Kushiel’s Dart

"I tried." Hyacinthe’s tone was regretful. He sipped his wine. "He’d sold them not a month prior, to a Caerdicci archivist. I would have bought them for you, Phèdre, I swear it, or a fair copy at least, but my friend’s friend swore he sold the original and kept no copy. Too dangerous, he deemed it."

I made a noise of disgust. "It doesn’t make any sense. Why does House Courcel aid him with one hand, and gag him with the other?"

"Well, you know why they gag him." Hyacinthe leaned back in his chair, propping his boot-heels on the table. "He blackened their faces, when he made a song about Isabel L’Envers. I heard the Lioness of Azzalle named her a murderess in front of the High Court."

"She did." I remembered Ysandre de la Courcel, casting her vote for death. "So why aid him?" There were too many threads, too tangled to sort. "Phaugh! I’ve no head for riddles, and had naught to do for days on end but think on them. If you were truly my friend, you’d ask me to dance," I said, teasing him.

"There is someone who will be jealous if I dance with you," he said, a gleam in his eyes. He nodded to a woman across the inn, a cool blonde in an ice-blue gown. Cool as her demeanor was, I saw indeed that she smoldered to watch us.

"Do you care?" I asked him. Hyacinthe laughed and shook his head, black ringlets dancing.

"She is wed to a Baronet," he said, grinning, "and if I have danced with her before, it does not mean I will dance to her every tune." He took his feet off the table and rose, bowing and extending his hand. "Will you do me the honor?"

The fiddler doubled his vigor to see us join the dancing, winking at Hyacinthe, and we danced with good will. It brought more guests onto the floor, and with the exception of the Baronet’s sulky wife and a couple of her companions, everyone not dancing laughed and clapped the time. I danced twice with Hyacinthe, then once each with several of his friends, and then the fiddler struck up a switch-reel, and everyone traded partners in a rush, whirling from one to the next, while those not dancing hastily moved chairs out of the way. When it was done, we were all breathless and flushed with merriment, and the fiddler bowed with a gasp, stepping down to wipe his brow and catch his wind with a mug of ale.

We had not yet taken our own seats when a commotion from the street drew a handful of people outside. A slight young man with curly hair darted in to catch Hyacinthe’s sleeve. "Hyas, come on, you’ve got to see this," he said, laughing. "It’s better than baiting badgers!"

Hyacinthe looked inquiringly at me.

"Why not?" I agreed, high-spirited and ready for anything.

A crowd of spectators had already gathered along the sides of the street, watching the entertainment taking place in the middle of it, but Hyacinthe pushed his way through to a stack of empty wine-barrels and upended one that we might stand upon it and gain a good view.

I saw and groaned in dismay.

It was a party of drunken young nobles, perhaps a dozen lords and ladies in all, returning to Mont Nuit with four adepts from Eglantine House, whom I knew by the green-and-gold of their attire. Their open carriage was turned sideways across the street, blocking the passage, and a distance behind it the young lords ranged in a semicircle, with hilarious expressions and drawn swords.

In the center of the space they had created was one very uncomfortable young Cassiline Brother, being taunted mercilessly by the Eglantine adepts.

"Joscelin," I sighed.

An Eglantine flautist perched on the back of the carriage, playing a merry, skillful tune while another adept sang unabashedly bawdy lyrics, her well-trained voice so lovely it took a moment for listeners to realize the vulgarity of her song. The other two Eglantines were tumblers, male and female, and it was they who pressed Joscelin the hardest. As I watched, the male tumbler knelt and the female sprang off the balls of her feet in a neat somersault, landing atop his shoulders. He stood as she straddled his neck, and her rising cleavage was thrust nearly under Joscelin’s nose.

His face a study, he took a step backward, only to be prodded forward by the points of the lordling’s swords. The female tumbler stood atop her partner’s shoulders and he placed his hands beneath her feet, aiding her with a boost as she somersaulted over Joscelin’s head. The male promptly went to a handstand, wrapping his ankles around Joscelin’s neck and hanging suspended, ducking his head between the Cassiline’s legs and grinning at the cheering crowd.