Kushiel’s Dart

It was no concern of mine if Hyacinthe sold dreams and half-truths to preening peers, but something else did concern me. "You know, Delaunay has a scroll, by a scholar who traveled with a company of Tsingani and documented their customs. He says it is vrajna for a Tsingano man to attempt the dromonde, Hyacinthe; worse than anything, worse than mingling with agadje servant. What your mother teaches you is forbidden. And you cannot be a true Tsingano anyway, not with pure D’Angeline blood on one side. Your mother was cast out of the company for that, wasn’t she?"

I spoke recklessly, driven to it by my thwarted desires and the annoyance of watching him cater to simpering noblewomen. This time, perhaps, I had gone too far. His eyes flashed, proud and angry.

"You speak where you have no knowledge and no right! My mother is a Princess of the Tsingani, and the gift of dromonde is mine by right of blood! What would your Delaunay’s gadje scholar know of that?"

"Enough to know that Tsingani princesses do not take in washing for a living!" I shot back.

Unexpectedly, Hyacinthe laughed. "If he thinks that, then truly, he learned little of the Tsingani. We have survived many centuries in any way we could. Anyway, I earn enough money now that she no longer need wash the clothes of others." He looked soberly at me, shrugging. "Maybe it is a little bit true, what you say. I do not know. When I am old enough, I will seek out my mother’s people. But until then, I must trust her words. I know enough of her gift to know I dare not defy it."

"Or you’re afraid of Delaunay," I grumbled.

"I am afraid of no one!" He looked so like the boy I had first known, puffing out his slender chest, that I too laughed, and our quarrel was forgotten.

"Hey, Tsingano!"

It was one of the young lordlings, drunk and arrogant. He swaggered up to our table, one hand hovering over the hilt of his rapier. He had cruel eyes, and fine clothes. With a negligent gesture, he tossed his purse on the table. It fell with a heavy clinking sound. "How much for a night with your sister?"

I don’t know what either of us would have answered. I was accustomed to venturing into Night’s Doorstep well-cloaked, and we sat always in one of the darker corners, away from the hearth; Hyacinthe was known and tolerated with no small affection, and the inn-keep and regular patrons permitted him the small mystery of my visits without prying into my presence.

All these things I thought at a flash, and on their heels came pleasure and pride that this lordling’s gaze had penetrated the shadows and come to rest on me with desire. And hard upon that thought came a swell of excitement, at the very prospect of selling myself from under Delaunay’s nose and going with this stranger, whose blade-ready hands and careless offer promised the kind of hard usage I craved.

In the space of a breath, I thought these things and saw Hyacinthe eyeing the heavy purse.

And then Delaunay’s man Guy was there.

"You cannot afford her virgin-price, my friend." His seldom-used voice was as mild as ever, but the point of his poniard rested below the lordling’s chin and I caught glimpse of a second dagger poised at belly level. I had not even seen him enter the inn. The lordling stood with upraised chin and glaring eyes, pricked by steel into humiliating attentiveness. "Go now, and rejoin your companions."

The calm voice and cold steel were more convincing than brawn and volume could ever have been. I watched the lordling swallow, all arrogance leaving him. He turned without a word and retraced his steps. Guy sheathed his dagger without comment.

"We will leave now," he said to me, pulling up the hood of my cloak and fastening it under my chin. I went obediently, able to spare only a quick wave of farewell in Hyacinthe’s direction as Guy shepherded me out of the crowded inn. Hyacinthe, who was used from our earliest acquaintance to abrupt and forceful departures on my part, took it with aplomb.

For me, it was a long coach ride home. I huddled silent in my cloak, until finally Guy began to speak. "It is not always for us to choose." It was dark in the carriage, and I could not see his face, only hear his flat voice. "My parents gave me to be reared by the Cassiline Brotherhood when I was but a babe, Phèdre; and the Brotherhood cast me out when I was fourteen and broke my oath with a farmer’s daughter. I made my way to the City and fell into a life of crime. Though I was good at it, I despised myself, and wished to die. One day when I thought I could fall no lower, I took a commission from an agent of someone very powerful to assassinate a nobleman on his way home from a party."

"Delaunay?" I gasped, astonished. Guy ignored the interruption.