Kushiel’s Dart

"It doesn’t matter!" I said fiercely. "Gunter means to bring me to the Allthing, to give me to Waldemar Selig. I’ll learn what I can, and do what I may. But you have a chance to escape!"

"No." He shook his head, looking sick. "No. If you are no traitor…Phèdre, I can’t. My oath is to Cassiel, and not the Crown. I cannot leave you."

"Cassiel bid you protect the Crown!" I cried. Harald and Knud glanced over, and I lowered my voice. "If you would serve me, do this thing, Joscelin."

"You don’t know." He bowed his head, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, despairing. "You don’t understand. It has naught to do with thrones and crowns. Cassiel betrayed God because God Himself had forgotten the duty of love and abandoned Elua ben Yeshua to the whims of Fate. To the point of damnation and beyond, he is the Perfect Companion. If you are true, if you are true…I cannot abandon you, Phèdre nó Delaunay!"

"Joscelin," I said, tugging his hands down. I glanced around at Harald and Knud, waving them back. "Joscelin, I ask you to do this thing, with all that is in me. Can you not obey?"

He shook his head, miserable. "Do you not know what we call Elua and the other Companions, in the service of Cassiel? The Misguided. Ask me anything but this. Cassiel cared naught for lands and kings. I cannot abandon you."

Thus was my plan, which was a good one, resigned to the midden heap. "All right," I said sharply, in a tone that brought his head up so quickly it rattled his chains. "Then if you would serve me as Companion, do so! You merit naught, chained in the kennel like a dog!"

He gulped, and swallowed hard. Humility does not come easy to Cassilines. "How may I serve, then, my lady Phèdre, O slave of the Skaldi?"

Harald and Knud were leaning on the fence, watching with interest. They may have understood none of what passed between us, but they saw Joscelin willing to listen, something none of them had seen before.

"First," I said relentlessly, "you will learn to be a good slave, and make yourself useful. Cut wood, fetch water, whatever is needful. Gunter Arnlaugson has half a mind to slay you as a waste of food. Second, you will learn Skaldic." He moved in protest, chains sounding. I held up my hand. "If you would be my Companion," I said ruthlessly, "you will serve your lord, and win his trust, and make of yourself a gift fit for princes! Because if you do not, Gunter will give me to Waldemar Selig anyway, and kill you for sport. I swear to you, Joscelin, if you will do this much for me, and live, I will make my escape with you, and cross the snows without one word of trepidation! Will you obey?"

He bowed his head, matted blond hair hiding his proud D’Angeline features. "Yes," he whispered.

"Good," I said, and turned to my escort. "He comes to understand his position," I said in Skaldic. "He consents to receive the gift of tongues. I will teach him, that he may comprehend and obey my lord Gunter Arnlaugson. Do you say it is fairly done?"

They glanced at each other, and shrugged. "He stays among the hounds, until he has proved his worth," Knud called. I nodded my assent.

"Listen well," I said to Joscelin, who attended my words with a faint light of hope in his eyes. "This is the word for T…"

So began my third role among the Skaldi, although they themselves may only have counted two. Consort, bard…and teacher.

To his credit, Joscelin learned quickly. It is harder to learn as an adult than as a child, but if he had lost the ease that childhood affords, he made up for it in stubborn persistence. By virtue of having accompanied me on that first outing, Harald and Knud had appointed themselves my permanent escort, and it amused them to watch our lessons. Joscelin, I learned, they regarded as a genuine barbarian, wild and untamed, hitherto lacking even rudimentary speech. I could not, in truth, entirely blame them for this; if I had seen no more of the Cassiline than they had, I too might have thought him a savage.

It is a fine line, in all of us, between civilization and savagery. To any who think they would never cross it, I can only say, if you have never known what it is to be utterly betrayed and abandoned, you cannot know how close it is.

Gunter turned an indulgent eye to the proceedings. He had paid good coin for a D’Angeline warrior-prince, and if I thought I could transform the snarling captive he’d gotten instead into something worthy of serving a Skaldi tribal lord, he was willing to let me try.