asked, not relinquishing his grip.
    They argued over it, puzzling out the words in phonetic D'Angeline. Swaying on my knees, I watched Selig's lips move silently as he tried to put the words together. He spoke passable D'Angeline. I knew. I'd helped teach him. "Tell the ... tell the Queen that Delaunay's other .. . other . . . something... has done her. . ." The words were too badly mangled for his ear. Frustration seized him, and he shook my head like a rattle. "Send for one of the prisoners," he ordered.
    It was the priestess of Naamah; she was closest. Summoning a measure of dignity, she wrapped her stained red robes around her as they herded her across the plain. Her gaze slid across my face as if without recognition as she stood listening to the garbled phrase the patrol captain repeated.
    "Tell the Queen that Delaunay's other pupil has done her bidding," she said coolly in D'Angeline.
    I do not think she reckoned on Selig's comprehension; it unnerved her, a little, when he smiled. I watched his smile fade, though, and knew bitter triumph. The words meant nothing to him. "Thank you," he said to Naamah's priestess in curt D'Angeline, adding in Skaldic. "Take her back among the prisoners." She glanced back once over her shoulder, then I saw her no more. Selig considered me, still holding my head up-tilted. "It will go better for you if you tell me," he said, almost gently. "I don't owe you a quick death, but I'm willing to give it you, if you'll speak."
    He was handsome, for a Skaldi; I have said as much. The torchlight born by warriors pressing round glinted from the gold fillet that bound his hair, the gold wire that twisted his beard into twin forks. My face ached, and tears stood in my eyes. I did laugh, then. I'd nothing left to lose. "No, my lord," I said simply. "I will take the other choice."
    Cursing, he released his grip on my hair, thrusting me away. He turned to look thoughtfully at the fortress. "You claim to find pleasure in pain," he said. "Then let Ysandre de la Courcel see how well Waldemar Selig pleases her spies."
    I have said, too, that Selig was a clever man. He knew well the merits of controlling the minds of one's enemies. He had a vast space cleared in front of the fortress, just beyond the range of the archers, and had it ringed round with torch-bearers. The barbican over the gate of Troyes-le-Mont was full-lit by then, and no doubt the defenders were watching: I knew it; Selig knew it too. Two of his thanes walked me out into the middle of the space, forcing me to my knees. White Brethren, their pelts tied loosely around their necks in the warmth of summer, woolens exchanged for steel and leather.
    Selig wore white wolf-hide too, snowy by moonlight,