“I wondered why I’d had no word from him for so many months,” Nicola murmured. “So, yes. I think it possible that Serafin might be convinced to make a treaty with the Euskerri once he’s had time to think on it. It won’t sit lightly on him, thinking of his brother bound to Carthage’s thrall. ’Tis the others will be harder to convince.”
“Can you sway your husband?” Sidonie inquired.
Nicola didn’t mince words. “Yes.”
“That’s two votes,” Sidonie mused.
“General Liberio’s will depend on whether or not he believes we could defeat Carthage with the Euskerri’s aid,” Nicola said. “If he doesn’t, there’s no chance the others will agree to it.”
“And if he does?” I asked.
“There’s a chance they could be persuaded,” she said. “Not a good one, but a chance.”
Sidonie pushed herself back onto her elbows. “I’d like to address them.”
“Give me time to speak to Ramiro and Serafin,” Nicola said to her. “Let them take Liberio’s measure, and we’ll proceed from there. Prince Imriel is right; you’re not to leave your bed today.”
“You’ll tell me as soon as you know anything?” Sidonie pressed.
“Yes, your highness.” Nicola smiled at her. “You have my word.”
Sidonie nodded, the gravity of her expression almost sufficient to offset the distracting display of cleavage. “And you my thanks. Terre d’Ange is fortunate to have someone with your presence and wits here in Amílcar.”
“Rest.” Nicola rose. “Terre d’Ange is also fortunate to have an heir of such singular will and determination, and I suspect they’d wish to keep it that way. Of a surety, I have no wish to inform Ysandre that her valiant daughter succumbed to an injury from a paring knife.”
I laughed and Sidonie smiled reluctantly. I escorted Nicola to the door, pausing there in the corridor.
“My lady,” I said. “I’ve behaved very rudely to you in the past, and I wish to apologize. All I can say is that I was young, and there was a great deal about love that I didn’t understand.”
“There’s no need,” Nicola said quietly. “I knew what you’d suffered. I understood.”
It was true. Nicola L’Envers y Aragon was the one person in whom Phèdre had confided, the one who knew the worst details of what she’d endured in Daršanga.
“Nonetheless,” I said. “I do apologize.”
“Then I thank you for it.” She touched my cheek. A garnet seal dangled from a gold bracelet on her wrist, bearing an incised dart. Kushiel’s Dart—the only lover’s token Phèdre had ever bestowed on a patron. “We will see this undone, Imriel. Carthage will not prevail. Not here, not in Terre d’Ange.”
I took her hand and kissed it. “Blessed Elua grant it will be so.”
Nicola took her leave, and I returned to tend to my restless beloved, pouring a cup of water from a jug beside the bed.
“Here.” I handed it to her. “The chirurgeon Rachel said you should drink a good deal of water to help flush the poisons.”
Sidonie drank obediently. “Imriel, if I promise to behave and lie abed, will you go to the infirmary to see how Kratos and the others are? I’m worried.”
“You already promised,” I reminded her. She gave me a look. “Yes, of course. I’m worried, too.” I stroked her hair. “Sidonie, if it helps to think on it, when I was in Bryn Gorrydum, after Dorelei was killed, I had to lie abed a long time and obey the chirurgeon’s orders. I did everything he said, thinking that the sooner I was mended, the sooner I’d be free to seek vengeance.”
“I know,” she murmured. “But you were nearly disemboweled by a bear, not nicked by a paring knife. And in the end, it was more than vengeance.”
“True.” I glanced at the poultice on her back. “And that was no nick, love. But at the time, it helped. That’s all I’m saying.”
She sighed. “Will you find me a book to pass the time?”
I was leaving to do just that when Sidonie called me back.
“Imriel.”
I paused in the doorway. “Yes?”
She gazed at me with those dark, dark eyes. “I meant it. I want to kill Astegal myself. I want to feel him die.”
I bowed. “Sun Princess, if it lies within my power, I will grant it.”
I found the palace’s modest library and selected a tome for Sidonie: an Aragonian history that appeared to contain detailed and violent descriptions of various battles. I thought it might suit her mood.
Fierce.
Alais had said that once. It was during that terrible time when I was recuperating from the injuries Berlik had dealt me, the day I’d let myself grieve for the first time: for Dorelei’s death, for the death of our unborn son. I’d wept savagely, racked by sobs and regret. And afterward, for the first time, Alais had spoken openly of Sidonie and me. I think she must love you very much, she’d said. She’s very fierce, even though it doesn’t show.
Alais knew her sister well.
Gods, poor Alais.
Thinking on it, I nearly wished I believed myself Leander Maignard still, blithely unconcerned about the fate of Terre d’Ange. It would have been a good deal easier than knowing myself Imriel and thinking with wretched horror of the stalemate Nicola had described, with the lives of those I loved hanging in the balance. Phèdre and Joscelin, loyal to the Queen and ensorceled. Alais, the sister of my heart, struggling to hold the rest of the realm together.
“Here.” I stooped and presented Sidonie with the book.
“Thank you.” She reached up to tug on my hair, tugging my face down to hers, and kissed me with fierce ardor. “Go. Tell Kratos I expect him to dance with me at our wedding.”
I smiled. “I will.”
I made my way to the infirmary in the park, leaving a trail of stares and whispers behind me. Clearly, news of our performance and revelations had spread throughout Amílcar. At least the mood wasn’t openly hostile, not like New Carthage. Still, I kept my hand hovering over my sword-hilt.
“Prince Imriel!” Captain Deimos hailed me outside one of the tents. “What passes?”
“Precious little,” I replied. “Are your men well?”
“Those that lived, aye,” he replied soberly.
I winced. “I’m so sorry, my lord captain.”
“So am I.” Deimos jerked his head at the tent. “Among the survivors, I daresay your manservant bore the brunt of it. He’s within.”
Inside, I found Kratos lying on his belly on a cot, his back covered with damp bandages. He was a more complacent patient than Sidonie. He lifted his homely face with pleasure, regarding me. “My lord! How fares her highness?”
“Well enough.” I sat beside him, cross-legged in the dirt. “And you?”
Kratos shrugged his meaty shoulders. “It hurts to breathe. But I reckon I’ll live.”
I thought about Gilot, who had been one of Montrève’s men-at-arms, the companion of my youth. He’d died from injuries he sustained while trying to protect me: cracked ribs, a bone splinter. There in a gatehouse in Lucca, in the midst of a quarrel none of us had held stake in. If Gilot had stayed out of it, he might have lived. He’d spent his life on the mechanism that raised or lowered a drawbridge. His efforts caused that splinter of bone to shift and pierce his lung.
Gilot had died a hero.
Elua, I was sick of heroes.
Once, I’d wanted to be one. I’d harbored glorious dreams of styling myself a hero in the manner I believed Joscelin to be. I’d lost those illusions a long time ago, but I hadn’t understood until now how much heroism meant living in terror that you wouldn’t be able to protect those you loved.
Ptolemy Solon was right.
Happiness was the highest form of wisdom.
“You will.” I gripped Kratos’ shoulder firmly, feeling the solid meat and muscle of him. “You have to live, my friend. Sidonie is expecting you to dance with her at our wedding. And it’s bad form to disappoint a lady.”
Kratos blinked at me. “Truly?”
“Truly.” I released his shoulder, rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. “May I give her your promise that you will?”
Kratos nodded. “I’ll do my best, my lord.”
I smiled at him through blurred eyes. “Thank you, Kratos. That’s all any of us can do.”
Fifty-Four
The following morning I held my breath as the chirurgeon Rachel eased the poultice from Sidonie’s wound. She’d changed it the night before and refused to comment on the healing progress, which I suspected was as much as anything a ploy to keep Sidonie quiescent. Today she relented.
“Better,” Rachel said with grudging satisfaction. “Much better.”
Even I could see it was so. The swelling had subsided and the angry red flesh had turned pink.
“Am I free, then?” Sidonie asked impatiently.
“No.” The Eisandine healer gave her a stern look. “Now it needs air and sunlight, highness. Give it another day. You need not remain confined to your bed, but do not cover the wound. I will give orders that for an hour after noon, the courtyard will be reserved in privacy for your usage. Sun is healing. Seek it.”
Sidonie sat upright and made a disgusted sound.
“Even the stunted tree seeks sunlight,” I said to her. “Hear and obey, Princess.”
“Obey.” She wrinkled her nose at me. “You like that part, don’t you?”
“No.” I smiled, sliding my hands up her arms as she straddled and kissed me, her shift riding high on her thighs. “Yes.”
The chirurgeon cleared her throat. “I’ll return in the evening to examine you once more, your highness.”
“Thank you, Rachel,” Sidonie said absently, gazing at me.
“You shouldn’t overexert yourself,” I said when the chirurgeon had left.
“I’m not.” She wriggled further astride my lap. “But I can’t bear being kept idle, and I can’t go anywhere if I can’t cover this thing, except to take sun in the courtyard. So . . .” She kissed me again, her tongue darting between my lips. “I want to feel like myself, Imriel. Stop treating me like I’m made of glass. I won’t break.”
I traced a line down her throat into the cleft between her breasts. “No?”
Sidonie shook her head, her eyes grave. “No.”
“All right.” On a whim, I reached for the cup of water on the bedside table. I poured it slowly over the thin linen of her shift, soaking it until it became transparent. “You know you’re driving me mad wearing this thing.”
She smiled. “Oh, good.”
The sheer fabric was plastered to her breasts, pink nipples jutting against it. I slid my hands down to her buttocks, pulling her hard against me, then lowered my mouth, sucking and biting at her breasts through the linen. Sidonie sank her hands deep into my hair, sighing with pleasure.
“More,” she whispered. “Please.”
“Mmm.” I reached up and tore the neckline of her shift open, the thin, soaked fabric giving way easily. Sidonie made a small, startled sound of delight, then a deeper one as my mouth returned to her breasts, gliding over her silken, wet flesh. She pressed herself harder against me, hips moving involuntarily. When I felt her begin to shudder all over, I lifted my head and captured her mouth, forcing her to moan her pleasure into mine. I felt the sweet vibration of it all the way to my core.
It almost drowned out the knock at the outer door and the sound of Lady Nicola’s voice. It seemed to be true that certain events in our lives were fated to be relived. We looked at one another.
“You’ll have to answer that,” Sidonie said breathlessly.
I grimaced. “Let me fetch you a clean shift.”
Her eyes danced. “There isn’t one.”
“Where’s your gown?” I asked. “You can wear it with the stays undone.”
“Taken to be laundered,” she said. “No one’s returned it. I thought it was a ploy to keep me from leaving my quarters.”
“Tell me you’re jesting,” I pleaded. Sidonie just laughed. With a groan of dismay, I shifted her from my lap and went into the antechamber, closing the door of her bedchamber behind me.
“Good morning, Imriel,” Nicola greeted me, looking pleased. “Rachel tells me that Sidonie’s much improved.”
“Yes,” I said wryly. “Much, much improved. My lady, we have a . . . garment crisis.”
Nicola raised her brows. “Oh?”
“We escaped the ship with the clothes on our backs,” I explained. “Sidonie’s gown was taken to be laundered and hasn’t been returned.”
“I asked my seamstress to take her measurements from it and alter a gown or two to fit her,” Nicola said mildly. “I had some of Serafin’s clothing that would suit for you, but nothing for Sidonie. I’ll send someone to investigate. But if she didn’t mind receiving me yesterday clad in—”
“It’s torn.” I flushed. “Rather badly.”
“Ah.” Her lovely face lit with mirth. “Much, much improved, I take it.”
“Oh yes,” I murmured.
Nicola laughed. “Well, ’tis good to know that love and laughter flourish even in the midst of war. I suspect we need it now more than ever, and I thank you for your unwitting gift of the latter. I can return later.”
