Kushiel’s Dart

They guard their women well in Khebbel-im-Akkad. So I had heard, and so I came to understand, from the despite and desire mingled in him. Lord Clavel had been denied access, and he raged at it. Once I discerned this, we got on well enough. If he had been denied the hareem, he had gold enough and had paid it for this afternoon’s pleasure. There was no question of exotic tastes learned abroad. He bore a gilt-handled quirt, and it roused him to a fury to punish me with it, chasing me about the cushions and flailing at my buttocks, breathing hard to see the thin red welts that ensued. I turned to the languisement when he groaned, kneeling solicitously, unbuttoning his voluminous pantaloons and taking him into my mouth. I thought that would be the undoing of him, but he surprised me, spilling me onto my back and tossing my legs into the air, performing the act of giving homage to Naamah with two years' pent vigor.

It surprised him, to bring me to climax; and made him solicitous afterward, which also might have made me laugh. "You paid for an anguissette, my lord," I murmured instead. "Are you unhappy to have gotten one?"

"No!" he said, caressing my hair, eyes wide with startlement. "No, Elua’s Balls, no! I thought it was a myth, that’s all."

"I am not a myth," I said, lying against him and gazing up so he might better see the scarlet mote in my eye. "Are there no anguisettes in Khebbel-im-Akkad, then? 'Tis a cruel land, I am told."

"Kushiel’s Dart does not strike, where Elua and his companions have not laid their hand," Rogier Clavel said, tracing the curve of my breast through the thin gauze of my robes. "It is a harsh land indeed, and I am glad enough for a respite from it." A shadow crossed his face, " ‘The bee is in the lavender,’ " he quoted The Exile’s Lament

in a lovely, melancholy voice, " ‘The honey fills the comb’…I never understood the sorrow of it until I, too, was far from home."

It was easier than I had reckoned. I smiled and twisted away, sitting back on my heels to put up my hair. "Is it so, then, with all D’Angelines? Does even the Duc L’Envers long for home?"

"Oh, my lord the Duc," he said, watching me hungrily. "He is of Elua’s line, and would prosper anywhere, I think. The Khalif has given him lands and horses and men of his own. Yet even he misses the soil of Terre d’Ange, it is true; and word has reached us of the fall of House Trevalion. The Duc would return home, once his daughter is wed, and relinquish his appointment. I have come to petition the King on his behalf."

My hands stilled on my hair, and I made myself resume, twining it into a loose coil and thrusting an Akkadian hairpin in place. "The Duc’s daughter is to be wed?"

"To the Khalif’s son." Rogier Clavel reached for me, plucking out the hairpin and filling both hands with my hair. "Do…do that again, what you did before," he ordered, drawing my head down. "Make it last longer this time."

That I did, and well enough; he was no patron I would have chosen, for he had no true spark of Kushiel’s fire in him, only a frustration so great he thought he burned with it. If I knew better, I would never say it aloud. Delaunay wanted this connection made; and anyway, it never pays to be rude to a patron. Besides, I didn’t mind. Having spent long years under Cecilie Laveau-Perrin’s tutelage, betimes it pleased me to be able to put that training to good use. I was born an anguissette

, and can take no credit for that gift; but skills worthy of the finest adept of the First of the Thirteen Houses, I had acquired on my own merits, and I was justly proud of them.

"Ah, Phèdre," Rogier Clavel groaned when it was done. He lay sprawled on the cushions, his plump limbs slack with languor. He looked vulnerable and rather sweet, watching me with doting eyes as I rose to don my own gown. "Phèdre nó Delaunay…you are the most splendid thing ever I have known." I smiled without answering, and knelt gracefully to help him into a robe, covering him modestly. "If…Phèdre, if the Duc L’Envers' request is granted, and I am able to return with him, may I see you again?"

Even after he had gained my consent, Delaunay had delayed some time before accepting Lord Clavel’s offer, for just this reason. I sat back and looked grave. "My lord Clavel, it is not for me to say. It is my lord Delaunay’s desire to cull my patrons from among the Great Houses. Was it one such who commended me to you?"

"It was…" His expression, tinged with worry by my words, changed. I had wondered if he would dare name Childric d’Essoms, but he didn’t. "It was someone highly placed at court. Phèdre, I have gold aplenty, and will surely be landed if we are allowed to return. The King will be grateful, for the Duc has done much to advance D’Angeline relations with the Khalif."