Kushiel’s Dart

The arousement alone was enough for my Skaldi lord; I had barely begun the languisement when he gave a mighty whoop and toppled me onto his fur-clad bed, harpooning me with the gusto of a starving whaler. Melisande’s diamond dangled from his neck and brushed my face as he plunged into me, burning like a brand. There is a point, always, where I no longer control either my patrons' desires nor my own. I gazed over Gunter’s shoulder, the room swimming red in my vision, gritted my teeth and wept at my body’s inevitable betrayal. Delaunay had lied, when he had set his value upon me. / can make of her such a rare instrument that princes and queens will be moved to play exquisite music upon her, he had said. A rare instrument I was, that sang at a Skaldi’s crude thrusting. Pinioned under my master’s hairy, heaving bulk, I came shuddering to climax, and despised all I was, and most especially the part that savored the humiliation of it.

In the hall, I had to endure his strutting and boasting, and the envy of his thanes. It was not so hard, compared to what had gone before, but still it galled me. Hedwig saw, and paused in passing to lay a kind hand upon my arm.

"His mouth is large," she said gently, "but his heart is larger. Don’t take it so ill, child."

I looked at her without answering. If I found compassion in my soul later for Gunter Arnlaugson, I had none that night. Whatever she saw in my eyes, it sent her hurrying away.

I cannot recall the verses that Gunter sang that night; well-trained as my memory is, there are times when there is a kind of healing in forgetfulness. It sufficed that my reputation was made, there in the great hall. That, I remember all too well. D’Angeline I was, they said, and kin to the spirits of the night, that visit a man in exquisite dreams, summoning forth his seed for their own pleasure by the most delightful wiles; only Gunter had mastered me, by force of his prowess, and made me cry out his name, binding me to his will.

So they thought, and I let them think it. And this I remember, that it was the first I heard the murmurs, among his thanes who thought I listened not, that Gunter was minded to give me to Waldemar Selig at the Allthing, the great meeting of the tribes, and thus win the favor of the Blessed.

Once again, then, I would be a gift fit for a prince. Well, and it was no consolation. I wondered at a man that even Gunter Arnlaugson spoke of in tones of awe, and I feared. I thought of Joscelin, somewhere, shivering in the cold, and prayed he kept the wit to stay alive, for I feared I wouldn’t survive this alone. I thought of Alcuin and Delaunay…Delaunay most of all, his beautiful, noble face, the intelligent eyes forever dimmed, and I wept for him, alone by the fire, for the first time. Great, tearing sobs racked me, and the raucous Skaldi grew strangely silent.

Their eyes, curious and sympathetic, watched me with strangers' gazes. I gulped for air, and rubbed the tears from my eyes. "You do not know me," I said to them in D’Angeline, looking defiantly at their uncomprehending faces. "You do not know what I am. if you mistake the yielding in me for weakness, you are fools for it."

Still they stared, and there was no cruelty in it, only curiosity and incomprehension. I had a longing then, so acute I felt it in the marrow of my bones, to be home, to have my feet on D’Angeline soil, where Elua trod with his Companions. "There," I said in Skaldic, reaching out to point to a crude lyre in a warrior’s hand. I didn’t know the word for it. "Your instrument. May I borrow it?"

He gave it over wordlessly, though his closest companions laughed and shouted. I bowed my head and tuned it, as my old music master had taught me, running in my head the lines of a poetic translation. I had a gift for it, Delaunay’s studies had taught me that much. When I had done, I lifted my head and looked around me. "By right of your laws, I am bond-slave to Gunter Arnlaugson," I said softly. "But by the laws of my own country, I have been betrayed and sold against my will. I am D’Angeline, and born to the soil on which Elua shed his blood. This is the song we sing when we are far from home."

I sang then The Exile’s Lament of Thelesis de Mornay, the King’s Poet. It was not written for the Skaldic tongue, which is harsh to the ear, and I had not worked properly on the translation, but the Skaldi of Gunter’s steading understood it, I think. I have said it, and it is true, that I have no great skill at song; but I am D’Angeline. I would pit the lowliest D’Angeline shepherd against the mightiest singer among the Skaldi, and wager on the shepherd each time. We are all of us, no matter how faint the thread of blood, the scions of Elua and his Companions. We are what we are.