Kushiel's Chosen

assignations as readily as my swift-healing flesh allowed, choosing sometimes at whim and sometimes out of covert interest, so that no pattern might be discerned in my choices. My patrons were noble-born, scions of Elua and his Companions, diverse in their desires, and not a one displeasing to me.
    Everything I had dreamed of having as a young adept in Delaunay's service, I had. Poets wrote odes in my honor, praising my beauty and charms; indeed, one slept three nights on my doorstep, nearly dying of cold and exposure, until Fortun dragged him bodily to his home. My patrons sent me gifts unbidden, curiosities and trinkets of varying value. Of money, I had no want; it flowed like a river. I paid my retainers and servants generously, and my debt to my glumly unsurprised factor. I invested in a Serenissiman enterprise, on the strength of a vague foreboding. I gave, quietly, considerable sums to Naamah's Temple, and made certain a portion of it went to sanctuaries in Namarre devastated in the war, where a captive priestess had once given her body to win me a few precious minutes of freedom in which to warn the fortress of Troyes-le-Mont.
    I paid visits to Favrielle no Eglantine, who had taken to freedom like a fish to water and designed for me any number of spectacular gowns with the fierce, focused joy of a genius at work. And when I was not doing any of these things, I met with the Rebbe Nahum ben Isaac and bent my mind to the difficult tasks he set me, droning Habiru verses for hour upon hour, while he chewed his beard and glowered at me.
    And I was, quietly, unhappy.
    No more pieces of the puzzle fell into place, no matter how I juggled them in my mind. No matter how diligently my chevaliers drank and diced and delved, not a single guardsman from Troyes-le-Mont was found. No word was forthcoming from the Prefect of the Cassiline Brotherhood; not in answer to Joscelin's query, and not in answer to the Royal Archivist's. I gave myself up to violent ecstasies at the hands of patron upon patron, all the while waiting and watching and listening in that tiny, Delaunay-trained corner of my mind I held back, but none divulged the key to make sense of it all.
    Joscelin and I spoke less and less.
    Somewhere, Melisande was laughing.
    I thought a great deal of Hyacinthe in those days, and sometimes I missed him so terribly I ached with it. It had been our youthful dream, he and I: The Queen of Courtesans and the Prince of Travellers. Well, I was living it, but a shared dream half-lived is a hollow thing. I used to tell him everything. I could not even count the hours we spent in the Cockerel, puzzling out the mystery of Anafiel Delaunay, putting the pieces together, trying to guess at the patterns that emerged. He had always wanted to hear it all, my guesses and speculations; and the tales of my patrons, their wants and foibles, listening while his black Tsingano eyes danced merrily, his white grin flashing at the good parts.
    Sometimes I felt as alone and islanded as he.
    I had my chevaliers, it is true, and their ever-burgeoning, swaggering pride; Remy and Ti-Philippe, at least. Fortun was always steadier. I used to gaze at him, sometimes, and the way his dark hair curled on his brow, and thought of taking him as a lover. Thought, and chose not to, time and again. I liked Fortun, very much, and trusted him not a little.
    But he did not make me laugh. And there was Joscelin.
    One day our paths crossed at the yeshiva, although he knew it not. The Rebbe had sent for me, and Ti-Philippe had driven me; I gave him leave to dally at a nearby wineshop while my lesson was concluded. It was a long ordeal and draining; I saw in the Rebbe's eyes the mingled pride and despair, that a pupil of his should exceed so well, and have so little faith. And, too, I was hearing tales by then spoken openly in D'Angeline circles of the schism among the Yeshuites. I had not forgotten what I saw in the courtyard, the young men with swords at their hips, arguing fiercely in Habiru for harsh glory to be won in a far-off land.
    The Rebbe dismissed me that day, lowering his hoary old head with weariness. I went quietly, stooping to kiss his withered cheek and seeing myself out of the yeshiva to await Ti-Philippe's return. I knew the way well, by then.
    Impossible to mistake a D'Angeline voice in that place, even in hushed tones.
    I have not forgotten my earliest training. I can move silently when I choose, and make myself as unobtrusive as a shadow. With