“He’s skilled with a blade.” Sidonie’s tone was neutral. “I congratulate you on your victory, etxekojaun, and I grieve for your losses. What passes now?”

Janpier Iturralde fixed her with a hard gaze. “Today we celebrate and mourn. Tomorrow we send word of our victory and your offer throughout Euskerria. The day after, the debate begins. You will remain here until the matter is decided, of course. Laida will show you to the guest-house.”

To the north, the empty pass beckoned. I had an overwhelming urge to snatch a pair of horses yet milling around us, grab Sidonie, and flee. I couldn’t, of course. Sidonie had come to them as an emissary of Terre d’Ange and Aragonia. She had to play the role in good faith on behalf of all the parties involved. Still, I yearned to move onward.

All together, we made the long trek back to the village amid mixed jubilation and despair. There was more of the former than the latter. The women were somber, but the young, untried men among the Eus-kerri were filled with excitement, reliving the battle, while the older ones smiled with dour pride. The Amazigh horses were reckoned a serious prize.

And beneath it all, everyone was buzzing at the prospect of a free and sovereign Euskerria. Even without understanding the language, I could feel it. I prayed they would reach a swift decision in the days to come.

For a mercy, there actually was a guest-house in Roncal. Paskal explained to us that it was used during times of celebration when Euskerri from neighboring communities would come to stay and mingle. A good many marriages were arranged that way. But for now, its lodging-rooms were at our disposal. Through Paskal, Janpier’s wife, Laida, introduced us to the etxekoandere, or mistress of the house, a dignified woman named Bixenta. And through Paskal, Bixenta assured us that we would be cared for in a manner befitting our stature.

“Is it possible to have a bath?” I asked with longing.

Bixenta unbent enough to smile a little when Paskal translated the question. “This will be arranged,” Paskal told us. “She recommends that I do the same once you have finished.”

True to her word, Bixenta took good care of us. The hospitality was homely, but it was warm and unstinted. Sidonie and I took turns bathing in the wooden washtub in a tiny room off the guest-house’s kitchen. Sidonie insisted on letting me go first.

“I didn’t fight a battle today,” she murmured, undoing the buckles of my vambraces. “I want to see for myself that you’re all right.”

I was.

I had myriad bruises blossoming and a knot on my skull where a horse’s hoof had dented my helmet, but my skin was whole. I let Sidonie examine me to her satisfaction before I clambered into the tub and scrubbed myself thoroughly. Elua, it felt good. Afterward, the water was so filthy it had to be changed. While fresh water heated, Bixenta took my dirty things to be laundered and brought clean, simple clothing in the Euskerri style: black breeches and vest and a white shirt with loose sleeves. There was a shadow of sorrow in her dark eyes, and I wondered who the clothes had belonged to.

And then it was Sidonie’s turn.

“Let me see your back, love,” I said gently to her, unwinding bandages that hadn’t been changed for two days.

“Elua,” she muttered, leaning forward in the bath and wrapping her arms around her knees. “Imriel, I look forward to the day when neither of us has to examine the other’s wounds.”

It looked good. The disk of scabbed flesh between her shoulder blades was beginning to crack and peel, revealing pink new skin underneath. I soaped it carefully, kneeling beside the tub, watching water and suds run down her spine. “So do I.”

Bixenta had brought clean attire for Sidonie, too. The dress had a fitted black bodice embroidered with elaborate needlework and a two-tiered skirt of white and crimson below. After I’d applied fresh salve and clean bandages that Rachel had given us, I helped Sidonie don the dress. It smelled of cedar, as though it had been carefully preserved in a clothes-press.

We ventured out of the bathing-room to find Bixenta waiting. She pressed her hands together, raising them to her lips when we emerged. Her large dark eyes were bright with tears.

“Etxekoandere.” Sidonie hesitated, then framed a halting question in the Euskerri tongue, augmented with many gestures. It seemed she’d put her time in the library of Amílcar to better use than I’d reckoned. Bixenta replied in a torrent of Euskerri, her hands flying and gesticulating.

They communicated as women do, better than men. Bixenta pointed between the two of us, raising her brows and clasping her hands.

“I think it was her wedding dress,” Sidonie said to me in a soft voice. “She reckoned it was the only finery that would suit the occasion. I’m not sure whether those are her husband’s clothes or her son’s that you’re wearing. If I understand rightly, she’s lost both.”

“Will you tell her I’m grateful?” I asked.

She nodded and did. Bixenta merely shook her head and urged us into the kitchen, where she fed us an ample meal of stewed red beans and spicy sausage.

That evening there was a celebration in the town square. As in the City of Elua, the square was dominated by a large oak tree. Paskal explained to us that the Euskerri reckoned any agreements made beneath the oak tree to be sacred and binding.

Tonight, though, there were no politics or debate, only music, song, and dance, fierce in expressing joy and sorrow alike. We watched while our hosts pressed cup after cup of strong cider on us. Some of the instruments seemed ancient and strange: high-pitched horns made from the horns of oxen, thick staves used to beat out a complex rhythm that echoed from the sides of the valley. One could well imagine that the Euskerri had been here from time out of mind, honing their arts long before Blessed Elua wandered the earth.

As the sun was beginning to set, a group of Euskerri men performed the final dance of the evening: a sword dance accompanied by flute and drum. The men faced one another in a double line, moving in deliberate, complex steps. Their blades glinted as they maneuvered them, periodically bringing them together with a loud, metallic clash. The lowering sun stained their white shirts with ruddy light.

The dance ended with a final flourish, clash, and shout at the precise moment the sun’s lower rim touched the western edge of the mountains lining the valley. The drums and flutes fell silent. Everyone turned as one toward the west, touching their brows and breasts in a salute to the dying sun.

It gave me a shiver, even as Sidonie and I followed suit. There were traditions in Terre d’Ange older than Blessed Elua, such as the arrival of the Sun Prince on the Longest Night.

This was a living embodiment of a very, very ancient faith.

And then the celebration was over. Along with Paskal, Sidonie and I returned to the guest-house where Bixenta had laid the beds in our chambers with linens smelling of soap and a hot iron’s touch. It had been an arduous journey, a long night, and a fierce battle, and it was a blessed relief to lie in a warm, clean bed, feeling the silken warmth of Sidonie’s bare skin against mine.

I meant to tell her, but I was asleep before I could get the words out.

Sixty-One

On the morrow Euskerri from all across the mountains began pouring into Roncal.

I was surprised at how quickly the news had travelled. Paskal explained to us that the beating-staves used at the previous night’s celebration had carried word as far as two leagues. Dozens of messengers had departed at first light to spread the news farther, riding the swift Amazigh horses captured in the battle.

More and more Euskerri came.

They were all cut from a similar cloth, men and women alike. A dark-haired, dark-eyed folk, proud and rugged. Very few of them spoke aught but their own tongue. I wished I could understand them.

“I know,” Sidonie said ruefully when I voiced the thought. “’Tis frustrating. I understand only a little myself. I’ll have no way to gauge whether or not my words have swayed them, no way to gauge what they’re saying.”

“Do you think the outcome is in doubt?” I asked in surprise. “I have the sense they’re hell-bent on gaining sovereignty.”

“True.” She knit her brows. “I don’t know. Mayhap I’m overanxious. I can’t stop worrying over what’s happening at home. It goads me somewhat fierce to be so close.”

On the following day, the debate began.

It was held in the village square, crowded to overflowing. A small dais had been constructed at the base of the oak tree. Sidonie stood atop it, flanked by Paskal and me. In the midst of a sea of dark-haired folk, she stood out like a beacon, far more than I did. She told our tale in a strong, clear voice, pausing after every few sentences for Janpier Iturralde to translate her words into Euskerri.

There were no interruptions. We had been told that the debate would follow on the heels of her words. Sidonie talked and they listened.

She told the story well. There were no dramatic embellishments; it was compelling enough on its own merits and any clever twist of rhetoric or theatrical gesture would fail to translate. She expressed regret for leading the Amazigh to Roncal while making it clear that the situation in the south was growing desperate, and that if the Aragonians and the Euskerri didn’t stand together against Carthage at this juncture, they would fall separately. She enumerated Astegal’s forces in succinct terms.

I didn’t think the Euskerri doubted her, at least not in a broad sense. We might not have had a parlor trick to play to lend credence to our tale of ensorcelment, but the essential reality of the situation was self-evident. Terre d’Ange was in disarray to the north and Aragonia besieged to the south. The Amazigh had come in pursuit as Sidonie had said they would. Janpier Iturralde could vouch for her identity.

She presented Iturralde with the written charter of sovereignty that Serafin’s council had prepared and described it in clear detail for the benefit of the audience. She recited from memory the terms of the accord to which her mother had been willing to agree well over a year ago, detailing the D’Angeline territory to be ceded. She gave her word on behalf of Terre d’Ange that not only would the accord be kept if the Euskerri agreed to it, but that Terre d’Ange would use its sway to ensure that Aragonia didn’t break faith with Euskerria.

When Sidonie finished, a great roar arose, not cheers, but merely the sound of thousands of voices rising in simultaneous argument as the Euskerri turned to one another in the square, taking up their individual concerns and ignoring her presence. She blinked, taken aback.

Janpier Iturralde moved closer to us. “There will be debate for many hours,” he said frankly. “Perhaps for days, as others come to Roncal. There is nothing more you can do. Wait in the guest-house and I will send word if there is a decision or further questions.”

I glanced involuntarily toward the north. “My lord, is it not possible—”

Sidonie laid a hand on my arm. “We will await your word, etxekojaun,” she said calmly.

In the days that followed—and it did take days—the debate raged heatedly. If there was a system of governance in place among the Eus-kerri, I failed to grasp it. Of a surety, there was no single ruler. It didn’t appear that there was a formal parliament or governing council, either, nor any form of elected republic. As best I could determine, each village had its own headman or woman, but they were not allowed to represent the views of the village until concord was reached.

And once it was, the headmen and women of the villages argued the matter all over again amongst themselves. Only when they had come to agreement did they select spokespersons to carry out their will.

There was a certain fairness to it, but it was a messy process and a frustrating one. Like Sidonie, I chafed at our nearness to the D’Angeline border. Along with every other house in Roncal, the guest-house where we were lodged was now filled to overflowing, half a dozen women aiding Bixenta in cooking and cleaning for the contentious horde. Every night, I entertained thoughts of laying claim to a pair of swift horses and fleeing north.

“We can’t,” Sidonie said irritably when I proposed the idea for a second time. “Imriel, I agreed to this. If we flee, it undermines all our credence. There will be no agreement, no alliance. The best we could hope is that Amílcar holds until we can send aid. And then we’re talking about sending D’Angelines to fight and die in the Euskerri’s stead. In the end, I’m accountable to our people.”

I groaned. “I know! It’s just—”

“I know.” She blew out her breath in an impatient sigh. “Gods! I think about it every hour of every day. Do you think it’s not killing me, too?”

“No.” I grasped her shoulders hard, rubbing her collarbones with my thumbs. It calmed me. I could feel her body yielding beneath my touch, ceding what her determined sense of honor and propriety wouldn’t. “No, I know. I do. I’m sorry.”

Sidonie shook her head and reached for me.

We took out our frustrations on ourselves, on each other. In the midst of turmoil and uncertainty, we found surety. Helpless to rearrange the world to my liking, I was at least able to control this. Unable to relinquish her role, Sidonie was at least able to surrender in our bed. We made love like war. I pinned her wrists high above her head with one hand, feeling her arch beneath me. I plowed her relentlessly, driving her to climax after climax, until I had to release my grip and spend myself deep within her. I felt her nails score my back, her thighs tightening around hips.

“So Astegal didn’t take that from you,” I murmured into the crook of her neck.

“Astegal took nothing from us!” Sidonie whispered fiercely in my ear. “You promised me that.”

“And I meant it.” I propped myself on one arm. “Nothing he did could ever alter my love for you. But—”