"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 barrier. Suffice it to say that all was done in the end, though my voice was ragged from serving as translator.
It is much to Ghislain de Somerville's credit that we proceeded as smoothly as we did. Despite his initial discomfort, he dealt evenly with our unlikely force, and found a common bond with Drustan mab Necthana, who was not too proud to appreciate another's skill.
Much credit also goes to Eamonn of the Dalriada, who had an exacting mind for detail. If we were well provisioned and the dispersal of arms and mounts went without difficulty, much of it was Eamonn's doing. As much as the Twins baited each other, I saw, in that exodus, why Grainne stood by him. They were a formidable team.
We marched southward, swinging wide to the east, into Camlach, to avoid detection by Selig's forces. It is a dire thing, being part of an army on the move. I would not wish it on anyone. But we gained, in time, the rolling hills of river-wrought Namarre and a vantage point from which to spy on the siege.
Several Skaldi met their death in that effort. Waldemar Selig, no fool, had posted scouts along the perimeter of the land he held. But he had not reckoned on the Cruithne, whose woodcraft surpassed aught that I had seen. Drustan appointed an advance party, and they did their job excellently, emerging silent and deadly from the very landscape to dispatch the Skaldi watchers in our route.
Thus did we come to a place in the hills, overlooking the plain on which Selig's army was encamped.
"So many," Drustan breathed in Cruithne, lying on his belly like the rest of us to gaze down at the scene.
I had known; I had counted the numbers at the Allthing, I had seen them in the Master of the Straits' bronze mirror, and I had heard them from Ghislain de Somerville. Nothing had prepared me for the sight. From where we lay, the Skaldi army teemed around the fortified bulwarks surrounding Troyes-le-Mont like ants around an anthill. Swarms of tiny figures bustled over the plain, gathering here and there in strategic points to attack the bulwark. We could see how thin defenses were spread inside the wall, the weakening points vulnerable to attack.
It wouldn't be long before the Skaldi won through, forcing the defenders into the fortress itself. Percy de Somerville had chosen Troyes-le-Mont because it was defensible—and because it wasn't surrounded by a city filled with innocent, unarmed D'Angelines—but Selig had studied Tiberian tacticians.
They were building siege towers.
"That's the best place to strike," Ghislain said practically, jutting his chin at a tower under construction on the outer edge of the encampment. "They're well out of bow range, so they'll not be on the lookout for attack, and their attention's fixed on the tower. Do you agree?"
I translated for Drustan, who nodded in agreement.
"Good." Ghislain stared hard at the besieged fortress, thinking, no doubt, of his father, then drew back cautiously. "We'll plan our retreat in stages," he said, gazing at the hills behind us with all the thoughtfulness of a farmer plotting his orchard. "We need to be able to make a clean break of it."
If anyone had doubted that he'd inherited his father's gift for military tactics, they didn't after that day. The course of our retreat stretched for miles into the foothills, leading Skaldi pursuers through a deadly series of setbacks, and at last into a narrow gorge which could be blocked, forcing the Skaldi to retreat.
It took two days to plan the attack, Ghislain verging on overcautious before finally giving his approval. I was glad, though, when I learned that Drustan planned to lead the strike.
Fifty Cruithne, they had decided, including the best archers on the fastest mounts. It was the largest number able to get near undetected, and the smallest able to get the Skaldi's notice.
I was not there to see it, remaining at the furthest retreat point, a steep, wooded hill, with Joscelin, Phedre's Boys, and the bulk of our army; it was part of Ghislain's plan to conceal our numbers from the Skaldi.
But I heard, later. We all did.
Drustan's Cruithne struck at the first glimmer of dawn, when they could barely pick out the shape of the siege tower against the darkling sky and the Skaldi were but indistinct forms, most still wrapped in their bedrolls.
No warning did they give, but rode out of the hills like something from a nightmare, streaming across the plain, blue-masqued and eerie, slamming into the edge of the Skaldi forces and dispatching steel death. A hundred or more Skaldi died in their sleep that dawn. It grieved me, to know this; but it had grieved me more, to hear how many the Skaldi had slain in their path.
Following Ghislain's plan, the Cruithne thrust pitch-soaked torches into the Skaldi campfires, wheeling to hurl them at the wooden siege tower, Drustan throwing the first himself. By the time the Skaldi camp came full awake, buzzing like a kicked hornet's nest, the Cruithne were already in retreat, horses wheeling, archers delaying pursuit with a rain of unerring arrows—Barquiel L'Envers' Akkadian tactics, that Drustan had admired.
It bought them time, but not much.
The Skaldi came after them.
They caught the rearguard, scrambling to gain the foothills. A dozen Cruithne died there, a desperate stand quickly overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Drustan never looked back, shouting his men onward. The Skaldi followed—and encountered the first setback.
On the high crags lining their retreat, Ghislain de Somerville had positioned L'Agnacite bowmen. Steady and unflappable, able to cover far greater distances than the Cruithne archers with their short-bows, Ghislain's men shot down the foremost ranks of the Skaldi, until the dead themselves posed a formidable obstacle.
No longer than that did they linger, climbing quickly out of danger, each with his own designated path of retreat. When the Skaldi won free, Drustan's men were in full flight.
How many Skaldi pursued, I cannot say; hundreds, at least. I think close to a thousand. At one point, the path divided in a triune fork; the Cruithne took the middle route. Those Skaldi who sought to flank them on either side met with Dalriada slings and spears, driving them back. Eirans are particularly fond of slings, which they use with deadly efficacy.
Even so, it was a near thing. I was there when Drustan brought his men pounding up the steep, narrow gorge, horses lathered and near exhaustion, the warriors little better; and the foremost Skaldi were close on their heels.
"Now!" Ghislain shouted.
Positioned on the cliffs on either side of the gorge, D'Angeline and Alban soldiers alike thrust the butt ends of their levers beneath the rocks, pushing hard.
Ghislain de Somerville had planned well; an avalanche of boulders and smaller rocks tore loose and rained down like thunder, blocking the passage. The Skaldi drew back, milling, and the archers went to work.
A great many Skaldi died. But they are not cowards, nor ever have been. A few hundred remained, drawing back out of arrow range and conferring. Presently, a contingent rode back.
The others stayed, and advanced, shields over heads, to begin clearing the passage.
Selig's doing, I thought. They'd never have conceived it on their own.
Ghislain watched grimly, then made his decision. "We retreat," he said sharply, calling it out aloud. "Retreat!"
So we fled eastward, further into the hills.
When we crossed back into Camlach, I could not say. As afternoon wore on to dusk, I was concentrating on nothing more than staying on my horse, and not posing a burden to anyone around me. Ghislain had been prepared for the possibility. He left a company of archers in place, to slow the Skaldi progress; by the time they won through, we would be long gone. We laid baffles and false trails, all the while retreating deeper into the mountains. Now and again, one of the Cruithne archers would catch up with us, gasping a report.
What we would have done without their woodcraft, I do not know. No great black boar loomed out of the twilight to guide us, but I felt the presence of the Cullach Gorrym nonetheless. And Drustan, his arms bloodstained to the elbows, worked tirelessly to coordinate with them, sending scouts to spy out safe passage.
Not until Ghislain de Somerville gauged from their reports that we were out of danger did we make camp for the night. I fairly fell out of the saddle, bone-weary and exhausted with terror. If I had not survived the flight through the Skaldic winter, I think I would have given up and died that night.
Even so, it was not given me to rest.
A last one of Drustan's scouts returned from the south, eyes starting and wild in the blue masque of his face, breathing like a marathon runner and pointing from whence he'd come. Drustan gave an incredulous frown, and I dragged myself near to listen.
"What is it?" Ghislain de Somerville asked, catching my arm.
"He says there's an army, my lord." I wasn't sure I'd heard it aright either. "A D'Angeline army, encamped in a valley, not a mile south of here."
EIGHTY-FOUR
"Isidore D'Aiglemort."
Ghislain de Somerville said his name like a curse. I didn't blame him. None of us did, who were D'Angeline. I heard Joscelin's breath hiss between his teeth at the name.
I explained briefly to Drustan, who nodded, understanding, his dark eyes deepset. He had been betrayed by his cousin Maelcon; he understood such things. "We'll make camp nonetheless," I said, confirming it with Ghislain. We'd get no further that night, and d'Aiglemort's forces were unaware of our presence.
One would think the very heavens would storm their disapproval on such a night, but in truth, the skies held clear. My exhaustion forgotten, I wrapped myself in my cloak and sought out the Cruithne scout who'd spotted the army of Due Isidore d'Aiglemort, questioning him at some length.
When I was done, I went looking for Ghislain de Somerville and found him overseeing the care of the horses, who were worth their weight in gold to us.
"My lord," I said to him, "you said if the Caerdicci would rally sufficient forces, we could crush the Skaldi as if between hammer and anvil. How many would you need?"
"Ten thousand, perhaps, in sum. Maybe less, if we could coordinate with the defenders in Troyes-le-Mont." He looked sharply at me. "Why? The Caerdicci won't venture past their borders. We both know it is so."
I looked to the south, and shivered. "I have a thought."
I told him what it was.
Ghislain de Somerville gave me another long, hard look. "Come with me," he said. "We need to talk."
His fairly appointed commander's tent with the worktable had been left in Azzalle; this was a simple field-soldier's shelter, luxurious only in that most of our army had nothing but a bedroll. We had travelled light, but for the most necessary provisions. I sat on a folding camp-stool while he paced, lit by a solitary lamp.
"If you think it madness, my lord," I said finally, unable to bear it, "then say so."
"Of course it's madness," he said abruptly. "But so is what we did today, and will do again tomorrow, if we do not choose another course. And if it goes as it did today, we will die in slow degrees, until we grow too tired or too slow or too careless, and the Skaldi catch us. If they're not already scaling the fortress walls." Stopping his pacing, Ghislain de Somerville sat on his bedroll and covered his face with his hands. "Ah, Anael!" he sighed. "I was born to rule apple orchards, to tend the land and love its folk. Why do you send me such terrible choices?"
"Because, my lord," I said softly, "you were born to tend the land and love its folk, and not to put them to the sword. No other among us could devise a plan that would make this work."
"It might be done." He lowered his hands on his knees and looked gravely at me. "Even if it can ... if we fail, we stand to lose everything, and I do not know if I can bear to see our people slain by D'Angeline hands. Phedre no Delaunay, are you certain of him?"
"No," I whispered, feeling cold despite the warmth of the night and the glow of lamplight. "There is one trump card, one thing he does not know, that might be enough . . . but I am certain of nothing, my lord."
"I wish you were," Ghislain de Somerville murmured, hands flexing on his knees. He smiled ruefully. "Did you know my father likes to wager? L'Agnacites have a weakness for it, I don't know why. But he always said the one man he'd never wager against was Anafiel Delaunay."
"My lord," I said, alarmed, "I am not him. Even if I had half his wisdom, I would fear to advise you in this."
"If you had half his wisdom, you might never have conceived this." He gazed at the flickering lamp-flame. "But you have, and I must wager on something. I'll speak with the Cruithne scout, and see what more we may learn. When I've a plan, I'll let you know."
I nodded and rose, according him a grave curtsy, one offered in the Night Court only to scions of the Royal House. I kept my composure leaving his tent; it was only outside, beneath the stars, that I staggered and had to catch myself, terrified by the enormity of the risk in what I had proposed.
Never had I judged a patron wrongly, not Childric d'Essoms, not
Quincel de Morhban, not even Melisande Shahrizai, when all was said and done. But Isidore, Due d'Aiglemort, was no patron of mine, and by his own deed, traitor to Terre d'Ange. If I was wrong, we would all pay. And the payment would be exacted in blood.
"Where were you?" Joscelin asked when I returned, his sharp tone betraying his concern. He glanced at my pale face. "What is it? Is aught amiss?"
"No," I said, through chattering teeth. He flung a cloak around me; his Mendacant's cloak, stained and travel-worn, the splendid colors dulled by rain and sea. I huddled into its warmth. "Not yet."
"You'll be the death of us all," Joscelin muttered, and wondered why I laughed in despair.
By the time we surrounded the valley in which d'Aiglemort's army was encamped, he knew.