“Yes.” Sidonie faced him. “We will agree to your terms if you will agree to ours. There is one condition without which I will refuse. There is one condition without which Prince Imriel will refuse.”
He nodded impassively. “Speak.”
Sidonie presented our terms. Janpier Iturralde translated them for the crowd, and the now-familiar roar of argument arose, delegates on the dais shouting back and forth with the villagers they represented. I studied Janpier’s face. He met my gaze squarely, but his nostrils flared in a defensive manner.
“We’re not bluffing, my lord,” I said to him. “You have forced our hands, but we will walk away from this agreement.”
“There is—” he began.
“Anger and fear.” I cut him off. “Yes. Believe me, I am passing familiar with the emotions this day. Whatever it is you fear from Terre d’Ange, it will come more surely without the key than with it. It is a malevolent magic that binds our realm. Do not be a fool.”
Janpier pointed at Sidonie. “And her? Is her safety worth more than the safety of our wives and sisters and daughters?”
“It is to me,” I said calmly.
He bristled. “You would dare to claim—”
“Yes!” I raised my voice. The blood beat in my ears, clashing like bronze wings. “Yes, Iturralde. As surely as you place Euskerria’s concerns far, far above mine. And your wives and sisters and daughters will be far from the battlefield. I pledged my loyalty to Sidonie de la Courcel long ago. Even before I knew I loved her, I swore to lay my life down in her defense.” My hand hovered over my sword-hilt. “If you want me to fight and mayhap die at your side, that is the price. Her safety. I will not be forsworn.”
Janpier looked startled and impressed. “I will tell them.”
I relaxed a little. “Thank you.”
Whether or not that made the difference, I couldn’t say. All in all, we were asking little compared to the sacrifice the Euskerri asked of us. The price they would pay for their freedom was like to be high, yes. But in the end, it was their choice. Ours was forced upon us, and it made me ache inside to turn my back on Terre d’Ange when we were so very close.
And after another hour of clamorous discussion, they agreed to accept our terms.
There beneath the oak tree at the center of Roncal, we swore our oaths. Sidonie and I swore in the name of Blessed Elua and his Companions, I that I would fight at the side of the Euskerri, and she that she would bear witness to the signing of the agreement that granted Euskerria sovereign status in Aragonia’s eyes in the event of our victory. The Euskerri called the sun to bear witness and pledged to fight Carthage unto the death.
The matter was settled.
Once again, we were at war with Carthage.
Sixty-Three
Once the matter was settled, things moved quickly.
The Euskerri who had descended on Roncal dispersed like the wind, carrying word to every town and village perched in the mountains. There would be a great force amassing, Janpier Iturralde assured us. Six or seven thousand, he thought, although the Euskerri had never mustered in force before.
Sidonie and I wrote a letter to Alais on a piece of much-scraped parchment Janpier procured for us.
I watched her outline the important details in her neat, precise hand. The truth of what had befallen us, the accord to which we had agreed. The key to undoing the spell: the word, emmenghanom. Beholden. And then I watched her falter.
“What do you say, Imriel?” Sidonie asked me in bewilderment. “How do you say it?”
I’d written too many such letters.
“Tell her you love her,” I said gently. “Tell them all. I will, too.”
I liked the courier Janpier found for us: a bold-faced fellow named Nuno Agirre whose family originally hailed from the D’Angeline side of Euskerri territory. His grandfather had been an ardent scholar and all his descendants spoke fluent Caerdicci along with their native tongue. He swore without hesitation beneath the oak tree that he would do his utmost to see the letter delivered.
“It will be an honor,” he added. “Is there any sign by which they will know it is genuine?”
I glanced at Sidonie, who looked dismayed. I thought about how I’d sent my ring, the gold knotted ring, back to her from Skaldia. Alais wouldn’t know the significance of the ring, but there was another item that would suit. I eased the gold torc from around my neck.
“Here.” I handed it to Nuno Agirre. “Alais will know this. Her father the Cruarch gave it to me with his own hands on my wedding day. I wear it in honor of the wife and child I lost.”
Nuno stowed it in his packs along with the letter. “Very well, your highness. May the sun shine brightly on your venture!”
“Blessed Elua hold and keep you,” Sidonie said in reply.
With that, Nuno mounted and departed, lifting one hand in farewell. He was riding one of the swift, tireless Amazigh horses; Janpier hadn’t stinted. We watched his figure dwindle as he reached the far end of the valley and began to climb toward the longed-for and forbidden pass. Sidonie’s lips moved in a silent prayer. I uttered one myself in my thoughts.
“Do you think he’ll make it?” she asked me.
I took her hand. “Of course. He knows the territory, and he strikes me as a man with his wits about him. I reckon his odds are better than ours.”
We sent another courier in the opposite direction during those days of preparation. Paskal had been a great help to us in Roncal. With Janpier’s permission and all the enthusiasm of youth, he had managed to recruit a score of men to serve as Sidonie’s personal guard. A few of them were no older than he was, inflamed by the romanticism of the notion, but I was pleased to find that most appeared to be solid fellows, family men to whom the idea of beating a safe retreat to the mountains appealed more than dashing into battle. And two of them spoke Aragonian, which was a blessing.
Once that was done, Paskal approached us with his idea. “Send me ahead to scout,” he suggested. “General Liberio sent men to the cities nearest Amílcar, to Badalon and Coloma and Tibado, begging them to rise up against Carthage. If any of them got through, I can tell them the Euskerri are coming. Perhaps it will convince them.”
It was an excellent idea, albeit a dangerous one. And so Paskal was dispatched, brimming with enthusiasm. I watched him go, shaking my head and praying he’d find his way safely.
Two days later we departed Roncal.
Sidonie and I bade farewell to Bixenta, who had taken such good care of us. She embraced us both and uttered a blessing in the Eus-kerri tongue. And then we saddled our mounts and rode south with the others.
There was no fanfare, no great proclamation. The Euskerri had gotten all of that out of the way during their debate. The decision to go to war had been made, so to war they went.
There was also precious little in the way of a plan. Euskerri from all over the mountains were to make their way to the foothills above Amíl-car. Mayhap there would be six or seven thousand of them. Janpier was convinced of it. If it was true, we would have numbers to equal Astegal’s, as there were a good four thousand Aragonian soldiers in Amílcar itself, and thousands more dispersed across the country, subject to the terms of Roderico’s surrender.
But even so, we had no way of mounting a coordinated attack; and the Euskerri’s idea of warfare was to swarm their enemy from a position of strength. We wouldn’t have that on the plains surrounding Amílcar. What we would have was a ragtag army of thousands with no form of organized leadership. As more and more Euskerri trickled toward the south, it became increasingly obvious that we would be mismatched on open ground.
“If we simply fall on Astegal’s forces from behind, I’m afraid it will be a slaughter,” I said to Sidonie as we rode. “He might have gotten lax about drilling in New Carthage, but they’re disciplined enough to hold formation.”
“I know.” She frowned in thought. “I get the sense the Euskerri are simply hoping to lure them into the hills and ambush them. I’m not sure Astegal’s going to be so easily lured.”
“Any suggestions?” I asked. “You know him better than anyone, and it seems you’ve got as good a head for battle as anyone here.”
Sidonie gave me a wry look. “Do you imagine the Euskerri would actually listen to me?”
“No.” I smiled. “But they might listen to me.”
“I’ll think on it,” she said.
Our journey back to Amílcar took a day longer than our flight from it. Euskerri from east of Roncal had already reached our destination and made camp in a deep basin of a valley some half a league from the city. I was glad to see that at least there were sentries posted atop every hill. Still, it made me feel anxious and exposed, being so close to Carthage’s army and so unprepared to engage it.
Roncal’s company made camp in the farthest northern end of the valley. I spoke to Gaskon, the Aragonian-speaking member of Sidonie’s guard I reckoned the most sensible, and made it clear to him that if there was any sort of attack, they were to flee without hesitating. He understood and agreed.
And then we spent several agonizing days waiting.
It was a tense and strangely lonely time. Little by little, in dribs and drabs of a hundred men here, two hundred men there, Euskerri arrived. Janpier was right, their numbers did swell into the thousands. And none of them shared our language or our cause. They were here to fight Carthage, but they would just have gladly fought Aragonia if they’d thought it would gain them sovereignty.
At least they treated Sidonie with deference and her guard was decent. On the very first day, Gaskon brought a crude oilcloth tent he’d bartered for among some of the other soldiers. When Sidonie thanked him, he smiled quietly into his mustaches.
“I have a daughter no older than you,” he said. “I would not want her sleeping exposed among so many men.”
Then you shouldn’t have dragged her here, I thought; but I bit my tongue on the comment.
On the third day we got a piece of good news. Paskal rejoined us, beaming from ear to ear. The word he carried spread quickly throughout the camp. He’d encountered no luck at the first two cities—they were fearful of Astegal’s ire—but the Duke Leopoldo of Tibado was a crusty firebrand seething under Carthage’s yolk. He’d pledged a thousand men to the cause. Several dozen Euskerri headmen commenced to argue about the best method to mount a joint attack.
“How swiftly can he marshal them?” Sidonie asked Paskal.
He shrugged. “Immediately.”
She turned to me. “Can we have a look at the battlefield?”
“If Paskal knows a route to a safe vantage point,” I said.
“Oh, I do,” Paskal said cheerfully.
We left the Euskerri to argue and rode out of the camp, crossing several valleys and heading up a wooded slope. On Paskal’s orders, we left the horses and climbed the remaining yards on foot. At the top of the slope, the woods ended. We lay on our bellies and peered downward. We were northwest of the city, but we could see Amílcar spread below us and Astegal’s army much as we’d left it, except the trenches had grown deeper and the earthen bulwarks were higher.
“Where does Tibado lie?” Sidonie asked.
Paskal pointed south. “A day’s ride. If there’s to be an attack, the Duke would ford the river to the west and position his troops between the rivers.”
“I wish there was some way of alerting Amílcar,” she said absently.
“You’re not thinking of trying to slip through Astegal’s camp,” I warned her.
“Like Phèdre did at Troyes-le-Mont?” She gave me a quick smile. “Elua, no.”
“I imagine they’ll be on the lookout,” I said. “They know there’s a chance that aid is coming. But there’s no way for them to mount a full-scale counterattack if we can’t draw off some of Carthage’s forces.”
“There’s three hundred Amazigh horse and all those robes and veils,” Sidonie said. “Three hundred men could cross the bridge and ride right up to the camp in guise.”
“True,” I agreed. “That’s good for one strike, love. Then they’d have to flee or die. I’m not sure it’s worth it.”
She looked at me. “What if they stopped short?”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
“Astegal’s clever,” Sidonie said. “And he’s vain. He likes knowing things and he likes being in control of things. You told me to think about what might lure him out of his camp, Imriel. What if his three hundred loyal Amazigh rode up to the verge of the river and stopped short there? Simply waited?”
“It would gall him,” I said slowly.
She nodded. “It would drive him mad. I don’t think he’d do anything foolish, not right away. He’d send a small delegation. But if you killed them and fell back—”
“He’d send a larger delegation,” I finished. “And if we continued to fall back—”
“You could lead them into ambush,” she agreed.
“And then the Duke’s men could fall on the others from behind!” Paskal’s eyes gleamed.
“They’d be horribly outnumbered,” I observed.
“Well, what if we divided our forces?” Sidonie suggested logically. “We could send the bulk of the Euskerri to join the Duke of Tibado and keep a thousand in reserve for the ambush. I can’t imagine more than that could maneuver efficiently in those woods anyway.”
“And if the ambush succeeded, we could capture the bridge and mount a rearguard attack on Astegal,” I said. “Mayhap hold the ground long enough for Liberio’s forces to get free of the city.”